Jeevan Vidya

by Sandeep Pandey
Editorial Summary

This article outlines the philosophy of Jeevan Vidya, a radically different view of education - its goals, the means of delivery and its place in the context of society at large. Jeevan Vidya has been developed with the view of an individual as being comprised of material and conciousness components, both of which need to be addressed independently, but in harmony, in the process of education. The article also describes the basis of an educational system grounded in this philosophy and addresses the impact such a system could have on the individual as well as on society, giving much importance to how the new system could have a positive impact towards the development of a just society.


The philosophy of Jeevan Vidya, popular name for Sah-Astitwawad , is a recent development in human thinking. Shri A. Nagraj of Amarkantak has propounded this philosophy. Unlike Spiritualism, which is God-centered and mystical in nature, and Science, which is matter-centered and uncertain in nature, Jeevan Vidya is human-centered and deterministic in nature. Since spiritualism and science have failed to universally satisfy the quest for knowledge for human beings in a manner which could result in a just human order, there was a need to look beyond these two major streams of thought which have guided human beings so far on earth.

Jeevan Vidya identifies two distinct and independent components in a human being – the material body and the consciousness (‘jeevan’ or ‘chaitanya ’). Spiritualism or science do not recognize their independent existence. The need of the material body are material in nature and are fulfilled by the material world. The need of the ‘jeevan’ or ‘chaitanya’ are knowledge of the self, the body, the family, the society, the nature and the larger universe in a manner so that a way of living could be evolved which would bring all the above-mentioned six levels in harmony. Only such an individual who has both the set of needs fulfilled can be described as a happy individual. A happy individual would be a source of happiness for other individuals. These two set of needs can be described as needs of ‘samajikta’ and ‘swawalamban.’

Hence the objective of the education programme is to fulfill the above-mentioned two set of needs. Human values, like trust, respect, love, would have to be inculcated which will form the basis of a just human order. Skills would have to be taught which will make individuals capable of earning their livelihood. If such an education programme is implemented this will meet the needs of every individual of any family or community. It is to be noted that the present education system in not fulfilling these needs and in fact is forcing  the individuals to move away from such a direction.

The education programme will essentially consist of imparting the knowledge of the self, body, family, society, nature and the larger universe. This knowledge will help the individual to find a single way of living which will ensure that there is a positive effect on all the six levels at which an individual has to live and there is harmony among different levels of living. Lack of such a knowledge is the biggest challenge facing the human kind.

The most important thing is the recognition of jeevan or chaitanya as a distinct entity and the fact that the satisfaction of needs of the material body and that of jeevan require two different programmes. The satisfaction of one set of needs does not depend or guarantee satisfaction of the other set of needs. To be able to live in relationships which are source of perennial happiness largely fulfills the need of jeevan. At the level of society such relationships would reflect in terms of a ‘Parivar Mulak Gram Swarajya Vyavastha ’ (Family-centered System of Village Self-reliance).  Such a system will ensure the systems of education, health, production, exchange (of material items) and justice are in place in a community which results in the creation of a just human order. Each family will be engaged in some primary production processes (in the areas of food, clothing, housing, transportation and telecommunication).  The community members will be responsible for the management of these systems as well on a voluntary basis. Nobody will have to work for wages or trade (act as middleman) for earning their livelihood. There will be no profit oriented market. Neither will there be any currency. However, every product will be assigned a ‘labour value.’ The production will be in response to the five sets of above-mentioned basic material needs of human beings. An elaborate system of exchange supported by modern transportation and telecommunication facilities will take care of all the needs of all human beings.

There will be a well defined system of decentralized (village based) administrative system to manage all the five systems of education, health, production, exchange and justice or to take care of any other matter concerned with human life at any of the levels. A body at the village level comprising of a member from each family will be the most basic and important executive decision making body. There will be no political parties nor any bureaucracy. The people will directly run their systems and interlink so that a smooth bottom-up hierarchy from the village level to the world level is in place. The concept of nation state will become redundant in such a system.  

The Meaning of Education

We have examined the failures of our education system in great detail in an earlier article. The education system is not fulfilling any of the perceived needs of people. It does not make us any civilized or progressive in some qualitative sense which will make the world a better place to live in for everybody. We don’t see any qualitative difference in terms of wisdom or behaviour between educated and uneducated people. It does not impart any knowledge. All it does is equip the individual with loads of information. And even that is not being done honestly. And lastly, it fails to guarantee even the most possible thing requiring only material means – the livelihood – to all. We see more people becoming unemployed or underemployed as a result of going through the process of education than the other way around. This all round failure of the education system calls for taking another look at the basic nature of the process itself. What are the objectives of the present education system? The fault probably lies in the basic nature itself more then its implementation, which even the most sincere of us wanting to carry out a reform in the process make the mistake of believing. What should be the objective of education? What will the nature of education system be like? What is the vision of society it will hope to build? These are questions we wish to answer through this article. Before entering this realm, which may seem idealistic to some, it is worthwhile emphasizing that we should be prepared to dispense with the present education system if we don’t see it achieving the desired objectives. Any tinkering with the current education system is out of the scope of this article because it is impossible in that fashion to bring about the changes that are being suggested in this article. A complete relook at the process is being done and things would have to start from the basics. We’ll have to build from the scratch. It will also require unlearning some of the things that may be very dear to us for various reasons.

