Education and Learning

Education is not confined to classrooms

With schools and colleges closed many are talking of missing learning and education!!!

We tend to not only visualize, verbalize but also conceptualize and resort to a presumptive stereotyping a whole lot of terms which are in a wordle with one big aspect of life called ‘education’ like: - classroom, academic qualification, institutions, teachers, communication skills, knowledge, understanding, learning etc.

Though every one of these terms may be part of learning and education, if we zoom any specific part as representing the whole, then we may be doing injustice to learning and enfeebling the enormity of education.

We must know and understand that learning is neither confined to classrooms nor is it limited to being of some service to others at home or office nor is it confined to mere academic excellence and so on, rather beyond and besides these learning must

Evolve to experience, to experiment, to explore, to evaluate and to get enlightened,

Develop discretionary skills to decide, to decipher the different dimensions and dynamics of life.

Understand the underlying causes and unravel the characteristics of as many things as possible.

Create confidence and clarity to connect with contextual relevance and communicate effectively.

Accommodate all possible and relevant frames of references to analyze all things beyond mere academics.

Think beyond and besides time tested templates and to tread beyond trends, taboos and traditions.

Internalize intrinsically important values and interpret in tune with inherent attributes and contextual relevance.

Open the horizon of opportunities with open mindedness and synergy to seamlessly

Nurture the natural interrelatedness, interconnectivity and interdependence of everything and everyone.

With closure of educational institutions many have been discussing about how to make children learn as if classroom is the only place of learning.

In my honest opinion learning happens mainly: -

Out of curiosity generated observation and listening;

Out of impulse to imitate what or whom we consider as interesting and appealing;

Out of fear and/or love through the manifestation of these emotions, with varying degrees of intensities like obligations, rewards, punishments, likings and so on.

So, that way almost 90% plus real learning happens only outside the classroom and besides the syllabus.

However, basic literacy to enable one to learn in a systematic manner or methods or processes may be imparted inside the classroom.

Classrooms can at best instill, motivate and direct to get informed, acquire knowledge, indicate the methods of understanding and allow individuals to explore the possibilities of interpretations without restricting the number of or range of frames of references.

Some unique features of human species over the rest like conscious awareness and ability to internalize are very useful tools to learn better, more and use whatever one has learnt.

Learning is a lifelong process.

So, as Dani Johnson says, “Never stop being teachable.

If you think you know everything, you will never learn anything.

Then what may be termed as Learning?

The problem with human beings unlike other species is that we are consciously aware, and we can also collect, store and retrieve data and reuse them. This faculty along with our intellectual thinking and reasoning powers hamper us from having humility to accept the mere fact that there are many unknown as well as unknowable elements to life as a whole and even in our individual lives.

We either act or react according to what we want, what we can and what we are destined to.

At different times either one of these three predominates i.e. what we want, we can we are destined to do.

Knowledge, Information, Thoughts, Ideas and Teachings are ingredients,

Understanding is making them into a tasty cooked food,

Grasping and Interpretations are the utensils used for cooking, is the process of cooking a tasty, easily digestible, nutritious food.

Learning starts out of curiosity; saunters through imitation and limitation; steps into conscious observation and stops to savor into expressing whatever is learnt through some medium and in some way.

Astrology and time of birth

​​The actual birth time of even every human being is a big topic of debate by itself. 

Too vast a subject with many aspects involved in creation of a conscious human being and that may run into volumes. 

Then, presuming we fix a particular time as a premise or hypothesis what are the intrinsically influencing factors to be or that may be collated and how to determine the intensity of their influence or impact, leave alone time.

If we reduce or confine human life, life on the whole , even in astrology and other spiritually oriented studies to mere time space conundrum with which the human intellect is comfortable to determine, it is gross injustice. 

We cannot bring down the parameters to suit the limitations of our intellectual convenience,   measuring tools that are available in our tool kit and inadequacies of our interpreting capabilities.

All these are may be used for merely creating templates for easy reference. 

Even among the templates we use mostly, Raasi, bhavam, navamsam primarily (of course dasas and bukthis , sub sub miniscule bhukthis etc) I usually refer to them with an example of good TV, Signal , and programs ( gocharams) but then what about service provider, set top boxes, availability of electricity, the multiple programs and TV sets within a specific radius their invisible frequencies ( like social status) electronic jammers ( like cultural constraints) etc .

