Matt Daw

Kathmandu:

The evils inherent in today’s world, not only in Nepal but also in countries around the globe, at every level of development, cannot be erased overnight. They are not obstacles simply to be tackled and overcome with money and determination, but the inevitable symptoms of deeply ingrained problems with attitude, outlook and social priorities. A child brought up in today’s social environment is taught to think of himself most importantly as an individual completely separate from the rest of the world, and to view his search for happiness as being entirely unconnected with anyone or anything else.

In the West particularly, but increasingly in India and other Eastern countries, belief in the primacy of the individual is nurtured to the point of absurdity by adverts, TV programmes, magazines and pop songs. The public are convinced that they are defined by what they own, how they look, and how they are viewed by other people and truly believe that happiness lies in finding the right combination of these three factors, as if lining up numbers on a combination lock to bliss.

Long forgotten are the joys of sharing, caring and selfless service, as people start to view the world as a battlefield in which they must jostle and compete to attain the prizes of success and satisfaction. It is this fundamental attitude that lies at the root of the world’s problems and without which there would be no war, no famine, no exploitation or hatred. Freed from this limiting conviction, the human race would have no limitations.

The new and peaceful world must have strong foundations, and the building blocks of society are the youth — those whose attitudes and actions will shape the world for years to come. The most important work that can be done to bring about a valuable improvement in this world of imbalance and disharmony, therefore, is in education. Education can steer a young person in a number of directions, preparing him for one of a variety of outlooks on life.

One can be taught that one must drive oneself towards success in the form of stability and a well-paid job, or taught to see beyond one’s own situation and to view oneself as part of a much greater and more important whole. A well-rounded human being with a perspective that looks beyond trivial and transitory goals such as money and fame to such universal values as service and responsibility will do far more to steer the world off its self-destructive and pointless path.

For an educational establishment to nurture such fine principles, it must do more than drive its students to academic success. The development of the child should take place within an environment of mutual understanding, cooperation and spiritual exploration, whereby the student is alerted to the many facets of the world s/he is to become a part of, and his/ her responsibilities within it. An education that treats young people as fully-rounded human beings with emotional and spiritual sides as well as the physical and intelligent, will allow the child to recognise their own depth as well, and develop into complete and broad-minded members of society.

Schools that take spirituality into consideration and which treat all students as complete human beings rather than as learning machines, then, are undertaking the most important kind of work possible in the quest for a better, more peaceful world. Attempting to replace one flawed political establishment with another can never do more than replace one set of problems and hardships with another, and is bound to bring about turmoil and discontent in doing so.

No regime can be fully successful in a world of individuals with separate and conflicting goals and beliefs, for no matter how inspired the ideals they follow they can never please everyone, and someone will always be ready to fight for change. The new, peaceful world that we must work towards is not for tomorrow, but must be built block by block to be achieved in the future. We must not fight what is in place now, but live in peace and love ourselves, and teach our children to do the same.

When, in time, the world thinks and loves as one, then peace will be sustainable, and complete.

The writer is an UK volunteer associated with Hindu Vidyapeeth School, Kathmandu.