HUMAN VALUES,DE-ADDICTION AND TRAFFIC RULES(HVPE 101-18)

Teacher

Unit I – Introduction to Value Education

Topic: Understanding Value Education

‘Value based education’ is the process that gives young people an initiation into values, giving knowledge of the rules needed to function in this mode of relating to other people, and to seek the development in the student a grasp of certain underlying principles, together with the ability to apply these rules intelligently, and to have the settled disposition to do so.

Significance of Value Education

Value education is important to help everyone in improving the value system that he/she holds and puts it to
Once, one has understood his/ her values in life he/she can examine and control the various choices he/she makes in his/ her
One has to frequently uphold the various types of values in his/ her life such as cultural values, universal values, personal values and social
Value education is always essential to shape one’s life and to give one an opportunity of performing on the global

The need for value education among the parents, children, teachers etc, is constantly increasing as we continue to witness increasing violent activities, behavioral disorders and lack of unity in the society etc.Value education enables us to understand our needs and visualize our goals correctly and also indicate the direction for their fulfillment. It also helps remove our confusions and contradictions and enables us to rightly utilize the technological innovations.

Human Values:

Human values are a set of emotional rules; people follow to make the right decisions in
When values are used in a professional setting, they are called ethics.
Values are used in every day decision making at work and at
Good values instill a sense of integrity, honesty and diligence in
Without good values, people would become corrupt, dishonest and undependable as people and

Cultural Values:

Groups, societies and cultures have values that are largely shared by their
The values identify those objects, conditions or characteristics that members of the society consider important; that is,
In the western world, for example, values might include material comfort, wealth, competition, individualism or

The values of a society can often be identified by noting which people receive honor or respect.

Values are related to the norms of a culture, but they are more general and abstract than norms. Norms are rules for behavior in specific situations, while values identify what should be judged as good or
- Example: Flying the national flag on 15th August in India is a norm, but it

reflects the value of patriotism.

Wearing dark clothing and appearing solemn are normative behaviors at the funeral. They reflect the values of respect and support of friends and

Different cultures reflect different values. “Over the last three decades, traditional-age college students have shown an increased interest in personal well-being and a decreased interest in the welfare of others.” Values seem to have changed, affecting the beliefs, and attitudes of college students.

Purpose of Value Education

The Role of Value Education:

Value education plays a very important role in creating a better society, more ethical organizations and groups, and better human beings as:

Value education can help to build human beings who possess strength, integrity and fortitude based upon ancient Indian
Value education builds the values of cooperation and peace as well as
Efficiency can step up if a person possesses the right values. This may include punctuality, keeping one’s word, professionalism, lack of bias or prejudice
Creating cordial relationships between people by encouraging the values of respect, love and
Promoting personality development and social
Regeneration values of national pride and integration towards nation- building.
Building character in the young people who will lead the country in the
Inculcate moral and spiritual values in the minds of students and making them aware of the teachings of Great Men so that they may learn from their
Promoting harmony between nations and creating a peaceful world
Identifying the core universal values of:
1. Truth (Satya)
2. Righteous Conduct (Dharma)
3. Peace (Shanti)
4. Love (Prema)
5. Non-Violence (Ahimsa)
To help create a foundation of the quality of life and strike a balance between external and internal

Thus value education can play a significant role in the betterment of individuals, groups and society at large. This is shown in the figure below:

Need of Value Education

Correct identification of our aspirations. The subject which enables us to understand ‘what is valuable’ for human happiness is called ‘value education’ (VE). Thus, VE enables us to understand our needs and visualize our goals correctly and also indicate the direction for their fulfillment. It also helps to remove our confusions and contradictions and bring harmony at all
Understanding universal human values to fulfill our aspirations in continuity. All human beings continuously aspire for a happy life, successful life, and the purpose of education is to provide adequate competence to actualize this
Complementarily of values and skills. For this it is essential to understand – what is really ‘valuable’ for human being, and what is really conductive to a happy and fulfilling life? – This is the ‘value domain’.

Then one should know – how to actualize it? How to make it happen? – This is the ‘domain of skills’.

Hence, there is an essential complementarily between values and skills for the success of any human endeavor.

For example, I want to lead a healthy life. Only wishing for good health will not help me keep my body fit and healthy and without having understood the meaning of health, I will not be able to choose things correctly to keep my body fit and healthy.

Evaluation of our beliefs. Each one of us believes in certain things and we base our values on these beliefs, are they false or true which may or may not be true in VE helps us to evaluate our beliefs and assumed values.
Technology and human values. The present education system has become largely skill- based. The prime emphasis is on science and technology. However, science and technology can only help to provide the means to achieve what is considered valuable. It is not within the scope of science and technology to provide the competence of deciding what really is
VE is a crucial missing link in the present education system. Because of this deficiency, most of our efforts may prove to be counter-productive and serious crises at the individual, societal and environmental level are

Hence, there is a strong need to rectify this situation

Basic Guidelines for Value Education

In order to qualify for any course on value education, the following guidelines for the content of the course are important:

Universal: It needs to be applicable to all the human beings irrespective of cast, creed, nationalities, religion, etc., for all times and
Rational: It has to appeal to human
Natural and verifiable: It has to be naturally acceptable to the human being who goes through the course and there needs to be every provision in nature for its fulfillment. It needs to be experientially verifiable, and not based on dogmas, beliefs or
All encompassing: It needs to cover all the dimensions (thought, behavior, work and realization) and levels (individual, family, society, nature and existence) of human life and profession.
Leading to harmony: The value education ultimately is targeted to promote harmony within the individual, among human beings and with

Types of Values

Life comes with its ups and downs. Yes, we all know that. But there are certain mindsets that affect our life for the better and some that affect it for the worst. These mindsets that affect our life for the better can be called as
Whilst it stands true that all people have different values in life, there are some important values in life that should be considered by all. Not because these are the values that we follow, but because it could truly make this world a better

Most Important Core values in life:

Love : Unconditional & unselfish care
Discipline/truth/honesty: Indispensible ethical discipline
Non Violence: Means respect for life and recognition for rights for others
Right conduct: Truth in action is right conduct

“Thinking with love is truth, feeling with love is peace, acting with love is right conduct, and understanding with love is non-violence”

Process of Value Education

The process for value education has to be that of self-exploration, and not of giving sermons of telling dos and don’ts. Whatever is found as truth or reality may be stated as a proposal and every student is to be encouraged to verify it on his/ her own
This process of self-exploration has to be in the form of a dialogue- a dialogue between the teacher and students to begin with and within the student
The process for value education has to be that of self-exploration, and not of giving sermons of telling dos and don’ts. Whatever is found as truth or reality may be stated as a proposal and every student is to be encouraged to verify it on his/ her own
This process of self-exploration has to be in the form of a dialogue- a dialogue between the teacher and students to begin with and within the student

Topic : Self Exploration

Self exploration is the process to find out what is valuable to me by investigating within myself, what is right for me, true for me, has to be judged within myself. Through self exploration we get value of myself.

Meaning and Purpose of Self Exploration:-

It is a process of dialogue between “what you are” and “what you really want to be”: It is a process of focusing attention on our-self, our present beliefs and aspirations vis-à-vis what we really want to be (that is to say, what is naturally acceptable to us). It is a process of discovering that there is something innate, invariant and universal in all human beings. This enables us to look at our confusions and contradictions within and resolve them by becoming aware of our natural
It is a process of self-evaluation through self investigation: It successively enables us to evolve by bridging the gap between ‘what we are’ and ‘what to be’.
It is a process of knowing oneself and through that, knowing the entire existence: The exploration starts by asking simple questions about ourself, which gives our clarity about our being, and then clarity about everything around us.
It is a process of recognizing one’s relationship with every unit in existence and fulfilling it: It is a process of becoming aware about our right relationship with other entities in existence and through that discovering the interconnectedness, co-existence and other in the entire existence, and living
It is a process of knowing human conduct, human character and living accordingly: It is a process of discovering the definitiveness of human conduct and human character and enabling one to be definite in thought, behavior and
It is a process of being in harmony in oneself and in harmony with entire existence: This process of self exploration helps us to be in harmony with ourself and with everything around.

It is a process of identifying our innateness and moving towards self organization and self-expression: This process of self exploration helps us to identify our swatva and through that acquiring swantantrata and

Swatva: Innateness of self – the natural acceptance of harmony Swatantrata: Being self- organized – being in harmony with oneself Swarajya: Self-expression, self- extension – living in harmony with others

Swatva Swatantrata Swarajya

The swatva is already there, intact in each one of us. By being in dialogue with it, we attain swantantrata enabling us to work for swarajya.

Content of Self Exploration

The Desire/Goal: What is my (human) Desire/ Goal?
Program: What is my (human) program for fulfilling the desire?

The main focus of self-exploration is myself- the human being. Basically, it should dwell on the following two key questions:

What do I really want in life, or what is the goal of human life?
How to fulfill it? What is the program to actualize the above?

In short, the above two questions cover the whole domain of human aspirations and human Endeavour. Thus, they form the content of self- exploration.

Process of Self Exploration

Whatever is being presented is a

Don’t assume it to be true immediately, nor reject it without proper
Verify it in your own right, on the basis of it being naturally acceptable to you,
Not just on the basis of scriptures
Not on the basis of equipment/instrument data
Not on the basis of the assertion by other human

Therefore, it is essential to carefully ponder over these on your own right. Neither accept these as true immediately nor reject them prematurely without proper exploration.

Don’t just accept / reject these only on the basis of the following:

Because something like this/ different from this, has been mentioned in scriptures,
Or, because it has been preached/ denied by some great men,
Or, a large number of people possess such a view / a different view,
Or it is claimed to have been verified through some physical instrument or, claimed that this is beyond the domain of verifiability by physical

Then what to do

Verify on the basis of your natural acceptance
Live accordingly to validate it experientially
- If the proposal is true in behaviour with human leads to mutual happiness
- If the proposal is true in work with rest of the nature leads to mutual prosperity
Results in realization and understanding
On having realization and understanding we get

Assurance
Satisfaction

Universality (Applies to all time space and individual)

Remember, it is a process of self- exploration, therefore, it has to be authenticated by you alone by means of verification at the level of natural acceptance and experiential validation. The process is shown in the diagram below

Take for example: a proposal- ‘respect’ is a value in human relation. When I verify at the level of natural acceptance, I find that it is naturally acceptable to me. Similarly, when I behave with respect, it is mutually fulfilling to me and to the other.

Thus the proposal is ‘True’. If it fails on any of the two tests, it is untrue.

This verification leads to realization of the truthfulness of the proposal and it becomes part and parcel of my understanding. It is reflected in my thoughts and in my behavior.

