I’d procrastinated writing the speech. More often than not ideas run through me like as if percolating through a good German coffee machine…So after some good waiting, thinking and percolating the English speech was done. Yet, it still needed translating. I wanted it to be in Hindi and English. A day before the big day several people (including our most gracious host Kiran Lama aka Mataji, Ven.Bodhipal Bhante, Sr Shobha and Manosh Kumar) helped me in getting this blessed speech ready. The Hindi version was not as complex and wordy as the English version which helped me learning it….I managed to practice it several times. To my ears it sounded good…
The English speech went like this:
SPEECH FOR PV SCHOOL SILVER JUBILEE, 15 FEBRUARY 2015
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
For many Westerners including myself, mother India offers a unique opportunity for mindfulness practice – a journey within. For me it has been a transformative experience.
My name is Kerstin and today I represent the Bodhgaya Development Association and the many Australians who have donated over 20 years to the Prajna Vihar School.
I have been an educator/teacher in Australia for a long time and I am passionate about education and learning. But I have been part of an education system that favours personal gain and competition, is obsessed with exams and outcomes.
Yet, as Krishnamurti puts it “education should not encourage the individual to conform to society but help the individual to discover the true values which come with self-awareness and unbiased investigation” (p.15). As educators we must ask ourselves – how can we awaken intelligence in the student? If we give a lot of care and affection to the creation of the right environment and the development of understanding then we might help the child grow up to deal capably with the human, social and world problems this generation of students/children will have to deal with.
Therefore, the Prajna Vihar School should function as “the house of wisdom” as the name suggests. Let us strive for these children to be involved in lifelong learning:
• learning to know,
• learning to do,
• learning to live and work together, and
• learning to be.
To quote Krishnamurti again “the function of education is to create human beings who are integrated and therefore intelligent” (p.14) –intelligence being the capacity to perceive the essential, ‘the what is’ and so education’s purpose is to awaken this capacity – in oneself and in others.
For the past 25 years this school has served the student community of Bodhgaya. Let us pray for an ongoing bright future. May this school continue to be ‘a house of wisdom’ – a place which serves the entire community. In the words of Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda may we pray for this with the knowledge that “behind human will is the divine will that can never fail” (in the Sanctuary of the soul, p.95).
Nelson Mandela said: Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. Let Prajna Vihar School’s future be one such powerful weapon.
