Sathya Sai Educare Study Guide

This Sathya Sai Educare Study Guide is a deeply spiritual, yet highly accessible compilation of Sathya Sai Baba's superlative teachings on education. It clarifies and emphasizes the unfathomable spiritual power that is innate within the human condition and presents an achievable process for living a successful and fulfilling human and spiritual life.Focusing on the universal human values of Truth, Right Action, Peace, Love, Nonviolence, this volume also provides the philosophical foundations for education in the highest sense of the word, and its practical application throughout all areas and phases of life. Practically speaking, the term Sathya Sai Educare refers to all educational processes aimed at helping humanity bring forth their innate qualities of essential human goodness. It recognizes that all life is sacred, connected, and interdependent, and acknowledges the scientific fact that we all share the same basic building blocks with everyone and everything that surrounds us. This knowledge can lead to the understanding that caring exclusively for ourselves and believing we are isolated and separate individuals is an illusion that can only lead to continued human disharmony and ecological disaster.According to Sathya Sai Baba: The word Educare has its origin in the Latin word, 'educare', which means 'to elicit.' Educare has two aspects, the worldly and the spiritual. Worldly education brings out the latent knowledge pertaining to the physical world. Spiritual education brings out the inherent divinity in man. So, both worldly education and spiritual education are essential, without which the human life has no value.In this approach to education a distinction is made between what has traditionally been conceived as 'education' and that which we refer to as 'Educare'. Sai Baba emphasized, "Real education is that which promotes unity, equality, and peaceful co-existence with fellow human beings. It flows from the heart, and is termed as 'Educare'." Therefore, he says, "Educare should be pursued along with what has usually been meant by education."Mahatma Gandhi's definition that "education is an all-around drawing out of the best in child and adult-body, mind, and spirit" demonstrates brilliant consistency with this point of view. Drawing out and experiencing the inherent human values in school and in the normal conduct of life naturally encourages and develops those qualities that lead to good character and all-around success.As a universal process of holistic human development, Sathya Sai Educare has been applied to a wide range of health care and social service programs currently operating in several countries throughout the world. However, when it is programmatically applied in classrooms, schools, homes, and communities, it is referred to as Sathya Sai Education in Human Values (SSEHV). Encouraging the practice of universal human values in schools and communities is the essential mission of the Sathya Sai Institute of Education-USA (ISSE-USA), a newly incorporated non-profit educational service organization based in California. ISSE-USA is one of 28 such Institutes currently in operation throughout the world. July, 2013