Gurukula

We don't know what to do." Then because h-- the same situation we faced.

When people stopped going to forest and receiving Vedas, then we conceived the Gurukula, then we conceived the Veda pathashala.

Then I suggested to them with the existing material you have, teaching material, you start Veda pathshalas.

I mean, I don't want to show it here.

The information was systematically passed down through three highly practical channels that embedded the scientific truth directly into the daily Sanskriti, culture and festivals.

Two, folk po-proverbs and oral memories, subhashitas and, uh, lokosthiti.

Three, traditional village structure, Grama Devatas and Gurukula.

These are all Not superstition.

All the Ayurveda was saved by the Brahmins, the sages, and education.

The Gurukulas were always held by the Brahmins.

So you cannot have that system now.

You cannot have only Brahmins being doctors.

Um, But I can only admire the job to Panchagodas, the president, what he did.

Anyway, I walked into the old Gurukul building and it said, temple president's office.

I asked someone, oh, is he here? He says, he's right there.

So I opened the door and said, hello.

So seeing the self by the self, he's satisfied in his own self.

Now how can the self see the self? [chuckles] In Vedanta there's a very, very popular story and as many times you hear it, it is fascinating to understand what is this self seeing the self by the self and how is it seen? One day, ten brahmacharis, students from the Gurukula, from the school heard that on the other side of the river in the far off village there is a fair.

Young boys staying in the ashram for so long now and then get a little bit restless and they were told about the fair so they went up to the guru and said that, "Can we go to the fair?" Young boys, "Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair?" Those gurukulas were not for sannyasis, no? They were, uh, schools.

It's like residential school.

And then he thought, let's see if Prabhupada's getting better.

So he called in this one Gurukul boy.

He was only 11 years old.

And he was very overweight and he was a bit of a kind of a mama's boy type guy.

And then one person comes, I heard he's leaving, his name is Vishwan Chanset.

He was a member of parliament.

And his cousin lived in Brindavan near the temple and gave the land that the Gurukul is built on, he donated it.

And he came and he said, you can't let him go.

it working out?

Yeah, there were lot of Gurukulas previously.

Just like now you have schools, previously they had gurukulas like that.

So the brahmanas, qualified brahmanas, they were the gurus.

And then Vasan Guru Kule Danto.

Then you live in the Guru Kula to study.

So this is most important part of human life, to be educated.

Because only human beings undergo education.

Trying to rep here.

So my ancestors hail from the Gurukula tradition, where education from the start was inseparable from spiritual development.

And Paulo Freire wrote about education as a practice of freedom.

So often, mindfulness can get reduced to a tool or merely self-regulation.

They gave a blink of an eye and they descended on that musk, climbing all over it with chisels and hammers and they broke it all down.

And where was I when this happened? I was in Jagannath Puri with about 20 Gurukul students And I was on the train.

It was like a 40-hour train.

And then we got word.