Painting

Excerpts from Recounts and Reflections by Diyas

At the end of their stint in Singapore, Diyas from mirambika quietly recounted and reflected at length about their Singapore Trip. We present here excerpts of their recounts and reflections.

Singapore’s readiness…..


Why did I say “yes” to visit “Singapore”? The question is still in my mind. Though the days at Singapore are almost over, I have not yet received a clear answer to this question. Here, I have experienced a little of what in Sri Aurobindo’s words, “the readiness in the matter, life energy and of mind in the western world”. The spirits touch is awaiting, the time will arrive soon.

And the nature’s play on earth is same everywhere on earth….

Sulochana

The people who received us…….

….. about all the sight seeing and interaction sessions which were organized for us. Everything was an eye-opener for me…The selection of places to visit was so much relevant to the whole group and each one of us found something that we enjoyed. One thing I would like to mention here is the way the sessions went. The people were so much respectful, sincere in receiving us, really spent time with us.

Baren

Some notes on what caught my attention…..

No honking on the roads – vehicles are moving at high speed at ease as roads do not have many arteries to them. There was less noise pollution. Road users score high on sensitivity, few pedestrians more vehicles; streets are not so crowded except in Little India where we saw many people in the market place. Singapore scores high on aesthetic sense – everything is neat and clean, designed, maintained and preserved well. No agricultural land, cultivation is rare as land is small so things are mostly imported. Corporal punishment is practiced. Houses are kept well as seen in the few we visited. I wonder how people staying in the multi-storied buildings manage without being close to the earth for many days. Singapore looks like a young nation trying hard to achieve its goal collectively. People do have a say as noted from the newspaper’s readers’ column where they are voicing their concerns on reports published. Existence of multi-cultural and multi-racial harmony. This is something many countries can learn from Singapore.
I have heard about this centre since Dr Nadkarniji’s time and wondered how it would be like. After almost 25 years since I first heard about this centre, I got a chance to see it. I enjoyed the question and answer sessions, discussions with the members and the ambience of the centre. It holds the spirit of peace, harmony, beauty and a strong vibration.
Srila


Impressions.…..

As a place: Singapore is a beautiful country, a combination of natural and artificial beauty. One could find a balance between the two. One would be surprised to see the rain forest as well as a lot of greenery in the middle of the city. Everything is well organized and properly maintained and it is a very clean city. Technologically, the country is very advanced. People are very hard-working and disciplined. A lot of energy and thought must have been spent in proper planning and executing, though resources are minimal. Spiritually speaking, “Each atom of matter contains something of Thy energy” – this has been expressed there. Orchid –‘attachment to the Divine’ being the national flower, certainly in the physical level the place has reached its goal and so, beauty is expressed everywhere.

Education: Singapore’s schools impressed me very much. In all the schools as well as at National Institute of Education, I felt that the ambience was well maintained. Teachers were very receptive and hard working. They showed their eagerness to know about mirambika. The most attractive place was their library. Everything was controlled and maintained so smoothly. They manage their time very efficiently. I felt a lot of dynamism in their work process. People appear to excel in the mental level. A bridge now needs to be done, perhaps, to cover the gap between matter and spirit.

Culture: In Singapore, one can find a mixed culture – culture of China, Malaysia and India. Each race celebrates its own festivals and in the schools children were exposed to all the culture, which was a nice thing. The vibration of Indian culture is very much felt here. The great thing is people are able to find their time for it. When we visited the Mariamman temple in the morning, the music was excellent. It was so piercing that one forgot to listen to all other noises of the outside world. It was like a symbol that ‘prepares your self to receive the God’. It was nice to see the faces of all the Gods and Goddesses early in the morning.

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s work: In the centre I saw many aspiring souls ready to do the work of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. When I thought about this, I felt ‘who am I to think about this?’ It is the Lord himself who does everything and He will choose the instruments and do his work in time.

Me and my being: This was a trip where I was very joyful throughout and I was able to maintain that balance somehow. I was able to walk harmoniously with all others and I was able to remember the words of Sri Aurobindo throughout.

Rasmita

Activities and adventures…..

