The idea of the whole child typically includes social, emotional, cognitive, psychological, and physical components. Shaping pedagogy to include, account for, and develop all these parts is the goal of whole child education. If done well, outcomes include students who are self-regulated, collaborative, emotionally regulated, passionate, creative, democratically engaged, and adaptable. A major concern is that the vision for successfully teaching the whole child schooling is well aligned with neoliberal values for selfhood. The approximation to an ideal representation of self governs evaluations and efficacy of this focus. In this regard, whole child schooling is not about bringing all the contents of students into the context but shaping environments in order to realize a vision for the ideal person, one which shares many qualities with the ideal neoliberal self.

Chapter 6 describes the construction of the unified inner self and its relation to the universe. A movement from diversity (inner, cosmic and political) to wholeness is found in the mythic-ritual complex of both cultures, notably in the strikingly similar myths of Prajapati and Dionysos. The wholeness of the inner self correlates with the wholeness of the world obtained by sacrifice. The formation of the unified inner self (atman) as cosmogony is described in the opening of the B?hadara?yaka Upani?ad. The relation of atman to other candidates for the role of unified inner self, prana and manas, is described.