Integral education is perhaps the second stage of this same process, possible when the spirit becomes maturer and the mind and its faculties better trained to turn the gaze inward, to the inner sources of knowledge and wisdom, the inner springs of growth and evolution... As this process deepens, the hold of the external teacher loosens and the learner begins to discern, with growing clarity, the inner teacher...

Sri Aurobindo calls this inner source of knowledge and wisdom the eternal Veda secret in the heart of every thinking and living being. Integral education seeks finally to awaken the mind and heart to this eternal Veda, and once this is done, even in an initial sense, the work of education is complete, for from that point on, the learner becomes independent in the truest sense of the word.

Excerpted from ‘Integral Education: A Foundation for the Future’

(Sri Aurobindo Society)