Namaste,
In today’s day and age where our markets force us to jump brands and not stay long with one, where our education teaches us to skim the subject and not go deep, where our virtual social presence makes us be someone who we are not, it is not surprising, increasingly man is loosing connections with nature, family, country, environment and with oneself. The irony is on one hand we are getting disconnected and on another the whole world is talking about yoga, which means to connect. Connection comes with time, connection comes with knowing in depth about someone or something.
Moon since ages has interested the poets, the scientists and the painters alike. In Vidyakshetra senior most 2 classes has been observing night sky for a long time. Valmiki (class of 14 year old students) class for more than a year and Vasishta (class of 12 year old students) for close to 6 months. Students have been documenting their observations related to date, direction, timing, colour and shape of the moon. In one such discussion related to astronomy, one of the students spoke with me few weeks ago and told me that last year during this lunar month, paksha and tithi moon was in different place in the sky. An observation like this requires a lot of patience and regularity. In subsequent samvaad we all arrived at a conclusion that if one stays in the same place for many years, observes and patiently documents, over years one will become an expert about that place. Today people talk about global village and the world being flat. Traditionally people in India saw the whole world in their village and would travel outside their village only for pilgrimage and in case of very few men, due to their business needs. Most of the things like food, water, clothes, medicines (herbs) and construction material, they needed for their subsistence they would find within a few km radius. Smt. Indumati Katdare writes in her book “Bhartiya Siksha granthmaala”, while passing out of gurukula, guru would take his student to the highest point in the gurukula and showing his student around, would ask if he knows everything about what he can see around. If the answer was yes and the teacher also felt so, the student would pass out of the Gurukula.
Where the river flows nothing grows, only where the river stands something grows. With man continuously on move and hours spent in material pursuit and serving the pursuit of meeting targets, one is left with very less time for deeper subject matters like adhyayan, swadhyaya, adhyatma, family and self.
The current lock down has opened this door, through which if we walk in we can peep out through the windows and feel the cool embrace of moonlight, see the beautiful colours which the sky paints when the sun is rising or setting. Soar high with the hundreds of birds flying by making different patterns. Fly along with the butterflies and the bees hopping from one colourful flower to another. In this room is also seated our child seeking our attention to tell us what happened today, don’t miss listening to her story, how much ever silly it might sound. In the same room also lies something that you always wanted to do and have been postponing for the future. Let’s take some time out today to do “that” something so dear to us, because tomorrow never comes.
Life is not event to event, but what we think, feel and do between and during those events. It is this change that our children go through at Vidyakshetra, when they do gardening over the year, when they knit or stitch and prepare something over weeks or months, when they learn sangeetha or nritya over the years, when they paint and listen to Ramayana, Mahabharata over the years, when they learn maths and science as a means to an end (tools to study the creation) and not an end in itself and last but not the least when they are with the adults who by choice are acharya’s, trying to find meaning to their lives.
I invite all of you to be a co-passenger and a co-learner with your child in this journey, lest it will be too late for they would have learnt to dive deep, but we would have missed an opportunity to connect with life, “OUR LIFE”.
In your service
Muneet dhiman