Spiritual and Material Education

The Isopanisad states, "Those who are engaged in the culture of nescience
shall enter into the darkest region of ignorance. " There are two kinds of
education, material and spiritual. Material education is called jada-vidya. Jada
means "that which cannot move," or matter. Spirit can move. Our body is a
combination of spirit and matter. As long as the spirit is there, the body is
moving. For example, a man's coat and pants move as long as the man wears them.
It appears that the coat and pants are moving on their own, but actually it is
the body that is moving them. Similarly, this body is moving because the spirit
soul is moving it. Another example is the motorcar. The motorcar is moving
because the driver is moving it. Only a fool thinks the motorcar is moving on
its own. In spite of a wonderful mechanical arrangement, the motorcar cannot
move on its own.
Since they are given only jada-vidya, a materialistic education, people think
that this material nature is working, moving, and manifesting so many wonderful
things automatically. When we are at the seaside, we see the waves moving. But
the waves are not moving automatically. The air is moving them. And something
else is moving the air. In this way, if you go all the way back to the ultimate
cause, you will find Krsna, the cause of all causes. That is real education, to
search out the ultimate cause.
So the Isopanisad says that those who are captivated by the external
movements of the material energy are worshiping nescience. In the modern
civilization there are big, big institutions for understanding technology, how a
motorcar or an airplane moves. They are studying how to manufacture so much
machinery. But there is no educational institution for investigating how the
spirit soul is moving. The actual mover is not being studied. Instead they are
studying the external movements of matter.
When I lectured at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I asked the
students, "Where is the technology to study the soul, the mover of the body?"
They had no such technology. They could not answer satisfactorily because their
education was simply jada-vidya. The Isopanisad says that those who engage in
the advancement of such materialistic education will go to the darkest region of
existence. Therefore the present civilization is in a very dangerous position
because there is no arrangement anywhere in the world for genuine spiritual
education. In this way human society is being pushed to the darkest region of
existence.

In a song, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura has declared that materialistic
education is simply an expansion of maya. The more we advance in this
materialistic education, the more our ability to understand God will be
hampered. And at last we will declare, "God is dead." This is all ignorance and
darkness.
So, the materialists are certainly being pushed into darkness. But there is
another class--the so-called philosophers, mental speculators, religionists, and
yogis--who are going into still greater darkness because they are defying Krsna.
They are pretending to cultivate spiritual knowledge, but because they have no
information of Krsna, or God, their teachings are even more dangerous than those
of the outright materialists. Why? Because they are misleading people into
thinking they are giving real spiritual knowledge. The so-called yoga system
they are teaching is misleading people: "Simply meditate, and you will
understand that you are God." Krsna never meditated to become God. He was God
from His very birth. When He was a three-month-old baby, the Putana demon
attacked Him--and Krsna sucked out her life air along with her breast milk. So
Krsna was God from the very beginning. That is God.
The nonsense so-called yogis teach, "You become still and silent, and you
will become God." How can I become silent? Is there any possibility of becoming
silent? No, there is no such possibility. "Become desireless and you will become
God." How can I become desireless? These are all bluffs.
We cannot be
desireless. We cannot be silent. But our desires and our activities can be
purified. That is real knowledge. We should desire only to serve Krsna. That is
purification of desire. Instead of trying to be still and silent, we should
dovetail our activities in Krsna's service. As living entities, we have
activities, desires, and a loving propensity, but they are being misdirected. If
we direct them into Krsna's service, that is the perfection of education.
We don't say that you should not become advanced in material education. You
may, but at the same time you should become Krsna conscious. That is our
message. We don't say that you shouldn't manufacture motorcars. No. We say, "All
right, you have manufactured these motorcars. Now employ them in Krsna's
service." That is our proposal.
So education is required, but if it is simply materialistic--if it is devoid
of Krsna consciousness--it is very, very dangerous. That is the teaching of the
Isopanisad.