Sat­narayan Ma­haraj

Lord Kr­ish­na ex­plains in the Hin­du scrip­ture Gi­ta that ac­tion with knowl­edge leads to re­nun­ci­a­tion but ac­tion with­out knowl­edge leads to bondage. When ac­tiv­i­ties–due to un­der­stand­ing–are de­void of any self­ish mo­tives, the fire of knowl­edge burns away the taints of past ac­tions and lib­er­ates the in­di­vid­ual.

This fire of knowl­edge–ex­act­ly like a fire– re­duces all fu­els that are there, burn­ing every­thing to ash­es. It burns all our kar­ma, not on­ly of to­day, last year or of this life, but of many past lives. There­fore, knowl­edge will save us from be­ing a slave of this world.

In the pur­suit of knowl­edge we at­tain every­thing. From one thing we strive to­wards an­oth­er. There are dif­fer­ent stages in life and one thing is ap­plic­a­ble at one time, an­oth­er thing may be de­sir­able at an­oth­er time. But we need guid­ance at all times. Knowl­edge gives us that guid­ance.

Lord Kr­ish­na fur­ther men­tions that it is this knowl­edge that burns all the chains–cre­at­ed through ac­tion–that binds us to this world. But hav­ing aban­doned at­tach­ment to the re­sults of work, ever con­tent, de­pend­ing on noth­ing though en­gaged in self­less ac­tiv­i­ty, ver­i­ly one does not do any­thing. These are the means by which we live in the world with­out be­com­ing part of it.

The mantra ded­i­cat­ed to the teacher says:

Gu­rur Brah­ma Gu­rur Vish­nu

Gu­rur De­vo Ma­hesh­wara­ha

Gu­rur Saak­shat Param Brah­ma

Tas­mai Shree Gu­rave Nama­ha

"The Gu­ru (teacher) is the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the di­vine triple God-head Brah­ma, Vish­nu and Shi­va. He cre­ates, sus­tains knowl­edge and de­stroys ig­no­rance. I salute such a Gu­ru."

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Hin­du Schools fol­low a strict sys­tem when im­part­ing knowl­edge and wis­dom to the pupils in our care. The teacher (gu­ru) is of ut­most im­por­tance in the class­room and the pupils and par­ents must be aware of this and show the ap­pro­pri­ate re­spect and def­er­ence.

We have evolved over years of prac­tice and our teach­ers have en­hanced their skills and have en­sured that our schools are among the top per­form­ers in the coun­try. The Baal Vikaas pro­gramme seeks to fur­ther en­hance the aca­d­e­m­ic pro­gramme pre­scribed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion by in­tro­duc­ing pupils to var­i­ous as­pects of Hin­duism and its cul­tur­al prac­tices.

An ad­di­tion­al ben­e­fit of the Baal Vikaas pro­gramme is the dis­ci­pline that pupils de­vel­op as they prac­tice and pre­pare. This re­minds us of the an­cient Gu­rukul sys­tem of im­part­ing knowl­edge used for cen­turies by our sages and gu­rus. In this sys­tem, the gu­ru is the reser­voir of all knowl­edge and dis­sem­i­nates this to the pupils.

Knowl­edge is passed from the gu­ru di­rect­ly to his pupil so that mis­con­cep­tions are im­me­di­ate­ly cor­rect­ed. The pupil must al­so be in the ap­pro­pri­ate frame of mind to re­ceive the knowl­edge. This sys­tem of "Gu­ru Shishya­parampara," where knowl­edge is passed di­rect­ly from teacher to stu­dent, has en­sured that the state-ap­proved syl­labus is de­liv­ered to stu­dents in a man­ner that al­lows for easy un­der­stand­ing by all.

To­day our teach­ers con­tin­ue to use this sys­tem to teach as­pects of re­li­gion and cul­ture to our pupils which are dis­played dur­ing the Baal Vikaas Fes­ti­val. The teach­ers first ed­u­cate them­selves, be­com­ing ex­perts in the cat­e­go­ry be­fore pass­ing on the knowl­edge. Dis­ci­pline is in­stilled in both teach­ers and pupils. While un­der­go­ing this process, it al­lows pupils to ex­cel in their aca­d­e­m­ic en­deav­ours as well.

In a 75-page syl­labus print­ed an­nu­al­ly with mi­nor vari­a­tions, the pro­gramme and the cat­e­gories are iden­ti­fied. These in­clude: lo­cal clas­si­cal singing, in­stru­men­tal, dance, folk song, bha­jan singing, chants from the Gi­ta and Ra­mayan art com­pe­ti­tion.

The pro­gramme has a def­i­nite Hin­du slant but this re­li­gious right is guar­an­teed. Jus­tice Ven­tour in his rul­ing in High Court in the mat­ter CV 2009-01445 be­tween Kam­la Jages­sar and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, at (27) states:

"The doc­u­ment known as the Con­cor­dat of 1960 em­bod­ies a num­ber of as­sur­ances giv­en by the Gov­ern­ment to De­nom­i­na­tion­al Boards of Man­age­ment for the Preser­va­tion and Char­ac­ter of De­nom­i­na­tion­al Schools in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The said doc­u­ment was ap­proved by Cab­i­net and du­ly signed by the then Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion and Cul­ture on the 22nd of De­cem­ber, 1960." In any event, how­ev­er, par­ents have the right to with­draw their chil­dren from this pro­gramme if they so de­sire.

The SDMS Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment would like to ex­press sin­cere ap­pre­ci­a­tion to all who have worked to make the Baal Vikaas Fes­ti­val an ad­di­tion­al teach­ing tool that en­sures suc­cess of teach­ers and stu­dents over the last 30 years. Words are nev­er enough, but we want to sin­cere­ly thank the prin­ci­pals, teach­ers, par­ents and sup­port­ers who have been in­stru­men­tal in en­sur­ing that our pupils main­tain high stan­dards at all times. This con­tri­bu­tion to ed­u­ca­tion, cul­ture and re­li­gion is in­valu­able and now it is broad­cast world­wide on our own Ra­dio Jaagri­ti and TV Jaagri­ti.

The mem­bers of the Baal Vikaas com­mit­tee and the Ma­ha Sab­ha Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment, past and present have all made their con­tri­bu­tion in mov­ing ed­u­ca­tion and the Baal Vikaas Fes­ti­val to the world stage.

Spon­sor­ship by the Re­pub­lic Bank, in­di­vid­u­als and par­ents have en­sured that this unique ad­di­tion to the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is suc­cess­ful.