Where we are and where we really want to be:
Note: To begin with, this table can be seen as a ‘wish list’. On studying reality it becomes clear that ‘where we want to be’ is not merely a ‘wish list’ . Rather, ‘this is so in existence’, this is reality. This is possible when we use ‘all the faculties’ of understanding in us, and not just the ‘part-faculties’: – studying only the “formfull-dimensions of reality” as we currently do. We need to ‘see’ all dimensions of reality AS IT IS, not colored by our perceptions and pre-conditions. Every human, including you the reader, can self-verify whether “where we really want to be is”: ‘natural’ to you and ‘acceptable’ to you.
The 6 ‘levels’ of human existence are:
- Living in the ‘self’
- Living with the body,
- In family,
- In society
- In nature &
- In existence
this is the entire expanse of our living. All these ‘levels’ are together. This is so for every human.
We are not satisfied with anything less than all 6 levels
We cannot think of or wish for anything more than all 6 levels
|
Level |
Where we are |
Where we really want to be |
| Within the self | Uncertainty, Indefiniteness | Certainty, definiteness |
| Ignorance about the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of the self and existence | Living with full knowledge | |
| Confusion | Clarity | |
| Living with purposelessness & sense of futility | Understanding the definite purpose of the self in existence and living according to it | |
| Low level of awareness | Aware of everything we do | |
| Dishonesty = contradiction between what we think, say and do | Honesty = harmony in what we think, say and do. | |
| Fear | Fearlessness (Trust) | |
| Contradictions within | Harmony, Synergy, no internal contradictions | |
| ‘Spurts’ of happiness | Continuous happiness | |
| Living with preconditioning – aping others | Living with reality, self-decided desires | |
| Living with borrowed information | Using borrowed information to fulfill self decided goals | |
| Focused on fulfilling bodily needs only | Fulfill bodily and all the non-physical needs of the self | |
| With the Body | Confused the self with body | Understand self and body separately |
| Focused on the body: feeding, dressing | Right utilization of the body for living | |
| Keep trying to get taste from the body – keep repeating sensations | Right understanding of reality leads to happiness, we then use the body for expressing ourselves and doing work, taste is enjoyed within the context of being healthy | |
| Unhealthy body – even animals are healthier than humans | Self organized, healthy body | |
| Feeling of deprivation | Feeling of prosperity | |
| In Family | Living in ‘agreements’ | Living with trust in relationship |
| Mistrusting even loved ones at times | ‘Right Understanding’ leading to trust at all times | |
| Confusion about expectations – relationships seem hard to fulfill | Clear understanding of human expectations in relationship – existentially. Expectations are definite, can be identified and fulfilled | |
| Over-evaluation and under-evaluation of relationships lead to problems of attraction and repulsion | Right evaluation leads to harmonious living | |
| Lack of understanding leads to misplaced expectations – leading to frustration, anger and breakdown of the relationship | Right understanding leads to definite expectations that are always met. Established in Trust at all times | |
| In Society | No clear understanding of human goals, objectives | Definitive existential understanding of human goals |
| Everything is in relative comparison | Living with understanding of definiteness, reality | |
| Working to compete with each other, exploit the other | Understand people as mutually fulfilling and as being in co-existence, enrich the other | |
| Fear, lack of trust | Mutual trust and respect, fearlessness | |
| War, Crime, deprivation | Peace, trust, prosperity | |
| Continuous comparison leads to one-upmanship and blind race for consumerism | Right understanding and absolute evaluation leads to mutual-help and right utilization of physical resources – leading to a sense of mutual prosperity | |
| Differentiation based on nation, colour, race, caste, creed, sex, gender, class | Understanding that all humans are basically the same and are different only in bodily form and physical lineage. All humans want to live with knowledge, happiness and prosperity – in family, society and with nature | |
| With Nature | Man is in Competition with nature | Man is in Co-existence with nature |
| There is internal conflict in Nature – Survival of the fittest | There is mutual complementariness in Nature – this becomes clear when we know all dimensions of reality | |
| Nature = resource to be exploited | Nature = resource to be properly understood, right utilized, enriched by humans | |
| Man needs to overpower nature | Man needs to understand nature, existence and living according to it – since man himself is a product of existence (“he” didn’t make ‘himself’) | |
| There is not enough in Nature for everyone’s survival. We need to a) exploit nature b) exploit each other, to survive | There is enough in nature, provided we can see, understand it. Today’s problem is not production, it is distribution of resources. Mere survival is not enough for us. We want to survive, with happiness, with knowledge. | |
| Assumption is that entities in existence are trying to ‘control’ one another | Understand that in reality, entities in existence are in co-existence. Nothing controls anything else. Every entity is energized, self-organized and plays its role in the larger organization in a mutually fulfilling manner. Every entity in existence except the human being is in self-organization. The human being has a need to understand this organization to be in it. This harmony does not have to be created. It only needs to be understood to be in it. This knowledge results in happiness. | |
| In Existence | Existence is in chaos, indefinite, unstable | Existence is co-existence, is stable and definite |
| Existence cannot be understood | Existence can be completely understood in one’s own right | |
| There is no purpose in existence | There is a definite purpose in existence & it can be understood. The human is the one that understands. | |
| Man is the maker of rules in existence | Rules in existence are inherent to existence itself, and can be understood by man. | |
| Man ‘creates’ things | Nothing is created or destroyed in existence. Things are. Man only understands how these things behave and changes them from one form to the other to get the desired output for his purposes | |
| Reality is a perception, and everyone can have their own realities | It is possible to understand reality devoid of perception and self-verify it – and this can be understood by all – provided we use faculties in the self (consciousness) we currently do not access. Until we use only the part faculties we have in us, reality seems ‘relative’, as a ‘perception’ |
The principle available human forms of organization and study are given below;
|
Dimension |
Where we are |
Where we really want to be |
| Education | Based on rote and memorization | Based on ‘understanding’: Clarity of the truth and its direct experience / realization |
| Promotes competition, leading to stress, low self-esteem, and hatred for the other | Promotes mutual enrichment and trust and affection for the other | |
| Only a few can ‘succeed’ | Everyone can have ‘excellence’ | |
| Focused on imparting skills that can get a job – assumed that everything else ‘would be taken care of’ | Focused on providing the right understanding about the self and purpose of life – skills are used to fulfill such purpose | |
| Ignores the ‘self’ and talks about everything else | Focuses on the self, and everything else in the light of that understanding | |
| Fragmented specialization | Understanding the whole:
This is the same for every human.
What is different between humans?: How we express our understanding, how we specialize in various skills and art forms based on our need to fulfill the human objective – Skills & art forms are used to produce physical goods needed for living & to keep society in motion |
|
| Information focused. Assumes information, logic & reason = knowledge | Experience, Realization, Wisdom focused, which is more than logic, reason & information. ‘Right information’ is used to get to definite knowledge about the self, rest of existence – at all 6 levels of our being & humane conduct.Logic and information is then used to fulfill human goals. Having knowledge means it comes into our behavior – we live it as an expression of our understanding. Only intellectualization = being able to talk about it, but cannot live it. | |
| Basic training is for ensuring– material goods | Basic focus is on understanding – fulfilling the needs of the self and all dimensions of human living. Material goods form a subset of this. ‘Training’ is for skills. Knowledge has to be ‘understood’ | |
| Medicine | Focused on destroying ‘enemy’ entities in the body | Understanding the role of various organs and working to ensure the harmonious working of the body |
| Disease centric | Health centric: disease is an absence of health – due to the upsetting of the balance of the body | |
| Even common problems can only be treated by experts | Common problems can be treated by every individual | |
| Focused on expensive ‘health care’ – which is essentially treatment of diseases [we go to the hospital only when we are sick] | Taking care of the health is a natural, inexpensive exercise – that is inherently available in existence | |
| Security | Constant mistrust causes unlimited spending and destruction of human life | Mutual trust causes mutual enrichment. Security is not needed when we have the basic trust – i.e. we don’t have guards within our own homes (where we see relationship). We only need guards where there is no sense of relationship |
| Nations fighting with each other for supremacy, infighting for power, supremacy and wealth | Understanding that we each want the same things, that all can have it. Living in relationship leads to mutual fulfillment. | |
| Economics | Based on the dictum of ‘unlimited wants’ which can only be fulfilled by material goods. Only looks at part of the picture. Leaves the ‘self’ out, ignores the conscious aspect in a human. | With the ‘right-understanding’; definite needs of material goods can be fulfilled – allowing us to live with a feeling of prosperity.‘Wants’ are not only physical or material in nature. Humans needa) understanding within the self (knowledge);
b) relationship with other humans and c) material goods. [current focus of economics] |
| Confusion in means and end: Profit centered, does not care for anything else – even whether these profits are meeting our basic purpose and goals– for which profit was conceived of in the first place. | People & natural law centered; ‘right understanding’ of co-existence and human needs leads to economics in synergy with human goals – ‘right understanding’ allows us to identify our physical needs and have more than it – leading to a feeling of prosperity. Intangible needs of the self – for knowledge, happiness & fulfilling human relationships is also addressed. | |
