On Auroville - On Super School

On Super School

Before you all leave I want to tell you that we are now building up Super School. We are sitting today in a Super School. This is the Hall of Super School. I am very keen that all of you from today graduate into Super School. You have left the Last School. You have gone into Super School!

And I want to tell you what I mean by Super School.

This is my interpretation.

Mother has given the word "Super School". She has not said what it means. We can only try to understand. So I want your participation in that sharing. We will all enquire, what is this word "Super School" that Mother has used? So I have been making a research for the last several months now. In fact right from the time that I came to you first, I was as it were, blessed by all of you and I felt a Grace on me, that I am now given a chance to make a research. You know whenever you have chance to make a research you should think you are blessed, because all life is to be a research. So I felt very greatly blessed and for which I have to thank you again and again for it is you who gave me the chance of research.

And I found that what I was doing in these sessions with you was already Super School. It is like Harpagon. You know the story of Molière, isn't it? Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Harpagon discovered that what he was speaking was already prose and he found out that what he was speaking was already prose! Similarly, when this word "Super School" came — Deepti brought to me what Mother had written. At that time I did not even know that Mother had written the word "Super School" and in that document Mother had written only five terms: Last School, After School 1, After School 2, After School 3, Super School and No School. So I came to know of it only a few months ago. And then I enquired as to what it is, that I was doing with all of you, I discovered that I was already doing Super School.

Super School I discovered is to my mind — at least at present tentatively  — a school. First of all it is a school. And school is what? A school is a place of schooling. And what does schooling mean? Schooling is a place where students are helped. In comparison to that, No School is a place where students are not helped. They are left to themselves. You do everything yourself. You discover all yourself. There is no school. So if we are in a Super School it means that you are in a school where a lot of help is being given — as I am bringing in Parmenides, his statement which you may not know and which you will take a long time to find if you have to do it yourself. But here you are given help. Somebody who has read this for the last forty years is getting a chance to bring it to your notice, saying look there is a big treasure here, and this one sentence here, this jewel, is a very important jewel, he brings it to you and gives it to you. So this is schooling. Schooling is a place where lot of help is given.

But help about what? Help about higher realms of thought and action. You can help children in writing the alphabet that is also help. That is also schooling. But here, in Super School, you are given help in the higher realm of thought and action. So this is one mark of it being a Super School. We are now dealing with the higher and highest thought. In fact, just now we did the highest thought that can be envisaged. So we are dealing with the higher and highest thought; that is our main content. That is the mark that we are now in a Super School, dealing with higher thought and action.

Then, in giving you help, there is a kind of a speed; a Super School is to ride on a galloping horse. A horse which is galloping neither trotting, nor cantering but galloping. You go from what is written in the Twentieth Century to Fifth Century BC. At one stroke you were taken as it were, from one point to the other at a gallop. And again you come back to the present day — by gallop. The speed is galloping. You are summarizing the whole store of thought as quickly as possible, with a tremendous speed.

What Mother has said in the third article of the Charter, it is a tremendous task. "Taking advantage of all the past discoveries" —� unless you gallop you cannot do it because Mother also wants you to spring towards the future, because if you take all the time only in galloping and assimilating the past, there is no time for the future. So we have got to gallop very fast.

The speed with which we are going to do our work will be a very super speed. Like a Japanese train. The bullet train. In fact the mark of any achievement of a higher level is measured by, the speed. The quicker you can move spontaneously, the better is the sign of your great progress, already achieved. Little children can progress little by little by little by little. But as you move forward the mark whether you belong to a higher level or not is this — whether you can make galloping speed.

After studying you for the last six months, I then told Deepti that you belong to higher education already. This is my judgment on all of you because what I was talking to you I could not have talked and I tell you that I did not come to talk to you with any prepared plan. I just sat with you and allowed my mind to tune in with you and speak what I felt could be absorbed by you. And I found myself so happy that I could speak at the highest level that I could think of. Therefore it was to me a mark that you all belong to higher education. Whether you pass exams or don't pass exams, I don't mind. For me examination is not the measure of your achievement. The fact that you are absorbing these higher levels of thought automatically proves that you belong to higher education.

Super School is a place where you are aided, you need aid. You still do not belong to a stage where I can say now you need no school. You don't belong to that level. You will belong to that level and we are preparing you in such a way that you will be able to say one day that we don't want you. Bye bye. We shall move forward ourselves. And we wait for that happy day when that will come. But now you need help. So this place is a place where you expect a great deal of help. I am giving long lectures. If it were No School, perhaps you would not need any lectures at all. But at present I am deliberately giving long lectures because I want to gallop very fast. As if I want to fly with you and go far and then I want to leave you. I will say now you can fly yourselves. This is my aspiration.

So I am talking you to a field, which is supposed to be very difficult. Even great philosophers do not read The Life Divine. This is a very difficult book. But I want to read with you this very book because it will take us to very, very far off regions and very quickly I want to do it. What I want from you is a great readiness to fly and if you are tired any time, please tell me very frankly. Because I should stop — for that moment we shall fly slowly. Because I don't want that you should suddenly say that now I won't come at all. No, I want you to be with me all the time. Even if you are slow, I shall slow myself down and go slowly with you. Even if it takes many years it does not matter. But we shall do this course, regularly and assiduously. If I ask you to study please study nicely. Be prepared, don't be tired. That is all I ask, don't be tired. We want to rise to very high levels of thought and action. We want to do this very speedily and we want to prepare you for No School. Till that time we shall be with you.

I have said therefore that the program of this Super School is the following. We shall concentrate upon two great books. The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga. The Life Divine is the highest book of thought and The Synthesis of Yoga is the highest book of action. So these are the two focuses of our work. At the same time, to understand these two books we have to assimilate the whole past — in its essentials at least. Therefore I have said, to begin with, I want to give six lectures on Western Philosophy, six lectures on Indian Philosophy, six lectures on World History and six lectures on Economics — at least six lectures so that you can enter into the field. We shall have some kind of cyclical movement and then you will find yourself better and better equipped to read these two great books.

You should be able to read these two books by yourself basically. So even now I am trying to have you read basically without my telling you and asking questions to you in such a way that you read yourself and tell me the answers. That will be our style of studying.

This is a book called General Knowledge book. Don't be frightened because we will not study this book at all. But it only shows that if you want to appear for highest examinations then of course this book is necessary. As I told you I don't want you to appear in examination at all, but as an amusement we should be prepared to read such a book. As an amusement, there is no compulsion at all but in due course it may take four years, five years, six years, , doesn't matter, time is enough. In any case some of the very interesting part of the book should come to you as soon as possible.

So there is no fixed program, no syllabus, nothing, no examination. I would like you swim freely in the field of wide knowledge of the world. And then I have told you that whatever you are interested in — of you are artists, some are physical educationists, some of you are musicians — I would like you to specialize in all this. It is a part of Super School. I would like everybody to have some skills. And I have told you that one skill that you should possess is speedwriting. As students of Super School you should all be able to do speedwriting. Either stenography, shorthand or you find your own system of shorthand, but you should be able to take notes very quickly. It is one skill which is absolutely indispensable. So do it. Capacity to summarise, capacity to report, these are some of the skills which you should develop. So whether you are taught or not on your own you should do this, so you will gain real confidence when you are able to summarise. After finishing the first Chapter I shall tell you to summarise. And don't worry I shall summarise with you. It is not as if you will be left without aid, I shall work with you to summarise the whole Chapter.

Apart from that you should have some other skills in which you are interested. Right from gardening to cooking to brick-making or architecture. There are so many things in Auroville, so many skills are manifested, kindly look out and see what you would like to do, that you must develop skills. Sri Aurobindo has spoken of four aspects of your personality — Wisdom, Heroism or Courage, Harmony and Skill. We want each student to develop these four things. In his own some
way, in her own way, at once own speed, but ultimately at the end of Super School you should feel that you have sufficiently shape your personality in these four directions.

So this is the programme of Super School that I have so far discovered and I am sharing with you. We should still discover more, may be that our programme will become longer and longer, but that doesn't matter, without any restrain of time or space we fly higher. Alright. Good!