The season of mangoes, the season of oranges and the season of suicides! People react momentarily to these sad incidents , console the bereaved parents and then forget about it. Nobody tries to go to the roots of the problem -- neither the teachers nor the parents. The problem is too overwhelming for them perhaps.
In the last week there were a dozen suicides by teenagers in Mumbai alone, within a week. And this is going to grow as the exams draw closer.
It is like an epidemic of suicide.
This year some people blame it on the latest film : 3 Idiots because a student in the film hangs himself in the fear of failure. But I think, it is just an excuse. No film is powerful enough to influence anybody to end their life, unless they have a suicidal tendency. Maybe there was an undercurrent of this thought in the unconscious of these young people.Their inherent depression got supported by the incident depicted in this film.
What is driving these youngsters to their death?
Osho was an educationist and he has spoken at length on the pitfalls of the current system and has suggested ways of changing it radically.
Osho says: '' The very word education, in its roots, means to draw out. Whatever is within you as a seed has to be drawn out, given full opportunity, so that it can blossom. But no one knows what is hidden within you, what kind of soil you need."
Parents decide about their children according to their own ambitions. Somebody wanted to be very rich and could not be: he is hoping through his children that his ambitions should be fulfilled. Naturally he would not like his children to move in directions where possibilities of becoming rich are scarce.
As a musician you cannot earn much , so the parents who have been interested in money would like to send their children into a certain pattern of education which brings them the right qualification to be rich.
But the potential of the small child about whom it is being decided, has not even been taken into consideration. Children are forced into a direction where greed for money is an essential to be successful.
Even if he succeeds, he will be a failure, because he will be unhappy trhoughout his life.Unless a person flowers from within, actualizes his hidden potential, he cannot be happy in life.
A gardener knows this secret much better than the parents. I wish the parents take some tips from gardeners.