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Education for Flexible Identities

A conference presentation on education, identity, and spiritual philosophy.

"If you are not able to recognize the guru in yourself, how can you recognize your guru in another person?"

"We have to introduce a new... concept: that the other person is not an obstacle but a necessity for me to live my freedom."

The speaker addresses the conference, exploring the themes of self-education and flexible identity. He argues that one must integrate the roles of teacher and learner, awaken self-education within, and move beyond systems that create fixed identities. He advocates for a concept of freedom where others are necessary for one's own liberty, and concludes by referencing Masaru Emoto's water crystal experiments to illustrate the impact of thought and words.

Filming location: Prague, Czech Republic

Thank you very much for inviting me to address this conference. Your Holiness, Viṣṇugurujī, Paramahaṁsa, Svāmī, Mahā Svandar. My presentation is dedicated to the theme of education for flexible identities. I would like to address some topics already discussed today, perhaps adding other dimensions, beginning with the question of the guru. To address this in the context of education, I believe this sentence is a good starting point: If you are not able to recognize the guru in yourself, how can you recognize your guru in another person—in the right and most adequate outside person? This raises the question of being both a teacher and a learner. This unity and contradiction, according to me, is one of the most important things for education. Without being in both positions—or without accepting that both sides exist within yourself, as both learner and teacher—you cannot be part of the process of education. Nobody can follow if he or she is not able to lead. This echoes Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers, who said that good citizens are those who are able, at the same time, to be governed and to govern. Harmony arises from such relations. We cannot harmonize ourselves and our society without being aware that two contradictory parts exist simultaneously. Here I would like to share my personal experience. I have always been most successful when I learned how to explain content to others—when I am learning to teach, and when I am teaching to learn. On this point, I am very thankful to all of you for being here and supporting me in this simultaneous process of learning and teaching. The most important thing for an educator is to awaken self-education first in oneself, and then in others. Somebody without light cannot bring light to others. A candle without a flame cannot light other candles. That is why, Swamiji, I am very grateful to you for bringing light to Europe, for bringing the yoga experience to Europe. Nobody can be educated solely from the outside. It is clear for a piano player that one can learn piano only by doing. It is less clear that we can do the same with building personality, by learning how to think. Now, to the title: learning, teaching, and educating for flexible identity. The modern school, developed in the West some 300 years ago, began as a mechanism to change one fixed identity—that of the individual as a peasant or farmer—to another fixed identity, that of the worker. It prepared whole societies and individuals for a new mode of production. For craft guild workers, another structure developed under the principle of learning by doing, as with craftsmen and masters. But for today, as has been stressed throughout this conference, we need a new kind of education and a new kind of leadership. A fixed identity is without ambition; it is too little to be our goal. At the beginning of modernity, the introduction of obligatory schooling did a great job of changing one fixed identity to another. But today, this form is not enough. In fact, it is becoming destructive for our mission as human beings in today's world. Here, I would like to address what we have inherited mostly from India: yoga. Particularly, the system of Yoga in Daily Life has developed a teaching, learning, and self-educative process for studying body-mind interaction and dealing with energy. Education is learning for fight or for peace. In both cases, it is learning for dealing with your energy and the energy of others—dealing with all kinds of energies, and understanding the human being as an energetic being. Yoga in Daily Life is a system most appropriate for this goal. It cultivates, simultaneously, the ability to recognize a supervised guru and to create your own guru—your core, your strong core of personality. One thing already stressed is building new concepts, a new form of leadership, and so on. New concepts are needed on the level of political philosophy, then in education, and finally in educational techniques. Tools are very important, but they must be compared to the aims. Here I would like to stress that, first of all, we have to address the question of liberty or freedom. According to the dominant perception, the liberty of another person is the limit where my liberty stops. I believe that is not the best possible perception, because we then perceive the other person as an obstacle to our freedom. We have to introduce a new, and I believe better, concept: that the other person is not an obstacle but a necessity for me to live my freedom. Other persons are needed, society is needed, the whole of nature is needed—not to limit my freedom, but in fact to create it. We must move beyond the perception of the individual as a mechanical being, merely a tool for use by outside forces. Without that limited perception, we can then, on the level of political philosophy, develop concepts that do not require force to foster cooperation and create a better world. Finally, I would like to show you something with which you may be familiar, but which I believe fits the message of our conference. A Japanese researcher, Masaru Emoto, and his team conducted an experiment showing the response of water crystals when exposed to different influences. This crystal was formed after the water was exposed to positive, good influences. This one was exposed to heavy metal music—not very nice. This one was exposed to the words, "You make me sick. I will kill you." It is not beautiful. It may look like a crocodile. This is the water crystal from Fujiwara Dam after a prayer was offered. It is very beautiful. This one formed after being exposed to the words "Thank you." It is very nice. What are the lessons from this experiment? Human beings are at least 75% water. If we consider that we are not just mind with a nervous system, but are also physically constructed from water, then the influence on this water inside us—through our thinking and our words—is very strong. We can use this influence for good or for bad. I believe this conference has a very great influence, not only on us gathered here, but on the whole world. Thank you very much.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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