Education - Spiritual Development – Attaining Potential Spirit
Summary
ThisPodcast examines the nature of formalized education, contrasting its modern material focus with its original philosophical and spiritual goals. While institutional learning has driven technological innovation and social progress, current public sentiment reveals a decline in confidence due to high costs and a strictly transactional view of career preparation. The author argues that modern systems often fail because they prioritize monetary gain over a student's true interests and a deeper understanding of universal reality. |
Formalized education is now the norm globally, except perhaps in the extremely remote and isolated communities, whose numbers are rapidly declining.
By formalized education we mean an intentional system of learning that takes place in recognized institutions like schools, colleges, and universities. Its key characteristics include –
Structured syllabus with specific subjects, goals, and timeframes operating in controlled physical or virtual environments
Qualified Teachers to deliver instruction.
Age-Based Progression moves students through grades or academic levels based on age and performance.
Regular Assessment measures progress through formal tests, exams, and assignments, offering certificates upon completion.
Pros and Cons
The increase in literacy, that accompanies formal education, produces a more informed public, creating the foundation for a progressive, albeit slow, development of society. Formalized education has also given more people access to the training required to develop innate and learned skills. The benefit to the world for the democratization of education is quite evident in the rapid expansion of innovation in technology, as well as the arts. Indeed, the bedrock of the post-industrial age can be attributed to the spread of formalized education.
But public sentiment regarding the benefits of education is becoming divided. A strong split is emerging between broad skepticism of institutional performance and high personal satisfaction with individual outcomes.
General Perceptions and Skepticism
Declining Confidence. According to polling data from Gallup, public confidence and satisfaction regarding educational institutions have hit historic lows. Satisfaction with U.S. education has slumped to 42%, vs. 51% in 2019. The broadest cynicism being about how well schools prepare students for the modern economy.
The Cost of College. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that nearly half of Americans (47%) believe a college degree is worth the cost only if the student avoids taking out loans, while 29% feel it is not worth it at all.
Changing Job Market. Only about a quarter of U.S. adults view a four-year college degree as very important for securing a well-paying job today
Perhaps the keen reader or listener can see from these perceptions/statistics that the value of education, for the majority today, is its income generating potential. Which explains why surveys from Gallup and the Milken Center highlight that an overwhelming majority of Americans still view education as a foundational component of achieving upward mobility and the American dream.
However, the aim/philosophy of education in pre-modern times was systematic pursuit of truth, ethics, and the nature of reality, through reason and observation, rather than myth or religious dogma. Ancient philosophy also sought answers to how the physical world worked and how humans could live a good life.
This thinking is still echoed, though modified to suit our modern times, in the excerpts below.
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1947, while a student at Morehouse College, : The primary purpose of education is to equip individuals with the knowledge, critical thinking skills, and moral grounding needed to lead fulfilling lives, and act as responsible members of society.
The UNESCO definition outlines education as a foundational tool for personal empowerment, social cohesion, and global economic growth. Beyond career readiness, the core dimensions of UNESCO’s education mission is a lifelong process that equips learners with the knowledge, skills and values needed to build a better future.
Therefore, it is fair to say that for many today, education is strictly a transactional pursuit for money, and not for seeking the truth or understanding of the nature of our world, life or reality. Not even when we are using the skills acquired through our education to earn money or fulfilling our dreams.
We apply the skills learned from our formalized education to meet our material needs. But not internalizing the deeper understanding that true education should offer, leaves us empty. Also, although much of the skepticism about education today, especially in America, is about the cost/benefit analysis, many still find little or no fulfillment with their careers, even as they earn a lot of money. This feeling is not misplaced. It simply confirms two vital missing elements in modern formalized education:
Not matching our real interest to our field of study and subsequent career
Not focusing on understanding or seeing how our field of activity fits into the bigger scheme of life; not just economic life.
A Spiritual Perspective[1]
Perhaps the following narration about a class session in a school for children in one of the lighter planes beyond this Earth, will help the objective reader or listener understand where our modern approach to formalized education on Earth veered off course.
The chief features of life and its activities here are not to be found indoors. The first object of every institution is to foster inquiry in the minds of the children. No instruction is forced upon an unwilling or unready child, but ingenious devices are employed to arrest attention and prompt a question as to the nature or utility of the thousand objects most temptingly located in every part of the fairylike domain.
The governing principle observed and acted upon in every stage of life in the beyond is:
When interest is sufficiently aroused to prompt inquiry, the mind is in a favourable condition to receive instruction, and teachers are always at hand to suitably impart it.
Cushna (my Spirit guide) very kindly invited me to join one of the many groups of children who were so pleasantly and enjoyably studying first lessons in the school of Paradise. So that I might become acquainted with the system of education he has adopted.
A moment later, without attracting more than the slightest attention from the thoughtfully interested children, we had taken our place near a group of some twenty students . They were listening to a lady explaining the nature and beauty of a blade of grass, which by its attractive form and colour had aroused the curiosity of one of the little ones.
From the commencement of her lecture, the speaker carried myself, as well as her audience of little ones, into a romantic fairyland of botany, with her description of the life, habits and evolution of the blade of grass.
By an apparently magical process, which I was altogether unprepared for, she held within her hands a variety of other grasses from which she drew comparison and contrasts. The coarsest and meanest, she called attention to as a representative specimen of grasses to be found on earth. The others were from different stages of the higher life.
