29 August, 2017
The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) in association with Bhartiya Shikshan Mandal (BSM) inaugurated a lecture series on Bharat Bodh. The inauguration was done by Sh. Prakash Javadekar, Minister for HRD, Govt. of India. He said, “the lectures should be conducted in a series all over India.” He also inaugurated the IGNOU DIGI NEWS of the University which shall be made available on its website for the entire IGNOU fraternity and its students and learners.
“Bharat’s education system became such that we kept on forgetting Bharat’s culture and insisted on remembering the rest of the world’s. It is necessary to know and remember the world but this does not imply that we can forget Bharat. It is necessary to understand the Bharat and its glorious past,” he said while bringing forward the need to conduct this conference.
He suggested that, “All the philosophy and Indology students of colleges should attend this lecture series. People do not know about India. We should know the true identity of our own country. Knowledge Tradition and Practices of India, which is a course in CBSE taught in class 11th and 12th, teaches India’s culture from ayurveda to science.”
“We will replicate such courses with NCERT because we think our true identity begins with the identity of our nation. Without knowing it, we will not be able to decipher the truth about the world. We are open to discussions about the value of our past.”
The Vice Chancellor of IGNOU, Prof. Ravindra Kumar confirmed that, “The University shall soon launch a new formal academic programme called Certificate course in Bharat Bodh. This will talk about the cultural wealth of India and will also take a critical look at it. We will not take everything for granted and critically examine it and whatever is valuable we will retain it.”
Talking about the series of this lecture, he said, “It will be an interactive series where we will invite people to raise questions, issues and debates from all over India with the help of our regional centres having nationwide presence. A lot of traditional wisdom is available in our country which is untapped. We have to make a syllabus which is India centric.”
Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal's Secretary of Organizing Committee, Shri Mukul Kanitkar referred to teaching of Swami Vivekanand who through his various books and lectures tried explaining meaning of Bharat and what constitutes and binds this great country. He said that every country is unique and excels in that field; citing examples, he said that English were good at politics so pursued policy of imperialism world over. Similarly Vivekanand in 1897 had said that Americans would excel in business as Americans are very enterprising and today they have whole world as their market. India too has some traits which are our identity which we need to recognize and realise that would be Bharat Bodh for us. And that is our endeavour through this lectue series.
Prof. H. R. Nagendra, founder vice chancellor of Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (S-VYASA) in his lecture dwelt upon the science that is Yoga which he said transcends asanas and exercise as is understood by people but it is a science where "Prana" that is the real you which is beyond body and matter connects with the eternal energy that is changeless and constant. He referred to quantum mechanics principles and how those principles manifest themselves in Yoga.
Swami Atmapriyananda, Vice Chancellor of Ramakrishna Mission Vivekanada University talked about the oneness of human beings. He stressed on Indian thought of all of us being part of the same energy source and eventually becoming part of the same eternal energy after death.
