Subho’s Adventure : A Journey Through Time

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; think of it; dream of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every pay of your body be full of that idea. And just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.

During the last few years there is a growing demand for giving a value orientation to our national education policy. This call echoes Swami Vivekananda who wanted “ that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is interested, the intellect is expanded” and the “ perfection already in man” is manifested. Instead these are the fundamental values by which our children should be nourished.

The Ramkrishna Math and Ramkrishna Mission has constantly endeavored to give a practical shape to Swamiji’s ideal of education. In our educational institues secular education is harmonized with spiritual culture.

Furthermore many of our branch centers organize activities like Personality Development Workshops, Vivekananda Balaka Sangha and Vivekananda Yuvaka Sangha Wherein students are trained in the actual practice of values.

The idea is to blend higher values with formal education. However in our national school/college curriculum values are still presented as a separate subject. Working under this constraint the educational institutions of our order felt that the need for a common programme on value education. After deliberations involving over 75 of our educational centers it was decided to come out with value education story books presented in the interactive mode of story telling.

To this we have now prepared a series of value education storybooks and diary-cum-journals for school students. The objectives is to inculcate in the students higher values like truthfulness, patriotism, and self-sacrifice; to develop in them the spirit of enquiry the power of independent thinking the ideal of service as worship and a sense of duty towards parents, teachers and society. A constant refrain of Swami Vivekananda was to “awaken the God in man”, for “ there is nothing under the sun which an awakened soul cannot achieve.” The texts seek to introduce the students to this sublime truth by presenting the concept of Atman, and the means of realizing it through purity concentration and meditation. Each storybook in this series has an independent approach to the subject. The diary-cum-journal that accompanies each book seeks to help students internalize the values.

Our monastic brothers from many branch centers were involved in the preparation of these text books. We are indebted to them.