| Exploitation of natural resources is a given | Protection & Enrichment of natural resources | |
| Based on competition and mistrust in one another | Based on co-existence and trust | |
| Breeds jealousy, hatred and injustice | Complementary to human needs and in line with natural co-existentialist laws | |
| Needs centralization and difficult to control | Decentralized and self-organized no need for central controls. | |
| Politics | Assumes that people need to be ‘ruled over’; ‘governed over’ | No individual; not even a child accepts domination. Every human wants to be self-organized, since such self-organization is inherent in nature, and existence. The human is a product of existence. ‘He’ did not produce ‘himself’. The human can ‘imagine’ something else, but can only ‘live successfully’ in line with the natural laws of existence of which he is a part, a product. |
| Power can be bought – based on popular perception | Self- organization, based on right understanding and mutual commitments. We partake in civil society out of responsibility | |
| Power centric | Resolution centric | |
| Sociology | Inhuman sociology – based on arbitrary conclusions by study of animals | Behavioral sociology – based on definite, existential understanding of human behavior. Humans belong to the knowledge order. Conclusions on the human will come from a study of humans, not by studying animals. |
| Based on evaluation of the human being based on the body | Based on evaluating the human being as co-existence of conscious-self & body | |
| Takes the current – statuses of humankind as the ‘status quo’ and then tries to explain human interaction and societies | Understand what the reality is, human goal is, then explain human society. Work towards this definitive human goal | |
| Psychology | Based on imagination (Imagination = that which may or may not be true). | Based on definite understanding of the nature of human consciousness |
| Assumes man is another form of the animal, and hence permitted to behave like one | No human wants to be called an animal. It is not acceptable to him. More, he cannot live like one. Others do not accept it.Understand that in reality, man belongs to the knowledge order – with his basic need as knowledge, leading to continuous happiness, prosperity & mutual fulfillment in human relationships
Human Psychology can be understood in a definite way, via understanding the nature of human consciousness. This has been identified as ‘122 conducts’ of an awakened human being. |
|
| Knowledge | Does not have knowledge. Only information which can be exchanged.Assumes the senses, logic and computational inference is all there is to knowledge | Definite, existence rooted knowledge which can be understood by all.Answers the questions “how do we know that we know?”
Logic and computation form only a part of knowledge. |
| Assumes memorizing, being able to talk & write = knowledge. Does not connect the fact that if we have understood something, we should be able to live it. Thus, in this model we can say one thing, think something and do something else! | Knowledge meansa) all our basic questions are answered – the why? & what? – for everything in existence,b) that we feel satisfied and assured about such understandingc) this understanding comes in our behavior, living
d) leads to mutual fulfillment with other humans beings in behavior and with nature in work. – everything else is only information, or thoughts that are borrowed – not verified by us – hence, it never satisfies us. |
|
| Production/Work | Primary goal of human beings | Needed to fulfill certain human needs for physical comfort and health, and activities in society.There is more to the human being than growing beans or working in a bank. |
| Scientific Method | Scientific method tries to define human knowledge | Scientific Method used to fulfill goals that have been decided as a result of human knowledge via experiential realization |
| Devoid of any human purpose: in terms of living | Everything we do is to fulfill a definite human purpose and need | |
| Tries to understand and interpret reality devoid of the human being (the one who is making the scientific conclusions) in the name of ‘objectivity’ | Since a human being is anyways needed to discuss this ‘objectivity’, the human being needs to first be understood in order to understand & verify the inference from the scientific method. ‘Only he can understand himself’ – this is the meaning of consciousness. We can’t leave out the entity that is making the observation – from the observation. | |
| Everything can be understood by the 5 senses, logic & reason | Only some dimensions of reality (appearance and qualities, रूप , गुण) can be understood by the 5 senses, logic & reason. One need’s to go beyond logic and reason to find out the ‘purpose’ and ‘existential-nature’ of all entities (participation and innateness, स्वाभाव, धर्म) – to have a complete understanding of reality. Questions on ‘purpose’ do not fit into the domain of logic. No human lives without a purpose.The following cannot be understood by the current scientific method:v Conscious unit or consciousness: चैतन्य इकाई
v All pervasive element, or space, in the form of ‘equilibrium energy’: व्यापक सत्ता, समय उर्जा
v ‘Participation or ‘swabhav’ and ‘innateness’ or ‘dharm’ of inert-matter: जड़ इकाई का स्वाभाव और धर्म
v Relationship between conscious units, inert-matter and space: चैतन्य इकाई, जड़ इकाई, व्यापक सत्ता में संबंध The scientific method thus needs to be extended to cover these additional dimensions of reality as well.
