39 What is education meant for – Gita 13.12

Today, we will welcome you to this Bhagavad Gita session, and today we’ll be discussing the topic of education. Broadly, we’re discussing basically the section in the Gita where we talk about the conceptions of knowledge. So I’ll discuss these three topics here based on 13-12; actually, this is 13-8 to 12, where Krishna talks about 20 virtues that comprise knowledge. It begins with Amaanittvam, Bhitvam, humility, pridelessness, and various items go on over there till it comes to understanding the importance of spiritual knowledge. Adhyatma refers to spirituality; it can refer to self-realization and then Tattvajnanaartha Darshanam. Tattvajnanaartha means that which is the ultimate knowledge to be achieved. That is what is pursued over here: Tattvajnanaartha Darshanam. Etajjnanaam iti proktam. This is knowledge. And what is separate from it is ignorance. So the words ajnana and jnana are commonly used in the spiritual context to refer to knowledge and ignorance. So I’ll talk today about this conception of education and knowledge. In a sense, education and knowledge are related to each other because education is what leads to knowledge.

Knowledge is, at one level, what we all need for functioning in the world, and knowledge itself historically has had different meanings. So we look at, from the Western perspective, how knowledge and its conceptions have changed over time. Then we’ll talk about how what we consider as knowledge, which is largely science-based now, or overall how modern knowledge systems differ from, say, the Vedic idea of knowledge. And then we will talk about how the purpose of education, which is actually holistic knowledge, can be fulfilled in today’s context. So what is the purpose of knowledge? Whenever we consider any area of life, why we do it is important to understand.

Now, traditionally, in Western intellectual thought, knowledge was equated with virtue. If we look at the Greco-Roman times, now, the classical can refer to different ages in different situations. If you say classical science, that is classical physics; that refers to Newtonian physics. And then we have Newtonian physics, which was left behind. So the word classical has different meanings. Here, I am referring to classical as used in the historical sense of the Greco-Roman times. Most of modern Western civilization has intellectual roots in the Greco-Roman civilization. So the prominent thinkers—Plato, from whom we know what Socrates spoke because he did not write anything—then we have Aristotle, and before him also we had Pythagoras and many others. So what was the idea of knowledge? Knowledge was meant to develop virtue.

Now, what do we mean by virtue here? Here, it refers to the idea that life is challenging. That life will subject us to many difficulties, and if we are to face those difficulties properly, we need some amount of self-mastery. And if we’re not to give in to malevolence, either to ourselves—that means we destroy ourselves through indulgences and unhealthy habits—or we destroy others through violence and anger. So if you don’t want to do that, we need virtue. In the previous session, we discussed virtue and religion. In virtue, it was considered vital. Euclid is considered the father of geometry. So, at his time, there was the idea. He used to teach geometry, and once a student came to him and asked him, “You know, what will I earn through geometry?” So then he called his servant, and he said, “Give him a coin.” He feels that if he can’t earn through this, then there is no value in learning this. So he basically spoke this in a negative way. The idea that knowledge is meant to serve some purpose higher than earning.

Now, of course, life has been tough throughout much of recorded history, and the first concern of people was earning a livelihood. However, there is much more to life than earning a livelihood, and knowledge especially is a tool to cope with life’s difficulties in the best possible way. So if we look at the systems for imparting knowledge in the past, before the printing press came, books were not easily accessible. So knowledge was circulated primarily through the oral tradition. And so normally, people always talked with each other. At the same time, there was some kind of formal system of education throughout history. And here, when we’re talking about knowledge, we’re not just talking about, say, how somebody can operate—say, if somebody is a farmer, how can they operate a plough? Or if somebody is an artisan, how can they produce their art? But knowledge was here seen as something more evolved.

Knowledge was seen in one’s character, how it would help one to face life. Historically speaking, if we see several of the Greek thinkers, their thoughts seem to have at least some connection, some significant connection with the Gita’s thought. Socrates talks about the eternality of the soul, and he talks about how that will free one from lamenting events like death. He used five reasons why, based on understanding the eternality of the soul, one should not lament events like death. That is actually the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. Here, the point we are making is that there are certain universal ideas that were prevalent across the world. However, things changed.

