The Practical Philosophy School The Practical Philosophy School is an elementary school housed in a sensational granite mansion at 79th Street and Madison Avenue in New York City. I was surprised to see that Sanskrit is part of the required daily curriculum for all of its students. Apparently there have been about a half dozen of these schools for 30 years between here and Europe, with a history that intersects with Maharishi first leaving India in 1959.
HYPERLINK "http://www.philosophyday.org/ac_cu_low_c-sanskrit.htm"http://www.philosophyday.org/ac_cu_low_c-sanskrit.htm >From the brochure: Lower School K-4 Curriculum, Sanskrit “The children are introduced to the study of a classical language, Sanskrit, in Kindergarten. Sanskrit is one of the most ancient languages — if not the most ancient — of the family of Indo-European languages, which includes classical Greek and Latin as well as almost all modern European languages. It is an astonishingly ordered and beautiful language, and its study is a brilliant training for the mind, affording unmatchable insight into the very nature of language itself. Its grammar is unrivalled in its comprehensiveness and refinement. Its sounds are pure and have remained unchanged over the ages. The structure of the Sanskrit alphabet, which children are introduced to in Kindergarten, is scientifically ordered in its differentiation of mouth positions. The sounds of the alphabet are comprehensive in their range, and considerably broaden the linguistic skills of the children at an early stage. Practice at the beginning is oral, with the Sanskrit script being introduced normally in the first grade. Sanskrit grammar is introduced in the second grade. In many cases, the study of Sanskrit refines the student’s speech and helps in the understanding of the grammatical system of English.” The sanskrit curriculum sounded interesting but some of the brochure wording sounded ideologically driven. For instance "Sanskrit - Its sounds are pure and have remained unchanged over the ages". What is "pure" as an adjective describing sound, and who could possibly know if they have remained unchanged and for how long. "The structure of the Sanskrit alphabet, which children are introduced to in Kindergarten, is scientifically ordered in its differentiation of mouth positions." Misuse of the word “scientific”. Logical or orderly things are not therefore scientific things. It seemed like some group was behind the school but that they were not putting that out front. Finally I found a link to an organization ( HYPERLINK "http://www.philosophyworks.org/content"http://www.philosophyworks.org/content ). Even there the roots are not obvious because they give as their inspirations the unidentifiable collection Plato and Aldous Huxley and Thoreau and Shantananda Saraswati. Shantananda Saraswati sounds like the probable suspect, so I google search him and sure enough, he is the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math who succeeded Swami Bramhananda Saraswati (Guru Dev) amidst some controversy involving Maharishi. And the story below confirms one from Joyce Collin-Smith’s autobiography in which Shankaracharya Shantananda later caused many if not most of Maharishi's early (circa 1960) western London followers to leave Maharishi, after one of them came to India and spoke to him. This intersects the story that I just read a month ago in an autobiography/spiritual memoir by Joyce Collin-Smith "Call No Man Master" that Rick Archer had referred to on Fairfield Life. She was a secretary to Maharishi in 1960 when he lived in London for a year or two, before he had become heavily involved with the US followers that are for most of us our earliest known "roots" of the TM movement. She describes the same story that appears in the quote below. When Gurdjieff dyed one of his organization’s appointed successors was the gentleman Leon of the story below, who later came across Maharishi and introduced TM to their group. They organized Maharishi’s SRM in London, but later left Maharishi for Shantananda. The “transcendental meditation” he refers to their using stems from those early years with Maharishi and then Shantananda, but is from what I can make out only loosely associated with the trademarked TM of Maharishi’s organizations, due to that very early break from Maharishi and thereafter following Shantananda as they describe. Apparently the current Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math remains a major influence with them to this day (albeit to my knowledge the argument over legitimate successor to Guru Dev as Shankaracharya has yet to be settled, leaving any claim to the title with an asterisk). QUOTE FROM A GOOGLE SEARCH ON SHANTANANDA SARASWATI: The School of Economic Science (SES SoES) The School of Economic Science was established by Andrew Maclaren in 1938, to promote economic justice through fair taxation and distribution of wealth. By 1947 Andrew’s son Leon MacLaren had taken control of the organisation. A follower of the teachings of the Central Asian mystic, Gurdjieff, he steered the organisation towards philosophical study and practice. After meeting the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1961, Leon introduced the practice of Transcendental meditation, and following a meeting with the Shri Shantananda Saraswati, the ancient Vedic philosophy of Avaita Vedanta became the core teaching of the SES. The SES introduces its ‘philosophy’ to new members by running ‘practical courses in Philosophy and Economics’open to the public. To continue beyond the first year of courses, students are expected to put the SES philosophical system into