We started early for the centre. A few children were already there. After a brief introduction from Jayanthy didi we started the game with both parents and the children. I took the initiative to make them play. We had not planned this before hand; on the spot the way the ideas came, we went on playing, with a purpose to play together and to play for fun, trying as far as possible to keep the sensitivity alive. We played for more than an hour, then the parents went for the Q&A session with our senior didis and we sat with the children to make science toys. There were about 15 children, they were all eager to learn everything. So here also our earlier planning, to work in sub groups did not work and the learning took place exactly in a mirambika way. I started cutting the paper strips, Rasmita helped some of the older children to make the fan and they were asked to help the younger ones. Then they also learned how to make the catapult and the pen-knife. In between I found a very young girl who was not able to get involved in the activities with the rest and so I started spending some time with her. At one time while collecting the flowers with her in the courtyard, when I looked at the group, I found all of them were much involved in their learning process. It became a difficult job for us to stop the process as it was time to go back home. So only with a few children we were able to do some reflective activity. Again I found the children very much receptive and they were able to relate with the questions. A few of them gave some in-depth replies; even the little girl expressed herself with a confident look on her face.

On Monday, 25th May, with our packed picnic lunch, we started our journey to ‘Pulau Ubin’ in a boat. It was a pleasant ride, so many surprises were waiting for us there - the mangrove plants, the big monitor lizard, the mud-lobster’s mud-house, the jungle trekking, finding a Britisher’s house in the midst of the jungle and the sound of the crickets. It was a new and interesting experience for me. Here we came across the natural wealth of Singapore which was also well preserved by the people. While on our ramble, we saw fruit trees like ‘rambutan’ and ‘durian’. The next day on 26th, we went for trekking inside the rain forest (seemingly untouched!). It was beyond my expectation. There was a big reservoir. Enjoying the beauty of both the sides I was moving ahead at my own pace. I was not interested in knowing the names, but I liked listening to the little stories about some trees. I saw a few tall and old ‘Shorea’ trees, standing like ‘Witnesses’ and seeing to all the progress happening around them. We went forward to feel one. On our return path, I was collecting some flowers and leaves, mostly as a habit. Suddenly we saw a big lizard appear very close by us, along the foot path. As it was a sudden appearance, the flowers and leaf they were on fell down from my hand, but were picked up again and rearranged on the leaf. It was a baby lizard, with relaxed and graceful movement it was searching for its prey. We stood still for many minutes watching it. It was quite a treat for us, and made our day. Jayanthy didi and I offered the flowers to this lovely creature and its lovely Creator.

Minati

Mirambika in our midst

The seed of this visit that materialized recently was planted some 2 years back, at approximately the same time of the year. There was already thought in Sri Aurobindo Ashram – Delhi branch, about sending one or two diyas to Singapore to learn about the education system here and when this thought was voiced, I was more than confident that that could be arranged. This beginning blossomed into a group of five diyas (not two), all with varied backgrounds and experiences to set foot on Singapore soil for the first time and bring back with them, what they professed to be a life-time’s experience.

I have been in mirambika for 2 years and those two years were enough to let me know where I stood as a so called ‘educationist’. I was trained to teach. Teaching stopped making any sense in mirambika. That was where and when I lost my bearings and set off on what seems like a new journey (and the journey is still in its infancy, I know) to discover the true aim of education and the means of actualizing that education. mirambika offered some solid experience for me as to how that education could be facilitated. Nothing here was cast in stone. Everything was fluid, everything changed. The classroom was a dynamo, all the time waiting to explode (and strangely, it never did). Nevertheless, it was teeming with a certain kind of energy, a creative energy that was seeking out something for itself, an energy that was charting out a path for itself, that was constantly searching, feeling its way around, but an energy that was certain of reaching its goal, and also knew, with the end of one search, another fresh one started, right after. Everything was in a state of flux. All plans fell through, like dust in the stir of the children’s energy (I am referring to the energy in a class of 9 to 11 year olds). Only one thing seemed to be constant and seemed to hold all of us together. It was the aspiration of the diyas and all who supported mirambika on her external (and also, inevitably, internal as well) façade, from the principle to the senior diyas, to the trainee diyas, to the volunteer diyas, to the didis and bays who cleaned the place and maintained it physically, to the parents who were ever so present in mirambika’s midst … a single thread of aspiration and goodwill bound us and a trust in Divinity that the guidance will be there. And the children, they were little godsends from heaven, as all children are and they thrived beautifully in the atmosphere. At dismissal time, one could see many young children going home reluctantly, with tears steaming down their cheeks. This is no picture of a fairytale haven I am painting. mirambika lives through her fair share of trials and travail, her moments of anxieties and frustrations but very quickly I have seen all these evaporate as suddenly as they would have descended. Something special was in mirambika. A walk on the Sunlit Path that leads to mirambika from the main ashram grounds would speak sweet secrets of silence and quiet and calm and twinkling joy, just to be there. The entire building, the physical body of mirambika reverberated with a special love (at least for me) that did not seek anything for itself, just knew how to give.

