Draft of Sreedhar's Vision of Ashwattha

AŚWATTHA:

REFLECTIONS ON A SANCTUARY FOR LEARNING


The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death.
But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life we have lost in the living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

T. S. Eliot, “Choruses from ‘The Rock’”


Expressed in poetic terms, the above lines of T. S. Eliot starkly echo the cry and the crisis that underlie our living and our pursuit of learning. In one sense we don’t need any prose or poetry to see this crisis or to hear this cry. In many ways it is an all too evident truth, something so evident as to make it almost invisible, for we have grown to accept such a state of affairs as probably intrinsic to and inevitable in this business called living. However, as we all know, there have always been attempts – some small in scale, though not so small in significance – to explore pathways that do not begin, progress, and end in tragic or treacherous vicious cycles. Of course the mainstream society, its methods and practices of living, learning, and schooling, ignores all this almost completely but there have always been such attempts to lighten and to enlighten the human journey.

Looking at what is happening around us it seems it is necessary that alternatives to the present ways of relating to life and to learning are explored – ways that carry the force and form of some sort of genuine concern and application. Such alternatives may preserve and further, at least in a small way, a few seeds of sane and healthy living – seeds that may root in and branch out, not into a fractured and fragmented sky or soil, but into a field that may be truly nourishing and expansive.

Critical to such an alternative endeavour is the spirit of enquiry and a subtle, innate sense of affection and devotion. To pursue vidya without jijñasa and prema, vichara and bhakti, and the illumining rasa that accompanies them is to pursue a glow worm to dispel darkness and the biting cold. Perhaps that is what is taking place now and hence we are introduced to what is called ‘knowledge’ which has neither the sustained illumining capacity of a good source of light nor the comforting warmth of a well-lit fire – not to say anything about the liberating and transforming powers of a revolutionary flame. Merely repeating the ancient invocation “Tamaso ma…” without really inquiring into how to light the flame of affection and inquiry is to hope that a painted sun will light the world and cook our food. On the contrary, it will definitely burn our house down and up – as it has done before and as it is doing now.

Hence the question whether it is possible to create a Centre which provides a sensitive and invigorating ambiance to explore, study, and share, not only the significant aspects of the history and culture of India but also certain vital, profounder aspects of cultural and religious thought as they have manifested in the East and the West: be it Zen, Taoism, Vedanta, the Gnostic gospels, the Buddha, Krishnamurti, Kabir, Huineng, Meera, Jalal-ud-din Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, Fukuoka, Simone Weil, Rabindranath Tagore, to name a few.

The attempted study is not intended to be theoretical or cerebral in nature. To use a term employed by ancient Indian aestheticians, there should be an element of rasa nishpati in it – that is, the precipitation, fulfilment or realisation of the appropriate rasa(s) associated with a specific field or branch of learning. The word rasa is used here to embody multiple connotations: that of taste, flavour, and most importantly, essence. The guiding principle behind such a way of looking at learning is that probablyVichara, Achara, Rasa, and Prajna are integrally related – that a way of living is related to a way of learning and knowing, and that a way of learning and knowing are implicit in a way of living. In other words, to lose sight of the interflow or the reciprocal relationship between the art of learning on the one hand and the science of learning on the other, is to cripple and blindfold the learning process.

May be it is only when one honours and observes some of these principles that one can reasonably hope that the sacredness, sensitivity, immersion, and fulfilment associated with the spirit and act of learning may at least in a small measure come into being. To put it differently, when the appropriate context, sensibility, and application are there, skill and knowledge may emerge as naturally as leaves and buds emerge in a growing sapling.

Only then are they neither a burden nor an ornament, but something entirely different.


Drawing people from varied walks of life like writers, artists, seekers, teachers, scientists, students, social workers and so on to informally and formally interact with one another, creating short term Workshops for students and teachers, preparing engaging, illuminating monographs on educational, cultural, and religious issues could be part of the function of such a Centre. It could also support, or function as a hub for a loosely knit group of individuals who share certain perceptions and concerns. Space for a few guests to stay and utilise the study facilities for short durations could also be made possible.


One could also envisage a small, integral, vertical learning Centre for children as a natural extension or offshoot of such a Centre. A curriculum could be drawn up and progressively evolved, one that has a seamless, organic quality and which above all holds out an invitation to enter into the spirit and joy of learning, knowing, doing, and sharing.

As ebb and flow of a tide going within and then rushing without, the stream of learning generated should have an oscillating, two-way movement (which actually is one integral movement): one that moves in to internalise what one is learning, the other that moves out to externalise its spirit and content in appropriate expressive terms. True assimilation probably is the fruit of such an involvement, absorption, examination, expression and application.

Such a way of learning may steer clear of the isolated, sadly diluted ‘grey matter activity’ which masquerades as ‘studying’ in today’s world, which in essence is mostly a product of dry mechanics and machinations of memory. As we all know the child is naturally endowed with irrepressible jijñasa and for the child living, being, playing, questioning, knowing, testing, expressing and applying are in many ways a single, non-divisive movement. But we adults have broken all this up, mindlessly compartmentalized them for our profit and convenience. We stubbornly insist that there is a time for living and a time for enjoying, a time for learning and a time for examining, a time for trusting and a time for testing, a time for abusing or exploiting and a time for healing or rewarding, a time for indulging and a time for exercising discipline, and so on and so forth. Is it not because of this that we are incapable of functioning without the so-called performance enhancing drugs like rewards and punishments, threats, incentives, and successes? Is it not because of this that we need the wrong reasons to compel us to do even the right things? – that we are incapable of doing something for its own sake, for the simple feeling or love of it, and not for something else that we may get at the end of it?

It does not make any sense to envisage or institute a learning programme that does not honour or factor in the world of the child and the state of the world in which we are living and which we have inherited. What is required in principle is a process that will explore and express a way of learning that does not divide the desired and desirable results from the means employed (and definitely from the participants involved). Here the ends don’t justify the means, as the means and the ends, agency, participation, and production cannot be so easily separated from one another as tone and voice cannot be easily dissociated from the intended meaning of a spoken utterance.

What is visualised in a sense is a learning programme where music and mathematics, art and history, geography and culture, yoga and ecology, dance and physiology, physical education and fun sports are not perceived as atomized, water-tight domains but as branching streams that are capable of flowing into one another. Though this is stated here in somewhat poetic or idealistic terms, researching into how such a process could be initiated and evolved which would be academically sound and at the same time learning-friendly in a wide and deep and practical sense, studying the traditional, contemporary, and innovative paradigms to enrich such a stream could be very much part of such an attempt. A programme of this nature could be vertical in structure and nature, in content and in approach (and not predictably or mechanically linear or horizontal) where older children are also involved in the teaching-learning processes of younger children. ‘Learning fields’ which capture, or to some extent embody, the nature and spirit of a specific subject could be created in the place of stereo-typical, black and white, bare boned classrooms. Hands-on activities, participative living and functioning, learning to care for living and non-living things, enhancement of communication skills, exploring the place and space of ‘leisure’ – from which the word ‘school’ is supposed to have originated – in living and in learning, exposing oneself to some of the fine expressions in music, painting, sculpture, writing, filming, researching, playing games – all these and more could be part of this.

Implied in all this is a feeling that one needs to help create some sort of a ‘sanctuary’: a sanctuary for childhood and for exploration into the true wellsprings of culture and religiosity, and above all for sane, simple, anonymous living. After all the word ‘sanctuary’ has associations with sanctity and sacredness – a space that preserves and protects and if possible proliferates what is natural, innocent, free, and beautiful.

~Sreedhar