When students started studying away from home

Today, if a student goes to another city to study, the first question is, “Where will I stay?”

But this question is not new. As universities developed, there came a time when students began travelling away from their homes and towns to study. In medieval Europe, at educational centres like Oxford, arrangements for such students to stay gradually began to develop.

Where did students live at Oxford? There is evidence of teaching at Oxford as early as 1096. Around 1190, a student named Emo from Friesland arrived there, considered the first known overseas student at Oxford.

At that time there were no hostels as we know them today. Students lived in small groups in inns and lodging houses. In other words, those who came to study had to find their own place to live. Then came the ‘halls’

By the 13th century, academic halls started to develop at Oxford. These were places for students to live; over time, some also developed shared routines and academic features, such as meals, discipline, and teaching. Hart Hall was one such example. In the 1280s, it was set up as a lodging house for students. Many such halls existed in Oxford at that time.

It wasn’t only about convenience; it was also a city problem. With the growing number of students, tensions between local townspeople and students also increased. According to Oxford’s history, conflicts between “town and gown” in the 13th century hastened the establishment of organized halls of residence.

These halls were part of the background from which colleges developed. Between 1249 and 1264, the early colleges like University, Balliol, and Merton were established.

So today’s hostel didn’t just appear out of nowhere First, students started coming from outside. Then they needed a place to stay. Living spaces gradually began to include shared study and routines.

They evolved into more organized halls. And later, residential colleges developed from medieval halls and endowed houses. Today’s hostels and PG accommodations are not direct descendants of Oxford’s halls, but they respond to a similar need: giving students a place to live while they study.

The history of student accommodation shows us something else as well: when a real need arises, humans create new structures to respond to it. There was a need for accommodation for students coming from far away, so halls of residence developed. Over time, study, discipline, and communal living also became part of some of them.

But what new need stands before us today? True education doesn’t happen only in the classroom; it happens in the entire ecosystem. Where a student lives, whom they live with, and the kind of environment they get, the hostel is also a part of that education. So the question is: are our hostels really becoming a part of this ecosystem of right education? If the living space is good but there is no education to understand the ‘self’, is the education truly complete?

Education is not just the accumulation of information, but the capacity to see the right thing at the right time. This also made me think about a question I’ve come across in discussions of self-inquiry: how much of education helps us examine our own minds, desires, and choices?

Today, which kind of education do you see as the greatest need around you?

A. Only syllabus and formal education

B. Education for employment and practical skills

C. Education for living better in society

D. Education to understand one’s own mind, desires, and choices

E. Education in Vedanta, which offers a way of examining oneself

Sources: Historical details are based on the University of Oxford’s history page and Hertford College’s account of Hart Hall.

I was reading the commentary of Acharya Prashant on this verse of Mandukya Upanishad and the framing of dualistic knowledge as ignorance is my key takeaway.

Mandukya Upanishad, Verse 7

नान्तःप्रज्ञं न बहिष्प्रज्ञं नोभयतःप्रज्ञं न प्रज्ञानघनं न प्रज्ञं नाप्रज्ञम्‌।
अदृष्टमव्यवहार्यमग्राह्यमलक्षणमचिन्त्यमव्यपदेश्यमेकात्मप्रत्ययसारं प्रपञ्चोपशमं शान्तं शिवमद्वैतं चतुर्थं मन्यन्ते स आत्मा स विज्ञेयः ॥

Construe: The fourth is thought of as that which is not conscious of the internal world, nor conscious of the external world, nor conscious of both the worlds, nor dense with consciousness, nor simple consciousness, nor unconsciousness, which is unseen, actionless, incomprehensible, not inferable, unthinkable indescribable, whose proof consists in the identity of the Self (in all states), in which all phenomena come to a cessation, and which is unchanging , auspicious, and non-dual. That is the Self; that is the to be known.

What is being talked of here is the knowing (of the Self) which transcends all the dualistic knowing in which there is a knower and the known object. The knower knows all about the object but does not know themselves. The 'Self' in the verse in itself can not be known directly but what is accessible to know is the self which accumulates all the knowledge.

