This article was presented as a Seminar Paper in the Refresher Course held at University of Pune in Dec 2003- Jan 04.Today's education gives importance to the total marks, merit positions, awards & such thing. The education system has changed into the examination system & now it is becoming an information system; pushing back the value system that the earlier system used to emphasize. An education should be rooted to culture and committed to progress. Indian heritage, culture & values need to be thoroughly studied, analyzed & incorporated comprehensively in the education system. In achieving the above goal librarians can definitely help the educators. They can re-establish the self-confidence of the youth, show them the way of regaining their faith in themselves &  it should be done with a spiritual touch. The aim of our teaching should be to help manifest this spirit in every thought, word and action. Shree Aurobindo says, Education to be complete must have principal aspects relating to the  five primary activities of the Human being : the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic & the spiritual. Librarians should take this moral task into our hands & start teaching the students this great spirituality for their successful, value-based, moral & peaceful life with the help of books, guidance etc..Dr. A.R.D. Prasa

Patil, Yojana Jr

Librarians' Digital Library




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Value Education : Need Of The Hour & Great
Opportunity For The Librarians.

Present scenario of Education 

Today’s education system has lost it’s luster & relevance because of the western influence. It has succeeded in developing within us a hatred towards our own tradition and culture & in making us look at the western way of life with respect & admiration.
         : Our country today is in the throes of a moral and cultural crisis & we can say that our education has failed to create a decent society.
         : There is a crisis of character, moral decay & breakdown of traditional discipline.
         : Quick acquisition of position & wealth by whatever means, fair or foul; good / bad has been the soul motive of the products of such a defective system of education. 
         : We  can see the way organized crime, financial frauds & terrorists violence (are being headed) by some of the best minds endowed with the best of educational & technical attainments.
         : Look at the way even the members of the learned professions indulge in scandalous unethical ways of making money obligations & social responsibilities.
        : Merit has been consistently ignored in academic set up.
        : Ugly symptoms are seen everywhere.
        : Today’s education gives importance to the total marks, merit positions, awards & such thing. The education system has changed into the examination system & now it is becoming an information system; pushing back the value system that the earlier system used to emphasize.
       This is the outer scenario, but what about the student ?
		: Students are obliged to rely on private tutors.
		: They require to depend so much upon their memory that they have no chance to cultivate their imagination & thinking power.
		: They resort to socially destructive and personally devastating ways of coping this stress as evident by increased rate of crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicides, accidents, self-harm, running away from home, depression, low self-esteem etc..

		Ultimately what this mean is that there is a general decline in the quality of life and total absence of moral creativity, which could raise a great voice and summon us to the finest ideals of our ancient tradition.

		A UNESCO report of Education for the 21st century entitled ‘ Learning : The Treasure Within’  also pleads for an education which is rooted to culture and committed to progress. 

		Indian heritage, culture & values need to be thoroughly studied, analyzed & incorporated comprehensively in the education system. In achieving the above goal we librarians can definitely help the educators. We can re-establish the self-confidence of the youth, show them the way of regaining their faith in themselves & according to me it should be done with a spiritual touch.

		Religion is the soul of India & library is the heart of any institution & when heart & soul will meet, the brain will definitely be peaceful. This will result in growth of character, growth in virtues like self-control, tolerance, selfless service, practice of prayer, harmony, to love all people, to help them in need & respect them etc…

		Man  being the ‘cast in the mould of God’ cannot easily deny Him. Even the great scientist like Newton and Einstein have believed in the existence of God as an intelligent power regulating and guiding the destinies of the universe.

		In the words of Swami Vivekananda  ‘Religion is nothing but a manifestation of the divinity already in man. Man is not just the body or even the combination of the body & the mind. He is essentially the spirit. The aim of our teaching should be to help manifest this spirit in every thought, word and action.

		So, it should aim at a full and harmonious development of the body & the intellect and tune it to the spirit within. In other words, it should help build up an integrated personality, a perfect character.

		We librarians can teach values to students by means of showing them good books of moral stories, biographies of great people, dislaying good articles from the newspaper / magazines, writing our own articles to guide them, instilling the habits of prayer, meditation, giving respect to others, helping someone selflessly etc. good things.

		Here the teaching of ethics has come.

What is ethics?

		Ethics is the feelings, emotions and values based on the unity of souls. Why should I show compassion, love, respect to you? Because you & I are fundamentally interconnected.
 
		The moment we violate this fundamental unity of all life, we violate ethics.

		Therefore, I strongly believe that we human beings are all interconnected fundamentally. And we all have the same divinity within us. It is just the question of manifestation of the same that differs.

		When we are in tune with this divinity within, we are poised & peaceful. This is the basic law of spiritual values that can be given to the students.

		Dhnyaneshwar Maharaj says :-

maaJaoina AnausaMQaanaoivaNa snaana saMQyaa jap haoma Qyaana
to sava-ih AQama- jaaNa maja Bajana to navho 
(Maazeni Anusandhaanevin Snaan-Sandhyaa Japa Homa Dhyaan
Te Sarvahi Adharma Jaan Maja Bhajan Te Navhe)

		What does it mean? 

		It means, in every state, whether we are happy or worried or in any state or whatever we are doing we must have contact with the Supreme One. Then we become peaceful. I tell the students that, if you are in trouble, just call the Supreme One (in whatever form you like), with each & every cell of your body & mind, from the bottom of your heart (i.e. wholeheartedly),  with tears in your eyes  & then see what He does. He definitely answers. But we have to surrender first. Surrendering means not having a single doubt about His Grace. Having full faith on His mercy, His AKAARAN KAARUNYA, His justice / NYAAYA, His love / PREM. This is called AATMANIRBHARTAA.

		When we completely rely on the Almighty, who is sitting in each of us taking the form of AATMAN, He Helps.

