Among all things that influence a human's life, the most important one is perhaps education. And, broadly speaking, education has two roles to play. One is to empower humans to earn his/her living and live in a respectful manner in the society. And another is to help humans in the process of spiritual evolution. These two roles are not disconnected from each other and, for most people, actually go hand-in-hand. It is not an either-or situation. Most human beings need to sustain themselves respectfully in the society as well as make spiritual progress. And in ancient India, both these roles of education were played by the same centres of learning (called gurukul). The teacher who taught economics also taught the art of inner well-being. And in fact, all the branches of learning, be it economics or music or sword fighting or anything else, had spiritual progress as their end goal. As Aurobindo once said, "Everyone has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse. The task is to find it, develop it & use it. The chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use."