practice, attend an initiation ceremony into transcendental meditation, and follow a code including dress and diet. ‘Students’ become full members of the organisation by doing voluntary service, and attending residential events where they are expected to participate in a practice called “measure”. Studies at senior level are separated on gender lines. Controversy The growth of the School of Economic Science (SES / SoES) and its worldwide family of Philosophy Schools has attracted considerable controversy over the past 40 years or so. A number of overseas Philosophy Schools have received critical media coverage, and in 1983 the London Evening Standard Newspaper published a series of articles claiming the School of Economic Science was a secretive religious cult. The organisation was the subject of a critical exposé by two investigative journalists published in 1985 in the book ‘the Secret Cult’, which criticised the organisation’s views on the role of women in society, and reported allegations of indoctrinating members, and being responsible for marital and family breakdowns. The School of Economic Science has also been criticised by church leaders, and monitored by anti-cult groups in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Canada. The Belgian Branch was classified as a cult in a Belgian Government report in 1997. The Evening Standard articles publicised the fact that the SES was running a number of schools for children, and reported claims from some parents that they were unaware of the SES’ involvement. ENDQUOTE And here is a quote from someone currently associated with the NYC school. Interesting as perhaps a model of how the TMO or MSAE may change over the coming years; or not, only time will tell, and I express this here not as a preference or an opinion, but only by way of observation. QUOTE The significance of Shantananda Saraswati for SES is far greater than that of the Maharishi for the simple reason that discussions between MacLaren and SS over 30 years formed the basis of the SES teaching since 1965, as discussions between the current SES leader Donald Lambie and SS's successor continue to inform what it does. The SES declined to follow the Maharishi, although it makes use of the TM method of meditation he came to the West to promote. There is no direct connection with him so far as I know and I have never heard him referred to as a figure of significance to the SES today or in the past. In essence (I write as a current member who has been highly critical over the years of the 'cult' and religious' aspects of the SES) if you read what Shantananda Saraswati has to say you will find very little if anything that connects with the negative aspects of the SES over the years. Two books of conversations have been published - GOOD COMPANY and THE MAN WHO WANTED TO KNOW GOD - by the Study Society, an organization similar to the SES. It's possible to find innuendo in anything but I think a fair reading of either will give the impression of a thoroughly wise and decent human being. SS was one of the line of "Shankara-teachers" (ie Shankaracharyas) that are directly descended (in tradition, not birth) from Shankara, the greatest figure in Hindu philosophical tradition, thought to have lived in the 8th Century AD. Shankara was the key figure in the Advaita Vedanta tradition, in other words, "the non-dualistic view of the Upanishads". This rather technical translation does justice to what is a thoroughly respectable philosophical tradition. Advaita Vedanta is the most significant philosophy in the Indian tradition and is the one that has had most impact on the West, with the possible exception of Buddhism. However Buddhism is not really a single philosophy and is better described as a religion or group of religions. The figure most people would know is Mahatma Gandhi, whose philosophy comes from Advaita and Jain sources. He's a good example of what Advaita can achieve if it is given the right setting. So why, if the SES is so strongly influenced by one of the world's oldest and richest philosophical traditions, does it continue to attract criticism for what are essentially religious or cultish traits? The answer to that - I give a personal opinion here - is that the School is going through a process of gradual change, in which - I hope - the religious element is dying out and the philosophical coming to the fore. The point made by someone about the difference between teaching people how to think rather than what to think is a very good one. The former is what the SES ought to do and I think many of its critics on this site would support that aim. As a current member of the SES I would like to say that much that I hear about how things used to be fills me with disgust, but that I do not recognize it in today's School. I'm not saying that I disbelieve any of it, but just that if those things were tried on now they would get short shrift. I am speaking here about the London and English schools and don't have a lot of experience of elsewhere. I have seen a lot of Donald Lambie who has now been in charge for 10 years and I can say that he is a very different character to his predecessor. MacLaren was a wayward, wild, genius and one of a kind. Lambie is emerging as almost his antithesis. If MacLaren wanted to tell people what to do, Lambie wants them to learn to do things for themselves. He has the greatest respect for the traditions of the School, but one feels that the future will be very different too. So Shantananda Saraswati is maybe more alive today in the SES than when he died. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.8/1413 - Release Date: 5/3/2008 11:22 AM
