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Spiritual Values of Education

The document discusses the purpose and importance of spiritual education. It states that the purpose of spiritual education is to help children fulfill their divine potential, prepare them for life by giving them lifelong learning tools, and develop them on all levels - body, mind, and soul. It argues that spiritual education teaches children to be kind, share with others, and understand that selfishness does not lead to happiness. It aims to prepare children for society in a way that helps them remain idealistic and able to handle life's challenges even when facing negativity in the world. Overall, the document advocates for an education that develops higher qualities in children like kindness, willpower, and character to enrich their lives and lead them to lasting happiness and spiritual success

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abuelbasher mohamed
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101 views5 pages

Spiritual Values of Education

The document discusses the purpose and importance of spiritual education. It states that the purpose of spiritual education is to help children fulfill their divine potential, prepare them for life by giving them lifelong learning tools, and develop them on all levels - body, mind, and soul. It argues that spiritual education teaches children to be kind, share with others, and understand that selfishness does not lead to happiness. It aims to prepare children for society in a way that helps them remain idealistic and able to handle life's challenges even when facing negativity in the world. Overall, the document advocates for an education that develops higher qualities in children like kindness, willpower, and character to enrich their lives and lead them to lasting happiness and spiritual success

Uploaded by

abuelbasher mohamed
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Spiritual Values of Education

The purpose of spiritual education is to fulfill the divine potential of


children, and to prepare them for life by giving them the tools they need to
keep on learning throughout the many experiences that will come to them. ...
Another purpose of spiritual education is to build the person on all levels.

When we speak of spiritual education, we don’t mean a church kind of


education. What we mean is to help children understand that they’re going to
be a lot happier if they are kind to others, and if they work for high ideals.
The child who has a little bag of dates and eats them all himself isn’t nearly
so happy as the child who shares those dates with others. In all cases, we can
see that people who are selfish just aren’t happy, and people who are selfless
are happy. They can apply this understanding not only at school, but also at
home and everywhere in life. If we can bring this kind of teaching to
children, this then is spiritual education.

Another purpose of spiritual education is to build the person on all levels.


We are triune beings composed of body, mind, and soul, and if any part of
us is starved at the expense of the others, then we aren’t complete. It’s an
interesting fact that people, who write, as an example of a mental activity,
will very often also do something physical to keep themselves grounded.
When Yogananda first had an experience of cosmic consciousness, his guru,
Sri Yukteswar, handed him a broom, saying, “Let us sweep the porch.” We
have to learn to keep these worlds in harmony with one another. If we let
one go in favor of the other, in some way we become unbalanced.

In the education of our children, we need to help them develop their


characters and their minds, but we must also help them prepare for living
successfully in this world. We don’t want them to go out into society and
find themselves incapable of relating to what’s going on. They have to have
the facts that are a part of our modern upbringing. But they don’t need to
have those facts taught to them in such a way as to leave them believing that
there’s no value in anything. There is a great deal of emphasis on the wrong

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things today. The basis of spiritual education is to prepare them for society
in a way that will help them to remain idealistic.

Suppose you have children who have learned how to love everyone, who
have learned the goodness of life. When they go out into the world they may
face hatred, criminal activity, and many other negative things. Will they be
able to handle it? This is probably the primary concern that people have with
spiritual education. The answer is to be seen in those who live with love. It
isn’t as if they become stupid or lose the ability to relate to the world as it is.
In fact, the broadest understanding comes from that which is centered in
love; the narrowest understanding is that which is centered in hatred. If
you’re on the lowest level, you can relate only to the lowest level; if you’re
on the highest level, you can relate to all levels. To see that this is true, we
can point to examples of people who live that way and who are able to
handle life’s many challenges far, far better. I have observed that people
who are complete as human beings are generally more successful. A
spiritual education can actually guarantee greater success even in the way
worldly people define it.

Children are born with different inclinations, with different strengths,


weaknesses, and educational needs. One of the unfortunate aspects of
modern education is the assembly-line approach to teaching where the same
information is more or less dumped out to everyone. There isn’t any
philosophy; it is just information. Small classes, where the teacher can get to
know each child personally, are essential for giving individual attention and
for discovering what the natural level of understanding is for each child.

