Growing to Be God
Value- Based Education for Child Development
Swami has introduced a new project for children, for the development of human values.
Independent of their cultural background and religion, all children should be enabled to participate, as the project draws from the teachings of all religions while it gives special focus to their own culture. To establish and maintain the basic pillars of a well functioning, peaceful and harmonious society and its continuity, as well as for the character of the individual, the realisation of human values is indispensable. The title, Swami gave to the project is: “Growing to be God”, A Value-Based Education for Child Development”.
Mr. Thuraiayah Rajasingam and his daughter Saima Rajasingam from United Kingdom (UK) were chosen by Swami to lead the inauguration of the new children programme, which commenced in Germany in October 2017. It was a beautiful event with tuition, interactive session between children, teachers and parents, presentation and lectures. There was singing, food and celebration.
Apart from a very enriching and inspiring exchange, dear guests from UK lovingly shared all their relevant knowledge with youth. According to Swamis instruction “Growing into God” already had begun in January 2017 in UK. Now this programme is to grow in Munich ,Germany as well and hopefully can be offered soon for three age groups (young, middle aged, and elder). The German team is very happy, that they have already found two young teachers and some children and with Swamis Grace and permission could begin the programme.
Every two weeks a particular human value will be examined in every class. On the one hand these values are introduced to the children in a playful loving and living way. On the other hand, the children are already carrying the great treasure of human values inside themselves.
This new form of tuition differs from the old structures of learning. Here for example, the teachers ask questions of the children and listen to them wholeheartedly, more than the other way around.
Through this process, the child is empowered and finds his or her own knowledge. It develops a sense of wonder and joy while discovering these values within and sharing and expressing them.
While performing the first tuition class with children age 8-12, what became apparent, was that not only the children were learning about the values Love, Peace, Truth, Right Conduct, Nonviolence, Justice and Harmony, but also the teachers were benefiting from their “teaching”.
According to Swami’s explanation in an interview during Gurupurnima 2017 “Growing to be God” will first be introduced in Europe and later all around the world. He communicated to the 40-50 people present the importance of this project in an unambiguous way. During the interview this project had highest priority. Swami wants the youth to strive to be teachers for this programme, as the children of today, create the world of tomorrow.
