What is Jeevan Vidya?
The course on Jeevan Vidya attempts to fill the above gap. As said earlier, it is based on the philosophy developed by Shri Nagraj Sharma, the founder of Madhyastha Darshan but the course seldom refers to any philosophy or its founding fathers. Perhaps there is a good reason for this. The aim of the course is to promote human education and not develop a new cult in the name of any person or idea. The whole course is taught in the form of a dialogue between the facilitator and the participants. It claims that the ideas of Jeevan Vidya can not only be spread but they can also be validated on the basis of a dialogue between the teacher and the learners, and at the individual level one’s dialogue with oneself. The ideas are “naturally acceptable” to all irrespective of age, gender, caste, class, education and profession. To quote from A report on the developments of the initiative taken at UP Technical University to introduce a course in Human Values and Professional Ethics since 2009 (Gaur et al., 2010)
There is a growing realization in the world today that the path being followed currently needs to be re-evaluated; that fundamental and lasting change can only come from right education, therefore we need to change our education system. The overall purpose of education is to enable a human being to live a fulfilling life, in harmony with family, society as well as nature. It hence becomes the purpose and goal of education to resolve these issues, so that human society can meet its target, which is sustained happiness and prosperity. As technology becomes the core content of education today, it is to be realized that while the effort to achieve better standards of technology and technologically advanced gadgets is an important human activity, it is only a means to achieve what is considered ‘valuable’ for a human being in an effective and efficient manner. It is not within the scope of technology itself to decide what is valuable to a human being.
One can investigate within oneself to see that values that are naturally acceptable, and verifiable in living, can form the basis of living with fulfillment, that is value-based living. Since our current living is not leading to sustained human happiness and prosperity, we need to urgently and clearly find out what is of value, or what is valuable to all human beings and develop our living accordingly.
The subject that deals with what is of value, or what is valuable to a human being is called value education. Values thus provide the basis for all our actions and activities. Education needs to focus on value-education, which has to be introduced in our school education as well as higher education. Such value-based education can prepare students to live in harmony with other human beings and nature – this can provide a way out of the current morass that the world is in.
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