Education is the kindling of knowledge. It is the journey
from the known to the unknown. It encompasses all the spheres of life and all
aspects of one’s personality, external and internal. To educate oneself is to
equip oneself to face the struggles of life and the vagaries of the world. And
so, every attempt at education should have the balance of external expertise
and inner poise. The pull of the manifest world should be withstood by the
anchor of the inner self.
An education that focuses only on the external would
invariably lead to a discontented personality and a disturbed society.
Without an anchoring in a plane of one’s personality that is
unaffected by the mundane realities of the world, the slightest tremor in one’s
happy world would shatter one’s very being.
While it is undoubtedly necessary to educate oneself in the
art of creating, acquiring, and developing, human experience of millennia is
testimony to the fact that the wisdom of refrain, relinquishment, and silence has
brought more satisfaction to the human mind than anything else.
A balanced personality is one that has the ability to
accommodate like a sponge, the ever-increasing voluminous outpourings of
suffering the world has to offer.
Source – Prabhudha Bharata Editorial March 2017 issue