The dualistic knowing creates a separation between the knower and the known object- because they are seen as different entities. The knower ignorant of him/herself do not know that they are made of exactly the same fundamental entities as the object under knowing albeit in different unique combinations giving the illusion of something essentially different.

When the dualistic knowledge drops because it seen as rooted in the ignorance of the knower, the knower is able to spontaneously know and respond. The response is not coming from memory and concepts but spontaneous knowing.

It is not to assert that all practical knowledge is useless but the sage in this verse is merely warning against identification with specific knowledge. To protect the knower from being dominated by the knowledge. Because the greater the knowledge, the greater the chance of being dominated. And thus self-knowledge which is knowing the knower becomes even more necessary. However, this spiritual knowledge should not become a replacement for the worldly dualistic knowledge but should remain a continuous practice.

This is the crux of spiritual knowledge. It keeps the dualistic knowledge at its place.

Have you read this verse of Mandukya Upanishad? What do you learn from this verse of Mandukya Upanishad?

Source: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books/book-mandukya-upanishad-english

I recently watched the documentary, “How to Live on Earth”, presented and narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. The documentary asks a pertinent question like - where we go from here if we genuinely want a planet that remains alive and thriving.

It’s worth a watch, visually striking and some stories are really inspiring. Restoring damaged ecosystems, rethinking how we grow food, and bringing nature back into cities. The idea of working with nature instead of simply extracting from it resonated with me. The thread running through the whole documentary is basically, that we have become very good at being smart without necessarily becoming any wiser. Which is fair. Please read on.

How we see nature

The film’s idea of working with nature made me think about how we usually see it. A forest becomes timber plank. A river becomes a resource. Land becomes something to develop. We look at a living thing and mostly notice what we can use from it. After a while, we stop seeing the thing itself.

The film also includes Indigenous perspectives. In those views, nature is not separate from us. It is a relationship, not something we own. I liked that part and fair to say I agree with it to a certain degree.

The question it skips

But I kept wondering why we are like this in the first place. The documentary does not really go there.
Maybe we believe that having more will finally make us feel okay. More stuff, more comfort, more security, more of everything. Sure, we can redesign food systems, cities and economies. We can even put a value on a wetland. But what about the part of us that always wants more? The film does not really touch that.

Have we ever wondered, what if the ecological crisis is not only about how we built the world. Maybe it is also about the kind of mind that built it this way?

What are we actually hungry for?

The film ends with the idea of becoming global gardeners. I liked that. But I kept thinking we also need to understand what made us so extractive in the first place. Isn’t that important? Rather of utmost importance?

I feel, we do not really want things. We want relief from ourselves. The mind is restless and afraid, so it keeps looking outside: more stuff, more comfort, more security, more control. Nothing satisfies for long, so the demand keeps growing. But our planet is paying for a hunger it did not create. Until we see what we are actually hungry for, we will keep taking from the world whatever looks like an answer.

I would like to know what others think, whether you have seen the film or not. Do we mainly need better systems, policies, or do we also need to understand why we keep wanting more? Why we’re okay to damage this beautiful home we call Earth at the cost of fulfilling our selfish desires. Why?

In this chapter on Bihar,

1. Tinkathia system (that 3/20 portions of the agricultural land will be used for indigo plantation).

2. The untouchability practices (separate cleanliness areas for separate groups) are explained.

I re-watched the movie, “Don’t Look Up” recently. And I’m glad I did. The first time, I laughed. I love dark humour. Yeah! It was absurd, over the top, ridiculous in the best way.

But the second time? Something felt different. I was still laughing, but this time I was also thinking, wait… this is actually us!!! Our world rn!! *stomach churns**

Okay, will try my best to avoid spoilers. Here’s the setup ~> a comet is heading straight for Earth. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s literally visible in the sky. Scientists are trying to warn everyone. And society? Society finds a hundred different ways to look away. It’s funny how they are so blissfully unaware. Actually aware, but unaware .. well.. you get it, right?

So yeah…that’s the whole problem. And it’s uncomfortably familiar. Because look at how we respond to climate change. Same pattern!!