Now, when I am talking about knowledge as equal to virtue, we’re talking about prominent ideas. There are, of course, materialism and complete non-spirituality or utilitarian ideas. There is Epicurean philosophy even in the Greco-Roman times. So, no age is associated with only one philosophy. History is not monolithic, but we are talking about broadly broad trends or overall most influential ideas at particular times. Then, as we jump forward, say to the time when the scientific revolution started around the 17th century onwards, we find Francis Bacon, a prominent pioneer of the scientific method. So, he famously said that knowledge is power. Now, this quote is often used even today by people, and this is used in terms of how we should get educated. It’s often used in a positive sense, which is okay, but the original context is something different.

His idea was that knowledge was more in terms of technology, and his idea was that if we have technology, then we will be able to work hard. And by working hard, we will be able to—now, working hard means throughout history humanity has had to work hard—but here we will be able to work hard to subordinate the world (the world refers to nature) to human will. So, the world was seen earlier to be like a mother, but by this time, the world was seen often like a stepmother—that the world creates a lot of problems for us. The world makes our life difficult. It makes our life miserable. So, what should we do? We need to control it, and through science and technology, we get power.

So here, if you see, the focus has shifted from inward to outward. Now, of course, externally also, throughout history, people did try to control things. If we look at the Indus Valley civilization, it had dams, it had bathing guards, it had a road system, and an elaborate transport system. So the idea was that there’s some amount of control over the outer world, also, which was done by humanity. But here, the focus shifted significantly from inward to outward. That life is tough is something which thinkers—well, we don’t have to be really a thinker to know that life is tough. We all observe that. But what is the way to deal with the difficulties of life? Is it internally that we grow and cultivate virtues, or externally we get more technology and technological power and thereby control life?

So this became the focus, and the result of this, in some ways, is what Martin Luther King famously said: that we have guided missiles and misguided men. That our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. So we got power to control the outer world, but knowledge and its relationship with virtue became more and more de-emphasized. The result of this de-emphasis was that in the world, anything good, if it is not consciously cultivated, starts getting lost; it starts getting degraded. It’s like if you have a room and you don’t clean it, over time, it will become unclean. If you have a house and you don’t maintain it, it will get run down. That is the power of time in this world. So, nobody consciously maligned virtue—that virtues are bad. But what happened? Virtue became not the focus of knowledge. The focus of knowledge became power, and when that became the focus, the result was that gradually, how much outer power through technology we were getting through education became primary, and other things started becoming secondary or even tertiary. And then, if we go further into today’s world, increasingly, knowledge is equated with money.

Nowadays, if you see in the modern and postmodern times, learning is for earning. Which are the branches of knowledge that are most sought after? They are the branches of knowledge which are the most lucrative.

So the idea is that we should learn whatever gives us the best means to live, even if it gives no meaning to living. What does this mean? That knowledge has become primarily a tool for getting a job, for getting a degree, getting grades, getting a job, and whether it helps us infuse our life with any kind of meaning or purpose—that is irrelevant. And because of that, the problem that came up is that again the idea of knowledge as virtue became more and more relegated to the background.

So if we consider the conception of knowledge, it is usually associated with one’s conception of worldview. When knowledge was seen as meant for cultivating virtue, what was the worldview? One of the defining differences between the modern and the pre-modern worldviews is that in the pre-modern worldview—whether we consider it the Judeo-Christian worldview, or before that the Greco-Roman worldview, or the Vedic worldview, or the Native American worldview—there’s some broad idea that this world is a place for a journey. This world is something we are transiting through; it’s a bridge. Now, this is the biblical language being used by me over here, but broadly the idea was similar. The world is a bridge to be crossed for attaining a higher world, and the key for this journey is virtue. So how well we navigate the journey through this bridge-like world is dependent on how much virtue we cultivate.

Then, as the purpose of knowledge became power, the corresponding worldview was that, okay, whether any other world exists or not, that doesn’t matter. Now, those who were the pioneers of the scientific method initially, most of them were theists. Overall, they became—overall, science tended to move toward non-theism. And now it is moving somewhat toward atheism. So the world is all that exists or matters, and our purpose is that we want to create paradise in this world. So at least in the Vedic times, the idea was that—so at least earlier, the idea was, let’s create paradise in this world through technology for humanity at large. Eventually, however, the idea became that we have to create paradise not just for the world, but at least for ourselves. At least for ourselves means that ultimately, the world—what it is, what it is meant for—all these are very difficult questions to answer. So all that we can focus on is just: I want to earn my living in a way that we can be happy, and beyond that, there was not much consideration of any higher purposes. And that led to a lot of problems.