mirambika means all these to me and more. What more can the arrival of five diyas from mirambika mean? I was elated as the dream of having all five visit Singapore and have them staying at one’s own home, seeing to each of their needs, keeping them comfortable, ferrying them to places where mirambika education method was to be shared, to our centre for that special interaction amongst members of one family, to special, precious spots in Singapore, like the tropical rainforest enclaves in McRitchie Reservoir, Pulau Ubin and to the well acclaimed tourists spots such as Sentosa and the Zoo, flowered before me, in a beautiful manner, as if everything just fell into place. If there was one thing that there was there when we were all living together, it was harmony, a soft, beautiful presence that constantly smiled to each beat of our hearts, each step we took and each tick of time for those 12 odd days of the trip.

A couple of Singapore schools were visited, one primary and one secondary. These schools shared with the diyas about the system here and how the schools ran. School tours added much colour to the sharing as diyas saw the manifestation of the plans that were described verbally during the sharing sessions. The question and answer sessions at the end of the tours were another welcomed opportunity for the diyas. There was brief mention of the mirambika way in these schools at the end of the presentation and I observed how intense the interest was in the free progress method during those brief moments of exchange and as the mirambika souvenirs were glimpsed before the diyas bade the school teams farewell.

The next school in line was Global India School. Here, teachers were treated to half an hour’s film show on mirambika. It was evident that that show stole the hearts of the teachers. Many questions streamed in during the question and answer session, pointed and direct. One question echoed the question that many ask. In a system where exams were inevitable, how can integral education be practiced? The answer to this question would take one into the philosophy of Integral Education and the various debates around it. For now, it would suffice to mention that the teachers were assured that each teacher had the potential of shaping the integral development of the child. The teachers themselves will need to have a taste of what integral development was all about.


The sharings at our centre, be it with the normal Sunday crowd or with parents and facilitators of IEP children, was special too. The discussion again was intense as young parents brought up their trials and tribulations. The diyas took each question consciously and answered them in a markedly centred way. They facilitated the children’s Sunday programme amicably. They were candid with the children and in no time, children took to all of them naturally and watching them all at play settled a sense of wonder and satisfaction within.

The diyas expressed sheer delight in discovering aspects of Singapore. Their keen eyes never missed a detail along the streets of Singapore. The green spaces blocked out in some areas on the island filled the diyas with awe. A bustling township is passed in one instance and the next finds us in a remote and secluded green belt of peace and rejuvenating spirit. Every now and then comparisons were made with India and we would delve into the greatness of both countries and how each could benefit from the other in significant ways. We also discussed the different outlooks of the countries, politically, sociologically and spiritually.

It was a 12-day period fraught with activity, but we kept one another reminded in keeping centred, without having to use any words. It naturally flowed from the being, from person to person into everything that was done. Their mission here was seen as significant. No one actually knows to this day, why Providence had them all here at the same time, but each held their experiences as sacred and offered.

Here is a toast to our friends from mirambika, builders of the golden bridge - from Bharatam.

- Jayanthy

Some thoughts on integral education

When we began the Integral Education Program (IEP) at our centre, five years ago, my motivations for joining the program were purely scholarly. I was very interested in the works of Mother and Sri Aurobindo, especially their works on Education. I was aware of the lack in the current education system and wished to see how we could apply the works of Mother and Sri Aurobindo to bridge this gap. More recently, the evolution of the IEP program as well as being a mother has somewhat changed my goals of Integral Education. I have begun to regard it, not as a system of education, but as a transformation, not something that takes place in children, but something that should take place in everyone, six or sixty years old.