By teaching children kindness, concentration, will power, strength of


character, truthfulness, and other higher qualities, life is made richer. These
are deeply important to the development of the human being, but such things
are not taught today in public education. The ultimate purpose of life is not
simply to get a job. So many people live this way and then die, not of old
age but of deep disappointment with the life they have led. If you don’t
know how to be truly happy, money won’t buy it for you.

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Spiritual education is training people for life. How many people get married,
and then get divorced because they don’t know how to get along with their
spouse? They’re not educated for that nor for life.

Education, rightly understood, is expansion of awareness. It is preparation


for that process of real learning which takes place after we leave school,
when we are in the constant struggle, the battlefield of life. By giving
children the tools and understanding to make the right choices in life, we can
lead them to lasting happiness. Then they will be able to achieve the kind of
spiritual victories that are the true meaning of success.

NUANCES; http://www.humanisticnuances.blogspot.in 33
Vol. 2, Issue 1; Jan. – June 2016
Email: [email protected]
Spiritual Conditioning of Ethical and Moral ValuesThrough Islamic Education
Fouzia Khanam; Zebun Nisa Khan

Abstract
God has created man in his own image i.e., ‘fitrah ’(an Arabic term) which
means natural inclination, in simple words it can be termed as spiritual.
Spirituality comes from the word spirit, which means soul of one, being
oneself or the originality of an individual. It is Islam that says that Allah has
not created man with animal instinct, He has given man a power to reason
well, but behaviorists believe that man is created with an animal instinct and
can only be trained well. With help of both Conditioning theory and Islamic
Education we can reach towards the common goal of wellbeing. Islamic
Education teaches and trains human being to lead a spiritual life from ‘cradle
to grave’. No religion except Islam gives a vivid explanation how to live a
healthy life throughout. It explains each and every way through which we
can lead a balanced life. In this paper, the researcher has explained the
various aspects related to spiritual conditioning of ethical and moral values
in the light of Quran and Sunnah.

According to Oxford dictionary spirituality refers to the attachment to the


things, which is related to spirit that is transcendent in nature. Being spiritual
is to develop a sense of higher consciousness that connects the Creator and
the created. It is the inner belief system, which concerns the essence of one’s
own being. The feelings of unity with nature and people, the integrity of

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body, mind and spirit is developed by spirituality. It nurtures the values of
piety, moderation, compassion, wisdom, humility and serenity. In growing
trends of handy gadgets in youngsters has decreased the significance of
building moral and ethical values and spirituality is nowhere in their realm.
The present generation can be seen exhausted, suffering with the problem of
anxiety, depression and various other psychological disorders. They are
surrounded by the world where everyone is busy enjoying their life but irony
is that no one is happy. In this world, happiness is being searched in forms
of messages and post of the social networking cites which is very handy and
easily accessed these days, and, thus people have forgotten that happiness
lies within, it is very much intrinsic in nature.

We shall not blame technology for this; mass media and Bollywood industry
has also conditioned the young minds into an immoral and unethical one.
Earlier, Bollywood movies gave the image of a hero as pious, truthful and
honest person but now movies and songs have presented and portrait the
character of the hero as an immoral one, the perfect one is not in fashion
now, the presentation of hero’s character as immoral one, creates an image
of an imperfect personality in the subconscious mind of the young
generation. The major problem of the ‘parents and the educators' is that the
coming generation is now becoming more and more ethically and morally
deprived, i.e., they have no spiritual life. This has created a void in the lives
of the youngsters, they have lost the real aim in life, they cannot actualize
themselves, their self-confidence is low, they are not able to choose a proper
profession for themselves and the increased gap between elders and
youngsters has made their life guidance less also. We know that, the
tomorrow’s future is being nurtured in the environment of school, so school
education plays a major part in building personality, of the next generation.
So, it is important that the environment of school is pious, filled with
compassion, humility and piety these are the qualities, which should be
nurtured in this environment. In the present generation school, the young
generation is being trained under Darwin’s survival of fittest theory, which
has produced individuals with feelings of jealousy, bitterness, ill feeling, fear
and anxiety. In the absence of the good moral and ethical

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environment the children are no more than a machine, with simple animal
instinct, with no ultimate aim of wellbeing.

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