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Monday, July 27, 2015

Concretizing the concepts of value based life, heritage, meaningful education and proper use of science and technology

“Value orientation missing from education system” and

“Alarming gap within developing world has to be bridged”, avers Dr. Karan Singh MP of India. He has once again spoken very sensibly raising certain important issues. Read report of his speech here

These issues are, more frequently, cropping in general discussions in various forums in myriad forms and I too, have been putting forth relentlessly reams of reasons or at least verbal expressions of my observations, thoughts, reactions etc.

Evolution of our species seems to be going through some sort of churning process which makes people in different spheres of activity voice similar concerns.

However, I being a very ordinary person wonder how are we going to inculcate certain inevitable aspects and activities which are going to ensure concretizing the concepts that these scholars visualize and also have been very vocal about like- continuation of certain well cherished and time tested values of wisdom; respect for rich heritage; education geared towards unraveling the meaning of life encompassing knowing, doing, unity and being; science which contributes to humane values in collaboration with other aspects of living etc?

Are there any specific ways, methods, new art or science which have to be introduced to ensure these?  No not necessary.
They have to be part and parcel of our approach, attributes, attitudes and actions of life because what I call UN activities, as most human activities are, wherein U stands for Urge and N stands for Necessity.


               The main things that he talks about are:-

1.    Values that have been neglected  we need to find out two things here what we mean by values and how they can be made to be part of our day to day living and he goes on to weave a relevance how it is all the more sad because many  values were very much part of our rich heritage. It they were so, then why and what or who led to the degradation or what are the reasons for that?


2.    Then he goes about talking about education. Again what is education or what are the probable aspects of education? What is the role and responsibilities of all the stakeholders?



3.    He then goes on to portray his ambivalent views on science, as it is for most  people due to the extraordinary predominance in terms of importance given to science over all other domains of human activity. 

      But we need to honestly and humble observe why it is so. It is because of its overwhelming impact both positive and negative. We need to remember that science is neither a panacea nor should it be projected as a villain. If at all anything science has been a greater contributor to the enhancement of life and civilization’s advancement than any other facet of living. 

     But for science and rational thinking presence of sanity would have got postponed or prohibited everywhere. If its negative aspects have been used or the science itself has been misused in some instances that does not make it any less valuable or important or relevant. For that matter what about the negative impacts of religions or misuses in the name of religions , impacts and misuses of political ideologies, economic systems etc.

SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY
                             or
http://www.scribd.com/doc/101198033/Science-and- Spirituality

Worse still, the conflict is projected as Humanity versus    Technology as technology has become the predominant manifestation of science and permeating into every aspect of life. No wonder there are important conferences with the theme Claiming Our Humanity — Managing in the Digital Age’ are conducted 




4.    Our rich heritage

No one ever questions that; even the avowed enemies of Bharat cannot do that because our heritage is indeed something that we all can be very proud of but why it has lost its relevance. Can we resurrect it by merely repeating it? Won’t we be labeled as ethnocentric by constantly claiming we have one of the greatest heritages? If that is a fact why we need to keep reminding everyone about it every now and then?


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