ON EDUCATION

The Mother

 

Contents

 

PRE CONTENT

 

Part One:

 

Articles

 

Articles

The Science of Living

Education

Physical Education

Vital Education

Mental Education

Psychic Education and Spiritual Education

An International University Centre

The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations

To the Students, Young and Old

Foresight

Transformation

The Fear of Death and the Four Methods of  Conquering It

A Dream

Helping Humanity

The Problem of Woman

 

 

Part Two:

 

Messages, Letters and Conversations

 

I

 

SRI AUROBINDO INTERNATIONAL CENTRE OF EDUCATION

 

Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education

Messages

Aims

Students

Study

Reading

Conduct

Holidays

Studies Elsewhere

Teachers

Teaching

Discipline

Homework

Tests

Curriculum

Languages

Facsimilies of the Mother's Handwriting in Various Language

Arts

Other Subject

National Education

 

II

 

SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION

 

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Department of Physical Education

Youth

Concentration and Dispersion

Our Flag and Our Cover

Energy Inexhaustible

Correct Judgment

The Olympic Rings

The Championship Badge

Tournaments

Replies to Prayers of the Physical Education Groups

Messages for Competitions

Messages for the Annual Demonstration of Physical Culture

General Messages and Letters

To Women about Their Body

 

III

 

THE NEW AGE ASSOCIATION

 

The New Age Association

 

IV

 

A GLIMPSE OF THE MOTHER'S WORK IN THE SCHOOL

 

French in the Ashram and the School

The Organisation of Work in French Class

Teaching French to Indian Teachers Who Teach in French

Teaching French to Students

The "Bibliotheque Choisie"

Mother's Action in a Class of Children Aged ten to Eleven

Mother's Action in a Class  of Children Aged Seven to Nine

Mother's Action in a Class of Children Aged Sixteen to Eighteen

 

V

 

ANSWERS TO A MONITRESS

 

Sutras

Correspondence-(a)

Correspondence-(b)

 

VI

 

ANSWERS TO A MONITOR

 

Answers to a Monitor

 

VII

 

CONVERSATIONS

 

5 April 1967

11 November 1967

8 February 1973

14 February 1973

18 February 1973

24 February 1973

26 February 1973

14 March 1973

 

Part Three:

 

Dramas

 

TOWARDS THE FUTURE

 

Towards the futures

 

THE GREAT SECRET

 

The great Secret (a)

The Great Secret (b)

 

THE ASCENT TO TRUTH

 

The Ascent to truth

 Teachers  

 

To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can make to a child, to learn always and everywhere.

 

It is an invaluable possession for every living being to have learnt to know himself and to master himself. To know oneself means to know the motives of one's actions and reactions, the why and the how of all that happens in oneself. To master oneself means to do what one has decided to do, to do nothing but that, not to listen to or follow impulses, desires or fancies.

To give a moral law to a child is evidently not an ideal thing; but it is very difficult to do without it. The child can be taught, as he grows up, the relativity of all moral and social laws so that he may find in himself a higher and truer law. But here one must proceed with circumspection and insist on the difficulty of discovering that true law. The majority of those who reject human laws and proclaim their liberty and their decision to “live their own life” do so only in obedience to the most ordinary vital movements which they disguise and try to justify, if not to their own eyes, at least to the eyes of others. They give a kick to morality, simply because it is a hindrance to the satisfaction of their instincts.

No one has a right to sit in judgment over moral and social laws, unless he has taken his seat above them; one cannot abandon them, unless one replaces them by something superior, which is not so easy.

In any case, the finest present one can give to a child would be to teach him to know himself and to master himself.  

 July 1930  

Page - 167


Personality Traits of a Successful Teacher1 

 

1. Complete self-control not only to the extent of not showing any anger, but remaining absolutely quiet and undisturbed under all circumstances.

2. In the matter of self-confidence, must also have a sense of the relativity of his importance.

Above all, must have the knowledge that the teacher himself must always progress if he wants his students to progress, must not remain satisfied either with what he is or with what he knows.

3. Must not have any sense of essential superiority over his students nor preference or attachment whatsoever for one or another.

4. Must know that all are equal spiritually and instead of mere tolerance must have a global comprehension or understanding.

5. “The business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material.” (Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle)

 

 Published in June 1954 

Never forget that to be a good teacher one has to abolish in oneself all egoism.² 

10 December 1959 

 

1These comments were written by the Mother after she was shown a questionnaire on the subject which had been submitted to the Centre of Education by a training college for teachers.  

²Message for the Annual Meeting of Teachers.   

Page – 168


And to be worthy of teaching according to the supramental truth given us by Sri Aurobindo there should no longer be any ego.1  

 December 1960

 

All studies, or in any case the greater part of studies consists in learning about the past, in the hope that it will give you a better understanding of the present. But if you want to avoid the danger that the students may cling to the past and refuse to look to the future, you must take great care to explain to them that the purpose of everything that happened in the past was to prepare what is taking place now, and that everything that is taking place now is nothing but a preparation for the road towards the future, which is truly the most important thing for which we must prepare.

It is by cultivating intuition that one prepares to live for the future.

 18 September 1967 

Think rather of the future than of the past.1 

                15 December 1972

 

TEACHING

 

The school should be an opportunity for progress for the teacher as well as for the student. Each one should have the freedom to develop freely.

A method is never so well applied as when one has discovered it oneself. Otherwise it is as boring for the teacher as for the student.

 

1Message for the Annual Meeting of Teachers. 

Page – 169