The Mother has said that Education must begin at birth and continue throughout life. And now, as a mother, as a facilitator to my children, I am going through what one may call, a second phase of education, and in a sense, it is a more important education than what I went through in the first phase.

There is a constant feeling of being watched. Children are very sensitive and perceptual, so much so that it is necessary to watch one’s every step and ensure that it is the most beautiful of all that can be imparted at that instant. Just yesterday, there was an argument in the house - one of those ordinary, everyday arguments. My daughter, however, perceived the feelings that ran under the argument. Immediately she voiced out” I am very angry.” “I am very angry too”, I countered. Later, after she had returned to her play, and me to mine, I reflected. In an ideal world, I would not have my child exposed to arguments. However, when the day’s tiredness strikes up, irritability comes forward. If this is the case, a child is sure to perceive the under currents of tension in a conversation. Should I just go on and pretend that the argument never happened? Obviously, that is not a choice. The Mother has said somewhere that children are very keen observers. When they sense a weakness, they will pounce on it.
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I remembered a jingle that came with one of my child’s toys. “Happy is a feeling and feelings come and go. Let your feelings show”. It was necessary for me to show her that vital feelings are a part of life, that they come and go, and they are not to control us. Then, of course, would begin the step of how we can change our lifestyles together in such a way that these feelings do not crop up. This meant a reflection, on my part on why the irritability was there, and try to pull it out of its roots.

This was just one experience but a learning point, even a small milestone in the evolution of integral education. This is where integral education is a journey, it is even more of an arduous journey for me than writing a PhD thesis. Every moment is a decision, every action requires a reflection, every activity demands perfection in the best possible sense. A half baked piece of work is simply not enough, it leaves all of us unsatisfied. There is, not just an aspiration, but an aspiration driven by need, for perfection, and that makes the integral education of a child, and that of a parent, a form of yoga in its own right.
Kiruthika

Significance of the symbol of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education

“One of the most recent forms under which Sri Aurobindo conceived of the development of his work was to establish at Pondicherry an International University Centre open to students from all over the world.

It is considered that the most fitting memorial to his name would be to found this University now so as to give concrete expression to the fact that his work continues with unabated vigour.”
- The Mother, 1951


"Sri Aurobindo is present in our midst, and with all the power of his creative genius he presides over the formation of the University Centre which for years he considered as one of the best means of preparing the future humanity to receive the Supramental Light that will transform the elite of today into a new race manifesting upon earth the new light and force and life."

- Inaugural Message of the Mother 24th April, 1951

Personality traits of a successful teacher

1. Complete self-control not only to the extent of not showing any anger, but remaining absolutely quiet and undisturbed under all circumstances.

2. In the matter of self-confidence, must also have a sense of the relativity of his importance. Above all, must have the knowledge that the teacher himself must always progress if he wants his students to progress, must not remain satisfied either with what he is or with what he knows.

3. Must not have any sense of essential superiority over his students nor preference or attachment whatsoever for one or another.

4. Must know that all are equal spiritually and instead of mere tolerance must have a global comprehension or understanding.

5. “The business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material.” (Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle)

June 1954

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Never forget that to be a good teacher one has to abolish in oneself all egoism.

10 December 1959

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And to be worthy of teaching according to the supramental truth given us by Sri Aurobindo there should no longer be any ego.

December 1960

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Question of The Month

Q: Sweet Mother, there are some things which are good for my progress but seem to me very uninteresting. For example, mathematics is a good subject but it does not appeal to me. Please tell me, how can I take interest in the things to which I am not drawn?

A: There are a lot of things that we need to know, not because we find them especially interesting but because they are useful and even indispensable; mathematics is one of them. It is only when we have a strong background of knowledge that we can face life successfully.

Q: How can mathematics, history or science help me to find you?

A: They can help in several ways:

1. To become capable of receiving and bearing the light of the Truth, the mind must be made strong, wide and supple. These studies are a very good way to achieve this.
2. If you study science deeply enough, it will teach you the unreality of appearances and thus lead you to the spiritual reality.
3. The study of all the aspects and movements of physical Nature will bring you into contact with the universal Mother, and so you will be closer to me.

- The Mother, 17th December 1966

(CWM Volume 12, On Education, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1978, published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram)