Yogananda on "How to Live" Schools for Children and Youth
The ideal of an all-sided education for youth had always been close to my heart. I saw clearly the arid results of ordinary instruction, aimed only at the development of body and intellect. Moral and spiritual values, without whose appreciation no man can approach happiness, were yet lacking in the formal curriculum. I determined to found a school where young boys could develop to the full stature of manhood.
Paramahansa Yogananda Source: Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter: Founding a Yoga School at Ranchi, 1946 1st edition
Overcoming restlessness of body and mind by concentration techniques has achieved astonishing results: it is no novelty at Ranchi [school] to see an appealing little figure, aged nine or ten years, sitting for an hour or more in unbroken poise, the unwinking gaze directed to the spiritual eye.
Paramahansa Yogananda Source: Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 40: I return to India, 1946 1st edition
The unique feature at Ranchi [school] is the initiation into Kriya Yoga.
Paramahansa Yogananda Source: Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 40: I return to India, 1946 1st edition
The schools do not teach children how to live, how to have that divine happiness. These universal teachings should be given in the schools — not to emphasize any particular religion, but to show that the way to happiness is meditation and contact of God, and that by such contact one may learn from God what one should do.
Paramahansa Yogananda Source: Solving the Mystery of Life, Chapter: How to Succeed in Finding God
It isn't academic education alone that makes people happy. It is “how-to-live” education - how to develop a harmonious, moral life, stronger will power, and spiritual understanding - that will bring happiness.
Paramahansa Yogananda Source: The Divine Romance, Chapter: How to Free Yourself From Bad Habits
Moral and spiritual training should be made the backbone of such institutions without neglect of academic education.
Paramahansa Yogananda Source: YSS magazine, Article: "How-to-Live" Spiritual Training: The Appeal That Launched the YSS Work, Jul-Sep, 2017, Pg 13
This Psychological Chart is used in the training of students in my school in Ranchi, India, where they are carefully and lovingly observed, and their conduct and habits, as well as intellectual faculties, are recorded. These slow and comparative methods of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly observation-records of a student’s life furnish the teachers with sufficient data to enable them to know what particular line to follow in regulating the lives of their students in the right way, by various changes of environment, company, discipline, and training.
Paramahansa Yogananda Source: Psychological Chart Document
[While talking about the Ranchi school] …the chief distinguishing feature of the school is the individual attention received by each student and the close study made of his nature and possibilities by his trained teachers, who record the general character and psychological development and learning of each child in a chart originated by Swami Yogananda for that purpose.
Paramahansa Yogananda Source: East-West Magazine, Article: Swami Yogananda’s Educational work in India, Nov-Dec, 1925
I consider properly organized schools as gardens where infant souls are grown and nurtured. The gardeners should be well-selected and co-operated with by parents and the public. The teachers should never be neglected for they are soul-moulders. The care and spiritual nourishment of the early life of a human plant usually determines its later development.
Paramahansa Yogananda Source: East-West Magazine, Article: Swami Yogananda’s Educational work in India, Nov-Dec, 1925, Pg 21AI chat with the docs AI chat with the docs