THE TRUE EDUCATOR

The true educator must be a highly “accomplished” individual; must have realized in itself its deepest human values; only then can it serve as a guide and mentor to others, not so much for what it says or does, but especially for what it is. Must be fully educated so that it can educate.

To have good social manners is not a sign to be educated; however, to have awakened within itself the true values of human nature is a good sign. To “educate” comes from the Latin verb educare, derived from educere, which means “to extract”, to lead out, i.e., to awaken in man those positive elements that were dormant in him, such as truth, honesty, justice, love, benevolence, solidarity, etc. The educator must extract from the pupil what is dormant in its best and purest state. To educate is not to inject, to force, but extract from within and develop what already exists in the pupil's soul, just as the sunlight awakens and develops in the seed, the plant that potentially exists in it.

But how could one awaken in other good elements if they were not in oneself, these elements fully awakened?

For someone to extract what is good in the pupil, the educator must itself be firmly consolidated in this plan of good, to which it wants to direct the pupil. Whoever tries to “push” rather than “attract” is not an educator, so the educator must go in the vanguard of being good and not stand in the rearguard of being evil, trying to push the pupil to the heights, where the educator itself did not reach yet.

Ultimately, this whole educational problem is summed up in the question of the truth and the absolute sincerity that an educator must have for itself. Who is not 100% what it presents to others in words and attitudes, cannot be an educator, cannot give examples; cannot be the indicator arrow, cannot be the guide and consequently cannot try to extract what potentially is bad in its pupil for the educator, itself, is not free from being bad.

Being an educator is equivalent to a tremendous challenge to be truly truthful and honest with itself. Those who are unwilling to accept the challenge of absolute truth do not expose themselves to this dangerous and glorious adventure of educating others.

So, the problem of education culminates in the central problem of man's self-realization. For one to be a true educator, it is not sufficient to study peripheral and superficial psychology, which is outlined in most books on education - it must descend into the deepest abysses of its centrality, its Self, entering into direct contact with the cosmic foundation of its human nature, of what it “is”, and not only of what it “has”, since an ordinary man is only interested in “having”, by the quantities - while a man more conscious of his reality is enthused by to “be”, by the qualities.

Total education demands the realization of the integral man.

But who will give these integral men?

No government can create or decree them - the individual must develop within itself this integral man.

And this is possible because, within each human being, there is something greater and better than what exists outside of it. Man is much more than what he wants to be than what he is at his life's historical level. Man is his permanent and silent inner attitude, not his noisy external and transient acts. Man is his eternal potentiality, not just his temporal dynamics.

Man, try to be in your external existence what you are in your inner being!

Man, materialize your divine essence - and you will be a good educator by being plentifully educated!