Science like astrology is not amenable to any isolation.

Having said all these, there are certain very powerful glaring indicators which will always blink. When such strong indicators are there, then, no one can escape that. 

Astrology  either studies individuals, nations, regions, institutions not the whole of nature- by nature I mean not merely the  earth centric or the universe centric aspects but it is multi verse involved and that's why there are no 100% perfect prediction nor is it possible because the cosmic vibrations and various esoteric aspects are perceived only in very high level of Raja yoga like swami vivekananda or spiritual communion sheer divine grace like bhagwan Sri Ramana Maharshi or spiritual trance like bhagwan Sri Ramakrishna paramhansa or consciously worked synthesis of yoga with careful handling of higher esoteric cum occult realms like Sri Aurobindo ( esoteric cum occult part The Mother played a huge role).

 

If we read every sentence spoken by, observe every event in the life of these above four then all the astrology we brag about may be a particle of sand in the ocean of understanding life.

Study more to create a better social engineering

The advantage of studying a many philosophical systems, many subjects, learning about more topics, various cultures and vast literature in detail is that they provide multitude of ideas, concepts and sneak peek into certain commonalities, interrelatedness as well as new perspectives etc.

If we connect the dots and go in depth into studying from various perspectives they may throw up various hidden great philosophical approaches towards various aspects of life. 

When these are interpreted with proper perspective they open up the frames of references to far wider gamut of aspects of life and unravel the many facets and dimensions of every one of those aspects and also takes us through the inherent inner dynamics as well as the evolving dynamics as a result of interactions with the outer world with all its ever emerging new ideas, practices, trends, thoughts and technologies.

These types of explorations lead to more inclusive systems of social engineering as they factor in many aspects in the realm of social inventions.

Seeking and humility

It is good that we are ignorant of at least somethings.

Otherwise, humility will disappear from our vocabulary. 

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The more mysterious things remain the more we become inquisitive , the more we explore and that leads to more, if not better, learning and expands our understanding and keeps the process of SEEKING further meaning about life and living on track. 

This is one of the reasons why I first reject dogmas, contrived justifications, blind acceptance etc.

Comparisons in times of crisis is bad attitude

​​It would be hypocritical to say that money or material well being need not be or cannot be the common denominator for all aspects of life.

However, the trade off in terms of various parameters decide the rewards and remuneration. 

Parameters may vary depending on overall impact  of happiness that millions feel at an instant forgetting all their personal problems like when a sport star or an artist performs,  utility at a macro level like mobile phone technology or at various levels the following people perform doctor who treats patients, the unsung heros and heroines the teachers, policemen, military foot soldiers, nurses, sanitary workers, drivers, delivery persons, the billions of home makers ( who do more work for no pay at all) and so on.

To compare and curse at a time of crisis is bad attitude.

Having said all these, there are certain professionals who earn atrociously disproportionately and they must develop an attitude to come forward voluntarily to contribute atleast through their financial might to the less advantaged.

All these are not to be caged in the over verbalized stereotyped concepts of Left or Right but more of a free flying attitude of humanitarian concern.

I am surprised why hasn't she spoke about billions of dollars the religious places and people manning them earn in many countries across many religions.

These types of speeches are in bad taste and manifestation of pent of negative emotional anger  of an individual who may be right or wrong but at such crucial times it may trigger lot of unwanted politicization and sensationalism  instead of delivering practical remedy.

Every context and performer has certain unique roles and intense responsibility. If we are cutting vegetables, we can afford not to be perfect at first attempt but a neurosurgeon cannot afford that luxury.

A big football star may not even indulge in food he likes or afford  relax without physical exercise and training or have family time when he wants. Who knows how long he has been training and what are the things he had to sacrifice on the way up.

Grammar must not be stumbling block

However, such nuanced grammar rules are neither taught nor insisted upon nowadays in the wordless age of icons.

Besides, these types of ambiguous sentences must be either ignored or read in context or reframed.

Actually, ambiguity could have been avoided by using a relative pronoun. The mother beats her daughter who was drunk or bears her drunken daughter. ( relative pronoun replacing a subject- this is where French, Latin and Sanskrit are class apart). 

