Friday, January 21, 2011

Creativity and Education

A serious concern in today’s schooling is lack of creativity. Creativity comes from where? It simply means doing different from the main stream. In school, if a boy does something different, he is scolded and asked to abandon it. He is gradually persuades that what he was doing different was “wrong”. And gradually he develops fear of doing “wrong”. If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original. By the time the child grows, he gradually loses his courage to take up the so called wrong and he loses his originality. This happens to thousands of people daily in this system. And this is how person loses his creativity.

It was in the past that the children studying in a school have few things to learn. Small books, no computers, no mobile phones, internet or all these hitech things. What happens now, the children, studying in a school, not only study the textbook but also this information. There is a lot of information around his tiny mind to cope up, the entire textbook plus the new developments in the technology, art and literature. He won’t sit quiet watching a new I phone to be launched, he is curious, he will go inside the real story. By doing so, he is right now getting too much information which he was not supposed to deal with if he was born 50 years ago. So, but natural, human mind cannot undergo such a fast evolution to cope up the extra strength to catch all these things just in one or two generations. He needs time. This is all about the evolution, not of revolution. So all we need is to reform our education system and take a breath to think what we are doing to mankind. Because, what we are doing, is not only pretty dangerous but also self-destructive.

This is the problem in the west. They are seriously concerned about their education system despite of inventing most of the things that are present today in the market. I mean, they have enormous brain power of innovation, they have bagged hundreds of noble prizes of invention and they are more creative than we Indians. Despite of that, they are down to earth, they are continuously analyzing the system and trying to get better day by day.

I’ve read a book by a Japanese television personality and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Tetsuko Kuroyanagi at the time of world war 2, mentioning a small school somewhere in Japan. The book is named “Totto Chan”. I found it the best solution of creative education. But problem is to apply it in the current heavily populated public health system. We cannot do it properly as we don’t have such a huge chunk of creative teachers to run it. Teachers produced in this system are also as mechanical as the system is. It is like man is manufacturing their children. Children are divided according the age groups into several standards, and so are called “batch of 2001, batch of 2002” and so on. Something similar to manufacturing date of a factory, this is what Ken Robinson, creativity expert in US, says.

In India, the situation is different. Here the literacy is the problem, not creativity. In this country of booming population, there is no space for creativity. Day by day the condition is getting worse. This is the right time to act, at the time of our Indian industrial revolution, learning from the mistakes of the west, not repeating them again. But unfortunately, we are doing the same that they’ve did and they are retreating now.

I have some justification about current system of schooling and education also.

I apply the great theorem of statistics – the null hypothesis. All men are not equal. All men are not equally creative given a chance; neither can they do something great that can help the mankind. It is better to keep them serving the humanity. All are not genius, neither one can expect everyone to be the same. If all are creative then who will clean the roads, who will take care of the garbage, symbolizing every cumbersome work that a genius finds boring.

Think about a lion, he maintains his territory with a careful eye. What he does daily? Nothing creative, wakes up and goes for hunting. Is it creative? Nope. Never. Man is also an animal. He also seeks survival, the entire education system based upon the survival of the industrially revolutionized man. That’s right. It should be. It will be funny and idiotic if liberty is given to the people to chose their work and to have their choice in education. Nobody will be a clerk, nobody will be a soldier (even lion needs to fight with the other to save and secure his territory, the basic nature of all alive on the earth, the competition). The sense of survival will end there immediately. So from the back of the mind I have also support to the industrialization of the education, it has succeeded and performing well in maintenance of the industrial revolution.

And at last, man remains the least important animal on the earth. Because, if all the bees and beatles are killed, the entire earth will lose the life within 50 years, but if all the man are killed, all other lives will flourish.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Teaching part 2

Teaching is something about creating positive attitude towards nature’s creation. It is not like explaining the text book only; it’s all about thinking and respecting how complex the world is and how beautifully it is running without any punishment or homework!!! Nature is not senseless; a good teacher can always develop sense to sense the nature.

