हिरण्मयेन पात्रेण सत्यस्य-अपिहितं मुखम् ।
तत् त्वम् पूषन् ! अपावृणु, सत्य-धर्माय दृष्टये ॥
O Nourisher! To give us the Satya-dharma dRShTi - the perception of the Truth and the Right, uncover the golden lid obstructing our view of Truth.
The Golden Lid of Materialism
No matter how hard one peers at a mirror, one can see only oneself but not the objects behind the mirror. That is the predicament faced by the prevailing materialistic approach to knowledge that has captured the imagination of Humanity. Encouraged by the enormous power that study of Matter and Energy in their own terms have yielded, Humanity has almost brushed aside its own diverse strands of civilizational knowledge accrued over millennia. Now, everything must fit the methods and conclusions of the Materialistic Knowledge System (MKS) to be accepted as Truth.
The fundamental tenet of the prevailing method of knowledge generation and validation is to only rely on what is observable from the material senses and their extensions, or extrapolatable with logic. Our knowledge is limited by its instruments. If instruments are material, knowledge cannot go beyond material. Naturally, such an approach that we call MKS will try to explain non-material phenomena also in terms of Matter (e.g., Neuroscience). This is Humanity's proverbial Golden Lid (hiraNmayam paatram) that limits the Truth (satyam) it can perceive.
Humanity Needs a New Knowledge System
Humanity is reaching saturation in what's possible to know and do with material knowledge. Sure, its knowledge can grow at its own pace linearly, but a quantum jump in knowledge and power requires new enhanced instruments of knowledge.
India as well as several ancient civilizations have discovered much more potent instruments of knowledge beyond material. Using them, they have acquired a sophisticated understanding of the Truth of ourselves and the Universe along dimensions not adequately covered by MKS. Their findings provide insights into the material world also, but from a standpoint very different from MKS. However, humanity's recent obsessive preoccupation with MKS to the exclusion of other knowledge systems is hindering its own pace of onward march of progress in knowledge and power.
The time has come to evolve a new Integral Knowledge System (IKS) that harnesses the comprehensive perspectives of ancient approaches and the particularities unearthed by MKS into a federated, inclusive and universal method of knowledge discovery for all humanity. Such a system can form the basis of future education worldwide.
This requires defining a new overarching framework of knowledge that can accommodate the findings of diverse civilizations and reconcile their apparent conflicts without rejecting them outright as MKS does today.
The Role of Bharat
Bharat is unique among World's civilizations in organising its knowledge into a rigorous knowledge system. It offers comprehensive models of reality that have the expressive power to accommodate the findings of diverse civilizational experiences with a unified terminology. However, it has been inwardly focussed so far, and not examined for its universal applicability.
We firmly believe that Bharat's knowledge system (BKS) can offer the basis for a universal framework of Integral Knowledge System (IKS). Demonstrating it requires using Bharat's ontology and epistemology to develop supermodels in various disciplines studied today that can subsume existing models and also give new insights and solutions beyond state of the art.
For instance, we need new theories in humanities disciplines such as Psychology, Social Sciences, Management, Governance etc. that can accommodate diverse cultural experiences, not just European.
We need a new comprehensive model of human wellness that seamlessly integrates Ayurveda's holistic framework with the detailed material understanding of human body of modern medical science as well as numerous locale-specific indigenous insights into health across world cultures.
We need to develop a whole new Science of Conscious Energy integrating the best understanding of Bharat's Praana vidya with Chinese Chi and analogous concepts from around the world. We need to evolve systematic methods to observe, measure, harness and transform conscious energy and explore its interaction with matter.
We need to evolve a holistic theory of cognition and systematic training techniques to awaken and hone human instruments of knowledge for reliable discovery of Truth. Again, different world cultures have evolved unique methods to enhance human potential - logic, sensory and motor skills. Examples include marma vidya, martial arts across the world. Many of them have to be brought back into formal education.
Call for Action
A civilizational reboot is needed at humanity scale, and Bharat is uniquely positioned to take the lead. Because of humanity's obsession for knowledge, academics is the most effective modern way to usher change at large scale. A solid base to bootstrap this work is a sincere academic institution whose first job is to nurture thought leadership to develop coherent systematized knowledge via models along the lines stated above. Such models need to be disseminated through formal education ecosystem on the one hand, and deployed in the society to create pull through demonstrated benefit.
We need a Global University for Integral Knowledge that can source the entire Globe for knowledge and systematize it for Global consumption, customized for regional sensibilities.
Problems with Indian Knowledge Systems Education Today
Modern India is too introverted, ignorant and self-doubting of its own capabilities in this regard. This is the primary reason for its defensive or self-deprecatory posture. An enormous preoccupation with showing that it was great in the past is a symptom of this malady. Majority of the focus of BKS material is mainly to show historical greatness, not relevance for the future beyond what MKS can offer. Indian knowledge as it was articulated in our literature is not directly applicable without reinterpretation today due to changed context. Talent is required that has shraddha and jnaana in past knowledge, understands dispassionately the strengths and weaknesses of MKS and recontextualizes BKS without losing fidelity. Unfortunately, those who know both MKS and BKS are extremely rare. The majority are knowledgeable in only one, cheerleaders for the other, have respect but not the academic training in systematization.
There is a lot of curiosity and respect for traditional knowledge in the society and also gullibility. While the market is always a mixed bag, there should be a small cohort of able people who must be isolated and nurtured by the ecosystem beyond the noise of the crowd. Such a cohort can bring the necessary transformation.
Conclusion and Recommendations
India is the only country that can take the lead in developing an Integral Knowledge System (IKS) as a foundation of future holistic education of Humanity. Such a system is federated, inclusive and comprehensive.
Ushering IKS requires new shaastra development with bharatiya tattva at its core and accommodating diverse world practices as different expressions. This should culminate in a Global University that shows the way for other academic institutions to adopt later.