Again, according to some archaic rule drunken to be used a adjective before noun and drunk after verb.

I used to teach my students with a simple sentence ' I drink whisky at the bar, in the evenings, with my friends, for pleasure'.

Subject, verb, direct object and all other complements of place, time, purpose etc. and used to elaborate the same sentence into a 200 hundred words info structure spicing it with multitude of additional info, adjectives and elaborate details etc. 

I wish someone had worked on Trimuni Vyakarna of Sanskrit grammar with its conscious effort to embellish the phonetics with svarabhakthi, the logic and sequence of using complements, also the concept of evolution of life and language (which of course has to be known esoterically) in Garbha upanishad etc.

The greatness of English is its flexibility and fluidity which renders communication easier but sometimes creates extreme and unp​​leasant ambiguities as well as feeds lot of material for humour. 

Religious disharmony

​​When religion which is mix of many things like to seek , to search and to become sensitive to multiple dimensions of individual life's splendours beyond, besides and along with its physical, emotional, intellectual, psychological dimensions,  and this along with the imperatives of happily cohabiting with other individuals as a society wherein eachone  may be at different levels of understanding those dimensions or adopting different kinds of searches and seeking , gets institutionalized then it steps into the first error of converting seeking into belief system for ensuring common institutional code of control and command.

Once the institutions gain strength, control and grow , they tend to compete with other similar institutions, swallow smaller institutions and also try to put down or crush all other forms of seeking that cause instability to the institutional growth and institutionalised belief systems.

These factors manifest in multiple ways leading to disharmony , differences and destructive mindset.

Judge's plight

The great uneasiness from  a judge's position: -

Impartiality cannot be compromised and is non-negotiable.

Neutrality is preferable irrespective of the issue.

Bias and prejudices may be inherently present and may manifest as a result of normal human emotional vulnerabilities due to some sort of affinity or personal relationship or as a sense of gratitude.

In addition to all these factors there may be psychological uneasiness, sometimes, caused due to conflicting and contradictory positions between what is socio-cultural morality wise preferred and practiced and what is legally correct or wrong.

Judges can not be expected to hypocritically take a please all and satisfy all position.

Their communication must be diplomatically worded conveying firmness without sounding rude. 

Politics beyond identities and labels

​​Modern day requirements demand that politics must transcend wherever necessary the identities and labels.

In reality, thankfully it is emerging.

There is very little Left left, no right Right and nothing is centered on any Center. In a way these terms are like neutral journalism. 

Real politics is all about Social Engineering ensuring optimum utilisation of the available  resources to provide maximum benefit to the maximum number of people on various aspects like economy, health care, social harmony, regional cultural activities, certain time tested cardinal values which are  good for cohabitation of all human beings and a feeling of national pride along with promoting global concerns and cooperation. 

All these must also ensure that a liveable planet is bequeathed to our future generations.

Healthy conditions can be planned and programmed if those scripting any political narrative realize to do away with the outdated dichotomy of Left and Right because life, especially socio-cultural and economic life, has many dimensions each having its own dynamics and in addition there are also those emanating from intersectionality and interactions and all of these manifest themselves with varying degrees of intensity. Fortunately life and all its concomitant evolutions happen despite and beyond the blinkered narratives peddled by status quo addicts of trite dichotomies and have made visible various options between, besides, beneath and above those dichotomies, and these may strengthen the wings and enable the discourse to soar into unbiased zones and offer some solutions to many present day problems faced by humanity.

Enjoy when unexpected positive things happen

​Also when, where, why , how ....?

Guestimates, estimates, statistically arrived conclusion may at best be approximations and not exact. ​​

Even with well established, proven scientific measurements and facts change in the course of time as newer,  more convincing and better applicable discoveries emerge in the course of evolution.

But by whatever methods be it a wild guess or well explained through  astrological or scientific theories of  probability as prediction, if and when it happens it sends a sense of unexplainable delight as a news item. We just need to enjoy it. 

unethical

On one side nowadays people invent conspiracy theories and subscribe motives for everything. ​​

On other side there are also hidden agendas and ulterior motives with which many things are done.

It is all about proper perception and perspective and relevant interpretations and actions which can contribute something positive.

Unfortunately, people have wild imaginations, wider reach without wisdom or ethics.