>> The media turns catastrophe into content. Something that should scare the hell out of us becomes entertainment, headlines, memes, debates and ratings. We’re not trying to look at the root of the problem.

>> We wait for someone else to fix it. The government will handle it. Scientists will figure it out. Technology will save us. Someone else will do something.

>> The facts get swallowed by politics and geopolitics. Instead of looking at what is happening, we start arguing about which country is responsible, who is hypocritical, who should pay, who benefits. Bleh!

>> And the powerful guys? In the movie, the same people who don’t want to acknowledge the threat eventually start thinking about how to save (read:escape) themselves when it becomes impossible to ignore.

What a brilliant movie, a mirror to our frikkin world! It’s crazy, how easily we can turn an existential threat into content, politics, somebody else’s problem or just another thing to scroll past.

If you haven’t watched “Don’t Look Up”, please do. It’s ridiculous and hilarious, but underneath the dark humour is something that feels far too close to home.

I’ll be waiting in the comments section. Ciao!

We just hit a global sea surface temperature of 21.10°C, marking the third consecutive year we have broken heat records. Yet, almost nobody seems to be talking about it.

Because water requires immense energy to heat up, a 0.6°C rise might sound minor on paper. It isn't. Over the last four decades, the oceans have quietly absorbed nearly 90% of the excess heat human activity generated. Now, that energy is radiating right back at us, destabilizing weather patterns, destroying crops, and flooding towns.

We are already watching ecosystems collapse in real time. Coral reefs across Lakshadweep and the Maldives have bleached white and died out, wiping out habitats for a quarter of all marine life. Monsoons have lost all predictability, swinging between severe drought that ruins farmlands and sudden cloudbursts like the catastrophic floods in Nepal. Warmer water holds more moisture, making every storm far more destructive. In parts of Europe, marine waters have hovered up to 6°C above average, and rising sea levels threaten to displace tens of millions before the end of the century.

What makes this terrifying is how normal everything feels on the surface. We keep commuting, paying off our loans, scrolling endlessly, and dreaming about the future. The ocean doesn't make noise as it warms, so we treat it as an abstract problem until floodwater reaches our own doorstep.

This disconnect points to something deeper within human nature. As long as we remain unsettled and burning on the inside, our actions will keep causing destruction on the outside. True spiritual understanding or dharma begins when we learn to bring inner peace to that internal restlessness. Until we address what drives our mindless consumption and distraction from within, no real environmental change will stick.

Data source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu/)

I recently watched this video (attached below) of conversation between Steve Fleming and Acharya Prashant. The discussion cleared away some misconceptions about self-knowledge for me.

Prof. Fleming is a metacognition researcher and the discussion started with what metacognition means. There are three key concepts and it was explained well as a conversation starter by Acharya Prashant as follows-

1. Metacognitive bias- The constant offset between I see and what the ground truth is.

2. Metacognitive accuracy- If the claims made about the measurement correspond to the ground truth or not.

3. Metacognitive sensitivity- Does the inner measurement registers an event which occurs with respect to the ground truth.

What I learnt is that all these metacognitive faculties are in some way a judgement about the self. It produces a positive outcome which is a thought(?) object.

Self-knowledge on the other hand is the one who is looking at these measurements or atleast claiming the ownership or authorship of the measurement. It does not posit a positive outcome rather brings attention to the one measuring.

Self-judgement can be helpful in calibrating the inner expectations with outer observations but it does not look at the one who is judging.

According to you, does the one who is judging even exists? Or is it just a figment of imagination and all that is ever real is just the metacognitive faculties?

Video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ9GNAZphjY

Is philosophy merely a subject?

After watching this video, I realized it is actually the most important thing, something that should be understood first, as it forms the foundation for everything else. So, why doesn't it reach everyone? Why isn't it part of our education or our surroundings from the very beginning? Until now, I used to consider it a boring subject, but it turns out to be the essence of life itself, a cure for our suffering and a form of spirituality. Is it due to our conditioning, our environment, a lack of philosophers, or simply because we are too caught up in our own self-interests to listen to what they have to say?

Philosophers are the bridge between our suffering and our liberation, moved by compassion, they extend a hand to lead us out of our suffering.