		His abode is AANANDMAYA KOSH.  

		In TAITTIRIYA UPANISHADA it is said that self is surrounded by five layers i.e. PANCHAKOSHAS.           
                    
AnnamayaKosh    Physicalcell
Pranmaya Kosha      Vitality cell
Manomaya Kosha		Mental cell
Vijnanamaya Kosha	    Psychic cell
Anandamaya Kosha	   Spiritual cell

The great seer & philosopher shree Aurobindo says,  “Education to be complete must have principal aspects relating to the  five primary activities of the Human being : the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic & the spiritual.

Here I want to point out that it is the duty of an educational institution to train the student spiritually. Because spiritual education only has the power to develop the students inner powers & to get knowledge about the Anandamaya Kosha. Only Spiritual knowledge, teaches us how to cope with the problems of life, & how to be happy with all the problems. It also teaches us the power of faith in the Supreme One, the power of the positive, the power of the good. 

Swami Vivekananda, who is my first Guru in spiritual knowledge & I personally 100% agree with his views, says : We must have a hold on the spiritual and secular education of the nation. You must dream it, you must talk it, you must think it, and you must work it out. The education that today’s students are getting has some good points, but it has a tremendous disadvantage which is so great that the good things are all weighed down. In the first place, it is not a man-making education ; it is merely & entirely a negative education. A negative education or any training that is based on negation is worse than death. The child is taken to school and first thing he learns is, that his father is a fool, the second thing, that his grandfather is lunatic, the third thing, that all his teachers are hypocrites, the fourth that all the sacred books are lies! By the time he is sixteen, he is a mass of negation, lifeless and boneless…..” Further he explains that “Education is not that amount of information that is put into the student’s brain and run the riot there undigested, all their life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making, assimilation of ideas.” Then coming to our workplace he adds… “If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library. If education is identical with the information, the libraries are the greatest sages in the world, and encyclopaedias are the rishis.”  

Religion is a matter of the heart. Another place he says, “It is one of the evil of the western civilization that they are after intellectual education alone. They give this education but they do not take care of the heart, it makes man ten times more selfish and that will be their destruction.” “The present education is nothing but a result of the dominance of the head over the heart, the inequilibrium between the two. To the scientist,” he says, “tear means only a composition of phosphate of lime, chloride of soda, some mucus and some water. It does not occur to him that a tear is an expression of a weeping heart.” “God created man so that he may become perfect & go to Him. But man has made such a terrible mess of life that instead of bloom & light we find gloom & darkness. The eyes are dimmed with tears. Without the voice of faith, without the sterling note of love, without the memory of God (who is the only reality), how can the mind be inspired and the tears changed into smiles? If the teachings of spiritual  philosophy are accepted and acted upon by the majority of mankind, we should soon be able to say that we are now at the threshold of a new epoch, which promises a happy blending of life into a harmonious whole. The soul longs for happiness, and it is the wish of God that man should be happy. He dwells in the human heart and the way to realize Him is through purity, duty, unselfish service, devotion, knowledge, prayer & meditation. It is only when we drop our selfishness and think in terms of “thine” and not “mine” that we shall be ready to get the divine perception.”
 
We librarians work in the heart of the institution & as one of our management member puts it that the librarian is the heart of the heart. So we must educate the students spiritually to face this today’s world & that according to me should be our highest goal or rather duty. We must do the cleaning of the heart of today’s students by giving such a variety of good books in their hands, reading which their hearts can fill with Sraddha and Bhakti towards the Supreme One.   
 
Swami Vivekananda says “It is by losing this idea of Sraddha  that the country has gone to ruin….so make men first. Men we want, and how can men be made unless Sraddha is there? …..We want that education by which character is formed, strenth of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet……We must compile some books with short stories from the Ramayan, the Mahabharat and the Upanishads, etc., in very easy and simple language, and these are to be given to our little boys to read.”

According to me this definitely is a golden opportunity for we librarians in today’s world of scientific knowledge, to gather the spiritual knowledge & give it in the hands of the students, who are more in need of true knowledge than anything else.

They will be too happy to know that the solution to their problems, their weeping heart, dwells in their own hearts. And they just have to clean their heart & open their inner door & call the almighty heartily, with full faith to solve their problems. And take spiritual experiences. They must be taught that  “with God everything is possible.” This is the whole of religion & nothing else.

We have to convert the minds of the students towards Satsngati (sa%saMgait), towards good company good books & good thoughts.  

Our great saint Shree Tukaram Maharaj says 

“k$ naka kahI saMtsaMga Qara”
 (Karu Nakaa Kaahi Santasang Dharaa)

It has got a great meaning in it. We should not waste our valuable time in redundant things, but we should use it for the Good only. Because whatever is good is God Himself.

It is said that “life is too short for argumentation. The Gnyanayogi does not waste time on all and every kind of study. Like Raj-Hansa, which takes up milk but leaves off the water, he knows the art of picking up  that which is valuable and leaves off that which is of  no use.

According to me, we Librarians, who are the heart of hearts of the institutions, should take this moral task into our hands & start teaching the students this great spirituality for their successful, value-based, moral & peaceful life.

Thus, I conclude that, librarian can contribute to the education; in man-making, character building of students. We can give them positivity, the power of faith. We can teach them respect for our ancient treasure of knowledge given by great saints & rishis through the scriptures. We can teach them the true way to solve their problems through spiritual counseling.                                                                                                                                THE END
					
																				Mrs. Yojana Yatin Patil, Librarian, 
																				DTSS College of Commerce, Kurar Village, 
																				Malad (E), Mumbai – 400 097.
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Value Education : Need Of The Hour & Great Opportunity For The Librarians.

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Value Education : Need Of The Hour & Great Opportunity For The Librarians.

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