Blending Modern Academics with Vedic Culture

*Blending Modern Academics with Vedic Culture*
_A talk by HH Bhakti Rasamrita Swami Maharaja_

His Holiness Bhakti Rasamrita Swami Maharaja has been the foremost guide and inspiration for the BMS ever since its conception. On Jan 22nd 2022, he spoke to more than 450 BMS well-wishers about the vision behind the BMS in a talk titled “Blending Modern Academics with Vedic Culture”. Here is a summary.

Today, most educational institutions teach only materialistic education and have also become highly commercial. They do not teach even a grain of spiritual topics. In fact, the students of this system often are very critical of Vedic knowledge. On the other hand, there are some schools that predominantly teach only Vedic education like reciting the Vedas and performing pujas. There is a need to create the right blend of modern academics and Vedic education to form a complete education system.

Complete education has three aspects. First, it should be the process to achieve the essential goal of Vedic culture – pure devotion to Lord Krishna. Second, it should teach the culture that facilitates this process. For example, it should emphasize on the deeper spiritual meanings of good qualities like compassion, sacrifice, relationships, and so on. And third, education should teach modern academic subjects like Math, Languages, History, Geography, and so on. Today, schools completely disregard the first aspect, teach the second aspect without emphasizing the underlying spiritual values, and consider the third aspect as the only definition of education.

For holistic education, as stated above, academics is necessary but not sufficient. Additionally, education should also provide life and livelihood skills like agriculture and cow protection. Also, on some academic topics, we should also bring out the Krishna Conscious perspective so that the students can appreciate the presence of Krishna is everything they learn about.

HH Bhakti Rasamrita Swami Maharaja ended with a striking analysis about the sources of education. Education is obtained both formally, as in a school, and informally from every where else. A famous Sanskrit subhashita states that one gets educated from four sources. One-fourth of our education comes from our teachers in school, one-fourth from our own intelligence, one-fourth from our fellow students, and one-fourth from life experiences.

This balanced and scholarly talk was appreciated by all. The BMS is based on these sound principles and strives to give complete education to its students.