Peace through Education

The Need for a Counter-Ideology children. When they grow up, these same children become egoists. This being so, how can the model provided by the ego-less apply to the egoist? During childhood, human beings are governed by their inner nature. But when they grow up and reach the age of maturity, they are governed by their conscious minds. Now their inner nature has a limited role to play. What is needed at this stage is to develop the thinking of adults in such a way that they are enabled to behave in the same manner as they did earlier, in childhood—but consciously, and by using their will power. Building a peaceful society requires the reengineering of the mind. This task can be carried out only through education—more through informal education than formal education. Tolstoy and others have written numerous works of fiction. But fiction can only be a source of entertainment and not a tool for the conscious training of the human mind. For the conscious training of readers, it is necessary to write such books as will address their reason and logic. That is, such books have to be based on historical facts, with reference to scientific knowledge, and must give examples of the experiences of real life non-fictitious personalities. Fiction caters to a person’s sense of enjoyment; it does not address his reason. That is why when we say something through the medium of fiction, it yields no fruitful result; it fails to bring about any actual change in a person’s life.