What kind of problems? The problems were basically that there is a very utilitarian conception of knowledge present in the world today. The utilitarian conception is that whether anything is meaningful in life is questionable. At least in the modern times—now we live in postmodern times—at least in the modern times, there was a prominent belief that human beings are progressing and the chart of history is linear, moving forward, and through technology, humanity will be emancipated. But now, more and more, the idea is that life is meaningless and what we do doesn’t really matter much because ultimately, what we do is not what shapes anything. Whatever we learn, how we live—ultimately, whether life is meaningful or meaningless is difficult to know. And therefore, the idea became that instead of looking at the ultimate meaning of life, just look at what is enjoyable. And then, to what is enjoyable? Now, it might be in a very gross, sensual sense, or it might be in a less gross sense, but still, the idea is that there is not so much even of a collective consciousness that, okay, we want to improve humanity. It is everyone for oneself, and all that we are meant to do is just enjoy life in whatever way we can.

So when this idea comes up, then there are severe problems that result. We could say broadly, three problems result: There is no understanding of any ultimate purpose in life, there is no understanding of how to make sense of or find meaning in life’s adversities, and then, of course, there is no need seen for cultivating virtue at all. And when that happens, when virtue is not seen as significant, the result is that people end up feeling that anything goes. So knowledge becomes very utilitarian. So this is how, historically, we can say knowledge has degenerated.

Now, while ideas of knowledge have degenerated, something else has been going on. So, I talked about this until now from the perspective of modern science or modern intellectual history.

Now, if we look at it from the Vedic conception, Krishna is using the word jnana over here. Now, jnana is the idea that Krishna has defined jnana very briefly earlier, and now He is defining jnana again in greater detail. So, earlier, He has defined jnana as that which helps one to understand kshetra, that is, the world of matter, and the sphere of consciousness. To understand matter and understand consciousness—that is considered knowledge.

So today, now, of course, we have humanities and various areas of knowledge, but almost every area of knowledge has been focused by science and technology and also the underlying worldview. So when we talk about worldviews, there is a conception wherein the idea of how things work—the worldview—is affected by knowledge, and the worldview affects knowledge. So it’s a two-way trajectory, where what we do shapes what we learn specifically in terms of knowledge, and that shapes our worldview, which is also conversely shaped by our worldview. So it goes both ways.

Why does this matter? Because it’s our broader worldview that shapes how we think of life and how we live our life. So with respect to the Vedic approach, there are broadly three terms: karma, jnana, and bhakti. So we’ll look at bhakti a little later, but let’s focus on karma and jnana.

I was talking about this virtue, power, and money as the conceptions of worldview evolved. So knowledge rises from worldview, and knowledge reinforces worldview. Both of them go together. And when there is no narrative that gives ultimate meaning to life, then we gravitate toward the path of least resistance. The path of least resistance is that whatever seems enjoyable, let’s do that.

So now, with this background, we have discussed this theme earlier that there is karma, jnana, and bhakti. Now we are trying to understand knowledge in the Vedic terms, as we looked at knowledge in modern terms. So if you look at knowledge in Vedic terms, karma, the attitude toward the world, was that karma would romanticize the world. That means, “Oh, this world is so enjoyable; we just make the necessary arrangements and then we’ll enjoy the world.” Jnana, on the other hand, demonizes the world. This world is not only dangerous, it is treacherous. Not only can death and distress come upon us at any time, but even the pleasures that the world promises are actually traps. And in that sense, the world is not just dangerous but also treacherous, so demonize the world. Somehow or the other, we have to detach ourselves from it. We have to get out of it.

On the other hand, the path of bhakti utilizes the world. We see that the world has also come from God and it is meant to take us toward God. So we act in a way. So why are these attitudes important? When we look at the current, what we call as education, which leads to knowledge, actually, this knowledge is not so much jnana as it is karma. Why is that? See, karma is broadly driven by the hope to make the world a better place, even paradise.

So now, in karma, as it was done traditionally in the Vedic times, there were certain kinds of rituals that were done—maybe some sacrifices were performed—and all that was for the purpose of making things better. Certain desires are unfulfilled, so fulfill those desires. Or if we can’t fulfill those desires in this world, then ascend to a heavenly world where those desires are fulfilled. The idea is, at the material level, make life better. That was karma. And in the path of karma, there was not much inquiry about the nature of ultimate reality. In fact, the Rig Veda—which is considered to be the paradigmatic text of karma within the Vedic tradition—says, “Is there an ultimate reality? Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. Who knows?”

Now, this is not the Vedic conclusion, but this statement reflects the attitude when one’s primary concern is material: to just enjoy life better at the material level. So, whether there is an ultimate reality is not relevant for us.