Any kind of negative comment can hamper the student’s learning attitude – like you are dumb or you don’t read. It is not the reading that makes a person capable, it is his attitude, his intelligence and his method of watching the things. A teacher should never comment on any of the student about his or her reading time or the time he spends in learning process.

This is a fact that every person loves to be happy. In order to do that one tries to forget the dirty past by erasing it or manipulating it by his own way. I’ll give an example. There is a boy in the school and he is scolded by his teacher daily for not doing his homework. The boy has no interest in doing homework rather he loves watching birds at a nearby lake. He spent his whole the day watching activities of the bird. He comes to know about the amazing life of birds, breeding cycle and their migration cycles just by observing them curiously. Daily he does this, but simultaneously daily he is also scolded by his head master and ultimately was removed from the school for not doing the homework. Still the boy remained so happy and later on he became a well known ornithologist.

Now think momentarily, what would happened in that boy’s mind that he remained so happy despite of such a heavy scolding by principle and parents?

How a boy can remain so stable even after he is removed from his school and isolated from his friends?

Here is a psycho-analysis of that boy’s and hence many other genius’ minds.
A genius mind is always happy and uniform with his inner self. He lives in a superb harmony with himself. So he is stable and determined about what he wants to do. Experiments are the part and parcel of their lives. They like to teach themselves rather others do that for them. Because they are so fast in learning process that they can easily overtake the teaching process of a teacher. They are interested in learning few things only and they are forced to do all. That’s why they feel boring.

A boring mind always searches for a better alternative for fun and of course a genius mind can do this very easily. They find many a things interesting around them and they begin to spend time in understanding them. As they are diverted from the main stream of “Teaching” they are scolded by their teachers for doing “Innovative things”. Initially they feel bad, but as he is a genius, he cannot remain gloomy for more than little time. He always finds an “ESCAPE MECHANISM” for his gloomy mood. He has to do physical or mental separation from the teacher. The physical he cannot do as he is forced to stay in school and learn.

So he acquires a state of mental separation from his teacher. He begins to believe his teacher an obstacle in his path. He begins to ignore him. To do so, he reflexly exaggerates his favourite activity for which he is being scolded to forget all the frustration. For him, his teacher is nothing in his eyes, he begins to bypass the teaching provided by the teacher and refuses believing whatever he says.

This is the basic escape mechanism that develops in each genius mind. “The system doesn’t allow a genius to grow smoothly.” – He begins to believe.

What happens when he becomes a very popular ornithologist, his teacher will come again in the field and will say proudly that “ I taught him from his childhood”. This can happen to anyone at any age as teaching and teaching attitude remains same till one dies.

Now that teacher should think how respectfully that student takes him!!! At least in his career he could have created a very good teacher – student relationship if he had LEARNT that boy’s mind once.

“In fact, teaching is not duty of a teacher; rather he should learn his student’s mind!!!! If he is not able to do so than better he leaves teaching actively. He is not authorised to programme his student’s mind if he don’t know all the colours of it”

A good teacher has always a deep impact on his student’s mind, like hitler was inspired by his history teacher. In this way a teacher can blow winds of change and can created history.

Teaching

The article was written on the day of GURU POORNIMA in 2010, by a person who has excelled the education system twice.

I don’t believe in guru shishya system. Passing knowledge is the duty of any creature in this world. Even a small ant passes her knowledge to her progeny how to find the food and how to return home. Every bird teaches their children to fly. Every tigress teaches their cubs how to hunt.

On Guru Poornima - One should not be obliged to his Guru for the knowledge he gives to him. It is his divine duty to pass knowledge to their students and next generation. Ents and Lions also do the same but they don't seek honour.

In nature every creature passes his knowledge to their progeny and this is how the evolution goes on. This is true on genetical, physical and pschcological aspect.
Then why one should be so conscious about thanking guru being a mankind?

Isn’t it duty of him to pass his knowledge?

