Education Beyond Control: Raising Free and Conscious Human Beings

When curiosity is punished, it does not disappear; it goes underground.
When expression is repressed, honesty is replaced by secrecy.

A rigid and orthodox family upbringing does not raise healthy or virtuous human beings. On the contrary, it often produces individuals who become habitual liars, subtle manipulators, and emotionally fragmented adults.

This is because excessive control does not cultivate virtue, it cultivates fear, and fear never gives birth to truth, it only generates strategies of survival. When fear becomes the foundation of education, authenticity is replaced by performance, and integrity by concealment.

In other words, it is a profound and unfortunate misconception to believe that education lies in suppression, domination, or constant control because such an approach directly contradicts the natural functioning of the human mind, which is inherently curious, expansive, intelligent, and open to discovery.

When curiosity is punished, it does not disappear; it goes underground.
When expression is repressed, honesty is replaced by secrecy.
When obedience is enforced through fear, the result is not character, but compliance without understanding.

Therefore, the true purpose of parenting, and of education as a whole, is to guide the child toward discovering reality, the world, and their own inner strength and talents. And this ever-virtuous process cannot be imposed, it requires time, presence, patience, sensitivity, and love.

To educate is not to dominate, but to accompany.
Not to control, but to illuminate.
Not to suppress, but to awaken.

Any attempt to raise a human being through repression will inevitably generate emotional confusion and intellectual limitation, and such individuals often spend their lives lying, deceiving, adapting, and seeking approval, rather than living with clarity, joy, inner stability, and a genuine aspiration for a meaningful existence.

In essence…
Healthy and virtuous human beings are not created by fear.
They are shaped by understanding.
They mature through trust.
And they flourish when they are allowed to become fully conscious, responsible, and free.

Acharya Tadany.
Morning Meditation.
Pune, 6 February 2026.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash