What the Chandogya Upanishad Says About Education

My yoga center was giving away some books it no longer needed. One of these books was the Chandogya Upanishad with English translation and commentary by a Swami Lokeshwarananda. My knowledge of the Upanishads until then was limited to Amar Chitra Katha (comic book versions of Indian stories) and two verses that I had learnt in my yoga class. I took this book out of curiosity. What are the Upanishads about, after all?

The Upanishads are deeply philosophical and I will reserve my novice's comments for later. Here, I present some ideas which modern education could use more of. 

1. Education is pointless without self-knowledge. 
Self-knowledge is the overarching point of this Upanishad. In one story, a man sends his son Svetaketu to study the Vedas. Svetaketu returns after twelve years as an accomplished scholar. The father notices his son's pride and tells him that all scholarship is worthless without self-knowledge and then describes self-knowledge to his son in many different ways. We go through two decades of formal education and develop no understanding of our own minds or bodies, let alone lofty concepts like self-knowledge.

2. A good student critically engages with teachings and debates them with the teacher. 
Indra and Virochana go to the creator, Prajapati, seeking self-knowledge. After thirty-two years of discipline and austerity, Prajapati shares some wisdom with them. Satisfied with Prajapati's answer, both return to their homes. But Prajapati is disappointed that they did not ask for any clarification. 
After a while, Indra returns to Prajapati with doubts about the knowledge he left with. Prajapati gladly explains again. After several discussions with Prajapati over a hundred years, Indra truly realizes self-knowledge. On the other hand, Virochana does not realize self-knowledge because he never thought deeply about it. Virochana did not critically examine his own understanding. 

3. A good teacher has boundless patience for the sincere student. 
Svetaketu finds it difficult to understand this self-knowledge, so he requests his father to explain it to him over and over again. Each time, the father tries to explain it with a different analogy. Most notably, the father always gladly obliges his student's request and repeats his explanations. This is also the case with Indra and Prajapati. Teachers are actually happy to provide clarifications and never run out of patience. I wish my teachers had had the time for that! 

If you read this Upanishad, you may get tired of hearing about this mysterious self-knowledge repeatedly. But the Upanishad is like the teacher who never tires of explaining to her student. This may be because the Upanishad also maintains that self-knowledge can only be attained through direct experience. The teacher can only show the way to a sincere seeker. 

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