Objective of Education

The most comprehensive definition of the objective of education is derived from the ‘Jeevan Vidya’ or ‘Sah-Astitwawad’ philosophy of Shri A. Nagraj, which is a recent development in human thinking.    

Jeevan Vidya identifies two distinct and independent components in a human being – the material body and the consciousness (‘jeevan’ or ‘chaitanya ’). Spiritualism or science do not recognize their independent existence. Unlike Spiritualism, which is God-centered and mystical in nature, and Science, which is matter-centered and uncertain in nature, Jeevan Vidya is human-centered and deterministic in nature. Since spiritualism and science have failed to universally satisfy the quest for knowledge for human beings in a manner which could result in a just human order, there was a need to look beyond these two major streams of thinking which have guided human beings so far on earth. The traditional systems of education used religion or spiritualism as their philosophical basis and most of the modern education systems use science as their philosophical basis. Some people have also attempted to combine the two. However, since there is a basic contradiction between the two streams over the concept of matter and consciousness, such attempts can lead nowhere. The inadequacies of education systems based on spiritualism, science or a combination of the two are there before us as proofs.

The needs of the material body are material in nature and are fulfilled by the material world. The need of the ‘jeevan’ or ‘chaitanya ’ are knowledge of the six distinct levels at which each individual has to live - the self, the body, the family, the society, the nature and the larger universe, in a manner so that a way of living could be evolved which will bring all the above-mentioned six levels in harmony. These two set of needs can be described as needs of ‘samajikta’ and ‘swawalamban.’ Unlike other living beings on earth, the human beings have to spend a considerable amount of time during the early phase of their life learning how to fulfill these two set of needs. This is the most important characteristic of human beings which makes them different from other living beings. And it is the responsibility of the education system and the previous generation to ensure that this is easily made accessible to all their children.

Hence the objective of our education system is two fold:
  1. Samajikta – to help the individual acquire a knowledge of the self, the body, the family, the society, the nature and the larger universe and to know how to live at these different levels so that there is harmony among all the levels.

  2. Swawalamban – to equip the individual with skills which will allow him/her to fulfill all the material needs of his/her family.
Only when these objectives have been achieved in the case of all human beings can we say that the process of education is complete. And each individual would have to be part of it if we would like to see a manviya vyavastha (just human order) established on this earth.

Every individual who will complete the above-mentioned process of education will become knowledgeable. Knowledgeable individuals will be happy. A happy individual will be a source of happiness for others. This is also how we may verify that the process has actually worked.

Nature of the Education System

The education programme will essentially consist of imparting the knowledge of the self, the body, the family, the society, the nature and the larger universe. This knowledge will help the individual to find a single way of living which will ensure that there is a positive effect on all the six levels at which an individual has to live and there is harmony among different levels of living. Lack of such a knowledge is the biggest challenge facing the human kind.

The objective of the education system is to fulfill the above-mentioned two set of needs for everybody. Every individual will have to go through this process. The process of education is complete only when each individual fulfills the two objectives. Hence there is no question of carrying out any examination as part of this education process to determine who succeeded and who did not. The larger objective requires that everybody has to succeed. Otherwise we’ll continue to live in disorder.

The nature of the education process is such that different individuals may take different periods of time to complete it according to their aptitudes and inclinations. Hence it cannot be mass education process like we have today where the educational institutions resemble factories producing some brand of products. The educational process will have to be tailor made for each student and individual interaction of teacher and student will be required. Each individual will develop according to his/her talent and personality.