There is a very intense sense of getting honour in almost each guru deep inside their mind. They believe that they should be honoured for the knowledge they’ve got. The guru poornima is somewhat same kind of expression they want.
Nobody has evaluated guru’s mind as they believe that he is superior to us, he is unreachable, he is divine and have a glory of radiance around him.
Guru is also a human. He is also filled with feelings. Both positive and negative. He is also filled with joy and sorrow. He is also having problems and solutions. He is also having same kind of personal life and public life like you have. So despite of such similarity why to consider him superior to us?

One should accept that it is guru’s duty to pass the knowledge to his student. So the only dimention for which guru could be honoured is eliminated. Now why one should consider him as a special person? He is the giver and you are taker. You are superior to him because if you don’t do your work sincerely that you are going to ruin that principal of passing knowledge to progeny. So important is you not guru. He is only an easy way to find it out.

I’ve been always dissatisfied form the teachers i got in my life. They couldn’t understand that I never expected anything from him but they did too much form me! There should not be any expectation in the guru shishya relation. It spoils the game.

Somebody denied my radical thought about guru on facebook. They told that our parents are our guru and we should thank them for the knowledge they gave us. But I don’t believe in this. I think Guru shows the way to GOD, and I feel that My Parents are my GOD, not my GURU. They are far superior than simply a GURU. Since i am fragment of them, it is my duty to be GOD for my children. As I complete my job than my prayer will be over!!! This is how GOD lives within us not GURU.

The character GURU was created as an ESCAPE to parenthood.

Freedom and Independency

There is a vast difference between in independency and freedom. One can enjoy freedom even in dependency. "To be dependent" is a bodily word, while freedom concerns with mind.

It was an old era when people used to expand their territory and they believed that having kingdom over a large area is the sign of progress.
The time is changing now. Now such mentality is seen right now. People are more active in matters of science and spirituality. So this kind of attitude is now rarely seen and the word “Dependence” is no more heard. So independency is now no more. These kinds of thoughts are now manifested as “Freedom of mind”.

Prayer

Prayer is not about standing in front of God’s statue and asking him for our well being and prosperity, it’s all about thanking him for the beautiful life he has given us and asking him if he has any work on earth or not!!

One should pray like a king not like a beggar. Because in every human being there is a part of God and the God can’t be beggar. Only mistake the man does that he doesn’t explores himself and finds the God outside in temple.

It is not like that praying can only occur in temple in front of the god’s statue. He is universal; u may feel him anywhere in the glistening day, in a gloomy sky of evening, sparkling waters of a flow, smile of a baby, pulses of life, romance with your buddy and so on... He is everywhere, no one can see him because one can’t see the wind blowing, can’t see the fragrance of flower, can’t see the love showering around, one has to feel it, has to touch it by his inner mind, the unconscious state, and whoever tries to see him in real is the most pity man of the earth.

It is useless to go to temple to meet the God, because i don’t think that he lives there in that busy place filled with beggars. Do we like beggars? Than why should God?

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Pathway of Pleasure

Child psychology and pleasure

Since pleasure us deeply associated with reward reflex and reward function if the brain, child has a deep effect on this mind about pleasurable activity.

Reward function of the brain is associated with ID type of personality where a person seeks basic need for survival of him and his species – food, shelter and sex. The great almighty has created a fine system that after getting these basic things person achieves a sense of pleasure. So he repeatedly performs the similar thing in order to do the same.

But human mind has grown up since thousands of years. Because of abundant materials and living space, mind becomes free from thinking about food, shelter and sex. So his mind is diverted to other issues like society creation, maintenance and its function. As this concept developed, man begun to think what to do and what not to do in society, I mean methods of living, life style, status symbol and all those crap things. This created another level of personality called EGO. As the ego develops, man began to suppress his pleasurable activities in order to stay decent in society, to stay in discipline, to stay in queue. This is the basic reason why man is unhappy most of the times.

