Infinite in the Finite 2

• The birth of the Individual in the social collective is indirectly touched upon powerfully, but has not become a branch of serious study.

- Its most important aspect is that the  Individual is a psychological organisation fostered by the society, which is mainly an external organisation.

- Education is the organisation with two faces that link it.

- Education gives the Individual the ability to survive as an individual and meaningfully draw upon the social reservoir.

- It is important he preserves his individuality.

- It is equally important he uses the social potentials.

- Those individuals who enrich the society do so because they copiously draw upon it.

- Therefore Education is the psychological inner organisation that effectively operates upon the outer mechanical organisation of the society.

- The very best of Individuals, the Avatars, draw upon the inner resources of the society so that by such an activation it grows essentially.

- It is useful to define the Avatar, the vibhuti, the Genius, the leader, the achiever, the above average man, the entrepreneur, the social talents and the average and below average man from these points of view, with a particular emphasis on education.

• Education consists of the pupil, the teacher, the shape of the subject and all their interrelations.
• There are zones where each of them is the determinant.
• When that point is crossed, the rule almost changes to the opposite.
• Presently all the above types are unconsciously prepared while only the least member is consciously reared.
• As the society advances or the Individual advances or the medium advances, conscious preparation of the higher members is possible.
• The success of the educational system is in its ability to help the pupil cross the line between the unconscious and conscious preparations.
• Our educational system turns out employable or unemployable clerks, mostly. The Western system correspondingly turns out independent men who can achieve for themselves or the society.
• Those who rise above the ordinary in the Indian system do so on the strength of the character of the family or their own Personality.
• What those individuals have achieved - Radhakrishnan, Rajaji, Ashutosh Mukerjee, C.P. Ramasamy, and such others - can be straight away given in training by any school which is willing to exhaust its own and social resources.
• Radhakrishnan is a scholar. To produce a scholar only work is required. Rajaji is a thinker. To produce a thinker the system must prepare to draw upon the social wisdom that already exists in the social atmosphere. CP and Mukerjee are achievers. To produce an extraordinary achiever, the school needs to give the pupil the character of organisation for achievement. It is more a training of the will than of knowledge. The method would be to help the pupil sufficiently experience social capacities his age will permit. You will see him taking on himself the abilities he is given and asking for more. Here, those abilities exist in the society. The school puts the child in contact with it.
• Srinivasa Ramanujam is a genius. Geniuses or their powers are not socially prevalent. In the West, such powers must over the centuries ripen from below. In India it is there in rich full abundance in the subtle atmosphere, as it is far below the spiritual attainment of the Rishis whose light saturates the occult atmosphere of the country. Two things are necessary:

1. The child's mind must be ushered into greater and greater measure of Freedom by shedding the various layers of superstition.

2. The child must be taught to draw only the essence of whatever he learns.

When the essence is of sufficient intensity to relate to the genius in the atmosphere, the transition takes place facilitated by the mental freedom. The process admits of various explanations - social, psychological, spiritual, supramental, organisational - though only the organisational preparation is the easiest that one can lay one's hands on. Know the organisation of the mind of genius and the grades of such organisations and take the pupil along the ladder or help him rise on the graded ladder. The point of transition here lies in the idea becoming the original idea. As the child is led to original literature by teaching him a portion of it, give him the taste of organisation of ideas where he sees it shifting to originality so that he may himself indulge in it.

• This is a process known to the society.
• Two people of comparable ability and education living in a village and a metropolis, at the end of a decade, will exhibit vastly different endowments, mainly because of the location.
• One who goes to the metropolis will benefit by living there only when his own character is that well organised.
• Developed urban environment alone is capable of developing an individual as a modern citizen. Educationally, a school fitted with such mental tools is like the metropolitan atmosphere.
• We can also compare Indians using modern equipments such as the Internet and Americans using the same. To them they are products of their society. To us they are products of use. The American can more readily take to those products and use them far better. So also, the Indian can reach the higher planes of the Mind far better than the American to whom such planes do not exist in his subtle atmosphere.
• India is sitting on a diamond mine of Spiritual potentials. She does not have the technology to mine the diamond and cut it into usable stones. The West is sitting on coal mines. Their mines have iron ore. They have the technology to process the ores. Sri Aurobindo has brought a mine of greater value which comes with its own technology. Modern products come to our markets with the knowledge of how to use them, as it is in the interest of the trade to teach the customer the use of the product.

The customer has a mental barrier to use modern products.

When he buys them, he refuses to learn how to use them and maintain them.

Education is the bridge that can remove the mental barrier and equip the population to receive Sri Aurobindo's technology.

Primrose school is a fertile spot which can serve as both.

Training the teachers and creating a system which all schools can use are essential.

They can be fashioned by those who appreciate the value of education - knowledge - and are willing to experiment on their own lives.