An Insightful Facebook Live Session With Mr Devdutt Pattanaik, Famous Indian Mythologist, Speaker, And Author

Chitkara University hosted world-famous Indian mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik in a Facebook live interactive discussion with students and faculty. The globally renowned speaker Devdutt Pattanaik known for his deeply insightful writing on sacred lore, traditions, folklore, fables and parables and for challenging willful misinterpretations of ancient Indian scriptures, symbols and rituals.

Sharing his vast treasure of knowledge, he delved into the relevance of back to basics unravelling the Maths of life in a 60-minute power-packed session of unlimited and pure wisdom. He put forward his views on the relevance of mythology in modern times, especially in areas of Teaching, Management, Governance and Leadership.

Answering a query on what is the connection between spirituality and modern education, he very aptly put that modern education focuses a lot on measurable parameters and there is a lot of overlap in measurable and non-measurable e.g. emotions are immeasurable likewise thoughts and sensations too cannot be measured. So in modern education, we have to find a balance between both measurable parameters and non-measurable emotions else, we become mechanist, in addition to IQ (Intelligent Quotient) we also have to need to take a dive into EQ (Emotional Quotient) of the student as emotions fall in realms of spirituality, hence a perfect balance between both forms the sound citadel of modern education.

Highlighting a difference between ancient techniques of education and modern education he said like in ancient days a well-researched teacher was the one who would ask questions which would make students look for the answers making them more inquisitive, knowledge seekers and self-sufficient unlike today’s era of classroom lectures where student expects the teacher to know answers and making them dependent. He supports his argument with a relevant example of famous parable Vikram Aur Betaal where the king has to answer every question based on purely his knowledge.

Answering an ever-intriguing and most sought after ‘life after death question’ he says that nobody on the earth knows this though society is divided where Indian Subcontinent strongly believes in rebirth or living a million lives whereas western world goes by the tenet of you only live once.

Answering Question of Dr. Madhu Chitkara, Pro-chancellor, Chitkara University on the application of four basic elements of Maths i.e. Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division in human life, he said to answer this question best he will base his answer on the element of division as society at large is divided into two views on life, one which says that you only live once so the sum total of your life whatever you perform, achieve, accomplishments of one life given to you and other very divergent views which springs from Indian philosophy is that there are many lives so whatever you have not been able to do in this life will happen in the next life or rebirth so life is infinite and ever going.

Summing up his discourse in an extremely relevant environment he drove him a relevant point that although he believes that lessons from the mythological era should be remembered, yet feels that every age has its own gurus and none of them can be termed relevant to the present day. However, we should see the principles of the past and apply them to the present times.

Watch the recorded live stream on our Facebook page here: bit.ly/2WTpBiW