... for they have their own thoughts - Multiworld India

122005 Goa, IndiaRoll no. 1,2,3NeemaAspiBhuvanhis advice started the Kamala Ashram to explore hisphilosophy of life and learning.Buniyadi taleem [Gandhiji’s philosophy of basiceducation] was the basis for creating Laxmi Ashram.It was a time of national upheaval when struggles atthe national level were the main focus throughoutthe country. Laxmi Ashram is an ongoing endeavourto understand who we are and how we are connectedto everything around us. Otherwise till theend there is discord (ashanti), a sense of non-accomplishment(atrupti), and sadness (dukh). Living inhappiness is possible if this basic understanding is putin place.I joined Laxmi Ashram as a 11 year old. My familythought that Buniyadi Taleem would benefit me.Laxmi Ashram has a kind of cyclical routine whichhelps one understand relationships. There is a cowshed,a place for weaving, knitting, spinning, akitchen garden, and a community space. Apartfrom these it is a place where people from eightyears to seventy live together. What is the kind ofrelationship one can have with persons of differentage, experience, interest, inclinations, responsibilitiesand duties? What is one’s relation to this in thecontext of one’s self? I saw a connectedness to lifeand the living. This was the education that thearrangement provided.If this arrangement was not available to me Iwould consider my education to be incomplete.ShivajiGurveenSchool education is not education at all. From whatI have understood, education is an arrangement fora person to understand herself and our endeavoursshould be a medium towards meeting this end. Thisarrangement is already available in nature. Our realunderstanding does not come from school but fromthis natural arrangementLaxmi Ashram trains one to be a strong, competent,skillful and confident human being, able totackle all aspects of life and carry out a greatercontributory role in the larger society wherever oneis placed.Laxmi Ashram is not an ashram nor a school noran NGO. It is an arrangement to get to know oneself.NITIN PARANJAPEMy personal interest is in developing a rural-basedlearning centre which will promote communitybasedlivelihoods through innovative application ofself-learning, exchange and apprenticeship so thatrural livelihoods become viable for the members ofrural communities.YASHODARA KUNDAJII’m based in Pune since the last one year and aminvolved in many small projects: One is with khelghar, a project of the Palaknithi Parivar. Khel ghar isa children’s activity centre, where children from a