Flashes from Swami Vivekananda - 4

Philosophy of Education - 1

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man

Knowing is unveiling

Knowledge is inherent in man, no knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows' should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge. We say Newton discovered gravitation. Was it sitting anywhere in a corner waiting for him? It was in his own mind; the time came and he found it out. All the knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe. The external world is simply a suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind. The falling of an apple gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind. He rearranged all the previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them, which we call the law of gravitation. It was not the apple nor in anything in the center of the earth.

All knowledge is within

All knowledge therefore, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind. In may cases it is not discovered, but remains covered, and when the covering is being slowly taken off, we say 'we are learning', and the advance of knowledge is made by the advance of this process of uncovering. The man from whom this veil is being lifted is the more knowing man; the man upon whom it lies thick is ignorant; and the man upon whim it has entirely gone is the all-knowing, omniscient. Like fire in a piece of flint, knowledge exists in the mind; suggestions is the friction which brings it out. What we call powers, secrets of nature and force are all within. All knowledge comes from the human soul.. man manifests knowledge, discovers it within himself, which is pre-existing, through eternity.

Infinite power is within the soul

No one was ever really taught by another. Each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion which makes the internal teacher to work and understand things. Then things will be made clearer to us by out own power of perception and thought, and we shall realize them in our own souls. The whole of the big banyan tree which covers acres of ground was in the little seed which was perhaps no bigger than one-eighth of a mustard seed. All that mass of energy was there confined. The gigantic intellect, we know, lies coiled up in the protoplasmic cell. It may seem like a paradox, but it is true. Each one of come out of one protoplasmic cell, and all the powers we possess were coiled up there. You cannot say they came from food, for if you heap up food mountains high, what power comes out of it? The energy was there, potentially no doubt, but still there. So is infinite power in the soul of the man whether he knows it or not. Its manifestation is only a question of being conscious of it.