Face to Face With Education

It is difficult to face problems, interesting to face challenges and wonderful to come face-to-face with what is great - great men, their vision, and their thoughts. (I would be ecstatic if I came face-to-face with God!) It is also great and satisfying to come face-to-face with what you love and what you are good at on a day-to-day basis.

Education, I discovered was my passion and natural aptitude. God's blessings, Gurudev's grace and my destiny brought me face-to-face with education. Heading the CCMT-Education Cell (the governing body of the 93 Chinmaya Vidyalayas and 8 Chinmaya Colleges) for 25 years put me right in the middle of the education pool. From here I interacted with countless students, teachers, principals, management, parents, professionals from various fields, and educational institutions of all shapes and sizes - all over the world. It gave me an opportunity to go to institutions like IITs, schools for the visually challenged, rural schools, international schools and management colleges to name a few. I also got an opportunity to address national and international forums, organize and conduct seminars and workshops. Necessity is the mother of invention. It helped me to create resource material and manage and guide from the top to the bottom, both professionally and spiritually - all, with the intention of sharing the grand vision on education of Pujya Gurudev - CVP. This natural flair and insight into education was enriched also due to Gurudev's grace and his vision.

We conceived and started a biannual newsletter for the CVP in June 1999. I had the good fortune to write its editorial - Face to Face - wherein I could communicate the importance of CVP and some of the insights on education. These editorials of the last 21 years are compiled and brought out as Face to Face with Education.

My heartfelt thanks to Smt Asha Rao (Chennai) for the compiling, Smt Meena Sriram (Coimbatore) for co-ordinating, Shri Nalin D Panchal (Coimbatore) for the graphics, and Garuda Graphics (Coimbatore) for the pagination and the printing. My sincere and special gratitude to a benevolent donor from Mumbai, for sponsoring the first print of this book. They have supported me in this journey because of their reverence for Pujya Gurudev, their passion for the cause of education and love for me. May Pujya Gurudev's blessings be on all.

I am sure that all who read it will share at least some of my concerns and take up the cause of holistic and visionary education. If we are aware and care, then we dare to do things. Pujya Gurudev's clarion call was - We Can! We must! The articles in Face to Face urges and encourages all of us - wherever we are, in whatever post or position we have, with whatever knowledge and capabilities we are endowed with - to believe that 'we too can make a difference to this world, and therefore we must!'

**Contents and Sample Pages**