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To people all over the world India reflects an image of Yoga, spirituality and mysticism as the main characteristics of its culture. Strangely, these are precisely the aspects of Indian culture that are not adequately taught in public education in India because of the western model of education that the country follows. For this reason Indians educated in India, especially at western oriented institutions, are becoming ignorant of their own historical culture and its great spiritual wisdom. There is sometimes more of this taught in American universities than in at universities in India.
Modern Education
Modern educational systems derive from western culture and reflect the dichotomy between science and religion that has arisen historically within it. Science is viewed as a secular pursuit that should be part of education for everyone. Religion is looked upon as a special belief or dogma that is a private or personal matter, outside the scope of secular education.
While science is regarded as a way of knowledge, religion is regarded as a way of faith, including faith in things that are unscientific or irrational like the Virgin birth of Jesus Christ. While efforts to reconcile science and religion have been attempted, most scientists tend to agnosticism or atheism, or to forms of mysticism that are unorthodox. Fundamentalist religious groups, on the other hand, commonly oppose science or would at least like to see it restricted.
Even in America today, thought to be a progressive country, fundamentalist Christians continue to protest against teaching the theory of evolution in the schools because it is not in harmony with the Bible and its six thousand-year scheme of creation. While we may laugh at such groups as a minority or an anachronism, they are large in numbers in many places and hold considerable financial resources. They are also spearheading powerful missionary movements throughout the world, including into India.
For science to emerge in the West it had to endure for centuries the wrath of the church and the Inquisition. Many scientists were suppressed, tortured or even killed before science could free itself from the rule of religious dogma. This conflict left its mark on the western psyche. Meanwhile western religion has viewed science and secular education as promoting an anti-religious, if not immoral way of life. Many western religious groups blame secular education for all the social problems in the West from crime and abortion to drugs and homosexuality. Many fundamentalists put their own children in special religious schools to avoid exposure to these secular dangers. This often leads to confusion and personality problems when these children grow up and are faced with the real world.
Therefore, western education places a distinction if not conflict between science and religion. If it teaches about religion it is mainly relative to its political, cultural or historical implications. The dichotomy of liberal science versus dogmatic religion, or between moral religion and immoral or unspiritual science has yet to be resolved in the western mind.
Author - David Frawley
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