Since the learning process is individual centered there is no need for competition or comparison between individuals. Competition is seen as a much touted virtue in modern society. We have come to believe that it is an integral part of human life and cannot imagine an education system without competition. Some go as far as to say that it is natural. However, the fact of matter is that we solve each of our real life problems by seeking cooperation from fellow human beings. In normal routine living we like to be polite, courteous and cooperative towards our fellow human beings. In most of our human dealings we like to see trust established. When we meet a new person we start out by having trust in him/her and we expect the same from him/her. In fact if we don’t have trust in the fellow human beings with whom we live and work it’ll become very difficult for us to live. It can make us schizophrenic or even mad. So why do we introduce the artificial element of competition in our education process? It has already done lot damage to human society. The natural human value with which a child is born is trust and we should build upon it to achieve the desired objective of creating a just human order. To excel we don’t need competition. The natural motivation to excel is the objective of making this world a better place for everybody in which we can live as happy individuals. Most of the inventions and discoveries or philosophies which were meant for the benefit of human kind did not come out of any competitive process, for nobody can stop geniuses, innovators, thinkers or well meaning persons. However, destructive things like nuclear weapons, fundamentalist ideologies and purely profit driven but otherwise destructive technologies have come out of competition. It has been one of the most worst crimes perpetrated on human beings to have propagated the idea that ‘competition ensures quality.’ It is desire to live mutually satisfying human relationships that ensures quality of life and not competition. ‘Competition ensures quality’ works only in the capitalistic market framework and only so long as the going is good. If profits go down then we can easily see people indulging in corrupt practices and adulteration.

Hence, the education system should be totally free of any punishment and reward methods. Because education, in the above-mentioned sense and not in the narrow sense of what we mean by it today, is an universal need we cannot discourage anybody from trying to complete that journey. Moreover, as we would like to see everybody accomplish the two objectives to fulfill their needs, it doesn’t make sense to selectively promote some over the rest. In fact, the accusation against the modern education system is that it only filters out the creamy layer and dumps the rest, which is a dominating percentage of people who decide to go to school. Obviously such an unjust system cannot be allowed to go on if the larger objective is to establish a  manviya vyavastha , a system which will meet the needs of every individual of any family or community. The present education system in not fulfilling these needs and in fact is forcing  the individuals to move away from such a direction by creating more unemployment and propagating values which are very damaging to our family and social fabric.

The Vision of a Just Society

The most important contribution of Jeevn Vidya is the concept of  jeevan or chaitanya as a distinct entity and the fact that the satisfaction of needs of the material body and that of jeevan require two different programmes. The satisfaction of one set of needs does not depend on or guarantee satisfaction of the other set of needs. To be able to live in relationships which are source of perennial happiness is a manifestation of complete understanding which fulfills the need of jeevan. At the level of society such relationships would reflect in form of a ‘Parivar Mulak Gram Swarajya Vyavastha ’ (Family-based System of Village Self-reliance). Such a system will ensure that the systems of education, health, production, exchange (of material items) and justice are in place in a community which results in the creation of a just human order. Each family will be engaged in some primary production processes (in the areas of food, clothing, housing, transportation and telecommunication). The community members will be responsible for the management of these systems as well on a voluntary basis. This is to say that the ‘service’ sector of economy will perform those duties with a sense of true service (without any expectation of financial remuneration). Nobody will have to work for wages or trade (act as middleman) for earning their livelihood. There will be no profit oriented market. Neither will there be any currency. However, every product will be assigned a ‘labour value’ upholding the value of equity. Every human being’s work will be treated equally and the important thing would be to fulfill everybody’s needs. Fulfillment of needs will the basis of exchange of material items among different families rather than any arbitrarily decided value which may widen the material prosperity level gap. In a just and equitable society there will be no need for accumulation because people will derive their sense of security from happy and mutually satisfying relationships rather then their material wealth. The production will be in response to the five sets of above-mentioned basic material needs of human beings. An elaborate system of exchange supported by modern transportation and telecommunication facilities will take care of all the needs of all human beings.

It can be visualized that the basic needs like food, clothing and housing can be taken care of at the local level. But for items more sophisticated and requiring modern technological inputs and industrial scale activity, experts from different villages will be identified and put together as a team to set up the entire process of production and when they would have produced the required number of items and their spare parts necessary, they will dismantle the operation and go back to living with their families in their native villages. All these personnel will work as volunteers with their families taking care of their basic needs while they are assembled at a special location for a well defined purpose.

There will be a well defined system of decentralized (village based) administrative system to manage all the five systems of education, health, production, exchange and justice or to take care of any other matter concerned with human life at any of the levels. A body at the village level comprising of a member from each family will be the most basic and important executive decision making body. There will be no political parties nor any bureaucracy. The people will directly run their systems and interlink so that a smooth bottom-up hierarchy from the village level to the world level is in place. The concept of nation state will become redundant in such a system. There will be no need for regularly collecting taxes. The people from the village level will send the resources up at a higher level only in response to specific and agreed upon needs. Otherwise they will manage their systems locally based on local resources.

The process of education would produce individuals who are more inclined towards working towards establishment of such a just human order. Human values, like trust, respect, love, would have to be inculcated which will form the basis of all human relationships and skills would have to be taught which will make individuals capable of taking care of the material needs of their families.


Sandeep Pandey is affiliated with ASHA, Lucknow. He can be reached at ashaashram@yahoo.com.