Unlearning: An Art. A Science. Ctrl ‘Z’ Education.
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that’s is worth knowing can be taught.”
-Oscar Wilde, Irish Playwright, poet & wit (1854-1900).
If this was true then, its truer now. Today’s youth, more than their predecessors is feeling & reeling under the devastating effect of modern civilizations biggest blunder, EDUCATION. I have always had that intense tussle in my mind, why education & not learning? Why one has to go through a education system rather than a learning process? Above all what’s the difference between them?
Just have a look at the products & by-products of education per se.
Employability. The society has come to a stage where we divert, nurture & produce our brightest brains to do the most useless job. So we have the best marketing managers working their souls out at selling good-for-nothing colas. The shrewdest brains are either selling a sanitary napkin or a soap or at the most a car. Sheer agony that, half the living humans still wait to drink potable water. We have as much food sufficient to feed population of three earths, but in reality 2 billion people sleep with empty tummy for the want of food. All because there are no facilitators.
This when the world over defence vacancies are at their peak. The number of entrepreneurs is falling. Musicians are a endangered species. The educated/learned society looks down to the jobs like carpenters, plumbers, gardeners, milkman, farmer, potter, tailor, puppeteer, & their cousins. So in Canada, a call centre geek earns around US $4-5 per hour, while a carpenter putting in an hour gets around US $ 7-8, that’s if you are lucky enough to get one in first place.
Attitude. Humanity’s greatest gift of Individuality is lost somewhere, as we go on mass producing/educating people who have similar competencies, when each one is meant to be different. Like in factory production all the products are identical & have similar fate in the globalized market. So, its like having 11 batsmen or 11 bowlers in a cricket team, that too with similar capacities.
More thoughts are coming soon…watch out…!

The product of the sums of any nation cannot be the criterion of our judgement of that nation. one may collect the rotten, worm-eaten apples under every apple tree in the world & write a book about each of them & still know nothing of the beauty & possibilities of the apple tree. Only in the highest & the best can we judge a nation- the fallen are a race by themselves. Thus it is not only proper, but just & right to judge a custom, person, culture, concept, ideology & their cousins, by its ideal.   By Swami Vivekananda.

I came across this nice paragraph while reading a book on Vedanta. I think, the example is very explanatory & thought provoking.
“Your ignorance keeps you in the spiritual darkness. When a room is plunged in darkness you are bound to strike against cornices & corners, against niches & notches, against fittings & furniture, against anything in your way & injure yourself. You may rearrange the furniture in the room, you may make the walls straight & smooth, you will still get knocked in the dark. So long as the darkness remains in the room you are certain to suffer breakage & damage. Instead of reorganising the room bring the light into it; let things lie as they are, the light will provide you with smooth & easy passage. You will have nothing to worry thereafter.”
For the uninitiated, these lines talk about the room of your conscience, your inner-self. The furniture that it mentions are the people, situations, experiences, problems, responsibilities, resources etc in your life. All your life you are busy arranging, in the best way, this set of tangibles & intangibles of life. It seems that more often than it succeeds. But then for how long? Only till there’s a addition or subtraction to this set.
So this is where you need the light of the knowledge of self. For that the existence of self should be acknowledged.
The light that we are talking of is the light of realisation. Of the eternal fact that we are here with a definite purpose, a goal. And then all of a sudden everything s seems to so clear & unobtrusive. You tend to be the master of the room of life. The unchallenged, eternal master.