Unless we understand the essence of what education is, and the basics of what makes for an ideal society (varnasrama), any attempt to develop effective and meaningful educational systems will fail. Likewise, our endeavors for a peaceful and harmonized society will also prove to no avail. It is of crucial and paramount importance to understand the intimate working relationships between education and society, not only in the formative years, but indeed throughout one’s entire life.

What our readers should expect is a comprehensive and scientific understanding of fundamental principles and concepts which touch upon the philosophy, psychology and sociology of education. One of the underlying principles in understanding these three essential concepts lies in accepting, at least theoretically, what is referred to as dharma, a new word for most readers, the equivalent of which one does not find in the English dictionary.

The closest rendering of this word being “the essence of religion, the essential nature of an entity” or “that which sustains one’s existence.” Here we may lose a few readers, but as an old proverb clearly points out, “Philosophy without religion is but mental speculation while religion without philosophy is but sentimentalism which generally leads to fanaticism”.

Neither of these, mental speculation and fanaticism, is desirable for any cultured person or society. For most western readers, these two terms varnasrama and dharma may tend to make them shy away from reading this book.

Please do not follow this first instinct. Use your good intelligence (and not just your sentiments) to at least go through the book once before deciding to shelve it. The messages contained in this book come from very learned and ancient sources known as the Vedas. Sorry, yet another new term, but a most important one; it means knowledge. The author is but a small instrument in making this highly valuable knowledge accessible to you.

It is my hope that all sincere seekers of knowledge, truth and self-realization, in the matter of personal and social equilibrium and development, will immensely benefit from the topics presented. Readers interested in the subject matter are invited to read the classic books of knowledge rendered from ancient Sanskrit by today’s most authoritative and highly acclaimed representative of the Vedic culture, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, in particular the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad-Bhagavatam. Both deal extensively with the subject matter of education, society and varnasrama dharma as well as sanatana dharma.

Other references have also been added in the Appendices for further reading. One may also correspond with the author and visit the websites dedicated to varnasrama dharma and the concepts of ancient traditional education at both our www.varnasrama.org and www.glovesco.org