A very few man can go further and can achieve SUPEREGO state which is more spiritual, more artistic, more near to God and far away from the silly things of the world. It really plays with the pathway of the pleasure but in a different way than ID state. In ID state, man always seeks survival. But in SUPERRGO state, man seeks pleasure from creativity, from spirituality. They are the alternative stimulators of the pleasure centre and they make him a happier man.

It is proven that for optimum function of mind, stimulation of pleasure centres is required. People live in EGO state usually don’t have access to this kind of stimulation, so they seek another easy ways to stimulate the centres like, addiction. This is manifested in the state of “Reward Deficiency”. When person is not having pleasure in his daily activity; of course he is being forced to do the job, to earn or to cook for the family, not by his heart; then reward deficiency may develop. Not only at old age, during childhood, it may develop if parents don’t pay attention to child’s demands and his pleasure points. This creates a permanent Reward Deficiency and that child is liable to addiction later on.

Studies have shown that love, passion and intimacy stimulates the similar area of brain that simulated by food, sex and shelter in rats, and by cocaine in addicts. All these methods use similar pathway of pleasure. They are manifested as serotonin, adrenaline and nor-adrenaline release in neurons of fronto-temporal lobe cortex and limbic system. They give sense of gratification to brain and it optimises its function.

So I think it is better to be a sex maniac rather to be an addict. At least sex won’t harm the body.

HABITUATION OF PLEASURE

It comes when child is given enough input so that he can enjoy the pathway of pleasure several times a day. Because of these repeated exercise, child’s mind begins to understand which thing is pleasurable and which is not. So he begins his search towards pleasure unconsciously. But to achieve this, one should give abundant input to child to satisfy his pleasure centres. He can easily manage and go through the EGO state if ID is developed adequately.

After child learns what is pleasurable, another sequel of understanding starts. He begins find pleasure in everything he does. This is how he becomes versatile. He loves to do everything he is asked. In this way, he is exercising his mind with multiple pleasurable things. In absence of one, the other will take care of the pleasure points. He is now habituated to pleasure. Whatever he does, one thing is sure, there will be pleasure.

If child fails to develop this learning process or fails to enjoy the things than he is quite vulnerable to addiction later on. Addiction is not only of drugs, cigarette or nicotine. It may be manifested as possessive love, book worm type of personality, sex maniac and so on...

For them, all these are the sole method to stimulate the pleasure centre, hence it is called addiction. Man’s mind needs them desperately to work efficiently but his body doesn’t. So, one should have hundreds of alternative to stimulate the pleasure points so that addiction cannot occur.

Sometimes what happens that person, at the age of 25, realises that he didn’t develop a good pathway of pleasure than he should not worry too much. Because I believe that whether pleasure achieved by good, bad and ugly methods; every method is fine unless it harms the body and disturbs others.

To be joyful and happy personality is not in your hands, it was in your parents’ hand!!!! So don’t repeat the mistake if you feel that it is done with you!!!

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Body and Soul

Body

I would like to discuss bioenergetics of grace and relaxation here.

Bioenergetics of grace

Grace is defined as a motor movement done with uniform pace, which is flow less, looks beautiful, scientifically correct, lively and gives pleasure inside to the performer and spectator.

Concept of grace suggests freshness of your soul, fearless state, continuous thought processing and expression of them by motor counterpart. Grace is a term for expression of which man need both mind and body to be healthy. Otherwise it can’t be ever thought.

A fearless dance, a bold stroke of a painter, finest moves over piano keys and rhythmic moves on guitar fret is grace. For acquiring grace one don’t need tuitions, don’t need guru. It comes from within. The grace is in the development of individual’s soul, it can’t be acquired. Every soul has his own grace, problem lies in identifying it. And one should not copy the grace of the other soul; it simply humiliates your own grace.