Jeevan Vidya Madhyasth Darshan has proposals for: ü the nature of these realities ü how they can be understood ü Result of such understanding for the individual, family, society, human education, culture, civilization, conduct and constitution.
Such ‘answers’ or inferences should be ü Knowable by every human: ‘subjective’ in this sense ü Verifiable by every human: have ‘proof’ – ‘objective’ in this sense ü Logically consistent ü Validated in living: via experience and observation ü Should be universal: not limited by time, space or individuals ü Should be assuring and satisfying
The above may be called a “futuristic scientific method”. I.e. the current scientific method is partial in its study of reality.
Lastly, the current scientific method itself is a product of the human mind. Hence, the ‘scientific method’ is not greater than the human. It does not exist outside the human, it is in the human. Man lives in reality, and wants to understand reality and can understand reality. He is also a reality, and has to thus start with himself, in addition to understanding the external reality. We have to be sure of the ‘seer’ before we can make conclusions on the ‘seen’. |
|
| Summation | Focuses on analyzing and retro-fitting the ‘wrong’ to get to what is ‘right’. (Ex: we cannot get to the right answer for 2+2, by analyzing and studying the wrong combinations for this answer – which would be infinite) | Understanding the right, what is correct, in reality first, then we understand what is wrong in the light of this ‘right’. (Ex: once we know the right answer for 2+2= 4, we can then know what all the wrong combinations for 2 + 2 could be. Not the other way round). |
| From the above, man currently makes mistakes. Analysing the mistakes will not lead us to what the right answer for man is | From the above: Once we understand the true nature of reality & man, we can then understand what the right purpose and way of living for man is. | |
| Try to understand ‘orderliness’ by analyzing disorder. In fact, says that disorder has its own existence | First understand what is orderliness, then we can say what is in disorder. Going purely by logic: we only know something is in disorder by comparing it against orderliness. By itself, nothing is in disorder |
Where do we have to work?
D – Human society should ideally match B – human goals. This is where we are failing today. Our society, the way it has manifested is not what we want. This is because A & B are not very clear. We have incomplete/incorrect understanding of A which leads to incorrect identification at B which gives us this society we have today. Hence, once A – Knowledge is properly understood, the rest will fall into place. It can similarly be seen for Human relationships & Work. Since A & B are not understood, we have confused and relative notions human relationship and work with the rest of nature.
This ‘knowledge’ or ‘human understanding’ can be had via education. Our current state of affairs or ‘where we are’ is a result of our incomplete understanding.
Hence, working on human education is the correct change lever. Human education is from one human being to the other. Books, etc are words – the meanings for these words are as realities in existence and can be understood by the human being, hence, education is always from one human to the other.
Question: How do we achieve the above?
Answer:
- We need to have the right propositions for knowledge about the self, body, family, society, nature and existence
- These proposals have to be based on realities in existence, on ‘natural laws’; they have to be universal, secular & accessible.
- We need a basis for evaluating & studying these proposals – that satisfies the condition for knowing reality
- A definite process needs to be available to experience/realize and understand the knowledge about the reality in existence – so one is convinced beyond doubt that “this is so” – & not merely a process of intellectualizing.
- This ‘knowledge’ should then be ‘teachable’ to another human being – more than one human being would testify this is so.
- This leads to ‘understanding’, which leads to harmony at all 6 levels of our living leading to harmonious systems in society.
- Then, it needs to be supplied in the form of education for all to ensure its continuity in human tradition.
Jeevan Vidya – Madhyasth Darshan has proposals for the above, for your consideration.
Article by: Shriram Narasimhan
Status: draft, personal write-up, by student
Dated: Oct, 2007
