美文——Ｅｄｕｃａｔｉｏｎ ｆｏｒ Ｌｉｆｅ
When one travels around the world, one notices to what an extraordinary degree human nature is the same, whether in India or America, in Europe or Australia. This is especially true in colleges and universities. We are turning out, as if through a mold, a type of human being whose chief interest is to find security, to become somebody important, or to have a good time with as little thought as possible.Conventional education makes independent thinking extremely difficult. Conformity leads to mediocrity. To be different from the group or to resist environment is not easy and is often risky as long as we worship success. The urge to be successful, which is the pursuit of reward whether in the material or in the so-called spiritual sphere, the search for inward or outward security, the desire for comfort— this whole process smothers3 discontent, puts an end to spontaneity and breeds fear; and fear blocks the intelligent understanding of life. With increasing age, dullness of mind and heart sets in4.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion5. This fear of life, this fear of struggle and of new experience, kills in us the spirit of adventure; our whole upbringing and education have made us afraid to be different from our neighbor, afraid to think contrary to the established pattern of society, falsely respectful of authority and tradition.
Fortunately, there are a few who are in earnest6, who are willing to examine our human problems without the prejudice of the right or of the left; but in the vast majority of us, there is no real spirit of discontent, of revolt. When we yield uncompreh-endingly7 to environment, any spirit of revolt8 that we may have had dies down, and our responsibilities soon put an end to it.
Now, what is the significance of life? What are we living and struggling for? If we are being educated merely to achieve distinction, to get a better job, to be more efficient, to have wider domination over others, then our lives will be shallow and empty. If we are being educated only to be scientists, to be scholars wedded to books, or specialists addicted to knowledge, then we shall be contributing to the destruction and misery of the world.
Though there is a higher and wider significance to life, of what value is our education if we never discover it? We may be highly educated, but if we are without deep integration of thought and feeling, our lives are incomplete, contradictory and torn with many fears; and as long as education does not cultivate an integrated outlook on life, it has very little significance.
Education is not merely a matter of training the mind. Training makes for efficiency, but it does not bring about completeness. A mind that has merely been trained is the continuation of the past, and such a mind can never discover the new. That is why, to find out what is right education, we will have to inquire into the whole significance of living.
To most of us, the meaning of life as a whole is not of primary importance, and our education emphasizes secondary values, merely making us proficient in some branch of knowledge. Though knowledge and efficiency are necessary, to lay chief emphasis on them only leads to conflict and confusion.
Knowledge is necessary, science has its place; but if the mind and heart are suffocated by knowledge, and if the cause of suffering is explained away, life becomes vain and meaningless. And is this not what is happening to most of us? Our education is making us more and more shallow; it is not helping us to uncover the deeper layers of our being, and our lives are increasingly disharmonious and empty.
Information, the knowledge of facts, though ever increasing, is by its very nature limited. Wisdom is infinite, it includes knowledge and the way of action; but we take hold of a branch and think it is the whole tree. Through the knowledge of the part, we can never realize the joy of the whole. Intellect can never lead to the whole, for it is only a segment, a part.
The function of education is to create human beings who are integrated and therefore intelligent. We may take degrees and be mechanically efficient without being intelligent. Intelligence is not mere information; it is not derived from books, nor does it consist of clever self-defensive responses and aggressive assertions. One who has not studied may be more intelligent than the learned. We have made examinations and degrees the criterion of intelligence and have developed cunning minds that avoid vital human issues. Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential, the what is; and to awaken this capacity, in oneself and in others, is education.
当一个人环游世界时，他会注意到不论是在印度、美洲，还是欧洲或澳洲，人类的本性简直如出一辙。而这种一致性又在大学里体现得最甚。我们仿如一个模子出来的一般，我们的首要任务是找寻安全感，成为某个要人，要么能轻轻松松不费脑筋便可过上舒服的日子。
传统的教育使独立思考难上加难。因循守旧带来的是平庸，只要我们崇尚所谓的“成功”，要想与众不同或反抗环境就绝非易事，而且充满了凶险。成功的强烈欲望，也就是对物质的或所谓精神上报酬的追求，对内在或外在的安全感的追求，以及对舒适生活的企盼——这整个过程压制了人们心中的不满，结束了原有的自发性却培养了恐惧之心；而恐惧则阻碍了对人生的领悟。年纪越大，心智也就越发迟钝了。
在寻求舒适的过程中，我们常常会找到一小块人生的僻静之所，在那里冲突最小，于是我们惧怕跨出这块保护地。这种对人生的恐惧，对奋斗和新体验的恐惧扼杀了我们的冒险精神；我们成长的环境和所受的教育都使我们惧怕与别人不同，惧怕质疑已有的社会模式，继而盲目崇尚权威和传统。
还好，有那么一些人真的愿意不带偏见地去审视我们人类的问题；但是我们中的绝大多数却没有真正的不满和反抗的精神。当我们无缘无故地就屈服于环境的时候，我们所拥有的任何反抗精神就已渐渐减少了，而我们的所谓种种责任最终将其扼杀。
那么什么是生活的意义呢？我们生活和斗争是为了什么？如果我们受教育仅仅是为了声望显赫，得到个好点儿的工作，办事更有效率，能更有权利支配他人，那我们的生命也将难免于肤浅和空虚。如果我们受教育是为了成为科学家，成为死板的学者，或者只沉迷于知识的专家，那么我们就在促使世界毁灭，增加其不幸。
尽管生命的意义确实更高更广，可如果没有发现它，我们的教育又有什么价值可言？我们可以受到高等教育，但是如果我们没有思想和感情上深层次的融合，我们的生命就是不完整的，是矛盾和被恐惧所折磨的；一旦教育不能培养出对人生完整的理解，那就根本没有什么意义。
教育不仅仅是对头脑的训练，训练可以提高效率，但是不能造就完整的人生。只接受训练的头脑就是对过去的延续，而这样的头脑不能发现新的事物。这就是为什么要找到正确的教育，我们必须要去探询生命的全部意义。
对我们大多数人而言，整体的生活的意义并没被看作最重要的事情。我们的教育所重视的其实是次重要的东西，也不过是让我们能更熟悉某个领域的 知识而已。尽管知识和效率很重要,但是片面强调它们只能带来冲突和混乱。
知识是不可少的，科学自有其用武之地；但是如果头脑和心灵被知识束缚阻塞，而苦难的缘由又被认为无足轻重，那么生命也就空虚而毫无意义了。而这不正是发生在我们大多数身上的事实么？我们的教育使我们变得越来越肤浅；它没有在揭示人类内涵上给我们任何的帮助，却使得我们的生命变得不和谐，越发空虚。
尽管信息，即有关事实的知识一直在增长着，却难免存在本质上的局限性。智慧则是无穷的，它包括一切知识和行为的方式；而我们却只见树木不见森林地一意孤行。部分的知识不能使我们得到完全的喜悦。智力永远不能变成智慧，因为它只是有限的树木，是森林的局部而已。
教育的作用就是创造完整的人类，有智慧的人类。我们可以获取学位，有机械般的效率却没有智慧。智慧并非只是信息、并非来自书本，而它也不是指聪明的自我辩解或过激的断言。没有读过书的人可能比一个博学的人更有智慧。我们把考试和学位视为衡量智慧的标准，这样造就的是躲避重大人生问题的狡猾思想。智慧是对根本的、人生究竟为何问题的洞察能力；而要唤醒这种能力，于己于人，靠的都应是教育。
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