Authentic Education as Inspiration

Education without inspiration is like fast foods without nutrition. It desiccates the soul and leeches vitality. Inspiration nourishes the higher self; it is our eagle that soars. Inspiration expands perspective so that the spark in us is set aflame. Our viewpoint becomes exalted; we are awakened to our potential.

Mankind without a vision, degenerates. He lives only on the lower mental plane, cut off from what is life giving. He is vulnerable to exploitation, manipulation, servitude, and degradation. He becomes a blind man, having no capacity to distinguish what is invigorating from what is destructive. He works only for pay; he’s enthralled to his paymaster; he lives without hope.

Inspiration come from within although it may be triggered from the outside. It is a sudden recognition of one’s own authenticity as a child of Nature. Inspiration animates, quickens us to move in a new direction, spurs us to do what seemed impossible. It is an encounter with the deepest truth.

The hidden source of this divine arousal is life itself. Life triggers life by provoking a genuine living response.

When a teacher teaches not to the mind alone, but to the sentient being behind the mind, he speaks to the soul. When a student is directly addressed in this way, he responds with his imagination as well as his reason. He awakens!

The materials used is teaching must be those that possess life in the first place. Facts and abstract concepts will not do. Information out of context is dead. Theories without live demonstrations are dead weight to be memorized and carried for life like a mental ball and chain.

What has the power to ignite students is fairy tales, pregnant stories, the great myths of the world, poetry, song, dance, drama, and art.

Not dead scientific dogma and encyclopedic information, but science as careful observation and interaction with living Nature. A trip into the wilderness where life abounds, planting and tending a garden where organic interfaces with inorganic, communicating with animals in a climate of love and respect --- these uplift and stir the imagination.

The wonders of mathematics, especially as it interact with nature, sacred geometry, and architecture.! Seeing the beautiful patterns of numbers, becoming mentally dexterous and playing with numbers -- this inspires.

History --- not as a succession of conquests or a series of dates --- but as absorbing biographies and dramas with endless interconnections and fascinating sidebars --- inspires. Anthropology, the panorama of the cultural experiments of man through time and space --- when other cultures are not viewed with disgust like the study of slimy, alien beings, but empathetically and imaginatively, excites and stirs the imagination.