The victims are the gullible people, those who are always subjected to victimhood ( it is in some cases like an itch), those who can get emotionally easily triggered,those are of impressionable age, the vulnerable folks for whom ideologically indoctrinated concept (s) of life which they venerate as their identity and which almost becomes their second nature and leads them to certain fixations over whatever is really happening to their life and what is contextually more relevant to living in harmony.

Actual victims are sense of balance and sanity of humanity.

Age of excess of opinions

We are living in an age where excess of opinions, counter opinions; arguments and counter arguments; facts, truths, half truths, sugar coated lies all will pop up.

In this over crowded atmosphere what is really correct, useful, meaningful varies from person to person, place to place, context to context. 

So, it may not be advisable to ascribe, to accept or to appropriate everything to any particular belief system or religion and claim credit.

The best option is to adopt what may be suitable, safe, scientifically measurable and explainable, experimentable and executable rather than claiming one tradition or system as greater than all the rest, that one particular  system knew everything much ahead of time than all other system etc.

This jumping to take religious or traditional or ethnocentric superiority based pride may hamper research, re

Relationship sustenance why ?

Even personal relationships get polluted through spill over of perverted perspectives from the commercial world.

So, performance appraisal takes precedence over personal attributes; utility over understanding; submissiveness over synergy etc.

Relationships must subsume differences and replaces all ' versus' with 'and' creating a pleasantness which permits everything to permeate in a display of inhibitionless accommodation, adjustments , minor comprmises all out of love and understanding or atleast to sustain a relationship in the interest of so many other lifes that may hinge on sustenance of certain relationships.

Ancestors

Best tribute to ancestors 

​​

More importantly, after they leave their mortal body we need to do the following.

Internalising the values and rememebering the culture and character bequeathed by the spirit of such souls and manifest them in whatever we do is the best tribute and that is  far greater than any ritualistic activities that we may perform on their behalf.

Social engineering beyond labels

Modern day requirements demand that politics must transcend wherever necessary the identities and labels.

In reality, thankfully it is emerging.

There is very little Left left, no right Right and nothing is centered on any Center. In a way these terms are like neutral journalism. 

Real politics is all about Social Engineering ensuring optimum utilisation of the available  resources to provide maximum benefit to the maximum number of people on various aspects like economy, health care, social harmony, regional cultural activities, certain time tested cardinal values which are  good for cohabitation of all human beings and a feeling of national pride along with promoting global concerns and cooperation. 

All these must also ensure that a liveable planet is bequeathed to our future generations.

Healthy conditions can be planned and programmed if those scripting any political narrative realize to do away with the outdated dichotomy of Left and Right because life, especially socio-cultural and economic life, has many dimensions each having its own dynamics and in addition there are also those emanating from intersectionality and interactions and all of these manifest themselves with varying degrees of intensity.

Fortunately, life and all its concomitant evolutions happen despite and beyond the blinkered narratives peddled by status quo addicts of trite dichotomies and have made visible various options between, besides, beneath and above those dichotomies, and these may strengthen the wings and enable the discourse to soar into unbiased zones and offer some solutions to many present day problems faced by humanity.

Left, Right , Center

Arnab wants to fire our views. I want to pour cold water and not fire in any view because there is no Left left, no right Right and nothing is centered on any Center. In a way these terms are like neutral journalism.

https://twitter.com/ideasspinner/status/1228975860775915521

Life is pendulum swinging between adjustments, compromises and confidence in our inner self

In our country one's knowledge is not respected but position; one's ability does not count but utility; one's performance does not get recognized but power manipulations.

Despite all these , still , if a knowledgeable, sensible and sincere professional is found to be useful, the politicians and MNCs use them for expediency like Curry leaves in sambar. 

While eating the benefits they will throw away or not bother at all about the performers. 

If we try to question they will try to harass us and force us to leave.

Life is pendulum swinging between adjustments, compromises and confidence in our inner self and belief in divine ordained optimism.

Corona virus - The demand for face masks unmasks many short comings of human race.

Corona virus - The demand for face masks unmasks many short comings of human race.

It unmasks the reality of lack of global preparedness and lack of international institutions geared towards shared responsibility to handle crisis or natural calamity.

But then, are there real solutions available out there?

