This is a photograph of students meditating at Devi Ashram, Hyderabad, probably sometime in the 1940′s. A live-in learning abode for impoverished girls, started by my great grandfather. It ran for many years, but unfortunately now is no more.
The ashram had a holistic approach of raising and teaching the girls. They learned literature, math, yoga, archery, swimming, horse-riding, meditation, cooking, music and much more. This style of school, known as a gurukul, has decreased heavily in numbers, replaced by standardized government boxes teaching a standardized syllabus.
Ancient learning styles in the subcontinent were holistic. Learning on an individual basis with a guru, developing spiritually, physically, and skillfully. You learn what your surroundings teach you. A wholesome process that connects you with the world around you. Learning from experience and travel, movement and diversity, develops all parts of the brain, to work together. This is the balanced approach, which ultimately results in an equilibrium, a peace. Or so, I hear. I intend to discover more of my great grandfather’s gurukul in the coming months, as well as the history of gurukuls in general and report my findings here.
To re-invent the current colonizer-inherited governing system for a modern India, we need creative leaders. To produce these leaders, we need creative learning. The current masses of by-heart schooling, where kids learn to excel at cramming and dumping will surely not produce any such talent. Creativity is abundant and inherent in all the cultures of the sub-continent. But sadly, it is killed at the early stage of modern primary schooling, and then destroyed for good by secondary. Those who really push to follow a creative path, do so against the grain and have lost those early crucial years of development of their creative side. We end up with half-talents. So-so. And they too often give it up in order to make a living. Our modern creatives don’t compare to the ancients. Why?
True, that there are way more people now to deal with. But that can be something to take advantage of. We have a larger spectrum of talents. Opening up the learning process to nourish and flourish creativity is the only way this nation-region is going anywhere beautiful.
More to come on this beat.