Every inquiry from the children was answered by a simple and forcible parable, setting forth the truth she wished to fix upon the memory. She lingered with patience so that her lesson might be clearly comprehended.
When all this was over, I was astonished to hear her announce that if there were no more questions as to that part of the lesson, she would proceed to the practical consideration of the subject.
Then followed a perfectly entrancing discourse upon the chemistry of that blade of grass, and the process by which the constituents of the atmosphere are selected, attracted and utilized, to naturally produce the blade.
Nature was presented as being a most beautiful but invisible machine, designed by God to prepare all that was necessary for the protection and sustenance of man, until such time as man should be able to understand how to use the available forces to produce all of his requirements, by a quicker process.
This part of the lesson led to a beautiful description of the difference between a man and other agencies of creation. This was done by presenting the nature and potentialities of the soul, which possesses latent powers to accomplish all that nature achieves, by a more expeditious process, under conditions she explained and reenforced by many illustrations.
It seems almost incredible that such infant minds could be interested in subjects so profound.
But God has His own methods by which He can reveal unto babes, mysteries He withholds from the unwise and imprudent.
In the experience before me, I was watching the process by which this seeming impossibility was actually but gradually accomplished.
In these homes of the children, we are brought very near to the purity of God. In this virgin soil of innocence, how can we, who have been contaminated with pollution of sin, estimate the power and possibilities of omnipotent love?
But to return to the lesson. After the explanation came the demonstration.
The teacher laid the grasses aside, and bidding the children watch her empty and extended hand, we saw, with equal interest and surprise, a blade of grass, the exact counterpart of the one upon which her discourse had been based, slowly form before our eyes.
When the experiment was complete, the original was laid side by side with the created specimen for our careful examination. They were found to be equally perfect with the other.
It was now the duty of each child to make what effort it could to duplicate that of the tutor.
One by one, they were called in turn to the side of their instructor, who encouraged and explained as necessary, and then watched the result of their first attempts at creation.
Many were total failures, others produced something – enough to astonish and encourage further efforts. One made a very creditable success as to form. But much was left to be desired in colour and detail.
Yet, congratulations and commendations now followed. The causes of the “failures” were pointed out as only to be expected. Certainty of speedy success was generously promised, and the teacher went on to explain that perfection is only to be reached by study and the acquisition of knowledge.
The lesson ended by an arrangement to carry the subject farther on the next occasion, at the prospect of which the children were highly delighted.
I almost wished I could continue my studies with them through the whole course which had just opened so happily.
Such is a very meagre glimpse at one of the homes for children in the lighter regions of the planes beyond this earth.
Happy homes and happy are those who are received here.
Final Words
From this brief account, perhaps one can appreciate two observations made by Abdrushin in the Grail Message.
With this quote from the lecture “Watch and Pray”, Vol. 2, Abdrushin debunks the popular belief that The Devil or Lucifer is personally responsible for the distortions that manifest in human activities and thinking.
Of everything that God wanted to come into existence for the joy and happiness of all creatures in this Creation, only repulsive caricatures are present! Of course everything did come into existence, but changed and distorted through the influence of Lucifer.
Wrong!
With this quote, Abdrushin puts the direct blame for all of our shortcomings squarely on men, not Lucifer!
To buttress this, the keen reader may have noticed that the approach described in the narration had elements similar to our schools here on Earth. But because man on earth has chosen to ignore the Spiritual aspect of Life in our education or search for knowledge, plus our focus on material gains, our systems exclude the most vital elements for lasting success.
The second is a hint at the possibilities when man aligns his ways to that of the Will of The Creator, and is taught how to use the forces in creation properly.
Abdrushin says as follows, in the lecture titled “The Cycle of Radiations” in The Grail Message: – Vol. 3
Thus, men, your masterpieces are yet to come, the achievements which you can actually bring about within the boundaries which are set up firmly for you and which you can never cross! In reality, however, these boundaries are set so wide for you that you may rejoice about this, and should only thank God for all the grace He bestows upon you.
Thus, you must remain on the basis and soil of all humanity in your thoughts and actions, and in all your duties towards your Creator. Nothing more is demanded of you; for therein lies the highest which you can offer to Him as gratitude, and everything you do in this way is also done in His honour!
Indeed, it is in the performance of the greatest achievements, of which you as men can and must become masters, that you offer and present your gratitude for the fact that the Creator has granted you to achieve such great things through His Will in Creation, which holds His Laws.
And with these splendid achievements you also simultaneously honour Him because the greatness of your works at the same time manifests the greatness of His Grace! The more you can achieve in Creation from out of Creation, the more clearly do you prove how great are the Laws of God therein, and what wealth and blessing they hold for you!
But none of this can be attained on the path that our civilization and modern ways are pursuing, even if we produce coarse imitations of what could be possible. The highest that we achieve today are but poor imitations of the works of nature, which, as we read in the narration is far below what a spiritually mature human is capable.
Again, the answer lies in us waking up to realign our education system to redirect focus on the vital Spiritual perspective that is today missing. Without which we will continue to operate in chaos and living far below our true potential.
[1] Excepted from The Life Elysian – Life After Death - A Soul in Paradise) by Robert James Lees-
Comments