The greatest outcomes of great problems are that they make us look at alternatives, multiple options, throw up lot of  suggestions, criticisms, ideas [ even if they are utopian or too idealistic or naïve ] and generate opportunities to look at implementation of new schemes to be better equipped for such future eventualities.

Are there lessons beyond, besides, much broader than scientific explanations and conspiracy theories?

Every natural calamity, disaster or epidemic is very sad and hard to console the affected and repair the damages even with all the modern technologically advanced methods and concerted efforts of many compassionate human beings, organizations etc.

The rippling effect of some of these calamities impact many parts of the world on various parameters at different scales, a very harsh way to make human beings realize that at last we are all interrelated, inter connected and interdependent amidst all our various ways of living from foods to faiths to frames and fences of identities around our political, economic , cultural, national characteristics.

Debates on environmental concerns, respect for other species, eating habits and so on are aplenty.

Awareness of many environmental issues and the obvious deterioration of our environment and depletion of many natural resources are all addressed by many in multiple ways, some scientists blame it on  many human activities [ perhaps rightly so] while  some scientists brush aside all as natural phenomena which will eventually rectify [ perhaps they too may be right]. 

Many of us do not venture into study in detail scientific facts but react to versions which are aligned with our predisposition, visible impacts that affect our life and start believing what we deem to be true and sometimes  think our beliefs to be the only truth.

When we talk of geopolitical economy, we call the world as a global village [ as if the atlas has shrunk] a wonderfully coined and calibrated expression carrying within it the masked macro motives and magnified micro optics.

When we talk of environment [in fact parade our environmental concerns more at international forums] we fail to really acquire knowledge to refrain from damaging it around us in whatever way we can.

When we talk of harmony, unity, peace and so on, we try to bring to the focus various and divergent religious, political and regional ideologies through mutual respect and tolerance; try to accept and forget many historical mistakes; minimize various regional disparities and so on.

When we talk of social engineering we have used most of the above factors namely, religion, politics, history, environment and used all the advantages that science and technology have provided to effectively and strategically implement policies [ sometimes euphemism for scheming and manipulating] in the interest of global community as a whole cutting across various barriers.

But through all these approaches based on various identities and economic status we have failed to monitor, regulate and maintain certain aspects in the interest of whole of humanity at present and we have also not created useful templates for posterity.

                                                                                                  

What are those aspects? What is the mindset that is required to even start looking at it? Let is chose this timing [Corona virus crisis] because at least now it would appeal to the caring hearts and calculative minds.

The mindset that is required is a sharing disposition, not as a sermonizing statement or a high sounding socio-political ideological concept but as a working and workable new model in the interest of all,

It is just a very loud thinking, utopian and idealistic in nature and therefore, too farfetched in terms of implementation.

However, with advanced modern technologies, huge number of educated people and overall larger number of matured concerned human beings there is a ray of hope that if the multiple outfits of UN, top world leaders and big business enterprises come together, then we may think of looking at the following options because they require macro level planning and implementation and the concomitant benefit is these activities may create lot of  new businesses, create more employment and push human mindset towards realization of  oneness and interrelatedness of all.

The options are: -

Most vital items for survival of human beings must be easily available always at all places, more so in times of natural calamities and epidemics.

Certain international organizations must ensure to have stock of such items for emergency supply.

They may be broadly classified as food items, common medicines, natural resources, products, technologies, tools, transportation, wealth, manufacturing of certain high utility items etc.

We must ensure that the availability of these items is not geographically confined to certain areas alone.

However, if a product or item is available aplenty only in certain geographical location, then organizations like UN and its various outfits must ensure minimum storage or easy and quick accessibility.

Hypothetically, if majority of high value secret wealth of many nationals are held in one country’s bank, imagine what if a major earthquake or some calamity destroys all of it.

If metals like gold, lithium, copper, steel are available only in certain mines in some countries [ we need not deprive those nations of the economic advantage but then they must be made available everywhere at least in minimum quantity.

There is no harm in thinking on these lines.

We must stop verbalizing and assign the whole lot of activities under the term ‘disaster management’ what we need is preparedness in place.

https://groundreportindia.org/monthly/reports/2020/02/corona-virus-the-demand-for-face-masks-unmasks-many-short-comings-of-human-race