For developing grace one needs a fine co-ordination between nervous system and motor system. It is all about making the purposeful movements only, no added movements. With the each added movement the grace is getting killed. Synchronization is the key for developing grace and can be achieved by serial fine movements done at right time. There should be an ultimate relaxation in between these serial fine movements. One should not increase the tone of the muscles they are working. It will be tackled by your mind only, it will calculate how much force is required for the particular movement. You just relax and think about what you want to do. Let your little brain – the cerebellum do the rest. This is the mistake done by many people even after they master the motor movement. Let it flow from inside, let it just flow.
If you have increased your tone of your body at particular movement ir means you’ve become conscious about that thing. Then you won’t be able to feel the moment of that movement. Your learning process will be slow. You will take longer time for understanding the process rather than practicing.

Remember - The soul is measured by the meter of grace!

Relaxation

Body language and psycho motor skills are the ultimate mirror of the person’s soul. If the person is restless he continuously keeps rubbing his feet, keeps his hands running over something, keeps giving smile to everyone even if there is no matter to smile at all. It is like thumb sucking habit of a child. Body reflects the inner core of mind. One cannot prevent it and most of cannot read it.

The ultimate happy soul is the one who is sitting in a corner, relaxed not over reacting to anything, silent and stand still. I am not talking about morons; they are not relaxed because relaxation comes from higher centers of mind not from spinal cord. He is engulfing all the happiness and sorrow of himself inside and creates his own way to enjoy it. He understands that expression of a feeling washes away ‘the sense of feel’. Two cats cannot live together in a same house – expression and feel. Either you feel or you vomit by expression or there is another divine way – you divert it to art. Why to waste your each feeling? Every pleasure and even sorrow is felt inside and gives ultimate level of consciousness. You’ll feel that you are living life!!!!

But all these require relaxation of body. The body is a cover of the soul. You should uncover it by stopping the body moves!! This is how to explore the soul!!

SOUL FEEDING


Senses – all five senses make the input of the soul. How to use them is an art..

Great god has gifted man a bunch of five beautiful senses – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. They are really like an input of the human soul. One should know what to take and what to omit. They are the sources of pleasure, sadness and conflict for the human mind. The main problem lies in the programming of the sensory organs. Man is asked not to listen music in some religion, not to eat tasty food for just sake of praying, not to touch your beloved. All these make the man deprived of the senses. The priests say that by abstinence of all the senses one can reach to god, one can live in heaven after the death. But i believe that both heaven and hell are here only. They are the attitude with you live. If you live in a miserable condition by abstaining all these senses then you are in hell. Consumption of senses is essentially required all over the world otherwise man would have died. Even animals also enjoy their senses then why not us?

Sometimes you find that you are prevented to consume these senses by priests, the society and the politicians. This is all because they don’t want to see you happy. If you become happy without them then who will listen to them? This is entirely a business theory. If you are happy without your guru then what is the importance of guru? Where his ego will go? Who will follow them? That’s why they create such an interpretation of holy books so that man remains far away from the real celebration. And in this frustrating life he seeks them for relaxation and pleasure, but who knows that the guru is not divine himself? He is using the blackmailing kind of business strategy for their supremacy.

I personally think that senses are for the joy only. If you love to taste good then you go for it, taking care of your body, because for the pleasure of soul the body should not suffer. Don’t abstain from your music, you listen it 24x7 if you like. Hug your beloved tightly and warmly. Because if all these senses function optimally then only your soul will get ample nourishment. To create a beautiful tree inside one should use finest fertilizer. Similarly soul is a tree and senses are the fertilizers.

There is a thin line of separation for the consumption of senses. One should not consume too much so that if affects the body. After all the body is providing you senses. You should respect the health of your body. It is not like that you get rid of the senses but you do use them optimally till they don’t harm. And good senses never harm. Scientifically it is correct that if you feel happy and orgasmic then endorphins are secreted in nervous tissue. They are the biochemicals of pleasure which allow all the body systems function optimally.

God has given us senses to look for the basic needs for life. If you go back in time man used his vision to look for food and shelter, heard for the roars for their survival, and touched for reproduction. If they were saints and were abstaining all these then we would not be here to talk senses.

One thing is clear one can’t get rid of senses by abstinence only but by ample consumption.

So freak out and enjoy the ultimate gift by god – body and soul!!