There is one kind of education that just deals with sustaining the body, including earning money, shelter, etc. It is important to have both Avidya (knowledge of the world) and Vidya (knowledge about the self). The second kind of education, which is completely missing, is the awakening of the intelligence and the finding of oneself. If you do not give attention to this education, you will find yourself rejected by life itself — you will find that you are just living a degraded life.
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Questioner: What is Education?
Acharya Prashant: Govind’s question is, ‘What is Education?’ And it’s wonderful that at least now, we are asking, 'What is education?' This question should have been asked way earlier. But it’s not too bad that it’s been asked today.
What is education? Why do we get educated?
There are two kinds of education, just as man has two ends. Just as every human being has two ends, similarly there are two kinds of education. Before we go into these two types, we have to understand what are these two ends at which all of us exist?
On one end, at one pole, we are just machines. Absolutely mechanical, pre-programmed. We do not decide the configuration of our body. We do not decide our design. We do not decide birth. We do not decide how and when hunger will arise. We do not decide how we are growing up, how the cells in the body multiplying. That is one particular end, the physical end. At the physical end we are all programmed machines. And at this end, there is very little freedom. Very very little freedom.
