by Saraswati Khalsa, school Admissions Director
“As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.” –Denis Diderot, “Encyclopédie” (1755)
Information Overload
Whether you refer to it as the Aquarian Age or the Information Age, there is no denying that we have entered a new age. “Information overload” refers to the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions because of the presence of too much information. In the age we are leaving behind it was a central task to find the right information. There were temples of knowledge, world-famous libraries, monasteries and cloistered Yogis in the deserts, jungles and mountains of the world where a select few had access to the knowledge of the world. Today a search for the word “Yoga Certification” brings 1,890,000 results in Google in just 0.32 seconds.
The Accelerated Pace of Change
In a 2001 article titled, “The Law of Accelerating Returns,” Ray Kurzweil stated, “In the nineteenth century, we saw more technological change than in the nine centuries preceding it. Then in the first twenty years of the twentieth century, we saw more advancement than in all of the nineteenth century. Now, paradigm shifts occur in only a few years time.” My grandparent’s generation had to adjust to a handful of major changes in their lifetimes. My children will make similar adjustments every year of their lives.
A Spiritual Education
At Miri Piri Academy, a boarding school in India where a rigorous Cambridge Accredited academic program is combined with Kundalini Yoga training and Yoga certification, students are focused on both academics and spiritual development. Yogi Harbhajan Singh Khalsa, school founder, taught that “The outer education provided by the information revolution must be matched by an inner education in wisdom, self-control, intuition, and the use of the neutral mind. We need stamina under stress, clarity of values for decisions, and a new base of identity.” With so much data at their fingertips, today’s children need more than information. They need the skills to organize it, evaluate it, and most importantly, detach from it.
The hallmark of information overload is the inability to organize all of the data arrayed before us. Increasingly, decisions must rely on intuition, an unconscious process that is the opposite of analytical and rational thought. Intuition cannot be developed through formal education. Instead, it must be honed through heightened awareness of the self and the body, a skill learned through the practice of meditation and Yoga.
No website in the world can answer the age old questions “Why are we here?,” “Where will we go when we die?,” and “What is the purpose of existence?” As much as we know, we are still mortal beings who must one day face the fact of our own death. When our children are faced with those questions in life that cannot be resolved by the click of a mouse, will they be prepared? Will they be grounded in their basic human form, able to take a deep breath and relax, or will they be paralyzed with indecision, depressed and unable to cope with the rapid pace of change going on around them? The answer depends on the spiritual education and practice that we provide them.
