Rishikul Spiritual Education

The aims here are spiritual in the plainest sense, entirely non-sectarian, and meant to apply to anyone. What the programme offers is a quiet space and some genuine help for a mind under strain, which is not a rare condition.

Morality — from moralitas, meaning manner, character, proper conduct — is simply the work of telling right from wrong in intention, decision and action. How that faculty develops has been studied for decades, and what has emerged is that it owes as much to environment as to inheritance. It matters here because it shapes personality, and because its absence shows up in so many disorders.

Much of the study turns on the Gita — seven hundred verses in eighteen chapters, held to carry the essence of Hindu philosophy and, quite apart from that, a masterpiece of poetry. Ram Mohan Roy called it the essence of all Hindu scripture.

It cannot be read out of its setting. It sits inside the Mahabharata, traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyasa, and turns on the contest for the throne of Hastinapur between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, who are cousins. The Pandavas have the legal right; the Kauravas take the kingdom by cheating at dice. Krishna stands with the Pandavas as guide, having vowed to lift no weapon in the battle.

The moral problem the text opens with is a real one, and students are asked to sit with it rather than be given the answer.