Michael is an educational and documentary filmmaker; writer, photographer and co-founder of Touch the Future.

Indira Ghandi promised that television, as a tool of education, would help modernize the nation and then used the power of mass communication to forward her own political agenda. What began in major cities like Bombay and New Delhi is now exploding as satellite technology pour electronic images from the heavens. On roof tops in the cities, down remote dirt roads, everywhere you look, these images are being collected by metal dishes pointed skyward. Day and night they covering the land, changing the hearts and minds of all who watch.

When television first arrived in India it was accessible only to the most sophisticated. Families of the business class had already adopted western clothes, values and preferences. Their children went to private schools so the shift to MTV seemed almost natural. On the second day of the conference a distinguished man in his late 30's sat in a small group. He shook his head and began to talk slowly. He was a teacher in a small rural school. Television arrived just two years ago. The metal dish was placed next to a mud house, on the same spot where goats and chickens still roam. Inside adults sit in darkened rooms and watch sporting events and movies. In the afternoon they push the set to an open window and encourage children to watch cartoons.

The man's face, his posture and voice changed. "The children are not the same," he said. "They want all the things they see on television - the clothes and the glamour. They compare what little they have with what they see on television. Life in the village has become dull to these children. They care less about the values of their parents and of the community. They draw pictures of things they have never seen, tall buildings and fast cars. They pick up the language and gestures they see on television. The games they play are changing too. They seem less free - less happy."

With the same pride and fascination that gripped the United States in the early 50's, the appearance of television in rural India, or in any traditional culture, is a major event. And just like Western children, these young people are following the example set by adults. A bright three year old wiggled and squirmed when her parents who were educators, offered us a cup of tea. As soon as it was clear that mommy and daddy had shifted their attention, the little miss insisted on watching a video.

This was "OK" it was explained. It was not a commercial program but a home movie of distant family. At least now the little girl would recognize her relatives. Clearly this was not the first time video was used as a distraction, as a substitute for relationship.

Here were two dedicated educators/parents deeply committed to the well-being of their child and interested in the impact media was having, especially on the very young, offering their three year-old what they believed to be a "benign" media fix. And it was done with such ease. On three different occasions while in India well meaning adults, mindful of the issues we are sharing now, suggested and encouraged John-Michael, our nine-year-old, to watch a video. John-Michael asked, just the other day, "why do people keep putting me in front of TV?" It is done over and over again. On Christmas Eve, a highly educated host at a very hip party gathered all the children in a room, by themselves, and turned on the telley. How could they resist, or why should they, when adults shut them out so easily? Then we turn around and claim that we, and our children, are powerless against such an adversary. How easily the mediated experience slips under our skin - how soon it becomes the norm, changing our lives from the inside out.

I described at the conference how media, and by that I mean video and computers, diminish our sensitivity, especially of our deepest, most essential nature. These technologies close a window to the soul, the same window through which we just might discover who and what we really are. This is done not so much by the television or computer itself, but the experiences that these devices displace. At the conference a great deal of attention was given to developing a child's inner dimension. I assumed by this that the goal of life, and certainly of education, is the unfolding and development of increasingly subtle capacities and perceptions. As Joseph Chilton Pearce points out, this development begins with conception as each new human being develops his/her physical, then emotional and finally symbolic and metaphoric potentials. Total attention is given to each field or new possibility. As the unknown becomes known this energy is freed to unfold the next stage, and so it goes.

This movement, from the physical to the more abstract or subtle follows the evolution of our brain and nervous system, from the primal brain, to the limbic or mammalian centers, up to the thin layers of gray where meaning is discovered in symbols and metaphors. It is a movement from the concrete to the more abstract. We only develop, however those specific capacities which appear necessary to survive in the immediate sensory/emotional environment. If the challenges presented to the developing brain/mind are rich and subtle, so too will be the inner development. Place severe limits on the sensory environment and these same limits affect the physical foundation of perception and relationship.