Mechanism of Self Exploration

If one can explore and understand the self in such a manner that he/she grasps the essence of the self there may never need to be any reason for psychological help at a large stage. The two mechanisms for self exploration may be identified as;

Natural Acceptance, and
Experiential

Natural Acceptance:

Natural acceptance implies unconditional and total acceptance of the self, people and environment. It also refers to the absence of any expectations from others. Once you fully and truly commit yourself on the basis of natural acceptance, you feel a holistic sense of inner harmony, tranquility and fulfillment.

Actually natural acceptance is way to accept the good things naturally. Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in, and in your own way absorb it; do not become others.

In other words natural acceptance is process understand yourself first. Try to find out the ego stage. Try to reduce that. Open your eyes and look around. The world is full of good things.

You need to accept the right naturally. Once it starts coming naturally, you will feel that you are actually upgraded yourself and now you are above then the rest of the world. Problems are the part of life and natural acceptance is the answer of that.

Characteristics of natural acceptance:-

Does not change with time
Does not depend on places.
Does not depend on beliefs or past
This natural acceptance is ‘constantly there’ something can refer to. It is telling us what is
It is same for all of It is part and parcel of every human being, it is part of humanness.

Experiential Validation:

Experiential validation is a process that includes direct experience with the learning environment and content. It may be regarded as a philosophy and methodology in which the direct experience and focused reflection of the individual helps to increase knowledge, develop skill and clarify values.

We are often told to accept ourselves for who we are. What we know about our self is not through our own opinion but also on how others view us. When our beliefs comes to be true/ validated by some situations, phenomena or outcomes we may term it as experiential validation.

What is our State Today in self exploration?

Today, we are not oriented enough to evaluate our beliefs or assumptions and we treat them as our personal life. We generally keep them secure in the name of personal life and

freedom. We usually become very sticky about them without really verifying them. When these come in conflict, we try hard to search out justifications and make all efforts to defend our own assumptions. In the process, we cheat us ourselves as well as others.

What is the Way Out? What Do We Need To Do?

Realization and Understanding:

As we continue with the process of verification of proposals on the basis of our natural acceptance and test it out in our living, it ultimately results in realization and understanding in us.

The answer we get should be assuring, satisfying and universal. Universal means the answer should be same for everyone. They are invariant with respect to time, space and individual. If the answers we get do not fulfill any of the criteria it means the answer is most likely coming from our past beliefs/conditioning and not from our natural acceptance.

Topic : Basic Human Aspirations – Continuous Happiness and Prosperity

Basic Human aspiration:

We desire for many things in this world, say materialistic needs, respect, recognition, love, trust etc, but in the form of all these we aspire for true and continuous happiness and prosperity.

Happiness

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by love, satisfaction, pleasure or joy.

Happiness may be described as consisting of positive emotions and positive activities.

Happiness may be defines as being in harmony/ synergy in the state/ situation that I live in . “A state or situation in which I live in , if there is harmony in it then I like to be in that state/ situation. The state of liking is happiness.”

In other words:

It is a freedom from want and distress
Consciousness of the good order of things
Assurance of one’s place in the universe or society
Inner peace.

Happiness is the state of mind, where we feel good in most of the walk of life. Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life; or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion.

Prosperity

Prosperity is the state of flourishing, thriving, success or good fortune. Prosperity often encompasses wealth but also includes other factors which are independent of wealth to varying degrees, such as happiness and health.

The word means the sum of three aspects – health, wealth and wisdom.

Prosperity is the state of enlightenment towards better life and towards the happy society.

Difference between prosperity and wealth

Wealth is a physical thing. It means having money or having a lot of physical facilities or both. Prosperity is a feeling of having more than required physical facilities. (Note: all our physical facilities are directly or indirectly depend on nature, the continuity of our prosperity can be ensured only if our production systems are in harmony with the nature. It means using natural resources in a renewable manner and utilizes appropriate technologies so that human needs are satisfied and nature is also enriched).

Presently, as we look around, we find most of the people in the following two categories

To achieve our basic aspiration we need to work for right understanding as the base to which we can work for relationship and then physical facilities. Today we are not working accordingly to this that why we can see that there are two kinds of people in the world.

Those that do not have physical facilities / wealth and feel unhappy and deprived e. SVDD Sadhan Viheen Dukhi Daridra– Materially deficient , unhappy and deprived
Those that have physical facilities /wealth and feel unhappy and deprived e. SSDD

Sadhan Sampan Dukhi Daridra– Meterially affluent ,unhappy and deprived

But these are states we don’t want to be in. We want to move from this to third category i.e.

Having physical facilities and feeling happy and prosperous e. SSSS Sadhan Sampann Sukhi Samriddha – Materially adequate , happy and prosperous

Presently , as we look around , we found most of the people in the above two categories called SVDD & SSDD , while the natural acceptance of all human being is to be in the categories of SSSS.

Requirements for Fulfilling the Basic Aspirations

The basic requirements for fulfilling the aspirations of every human being are:

Þ Right Understanding: This refers to higher order human skills – the need to learn and utilize our intelligence most effectively.

Þ Good Relationships: This refers to the interpersonal relationships that a person builds in his or her life – at home, at the workplace and in society.

Þ Physical Facilities: This includes the physiological needs of individuals and indicates the necessities as well as the comforts of life.

We can say that these requirements are patterned on the lines of the hierarchy of needs. (Abraham Maslow has given the concept of the hierarchy of needs. According to him there are five needs which can be placed in a hierarchy depending on which needs a person initially strives to fulfill. The lowest needs are the physiological needs. Once these are fulfilled, they are followed by safety and security needs. These are followed by social needs. The next level of needs relates to the person’s need for self-esteem. The highest order need relates to the need of self-actualization and will only become important if all the other needs are fulfilled.)

How physical facilities are necessary but not complete for human beings.

Animal Consciousness and Human Consciousness

Giving all priorities to physical facilities only, may be termed as ‘Animal consciousness’

For animal, physical facility is necessary as well as complete – whereas for human beings it is necessary but not
Working only for physical facilities is living with Animal Consciousness.
Working for right understanding as the first priority followed by relationship and physical facilities implies living with Human Consciousness.
There is a need for transformation from Animal Consciousness to Human Consciousness. It can be accomplished only by working for right understanding as the first

This transformation from Animal Consciousness to Human Consciousness forms the basis for human values and values based

We can verify this by a set of proposals.

“Physical facilities are necessary for human beings.”

“Physical facilities are necessary for human beings and they are necessary for animals.” “Physical facilities are necessary and complete for animals, while they are necessary but not complete for humans.”

For Animals: Animals need physical things to survive, mainly to take care of their body.

For Humans: While physical facilities are necessary for human beings, they are not complete by themselves to fulfill our needs. Our needs are more than just physical facilities;

Besides physical facilities, we want Relationship:

By relationship, we mean the relationship we have with other people, or human beings; father, mother, brother and sisters, our friends, our teachers; we desire good relationships with all of them.

In Relationship we want:

Mutual Fulfillment: If there is a problem in relationship, we feel uneasy, it bothers us. Even if we are interacting with someone, and something we said or did offends them, it makes us uneasy; i.e. we want mutual fulfillment in relationship.

In Physical Facilities we want:

Prosperity in us, Enrichment in Nature: Prosperity means the feeling of having or being able to have more physical facilities than is needed. If we don’t have the feeling of prosperity we will exploit others. Similarly as we interact with nature for our various physical needs, either exploit nature or enrich it. But our natural acceptance is that we want to live in harmony with nature.

What is Our State Today in Human Aspiration?

In Relationship

We are unable to have fulfilling relationships all the time: in family, outside family, and as a society – in the world at large.

In Physical Facilities

We want to feel prosperous, but end up working only for accumulation of wealth. We want to enrich nature, but are exploiting it, destroying it.

Why we are in This State? – Living with Wrong Assumptions

What is the Outcome of the Misconception?

At the level of individual– Rising problems of depression, anxiety, suicides, stress, insecurity, increasing health problems, lack of confidence and conviction
At the level of family– Breaking up of joint families, mistrust and disharmony in relationships, divorce, generation gap, dowry deaths, neglect of older people
At the level of society– Growing incidences of terrorism, violence, communalism, racial and ethnic struggle, corruption, adulteration, sex-crimes exploitation, wars between nations, proliferation of lethal weapons
At the level of nature– Global warming, weather imbalances, depletion of mineral and energy resources, deforestation, soil degradation

All the problems are a direct outcome of an incorrect understanding, our wrong notion about happiness and prosperity and their continuity – this is an issue for serious exploration. What is the way out?

What is the Solution? – The Need for Right Understanding

In order to resolve the issues in human relationships, we need to understand them first, and this would come from ‘right understanding of relationship’.

Similarly in order to be prosperous and to enrich nature, we need to have the ‘right understanding’. The ‘right understanding’ will enable us to work out our requirements for physical facilities and hence correctly distinguish the difference between wealth and prosperity. With nature as well, we need to understand the harmony in nature, and how we can complement this harmony.

IMPORTANT QUESTION & ANSWERS

What do you mean by values or human values? or What is value education? Why there is a need of value education? or How does value education helps in fulfilling one’s aspirations?

ANS. Character oriented education that instills basic values and ethnic values in one’s psyche is called ‘Value Based Education’. The subject that enables us to understand ‘what is valuable’ for human happiness is called value education. Value education is important to help everyone in improving the value system that he/she holds and puts it to use. Once, one has understood his/ her values in life he/she can examine and control the various choices he/she makes in his/ her life. Value education enables us to understand our needs and visualize our goals correctly and also helps to remove our confusions and contradictions and bring harmony at all levels. It also helps remove our confusions and contradictions and enables us to rightly utilize the technological innovations.

Values form the basis for all our thoughts, behaviours and actions. Once we know what is valuable to us, these values becomes the basis, the anchor for our actions. We also need to understand the universality of various human values, because only then we can have a definite and common program for value education. Then only we can be assured of a happy and harmonious human society.

What are the basic guidelines for value education? (UPTU 2011 – 12)

Ans:The subject that enables us to understand ‘what is valuable’ for human happiness is called value education. In order to qualify for any course on value education, the following guidelines for the content of the course are important:

Universal: It needs to be applicable to all the human beings irrespective of cast, creed, nationalities, religion, etc., for all times and

Rational: It has to appeal to human It has to be amenable to reasoning and not based on dogmas or blind beliefs.

Natural and verifiable: It has to be naturally acceptable to the human being who goes through the course and when we live on the basis of such values it leads to our happiness. It needs to be experientially verifiable, and not based on dogmas, beliefs or

All encompassing: Value education is aimed at transforming our consciousness and living. Hence, it needs to cover all the dimensions (thought, behaviour, work and realization) and levels (individual, family, society, nature and existence) of human life and

Leading to harmony: The value education ultimately is targeted to promote harmony within the individual, among human beings and with

What is the need for value education?

Write a short note on the need for value education in today’s scenario. (MTU 2010–11)

Ans: The subject that enables us to understand ‘what is valuable’ for human happiness is called value education. Need for value education is:

Correct identification of our aspirations. The subject which enables us to understand ‘what is valuable’ for human happiness is called ‘value education’ (VE). Thus, VE enables us to understand our needs and visualize our goals correctly and also indicate the direction for their fulfilment. It also helps to remove our confusions and contradictions and bring harmony at all levels.
Understanding universal human values to fulfil our aspirations in continuity. Values form the basis for all our thoughts, behaviours and actions. Once we know what is valuable to us, these values becomes the basis, the anchor for our actions. We also need to understand the universality of various human values, because only then we can have a definite and common program for value Then only we can be assured of a happy and harmonious human society.

Complimentarity of values and skills. To fulfil our aspirations both values and skills are necessary. When we identify and set the right goals and produced in right direction. This is known as value domain, the domain of wisdom, and when we learn and practices to actualize this goal to develop the techniques to make this happen in real life, in various dimensions of human endeavor (struggle). This is known as domain of skills.
Hence, there is an essential complementarity between values and skills for the success of any human endeavor. For example, I want to lead a healthy life. Only wishing for good health will not help me keep my body fit and healthy and without having understood the meaning of health, I will not be able to choose things correctly to keep my body fit and
Evaluation of our beliefs. Each one of us believes in certain things and we base our values on these beliefs, be they false or true which may or may not be true in These believes come to us from what we read, see, hear, what our parents tells us, our friends talk about, what the magazines talk of, what we see from TV etc. Value Education helps us to evaluate our beliefs and assumed values.
Technology and human values. The present education system has become largely skill- based. The prime emphasis is on science and technology. However, science and technology can only help to provide the means to achieve what is considered valuable. It is not within the scope of science and technology to provide the competence of deciding what really is Value Education is a crucial missing link in the present education system. Because of this deficiency, most of our efforts may prove to be counterproductive and serious crises at the individual, societal and environmental level are manifesting.

Values and skill complement each other. Elaborate.or

“For success in any Human Endeavour both values and skills are required.” Explain.

What do you mean by values? How do they differ from skills? How are values and skills complementary?

Explain how production skills and human values are complementary. Give two examples.

(UPTU, 2011 – 12)

Ans:Values means importance or participation and skills means qualities, training, and capabilities. To fulfil our aspirations both values and skills are necessary. When we identify and set the right goals and produced in right direction. This is known as value domain, the domain of wisdom. Basically we must know what really is useful to achieve human happiness, the happiness to all and for all the time.

And when we learn and practices to actualize this goal to develop the techniques to make this happen in real life, in various dimensions of human endeavour (struggle). This is known as domain of skills. Hence, there is an essential complementarity between values and skills for the success of any human endeavour.

For example, I want to lead a healthy life. Only wishing for good health will not help me keep my body fit and healthy and without having understood the meaning of health, I will not be able to choose things correctly to keep my body fit and healthy. So i have to learn the skills to achieve the goal of good health i.e. food to be consumed, the physical workout to be designed. So without knowing the meaning of good health, health cannot be achieved and also it is necessary to make use of the goal to achieve the goal of the goal.

Define self exploration. What is the content of self – exploration?

Ans:Self exploration is the process to find out what is valuable to me by investigating within myself, what is right for me, true for me, has to be judged within myself. Through self exploration we get the value of ourself. We live with different entirety (family, friends, air, soil, water, trees, etc.) and we want to understand our relationship with all these. For this we need to start observing inside. The main focus of self-exploration is myself – the human being. Content of self exploration is just finding answers to the following fundamental questions of all human beings:

The Desire/Goal: What is my (human) Desire/ Goal? What do I really want in life, or what is the goal of human life?

Program: What is my (human) program for fulfilling the desire? How to fulfil it? What is the

program to actualize the above?

In short, the above two questions cover the whole domain of human aspirations and human endeavor. Thus, they form the content of self- exploration.

Self exploration is a process of dialogue between ‘what you are’ and ‘what you really want to be’. Explain and illustrate.

Ans:Self exploration is the process to find out what is valuable to me by investigating within myself, what is right for me, true for me, has to be judged within myself. Through self exploration we get the value of ourself. It is a process of focusing attention on ourself, our present beliefs and aspirations vis-à-vis what we really want to be (that is to say, what is naturally acceptable to us). If these two are the same, then there is no problem. If on investigation we find that these two are not the same, then it means we are living with this contradiction (of not being what we really want to be) and hence, we need to resolve this contradiction this conflict within us. It is a process of discovering that there is something innate, invariant and universal in all human beings. This enables us to look at our confusions and contradictions within and resolve them by becoming aware of our natural acceptance.

How can we verify proposals on the basis of our natural acceptance? Explain with example.

What do you mean by your natural acceptance? Is it innate, invariant and universal? Explain (UPTU 2011–12)

“Natural acceptance is innate, invariant and universal.” Explain this statement with an example. (MTU 2011–12)

Ans:Natural acceptance implies unconditional and total acceptance of the self, people and environment. It also refers to the absence of any exception from others. Once we fully and truly commit ourself on the basis of natural acceptance, we feel a holistic sense of inner harmony,

tranquility and fulfillment. Actually natural acceptance is way to accept the good things naturally. Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in, and in our own way absorb it; do not become others. We can easily verify proposals in the basis of characteristics of natural acceptance mentioned below:

Natural acceptance does not change with time. It remains invariant with time. For example our natural acceptance for trust and respect does not change with
It does not depend on the place. Whatever we have accepted, in our life, at any time of our age, does not change, even if we move from one place to another
It does not depend on our beliefs or past conditionings. No matter how deep our belief or past conditioning, as long as we ask ourselves the question sincerely, as long as we refer deep within ourselves, the answer will always be the
This natural acceptance is ‘constantly there’, something we can refer to. Natural acceptance is always there. Whatever we do, this natural acceptance is within us, it is telling us what is
Natural acceptance is the same for all of us: it is part and parcel of every human being, it is part of humanness. Though each one of us, may have different likes and dislikes and means to live and to react etc. but if we go deep in our mind the purpose of our work, behaviour, efforts etc. are based on common goals like need to be happy, need to be respected, need to get prosperity. So our basic acceptance remains the

Q. What is the meaning of prosperity? How can you say that you are prosperous?

Ans:The feeling of having or making available more than required physical facilities is prosperity. Almost all of us feel that wealth alone means prosperity and try to explain this phenomenon on this nonexistent or half fact. We are trying to achieve happiness and prosperity by maximizing accumulation and consumption of physical facilities. It is becoming anti-ecological and anti-people, and threatening the human survival itself. For prosperity, two things are required-

Identification of the required quantity of physical facilities, and

Ensuring availability / production of more than required physical

We can be prosperous only if there is a limit to the need for physical facilities. If there is no limit what so ever be the availability the feeling of prosperity cannot be assured.

Secondly, just assessing the need is not enough. We need to be able to produce or make available more than the perceived need.

What is the difference between prosperity and wealth? What is more acceptable to us and why?

What do you understand by prosperity? What is the difference between prosperity and wealth? How are the two related?

What is the meaning of prosperity? How does it differ from possession of wealth? Explain with examples. (UPTU 2009 – 10)

Differentiate between prosperity and wealth with examples. (MTU 2010 – 11)

Ans:Prosperity is a feeling of having more than required physical facilities; it is not just physical facilities. Almost all of us feel that wealth alone means prosperity and try to explain this phenomenon on this nonexistent or half fact. Wealth is a physical thing. It means having money, or having a lot of physical facilities or both. This is a very important distinction. We mostly fail to make this distinction today. We keep working for wealth, without realizing that the basic desire is for the feeling of prosperity, to have a feeling of having enough. Prosperity is more acceptable to us because wealth is just a part of prosperity. We are trying to achieve happiness and prosperity by maximizing accumulation and consumption of physical facilities. It is becoming anti-ecological and anti-people, and threatening the human survival itself. A person has lot of money, but does not want to share even a bit of it. The person ‘has wealth’ but feels ‘deprived’. If one felt prosperous he/she would have shared what one has, since there is lot more than enough wealth anyway.

What is your present vision of a happy and prosperous life?

Ans:We are trying to achieve happiness and prosperity by maximizing accumulation and consumption of physical facilities. It is becoming anti-ecological and anti-people, and threatening the human survival itself.

Some of the consequences of such trend are summarized below:

At the level of individual: rising problems of depression, psychological disorders, suicides, stress, insecurity,
At the level of family: breaking of joint families, mistrust, and conflict between older and younger generations, insecurity in relationships, divorce, dowry tortures,
At the level of society: growing incidence of terrorism and naxalism, rising communalism, spreading casteism, racial and ethnic struggle, wars between nations,
At the level of nature: global warming, water, air, soil, noise etc. pollution, resource depletion of minerals and mineral oils,

All the problems are a direct outcome of an incorrect understanding, our wrong notion about happiness and prosperity and their continuity – this is an issue for serious exploration.

What do the abbreviations given as SVDD, SSDD and SSSS signify?

Ans:To achieve our basic aspirations we need to work for right understanding as the base on which we can work for relationship and then physical facilities. Today we are not working according to this that why we can see that there are two kind of people in the world:

Those that do not have physical facilities/ wealth and feel unhappy and deprived. e. SVDD: SadhanViheenDukhiDaridra – Materially Deficient, Unhappy and Deprived.
Those that have physical facilities/ wealth and feel unhappy and deprived. e. SSDD: SadhanSampannDukhiDaridra – Materially Affluent, Unhappy and Deprived. But these are states we don’t want to be in. We want to move from this to third category i.e.
Having physical facilities and feeling happy and prosperous e. SSSS:

SadhanSampannSukhiSamriddha – Materially Adequate, Happy and Prosperous.

Presently, as we look around, we find most of the people in the above two categories called SVD and SSDD, while the natural acceptance of all human beings is to be in the category of SSSS.

“Physical facilities are necessary and complete for animals, while they are necessary but not complete for humans.” Comment.

Explain how physical facilities are necessary but not complete for humans while they are complete for animals.

Physical facilities are necessary but not complete for human being. Do you agree with this statement? Support your answer with reasons and examples. (UPTU 2011 – 12)

Ans: Physical facilities are necessary and complete for animals, while they are necessary but not complete for humans. It is easy to verify.

For Animals: Animals need physical things to survive, mainly to take care of their body. For example; cow will look for food when it is hungry. Once it gets the grass or fodder. It eats it, sits around to chew at leisure. Hence, we can say that as long as animals have physical things, they are largely fine. They don’t desire other things like knowledge or a peaceful animal society or getting a good MBA.

For Humans: While physical facilities are necessary for human beings, they are not complete by themselves to fulfill our needs. Our needs are more than just physical facilities. We all have other needs, other plans, perhaps we think of going to a movie or reading a book, or go to college, or watch some TV, or spend time with family and friends….. this list is endless. Thus it is easy to see that while physical facilities are necessary for us human beings, they are not complete by

themselves to fulfill our needs.

Hence we can say that for animals – “Physical facilities are necessary and complete.” For humans “Physical facilities are necessary but not complete.”

Q 23. What are the requirements to fulfil basic human aspirations?

What is the program to fulfil the basic human aspirations? Explain (MTU 2011 – 12)

Explain the basic requirements to fulfil human aspirations. Give the correct priority among them. (UPTU 2009-10)

Three things are needed in order to fulfill basic human aspirations–right understanding, right relationships and physical facilities. Explain meaning of each one of these. (UPTU 2010–11)

Ans:Our basic aspirations are happiness (mutual fulfilment) and prosperity (mutual prosperity). Happiness is ensured by the relationships with other human beings and prosperity is ensured by working on physical facilities.

Right Understanding: This refers to higher order human skills – the need to learn and utilize our intelligence most effectively.

Good Relationships: This refers to the interpersonal relationships that a person builds in his or her life – at home, at the workplace and in society.

Physical Facilities: This includes the physiological needs of individuals and indicates the necessities as well as the comforts of life. It means the feeling of having or being able to have more physical facilities than is needed.

In order to resolve the issues in human relationships, we need to understand them first, and this would come from ‘right understanding of relationship’. Similarly in order to be prosperous and to enrich nature, we need to have the ‘right understanding’. The ‘right understanding’ will enable us to work out our requirements for physical facilities and hence correctly distinguish the difference between wealth and prosperity. With nature as well, we need to understand the harmony in nature, and how we can complement this harmony.

Q 24. What do you mean by animal and human consciousness? Explain with the help of a diagram.

Distinguish between ‘human consciousness’ and ‘animal consciousness’. How “shiksha and sanskar” are helpful in raising man to “human consciousness” level. (UPTU 2010–11)

What is the difference between animal consciousness and human consciousness? How does the transformation take place in a human being? (MTU 2011–12)

Ans: Giving all priorities to physical facilities only, or to live solely on the basis of physical facilities, may be termed as ‘Animal Consciousness’. Living with all three: Right understanding, Relationship and Physical facilities is called ‘Human Consciousness’.

From the diagram we can say that:

For animal, physical facility is necessary as well as complete – whereas for human beings it is necessary but not

Working only for physical facilities is living with Animal Consciousness.

Working for right understanding as the first priority followed by relationship and physical facilities implies living with Human Consciousness.

There is a need for transformation from Animal Consciousness to Human Consciousness. It can be accomplished only by working for right understanding as the first

This transformation from Animal Consciousness to Human Consciousness forms the basis for human values and values based

The content of education is the understanding of harmony at all the four levels of our existence – from myself to the entire existence. Right living or sanskar refers to the ability to live in harmony at all the four levels of living. This dimension of society works to ensure ‘right understanding’ and ‘right feelings’ in individual. Or all-encompassing solution called samadhan in every individual and ensures that our succeeding generation have both the content and the environment available to work towards achieving their goal of continuous happiness and prosperity.

There are many problems manifest today at the level of individual, family, society and the nature. Identify some of these problems humans suffer from. (UPTU 2010–11)

Ans: Today we are generally trying to achieve happiness and prosperity by maximizing accumulation and consumption of physical facilities. This effort is giving rise to many problems manifest today at the level of individual, family, society and the nature. These problems are:

At the level of individual– Rising problems of depression, anxiety, suicides, stress, insecurity, increasing health problems, lack of confidence and conviction

At the level of family– Breaking up of joint families, mistrust and disharmony in relationships, divorce, generation gap, dowry deaths, neglect of older people

At the level of society– Growing incidences of terrorism, violence, communalism, racial and ethnic struggle, corruption, adulteration, sex-crimes exploitation, wars between nations, proliferation of lethal weapons

At the level of nature– Global warming, weather imbalances, depletion of mineral and energy resources, deforestation, soil degradation

All the problems are a direct outcome of an incorrect understanding, our wrong notion about happiness and prosperity and their continuity.

Critically examine the prevailing notions of happiness in the society and their consequences.

or What is prosperity? Is it different from happiness?

What are the basic human aspirations? Explain. (MTU 2010 – 11) or

What is the outcome when we try to identify relationship based on the exchange of physical facilities?

Ans: Happiness may be defined as being in harmony/synergy in the state/ situation that I live in. “A state or situation in which I live, if there is harmony in it then I like to be in that state / situation. The state of liking is happiness.” Whereas, prosperity is the “feeling of having or making available more than required physical facilities”.

In the current scenario, we are generally trying to achieve happiness and prosperity by maximizing accumulation and consumption of physical facilities. This is an attempt to achieve happiness through pleasant sensory interactions. The physical facilities are not seen in terms of fulfilling bodily needs but as a means of maximizing happiness.

This has resulted in wrong assessment of wants for physical facilities as being unlimited. But this pursuit is self-defeating. Neither can we hope to achieve continuous happiness through sensory interactions nor can we have prosperity, as it amounts to trying to fulfil unlimited wants through limited resources. This effort is engendering problems at all the levels. It is becoming anti- ecological and anti-people, and threatening the human survival itself. Some of the consequences of such a trend are summarized below:

At the level of the individual – Rising problems of depression, psychological disorders, suicides, stress, insecurity, psycho-somatic diseases, loneliness
At the level of the family – Breaking of joint families, mistrust, conflict between older and younger generations, insecurity in relationships, divorce, dowry tortures, family feuds, wasteful expenditure in family functions
At the level of the Society – Growing incidences of terrorism and naxalism, rising communalism, spreading casteism, racial and ethnic struggle, wars between nations, attempts of genocide, fear of nuclear and genetic warfare,
At the level of nature – Global warming, water, air, soil, noise, etc. pollution, resource depletion of minerals and mineral oils, sizeable deforestations, loss of fertility of

It therefore, calls for an urgent need for human beings to correctly understand happiness and prosperity as well as the sustainable way to achieve these.

UNIT 2 HARMONY IN SELF

Topic – Understanding the human being as the co-existence of self and body

Understand human being

Human beings are complex creations of the elements of nature.

Physically they are a composition of minerals and water.
At the second level human beings are capable of movement and the ability to respond to stimuli.
At the third level human beings are thinking being who have intellect and emotions.
At the highest level human beings have a spiritual aspect.

They aspire towards the transcendental (spiritual). Thus human being is co-existence of the body and the self ‘jivan’.

Human being as a combination of the sentiment ‘I’ and material body

Human beings are a complex combination of the sentiment ‘I’ which relates to all the feelings and the material ‘body’ which refers to all the physical facilities available to them. Often there is a clash between the needs of the body and the feelings. This may manifest itself in many ways. Ex. The state of depression or sadness. In this state the body needs food and nourishment but the feelings over-ride the situation. Both these aspects of feelings and body needs and requirements form an essential part of ‘what we are’. This co-existence must be harmonious.

Human needs

According to the theory of “Hierarchy of needs” given by Abraham Meslow:

A. Physiological needs

For the most part, physiological needs are obvious– they are the literal requirement for human survival. If these requirements are not met (with the expectation of clothing, and shelter) the human body simply cannot continue to function. Physiological needs include:

Þ Breathing,

Þ Food,

Þ Clothing

Þ Mental satisfaction

Þ Water

Þ Shelter

Þ Sound sleep

Air, water and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including humans. Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements.

B. Safety needs

With their physical needs relatively satisfied, the individual’s safety needs take precedence and dominate behaviour. In the world of work, these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, saving accounts, insurance policies, reasonable disability accommodations, and the like. Safety and security needs includes:

Þ Personal security

Þ Financial security

Þ Health and wellbeing

Þ Safety net against accidents/illness and their adverse impacts

C. Social needs

Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group, such as clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs or small social connections (family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants). They need to love and be loved (sexually and non-sexually) by others. In the absence of these elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression.

D. Self esteem

All humans have a need to be respected and to have self esteem and self-respect. Also known as the belonging need, esteem presents the normal human desire to be accepted and valued by others.

Imbalance at this level can result in low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. People

with low self-esteem need respect from others.

E. Self actualization

This level of need pertains to what a person’s full potential is and realizing that potential. In order to reach a clear understanding of this level of need one must first not only achieve the previous needs, physiological, safety, love, and esteem, but master these needs.

Simple classification

Human being

Body Inner self (I)

Suvidha :

Needs (I) suvidha Needs (II) sukh

Fig: Human needs

It implies that it is looking for physical comforts and all the sources of attaining such comforts. When our body gets used to a certain level of comfort then we will only feel comfortable at that level. Ex. comfort in fan, cooler or air conditioner. Different people have a different perception of suvidha and will seek a corresponding level of suvidha according to their perceptions.

Sukh :

The beauty of sukh is that it is a holistic and all encompassing state of the mind that creates inner harmony.

By nature man is fond off comfort and happiness so he goes on making desires and ambitions one after the other to enjoy more in life. To lead a comfortable life he also accumulates many facilities, so that his life may become full of comfort and happiness. Sukh depends upon our thinking, so many times we are surrounded by materialistic possessions but we feel unsatisfied. People think that their happiness depends upon suvidha (facilities) but is it not so; happiness depends upon our thinking or our mental satisfaction.

Understanding myself as co-existence of self and body

Understanding needs of the self and needs of the body

In the process of identifying the distinct characteristics of the self and the body, we will first focus towards their distinct needs:

1. Needs are ….

The needs of the body like food for nourishment clothes for protection, and instruments to ensure right utilization can be categorized as being ‘physical’ in nature, or also called ‘physical facilities’ (suvidha) whereas the need of I is essentially to live in a state of continuous happiness (sukh). The needs of the body are physical in nature, whereas the needs of the self (‘I’) are not physical in nature – like trust, respect, happiness etc.

2. In time, needs are…

The needs of ‘I’ are continuous in time, unlike the need of the body, which is temporary in time. We want happiness continuously. We also want the feeling of respect continuously and so also acceptance in relationship. You do not want to be unhappy even for a single moment, or lose the feeling of respect for yourself for a single moment.

If we talk about food, clothing, shelter, or instruments, these are needed only for some amount of time, or we can say that the need for physical facilities of the body is temporary in time- it is not continuous.

3. In quality, needs are…..

Physical facilities are needed for the body in a limited quantity. When we try and exceed these limits, it becomes troublesome for us after some time. Let’s take the example of eating. As far as, physical facilities (say rasgulla) go, they are necessary in the beginning, but if we keep consuming, it becomes intolerable with the passage of time. This applies to every physical facility. We can only think of having unlimited physical facilities, but if we try and consume, or have too much of physical facilities, it only ends up becoming a problem for us. When we try to perpetuate physical facilities, the following pattern results. With time it successively changes from:

Necessary and tasteful Unnecessary but tasty => Unnecessary and tasteless => Intolerable!

Whereas the needs of ‘I’ are qualitative (they are not quantifiable), but we also want them continuously. Our feelings are qualitative. Either they are or they are not. Ex. Happiness is qualitative. Either we are feeling happy or we are not. Also if a feeling is not naturally acceptable; we do not want it even for a single moment. If acceptable, we want it continuously.

4. Needs are fulfilled by….

The need of the self (‘I’), for happiness (sukh) is ensured by right understanding and right feelings, while the need of the body, for physical facilities (suvidha), is ensured by appropriate physico-chemical things.

B. Understanding activities in the self and activities in the body

If we look at the variety of activities that we are engaged in commonly – we see that we can put them in three categories:

Activities that are going on in the self
Activities that are going on in the body
Activities involving both the self and the body

1. Activities in the self

Activities in self are:

Þ Thinking

Þ Believing

Þ Speaking

Þ Feeling

Þ Understanding

Þ Desiring

Þ Dreaming

Þ Imagining

Þ Analyzing

These activities are going on in us all the time, and we are usually unaware of them. If we start paying attention to them, we can become aware of them. We can also see that these activities take place irrespective of the state of the body.

2. Activities involving both the self (I) and the body

There are some activities that we do, in which both ‘I’ and body are involved. The decisions and choices are made in ‘I’, and these are carried out via the body. These activities are:

Þ Walking

Þ Eating

Þ Talking

Þ Seeing

Þ Listening

Take the example of eating. Here, I first decide which food to eat, then make the choice to take the food inside the body, use my hands to carry the food to the mouth, use the mouth to chew the food and them swallow it. Thus, eating is an activity which involves both the self (‘I’), where the choice is been made, and the body, with which the activity is carried out.

3. Activities in the body – but only with the consent of ‘I’

The body is a set of ‘self-organized activities’ that are occurring with self (‘I’’s) consent but without my (‘I’’s) active participation. These are functions like:

Þ Digesting

Þ Blood flow

Þ Heart beat

Þ Breathing

Þ Nourishment

Knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling in ‘I’ and recognizing and fulfilling in body

Activities of recognizing and fulfilling in the body

We saw that Breathing, Heartbeat, Digestion etc. were activities in the body. The activities of the body can also be understood as recognition and fulfillment. In fact, the mutual interaction between any two material entities can be understood as recognition and fulfillment of their relationship. Any two material entities thus interact with each other in a definite way.

2. Activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling in the self (‘I’)

When it comes to self (jivan or ‘I’), which is a sentient entity; a conscious entity; we will see that in addition to ‘recognizing and fulfilling’, there is also the activity of assuming and that of knowing. In fact, recognizing and fulfilling in case of human beings will depend upon knowing and/or assuming. Let us write down about the activities in ‘I’:

We assume – We all make assumptions. We say “I assumed this was true, but I was wrong”. Ex. If I see a snake and assumed it to be a rope, I shall respond differently to it (recognition and fulfillment), than if I take it to be a snake itself. We call this activity ‘assuming or mannana’.
We recognize – We all recognize things today, we recognize a variety of Like, we recognize water, our parents, friends, etc. We call this activity ‘recognizing or pahachaanana’. The recognizing in ‘I’ depends on assuming.
We fulfill – Once we recognize water, we take it, when we recognize a friend, we greet him/her, when we see a wounded dog, we try and help it. This response that follows recognition is called the activity of ‘fulfilling or nirvaha karna’. The fulfillment depends on the

Taken together we can write it as (in I) :

Assuming recognizing fulfilling

There is another activity that exists in us (in ‘I’) that we are largely unaware of or have not explored properly. This activity is called ‘knowing’. Knowing means we have the right understanding – the understanding of harmony at all levels of our living. When we have the right understanding, when we have the knowledge of reality, it is definite, and then assuming becomes according to the knowing, and hence recognizing and fulfilling becomes definite, or according to knowing. Until then, it is subject to beliefs and assumptions, and this keeps changing.

When we list these down:

Knowing leads to Assuming leads to Recognizing leads to Fulfilling

C. Understanding the self (‘I’) as the conscious entity, the body as the material body

Any entity that has the capacity of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling can be called as conscious entity, or consciousness, or ‘I’ or jeevan. On the other hand, any entity that does not have the activity of knowing and assuming is not a conscious entity. Similarly any entity that has the activity of recognizing and fulfilling only can be called a material body. According to the activities of self and body we can say that while the self (‘I’) is the conscious entity, the body is a material entity or physico-chemical in nature. The conscious entity (jivan) desires, thinks, selects, studies. Thus we can write:

Co-existence

Human Being = Self (‘I’) Body information

The conscious entity The material entity that has

that desires, thinks, physic-chemical activities

imagines like heart-beats, digesting etc.

Knowing, assuming, Recognizing and fulfilling recognizing and fulfilling

Topic: Harmony in Self – Understanding Myself

Human being is the co-existence of self and body. The body is the instrument of self and self is the seer, doer and enjoyer. Self is continuously active to fulfill its need for happiness.

Why Should I Study Myself

Knowing ourselves better helps us in the following ways:

The self is the basis of everything we do. All the desires and expectations we have are all there in For e.g. to be famous, to get good marks, get great job, having good relationships in our family or wanting ‘rasgulla’. Hence, it becomes important to understand these desires, thoughts, and activities in self, so that we know whether they are right.
To understand happiness better and the causes for unhappiness because happiness and unhappiness are states in
It helps us have more clarity about how we are within. This helps us become self- confident. It also helps in establishing proper synergy between the self and the
Study of self unable us to know our weaknesses and how to remove.
The more we understand ourselves, the more we understand other person as well and our relationship with
It helps us to better understand our program, i.e. what is valuable to us, or what do we ultimately want and how do we fulfill

Activities in Self

The self is conscious in nature while the body is physico-chemical in nature. The interaction between the ‘I’ and the body is in the form of exchange of information. So the focus of attention is on two categories of attributes of the self, namely, the powers of the self and the corresponding activities as the manifest outcomes of these powers.

Power: This means the basic capacity in the self (‘I’). They are: desires, thoughts and expectations.

Activities: The activities are: imaging, analyzing, and selecting/tasting. The activity of analyzing means breaking down the image into various parts or to open it Selecting/tasting is with the expectation of fulfilling our desires with the expectation of

happiness. The activity of selecting/tasting is the basic level via which the self interacts with the body.

Activities in self are related

There are two possible flows of the activities and both keep taking place:

Form outside (the body) to inside (in ‘I’)

Self receives sensations from body tasted in ‘I’ e.g. our self see a car through the information via ‘eyes’.
Based on taste, thought could be triggered e.g. we start thinking about the
Based on these thoughts, desires may be set e.g. when we starts thinking about the car it forms an image that we are leading a good life by using a car and this way a good life by having a car becomes a

Selection leads to Thoughts leads to Desires

Form inside (in ‘I’) to outside (the body)

When desire is set we start forming thoughts about fulfilling this desire. E.g. with the desire of a good life via the car, we start thinking about how to get the car, what is the cost of the car, how can I have that car,
Based on this we make selection to fulfill these thoughts e.g. we choose the car its shape color etc and then end up buying

Desires leads to Thoughts leads to Selection

Together we call these activities as imagination. Activities in self are continuous.

Selection leads to Thoughts leads to Desires leads to Thoughts leads to Selection

We make choices with the external world based on our imagination today.

Imagination = Desires + Thoughts + Expectations

This activity of imagination in ‘I’ is continuous and not temporary. The power may change but the activity is continuous. The object of the taste may change but the activity of selecting/tasting is continuous. Also what we analyze may keep changing the activity of analyzing is continuous. E.g. my object of taste may change from rasgulla, to engineering or nice looking bike, etc. similarly I may analyze about my personal life at one moment and about my surrounding at the next moment and may start thinking about my relationships.

These activities keep going on in us irrespective of whether we want them or not. This is what happens when we say “I was going to the exam and that song kept repeating itself in me, it was so distracting”.

What is the problem today?

Desires, thoughts and expectations are largely being set by pre-conditioning and sensations

Preconditioning:

Preconditioning means we have assumed something about it on the basis of prevailing notion about it. We have not verified the desires in our own right. As a result, we are not clear about what we will get out of fulfillment of that desire. What is the issue with that? Unless we verify our desires, we may not even know whether they are our! We may end up spending an entire lifetime accumulating desires that are not our, and in running abut trying to fulfill them!

Sensations:

A perception associated with stimulation of a sense organ or with a specific body condition: the sensation of heat; a visual sensation. A term commonly used to refer to the

subjective experience resulting from stimulation of a sense organ, for instance, a sensation of warm, sour, or green.

Suppose you had seen the bike and not associated it with ‘greatness’; rather you only liked the way it ‘looked’ – then this is based on the sensation.

This is largely the case with us today: either we are operating on the basis of preconditioned desires (set from outside) or on the basis of sensation (coming from the body).

Effects of the problem…

Conflicts and contradictions in ‘I’ as a result of pre-conditioned desire

We have not verified the desires, thoughts and expectations in us on the basis of our own natural acceptance. As a result, these desires, thoughts and selections are in conflicts. Since the desires are in conflict, the thoughts they give rise to, are also in conflict and in turn, the selection from the thoughts are also in conflicts. This conflict affects us in different manners:

1. Wavering aspirations:

Our goals keep shifting as the inputs from the outside also keep changing. Our desires thus keep shifting, because their source is outside and these preconditioned desires may come from what we read, see, hear, from media, friends, society, etc. hence, we are always wavering in what we want; we are not able to be certain about it.

2. Lack of confidence:

Since our desires are shaky, we are not sure about them. As a result, we lack self confidence, in the true sense. Our confidence seems relative i.e. we keep comparing ourselves with others in order to feel confident.

3. Unhappiness/conflicts:

Since our desires, thoughts and expectations are in conflict, it becomes the cause for our unhappiness, leading to stress and tension. Such desires will also be in conflict with our natural acceptance

4. Lack of qualitative improvement in us:

We focus largely on fulfilling the needs of the body. As a result, we live with a sense of lack of fulfillment. We are doing many things, accumulating a lot, progressing on paper, but we don’t feel that we have improved, that we have become better. It seems that only the things around us are changing!

5. State of resignation:

Because we do not understand ourselves properly and have contradictions within, we slowly start getting disillusioned (pleasant but mistaken beliefs). We feel that there are no solutions to these issues, and end up in a state of resignation.

To sum up, if our desires, thoughts and expectations are based on pre-conditionings, we are generally in a state of great confusion. This leads to confusion, unhappiness, conflict and stress. We have lack of clarity about the self, relationships, society, nature and existence. We have lack of confidence. We have a feeling of being unfulfilled, unsettled. We operate largely on the basis of the environment, driven from the outside – either from sensations, or based on pre- conditionings.

B. Short lived nature of pleasure from sensations:

The pleasure obtained from sensations is short-lived. We are driven by five sensations (sound from the ears, touch from the skin, sight through eyes, taste from the mouth, and smell from the nose) and most of the time we are busy trying to get pleasure from sensations, from the senses. We have so much dependent on sensations that instead of giving us some sensory pleasure, it becomes the source for our happiness. Then what is the issue with this is? This can be understood as follows:

The need of the ‘I’ is continuous, i.e. we want to have happiness, and its continuity. Therefore, if the source for our happiness is temporary by definition, then our need for continuous happiness will never be fulfilled. Hence, any sensation we have from the body can’t be the source for our lasting happiness.

No matter how much you try to be become happy via the senses, or via bodily sensation, it does not last. This does not mean that we stop these sensations from the body, or that we stop tasting from the senses. It only means that we need to understand the limitations of happiness or pleasure got from the sensations from the body and need to understand what is there use or purpose. If we confuse this purpose with the happiness, we are in trouble, since something that is temporary can’t be the source for our continuous happiness.

We can thus understand that living on the basis of preconditioning (“good life means having a nice car”) or sensations (happiness out of taste from the body) means being in a state of being decided by the others or outside, i.e. enslaved (partantrata). We are at the mercy of the preconditioning and the sensation. Whereas, we want to be in the state of self-organization of being decided by our own self, in our own right (svantrata).

What is the solution?

The solution is to start verifying our desires, thoughts and expectations on the basis of our natural acceptance. So how does the accessing of natural acceptance resolve this solution?

It becomes possible for us to have the right understanding of the harmony at all levels of our living.
When we have the right understanding, we are able to see our “true nature”, and what we truly Our desires thus start getting set on the basis of this right understanding – instead of being driven by preconditioning/ sensations.
This put us at ease (freedom from anxiety and pain, conflicts). We are no longer struggling or are in conflict at the various levels of our living.

Operating on the basis of our ‘natural acceptance’ thus leads to operating on the basis of our ‘realization’ and ‘understanding’.

Realization: Means to be able to see the reality as it is.

Understanding: Means to be able to understand the self organization in all entities of nature/existence and their inter-connected organization “as it is”.

These are the two activities in the self (‘I’) (placed at point 1 and 2 in the figure)

When we have (1) realization then (2) understanding becomes according to the realization. When this happens, then (3) imaging or desires get set according to this understanding. Consequently, (4) analysis or thoughts become according to the imaging/desires and hence, the (5) expectations or selection/taste are according to the thoughts/analysis. This is called self- organization or svantrata. This leads to happiness and its continuity.

In realization and understanding, we get the answer to “what is the reality?” This, for each one of us, translates into the answers to “what to do?” and “why to do?” Then what remains to find out is “how to do?”, which comes from imagination (activities 3, 4, and 5). Is we see today we are focusing on “how to do?”, without trying to first verify “what to do?” and “why to do?”! It is just like traveling in a comfortable AC vehicle on a smooth road without knowing where we have to go!

The problem today is that our activities of (1) realization and (2) understanding are inactive, we are unaware of them. As a result, we are not able to operate on our own right and keep operating on the basis of preconditioning and sensations i.e. we are operating only at the levels of (3) desire, (4) thought and (5) expectations today. This is not sufficient for us as human being. We thus need to operate at the levels (1) realization and (2) understanding as the basis on which (3), (4) and (5) get definite.

Topic: Harmony of Self (I) with The Body – Sanyama And Swasthya

Our Body – A Self Organized Unit

The human body is a self-organized and highly sophisticated mechanism. The body is made up of several organs and glands and the different parts of the body keep working in a close co-ordination. All the activities keep the body fit for the use of ‘I’ (self or jivana) so that ‘I’ and the body may work in synergy as a human being. The silent aspects of this harmony b/w ‘I’ and the body are:-

The body acts according to the needs of
There is harmony among the parts of the
What our body follow only by the permission of
There is a strong coupling b/w I and the body. If I am in disharmony e.g. in anger or stress or despair. It immediately starts affecting the body
There are many diseases of the body that are caused or accentuated due to disharmony in These are called psychosomatic diseases such as asthma, migraine, hyper-tension etc. On the other hand, when there is a strong disturbance in the body manifesting in the form of severe pain, it distracts I from its normal functions.
I have the feeling of sanyama for the body and the body has swasthya. Sanyama is basic to

Sanyama

Sanyama means the feeling of responsibility in the self (I) for nurturing, protection and right utilization of the body.

Self-control or sanyama is the control of the mind and its desires, urges, emotions and delusions. It is controlling the outgoing tendencies of the mind and the senses and bringing them back to our self within. Self-control is the key to success in any field of life and it is an indispensable necessity for self– realization, the goal of spiritual quest. Practice of self-control is most purifying because self–control transform the quality of our mind.

Aspects of Sanyama

Self-control constitutes two main aspects of will power and self-discipline.

Self control

Will power self discipline

Will Power

Achievement of goals and objectives

Fig: The components of self control

Will power is an individuals’ activity to harness his or her energy. Energy may be:-

Þ Physical

Þ Mental

Þ Emotional

Þ Spiritual energy

In order to achieve the goals and objectives, one aspires for such energy is necessary. If one’s energy is a little deficient, then the individual makes up with another, so strong is the will to achieve the goal. E.g. a marathon athlete may be tired and thirsty and every body part may be aching but his mental strength drives him to complete the marathon and achieve his goal.

Self Discipline

Self-discipline is the accompanying input that goes into self-control. Self-discipline refers to the ability to train our body, mind, emotions and spirit to perform as per a schedule or a routine.

Self-discipline makes a person strong enough to reject immediate gratification towards a higher goal but it does require efforts and time to become self-disciplined. If a person has will power and is disciplined, he/she gains control over his/her actions. Thus he/she can choose his/her behaviour and reactions, instead of being ruled by them.

Advantages of Self Control

Keeps a check on wrong habits, addictions
Gives us confidence and improves our self-esteem.
Keeps our emotions in
Creates peace of mind, balance and a sense of equanimity (equilibrium, calmness)
Helps us to take charge of our own
Makes us more responsible and efficient in achieving our goals.

Obstacles in the Path of Self Control

Inability to understand the true meaning of self-control.
Overwhelming emotional outbursts
Acting without thinking
Mo incentive (encouragement) to exercising self control
Lack of faith in one’s own abilities
Lack of confidence
Thinking that self-control is the opposite of
Hedonistic life values – the attitude of ‘eat drink and be merry’ which may encourage loosing control.

Our State Today

What is our state today? Today we are facing different problems and they are lack of responsibility towards the body, tendency for medication to suppress the ailment, and polluted air, water, food. Let’s take them in detail:

A. Lack of Responsibility Towards the Body

Our lifestyle has become very busy and unnatural. We usually do not give priority to take proper care of the body. We have increasingly stated eating at odd hours, eating junk food, and are largely ignorant about the state of our body. We tend to look with contempt (disrespectful) on any kind of physical work or labour. E.g., in an attempt to keep enjoying tasty food, we ignore the fact that we are eating for the nourishment of the body and not to perpetuate (continue, maintain) the happiness of ‘I’.

B.

Tendency for Medication to Suppress the Ailment

Whenever there is a pain in any part of the body, it is a signal of some disorder which needs to be properly attended to. However, our common tendency has become to suppress this pain by immediate medication and then forget about it. Our focus today seems to be more on ‘fighting germs in the body’ than on helping the body restore itself to its natural state of harmony.

In fact, today we are focusing a lot more on what to do if we fall ill rather then learning to live healthy. It thus becomes important for each one of us to become aware of our own body and its needs and how common, simple medication can be used to facilitate the body to come back to health in care of ailments (slight illness).

C. Polluted Air, Water, Food

We have polluted our environment today and it is directly or indirectly harming us. There is contamination in the air, water, soil, plants and we are responsible for it. Our food has become impure. Due to heavy use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and a lot of pollutions, our food has all kinds of toxic contents in it. The air we breathe in, is polluted by various chemicals released from industries and vehicles, while our water is also polluted due to industrial effluents (liquid sewage), sewage etc. all this, surely, is not conductive to the health of people.

What is the Solution?

Our present lifestyle and conditionings are not very conductive to keep the body fit and therefore it is important to understand sanyama and swasthya correctly and maintain proper harmony with the body. As a proposal, we need to work for the following few things

To understand and live with
To understand the self-organization of the body and ensure health of the

1. Understanding and Living with Sanyama

Sanyama implies that the self takes the responsibility for proper nurturing, and right utilization of the body. For this it is essential to understand the functioning of the body instrument. It is also essential to understand that this instrument has a limited life span and undergoes a pattern of growth and decay. The interaction of the self with the body has to be in consonance with the above objectives which are achieved through sanyama.

2. Nurturing of the Body: Proper Food, Air, Water, Etc.

In the process of selecting food for the body, I need to make out the elements which make a complete food so that it gives required nutrients and energy to the body.

On the basis of understanding of the harmony of the self with the body, it can ve said that the food needs to be eaten only when we feel hungry. The choice of the food has to be such that it is easily digestible and the food needs to be taken with proper posture of the body and in right quantity.

Protection of the Body

Developing Self Control

If we want to develop self-control we can fellow the steps given below:

Swasthya

Swasthya is the condition of the body where every part of the body is performing its expected function. The word swasthya literally means being anchored to the self, being in close harmony with the self.

In other words, swasthya, in Sanskrit means self– dependence (swa = your own). Also, embedded in its meaning is health, sound state, comfort and satisfaction. In Hindi, the most widely spoken language of India, it merely means health. In this case, using the Hindi accent, it is pronounced “suasti”.

Health is the general condition of a person. It is also a level of functional and/or metabolic efficiency of an organism, often implicitly human.

At the time of creation of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948, health was defined as being ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of diseases or infirmity’. In 1986, the WHO, in the Ottawa Charter of Health Promotion, said that health is ‘a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities’.

The English word “health” comes from the old English word hale, meaning “wholeness, a being whole, sound or well”. Hale comes from the Proto-Indo-European root kailo, meaning “whole, uninjured, of good omen”.

Aspects of Swasthya

Health or swasthya is a holistic term which includes:

Þ Physical health

Þ Mental health

Þ Social health

Physical Health

Physical health

Mental health Social health

Fig: The Inputs of Holistic Health

For humans, physical health means a good body health, which is healthy because of regular physical activity (exercise), good nutrition, and adequate rest.

Physical health relates to anything concerning our bodies as physical entities. In other terms, physical health is physical wellbeing. Physical wellbeing is defined as something a person can achieve by developing all health– related components of his/her life style. Fitness reflects a person’s cardio-respiratory endurance, muscular strength, flexibility and body composition. Other contributors of physical wellbeing may include proper nutrition, body weight management, abstaining from drug abuse, avoiding alcohol abuse, responsible sexual behaviour (sexual health), hygiene and getting the right amount of sleep.

Building Physical Health

Eat a healthy, well balanced
Take care of personal hygiene and cleanliness (brushes your teeth regularly, bath daily, wear clean clothes
Keep your surrounding clean
Drink clean and safe water
Breathe deeply. Take deep slow breaths. Your body needs the oxygen
Go for a walk regularly
Exercise daily, play a game, go to the gym, jog or walk briskly
Avoid fizzy drink, chips and junk food as far as possible
Eat in moderate quantity – less is better than But make sure what you eat is nutritious
Keep your nails clipped and clean

Mental Health

Mental health refers to people’s cognitive and emotional wellbeing. A person who enjoys good mental health does not have a mental disorder. According to WHO, mental health is:

“A state of well-being in which the individual realizes his/her own abilities can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his/her community”.

In other words sound mental health is that state of the mind which can maintain a calm positive poise, or regain it when unsettled for progressively longer durations or quickly, in the midst of all the external vagaries of work life and social existence.

Most people agree that mental health includes the ability to enjoy life, the ability to bounce back from adversity, the ability to achieve balance (moderation) the ability t be flexible and adapt, the ability to feel safe and secure, and self-actualization (making the best of what you have).

The Impediments to Sound Mental Health

Internal Causes

There are some major causes of impaired mental health. They are:

Þ Greed : for money, power, recognition, etc

Þ Jealousy : regarding one’s own information base, resources, etc.

Þ Envy : regarding someone else’s achievement, reward, talent, etc.

Þ Egoism/vanity : regarding one’s own accomplishment

Þ Impatience : arise or originates from greed, jealousy, envy and egoism

Þ Suspiciousness : arise or originates from greed, jealousy, envy and egoism

Þ Anger : arise or originates from greed, jealousy, envy, egoism, impatience and suspiciousness

Þ Frustration : arise or originates from greed, jealousy, envy and egoism

and impatience

External Causes

These causes are often called ‘stressors’ and includes skill obsolescence, job change, work-pressure, transfers, stock market crises, unemployment, weak empathy, student agitation, problems with neighbors, militant unionism, and so on.

Restoring Mental Health

Here are a few vital guidelines whose practice could restore our personal command over mental health:

Cultivate a sound philosophy of life, based on

Identify with an inner core of self-sufficiency through “simple living and high thinking”
Nourish a sense of equilibrium strive for excellence through ‘work is worship’ – take pride in your work
Build a stable and exalted inner reference point for the integration of contrary impulses, emotions,
Cultivate the value of purity
Practice self-discipline through deep breathing
Develop the habit of radiating goodwill and harmony from the centre of one’s being- be positive, to attract good things

Social Health

Social health refers to the ability of a person to fit in with the social setup and maintain positive and harmonious inter-personal relations. Social health contributes towards physical and mental health which is why it must be given due importance.

Enhance Social Health

To enhance social health, a human being must:

Learn to be tolerant
Learn to appreciate diversity and realize that people can be different from us and yet be very capable in their own way
Practice good manners – always be polite and pleasant
Conduct one-self with grace and dignity
Be helpful, loyal and Develop the qualities of a good friend
Don’t be self-centered.

Determinants of health

The health of individual people and their communities are affected by a wide range of contributing factors. People’s good or bad health is determined by their environment and situation– what is happening and what has happened to them, say WHO. WHO says that the following factors probably have a bigger impact on our health than access and use of health care services.

Þ Where we live

Þ The state of our environment

Þ Genetics

Þ Our income

Þ Our educational level

Þ Our relationship with friends and family

WHO says the main determinants of health are:-

Þ Our economy and society (“The social and economical environment”)

Þ Where we live what is physically around us (“The physical environment”)

Þ What we are and what we do (“The person’s individual characteristics and behaviour”)

As our good health depends on the context of our lives, praising or criticizing people for their good or bad health is wrong. Most of the factors that contribute towards our good or bad health are out of our control.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q. What do you mean by Sukh and Suvidha?

Distinguish between Sukh and Suvidha in detail taking needs of yourself as an example. (MTU 2011–12)

Ans:Sukh is a holistic and all encompassing state of the mind that creates inner harmony. Sukh is also called as happiness. Suvidha implies that it is looking for physical comforts and all the sources of attaining such comforts. When our body gets used to a certain level of comfort then we will only feel comfortable at that level e.g. comfort in fan, cooler or air conditioner. Different people have a different perception of suvidha and will seek a corresponding level of suvidha according to their perceptions.

By nature man is fond of comfort and happiness so he goes on making desires and ambitions one after the other to enjoy more in life. To lead a comfortable life he also accumulates many facilities, so that his life may become full of comfort and happiness. Sukh depends upon our thinking, so many times we are surrounded by materialistic possessions but we feel unsatisfied. People think that their happiness depends upon suvidha (facilities) but is it not so; happiness depends upon our thinking or our mental satisfaction.

Q. The needs of the body are quantitative. Illustrate. or

When we try to achieve continuity of happiness through sensation by perpetuating contact with suvidha, the following pattern results: Necessary and tasteful Þ unnecessary but tasteful

Þ unnecessary and tasteless Þ intolerable. Do you agree with this statement? Support your answer with arguments. (MTU 2011–12)

Ans:Needs of body are physical facilities. Physical facilities are needed for the body in a limited quantity. When we try and exceed these limits, it becomes troublesome for us after some time. Let’s take the example of eating. As far as, physical facilities (say rasgulla) go, they are necessary in the beginning, but if we keep consuming, it becomes intolerable with the passage of time. This applies to every physical facility. We can only think of having unlimited physical facilities, but if we try

and consume, or have too much of physical facilities, it only ends up becoming a problem for us. When we try to perpetuate physical facilities, the following pattern results. With time it successively changes from:

Necessary and tasteful

¯

Unnecessary but tasty Þ

¯

Unnecessary and tasteless Þ

¯

Intolerable!

Q. Distinguish between the needs of the Self and the needs of the Body. or

‘The need for physical facilities is temporary’ – explain the meaning of this statement with any two examples. (UPTU 2009-10) or

Differentiate between the needs of self and the needs of body. (UPTU 2011–12)

Ans:The human being is the co-existence of ‘I’ and the body, and there is exchange of information between the two. We can make this distinction between the self and the body in terms of the needs as shown in the table below:

		I	Body
Needs	Needs are ….	Trust, Respect….	Food, Clothing…
	Needs are ….	Happiness (sukh)	Physical Facilities (suvidha)
	In time needs are…	Continuous	Temporary
	In quantity, needs are…	Qualitative	Quantitative (limited in quantity)
	Needs are fulfilled by…..	Right understanding and right Feelings	Food, clothing, etc.

Needs are ….The needs of the body like food for nourishment clothes for protection, and instruments to ensure right utilization can be categorized as being ‘physical’ in nature, or also called ‘physical facilities’ (suvidha) whereas the need of I is essentially to live in a state of continuous happiness (sukh). The needs of the body are physical in nature, whereas the needs of the self (‘I’) are not physical in nature – like trust, respect, happiness
In time, needs are… The needs of ‘I’ are continuous in time, unlike the need of the body, which is temporary in We want happiness continuously. We also want the feeling of respect continuously and so also acceptance in relationship. If we talk about food, clothing, shelter, or instruments, these are needed only for some amount of time, or we can say that the need for physical facilities of the body is temporary in time- it is not continuous.
In quality, needs are….. Physical facilities are needed for the body in a limited quantity. When we try and exceed these limits, it becomes troublesome for us after some time. Let’s take the example of eating. As far as, physical facilities (say rasgulla) go, they are necessary in the beginning, but if we keep consuming, it becomes intolerable with the passage of time. This applies to every physical facility. We can only think of having unlimited physical facilities, but if we try and consume, or have too much of physical facilities, it only ends up becoming a problem for us. Whereas the needs of ‘I’ are qualitative (they are not quantifiable), but we also want them Our feelings are qualitative. Either they are or they are not. Ex. Happiness is qualitative. Either we are feeling happy or we are not. Also if a feeling is not naturally acceptable; we do not want it even for a single moment. If acceptable, we want it continuously.
Needs are fulfilled by….The need of the self (‘I’), for happiness (sukh) is ensured by right understanding and right feelings, while the need of the body, for physical facilities (suvidha), is ensured by appropriate physico-chemical

Q. Do you think that human beings are sum-total of sentiments and physical aspects the ‘self’ and the ‘body’? Explain your answer using examples.

or “Human being is more than just the body” – Explain.

Ans:There is the familiar shape and structure of a human being that is immediately apparent to us and we imagine someone with similar human body-like features. But in addition to the body, there is also the aliveness of the person – the entity that keeps the body ‘alive’ and makes it operate in various ways.

We perceive this aliveness in the activities demonstrated by the person like their seeing, talking, listening, walking, and eating, etc. This aliveness is called Jivana. Thus, a human being is coexistence of the body and jivan. This jivan refers to itself as ‘I’ (self). Thus we say “I am so and so” or “I feel tired” or “I am happy” and not “my body is happy”. This I or self is also called ‘consciousness’ and is the sentient constitute of the human being.

The human being is the sum total of sentiments and physical aspect, the self (‘I’) and the body, and there is exchange of information between the two, i.e. ‘I’ and body exist together and are related. There is a flow of information from ‘I’ to the body and from body to the ‘I’. We can make this distinction between the self and the body in three ways in terms of the needs, activities and the types of these two entities.

All the needs of I, say respect, trust, etc., can be called as Happiness (such), while the needs of body are physical facilities (suvidha) like food. The two things are qualitatively different. There is no relevance of quantity for the needs of I as it is qualitative, while the needs of body are quantitative, and they are limited in quantity.

The activities of ‘I’ are activities like, desire, thinking, selection, while the activities of body are activities like eating, breathing etc.

The mode of interaction of ‘I’ includes knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilment. The fulfilment depends on recognition depends on assumptions and assumptions depends on knowing or not knowing (beliefs). If assuming is based on knowledge, then recognition will be correct and fulfilment will be correct. If assuming is not based on knowledge, then things may go wrong. The mode of interaction of body is only recognizing and fulfilling. Self is a conscious entity and the body is a material entity, or physicochemical in nature.

different and have to be understood accordingly. But these two constituents of human being are to act in close synergy with each other.

Q. ‘Human being is co-existence of the Self and the Body’ – elaborate on this statement.

‘Human being is the co-existence of the Self and the Body’ – Explain this statement taking yourself as an example. (MTU 2010 – 11)

Ans: The human being is the co-existence of ‘I’ and the body, and there is exchange of information between the two, i.e. ‘I’ and body exist together and are related. There is a flow of information from ‘I’ to the body and from body to the ‘I’. We can make this distinction between the self and the body in three ways in terms of the needs, activities and the types of these two entities. All the needs of I, say respect, trust, etc., can be called as Happiness (such), while the needs of body are physical facilities (suvidha) like food. The two things are qualitatively different. There is no relevance of quantity for the needs of I as it is qualitative, while the needs of body are quantitative, and they are limited in quantity.

The activities of ‘I’ are activities like, desire, thinking, selection, while the activities of body are activities like eating, breathing etc. The mode of interaction of ‘I’ includes knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilment. The fulfilment depends on recognition depends on assumptions and assumptions depends on knowing or not knowing (beliefs). If assuming is based on knowledge, then recognition will be correct and fulfilment will be correct. If assuming is not based on knowledge, then things may go wrong. The mode of interaction of body is only recognizing and fulfilling. Self is a conscious entity and the body is a material entity, or physic-chemical in nature. Thus we can say:

To conclude we can say that the human being can be understood in terms of a co-existence of two entirely distinct entities, namely sentient ‘I’ and material body. Their needs and activities are quite different and have to be understood accordingly. But these two constituents of human being are to act in close synergy with each other.

Q. Explain with examples where activities involves both body and ‘I’

Differentiate between the activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling with the help of an example. (UPTU 2010–11)

Explain the activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfillment with one examples. (UPTU 2011–12)

Differentiate between the activities of the self and the body on any two grounds. (MTU 2010 – 11)

Can the activities of the self be distinctly understood from the activities of the body? Name any three activities and elaborate. (MTU 2011–12)

Ans: If we look at the variety of activities that we are engaged in commonly – we see that we can put them in three categories:

Activities that are going on in the self

Activities that are going on in the body

Activities involving both the self and the body

Knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling are the activities involving both the self and the body.

Activities of recognizing and fulfilling in the body: Apart from the activities of Breathing, Heartbeat, Digestion etc., the activities of the body can also be understood as recognition and fulfilment. In fact, the mutual interaction between any two material entities can be understood as recognition and fulfilment of their relationship. For example when we are thirsty and drink water, the body absorbs the water to the extent needed and uses for the nourishment of the various organs. Here, body recognizes its relation with water and fulfils

Recognizing ® Fulfilling

Activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling in the self (‘I’): When it comes to self (jivan or ‘I’), which is a conscious entity; in addition to ‘recognizing and fulfilling’, there is also the activity of assuming and that of knowing. In fact, recognizing and fulfilling in case of human beings will depend upon knowing and/or

We assume – We all make assumptions and our response (recognition and fulfilment) is dependent on the assumption. For : If I see a snake and assumed it to be a rope, I shall respond differently to it, than if I take it to be a snake itself. We call this activity ‘assuming or mannana’.

We recognize – We all recognize things today, we recognize a variety of Like, we recognize water, our parents, friends, etc. We call this activity ‘recognizing or pahachaanana’. The recognizing in ‘I’ depends on assuming.

We fulfil–The response that follows recognition is called the activity of ‘fulfilling or nirvahakarna’. The fulfilment depends on the For ex.: Once we recognize water, we take it.

Taken together we can write it as (in I):

Assuming ® Recognizing ® Fulfilling

There is another activity that exists in us (in ‘I’). This activity is called ‘knowing’. Knowing means we have the right understanding – the understanding of harmony at all levels of our living. When we have the right understanding, when we have the knowledge of reality, it is definite, and then assuming becomes according to the knowing, and hence recognizing and fulfilling becomes definite, or according to knowing. Until then, it is subject to beliefs and assumptions, and this keeps changing. When we list these down:

Body

Activities

Activities are …..

Desiring, thinking etc.

Breathing, heart-beat, etc.

Knowing, assuming,

recognizing, fulfilling

Recognizing, fulfilling

Q. What is pre-conditioning? What is their source?

What is the meaning of desire? How do we verify whether our desires are coming from sensations or preconditioning or natural acceptance? (UPTU 2010–11)

How human mind gets influenced or conditioned? (UPTU 2010–11)

Ans: Preconditioning means we have assumed something about our desires on the basis of prevailing notion about it. They comes from what we read, see hear, what our parents tell us, our friends talk about what the magazines talk of, what we see on the TV etc. We have not self-verified

the desires in our own right. As a result, we are not clear about what we will get out of fulfilment of that desire. The problem with that is, unless we verify our desires, we may not even know whether they are our. We may end up spending an entire lifetime accumulating desires that are not ours, and in running about trying to fulfil them.

Q. How do we go into conflicts when our activities are not guided by our natural acceptance? or

Explain how pre conditioning can lead to unhappiness.

Discuss the problems that are created by having desire, thoughts and expectation on the basis of preconditioning. (UPTU 2011–12)

How do sensations and pre-conditionings influence our imagination? Give two examples of each. (MTU 2011–12)

Ans:When our activities are not guided by our natural acceptance, then they are guided by preconditioning and sensations. Preconditioning means we have assumed something about our desires on the basis of prevailing notion about it. We have not verified the desires in our own right. As a result, we are not clear about what we will get out of fulfilment of that desire. What is the issue with that? Unless we verify our desires, we may not even know whether they are our! We may end up spending an entire lifetime accumulating desires that are not our, and in running about trying to fulfil them!

Sensation is a perception associated with stimulation of a sense organ or with a specific body condition: the sensation of heat; a visual sensation.

We go into conflicts when our activities are not guided by our natural acceptance:

A. Conflicts and contradictions in ‘I’ as a result of pre-conditioned desire

Wavering aspirations: Our goals keep shifting as the inputs from the outside also keep changing. Our desires thus keep shifting, because their source is outside and these preconditioned desires may come from what we read, see, hear, from media, friends, society, etc. hence, we are always wavering in what we want; we are not able to be certain about it.

Lack of confidence: Since our desires are shaky, we are not sure about them. As a result, we lack self confidence, in the true sense. Our confidence seems relative i.e. we keep comparing ourselves with others in order to feel

Unhappiness/conflicts: Since our desires, thoughts and expectations are in conflict, it becomes the cause for our unhappiness, leading to stress and tension. Such desires will also be in conflict with our natural acceptance

Lack of qualitative improvement in us: We focus largely on fulfilling the needs of the

As a result, we live with a sense of lack of fulfilment. We are doing many things, accumulating a lot, progressing on paper, but we don’t feel that we have improved, that we have become better. It seems that only the things around us are changing!

a) State of resignation: Because we do not understand ourselves properly and have contradictions within, we slowly start getting disillusioned (pleasant but mistaken beliefs). We feel that there are no solutions to these issues, and end up in a state of resignation.

Short lived nature of pleasure from sensations: The pleasure obtained from sensations is short-lived. We have so much dependent on sensations that instead of giving us some sensory pleasure, it becomes the source for our This can be understood as follows:

The external object is temporary in nature the contact of the external object with the body is temporary in nature. The sensation from the body to ‘I’ is temporary. And at last the taste of the sensation from the body in ‘I’ is also temporary. Therefore, if the source for our happiness is temporary by definition, then our need for continuous happiness will never be fulfilled. Hence, any sensation we have from the body can’t be the source for our lasting happiness.

To sum up, if our desires, thoughts and expectations are based on pre-conditionings, we are generally in a state of great confusion. This leads to confusion, unhappiness, conflict and stress. We have lack of clarity about the self, relationships, society, nature and existence. We have lack of confidence. We have a feeling of being unfulfilled, unsettled. We operate largely on the basis of the environment, driven from the outside – either from sensations, or based on pre-conditionings.

Q. “I am the seer, doer and enjoyer. The body is my instrument” – Explain. (UPTU 2011–12) or

How self enjoys the activities of the body?

Ans: There is a relation between the self and body that body act as an instrument of self. Whatever self thinks body performs it physically. Body does not decide itself. We can verify this by the following discussion.

I am the seer: When we are reading a book or listening, when someone is explaining something to us, when we are watching a scenery or when we are thinking – we are engaged in the activities of ‘seeing’ or understanding. Now when we see some nice scenery we say ‘I am seeing’ that means our self ‘I’ see via the eyes, the eyes don’t see, they are just instruments, that unable me to see something outside. Different images are formed in the eyes every time, but it is I who is able to relate it to the meaning of that image every time. Similarly, I can see inside ‘in me’ also – without the eyes. For example I can see that I am getting angry. In this case I understand or know or am aware that I am getting angry. When I see outside the body works as an instrument.

I am the doer: once I have seen/ understood something, I am the one who decides what to do or not to do. I am the doer. For example, when I see the scenery I am the one who decide to take a picture of the scenery. I use my hands to pick camera and click a picture. The hands in the body are thus used as an instrument. In this way I work with my hands and legs.

I am the enjoyer: I saw the scenery and I took the picture. I am the seer and doer so far. When I see the picture I like it. I am the one that enjoys it. Thus there is a continuity of being the seer, doer and enjoyer. Similarly when I eat, I am the one that gets the taste – from the tongue.

Q. Explain with examples the various activities in the self ‘I’.

Briefly explain the activities of Desire, Thought and Expectation in the self with an example. (MTU 2011–12)

Ans:The self is conscious in nature while the body is physico-chemical in nature. The interaction between the ‘I’ and the body is in the form of exchange of information. So the focus of attention is on two categories of attributes of the self, namely, the powers of the self and the corresponding activities as the manifest outcomes of these powers.

Power: This means the basic capacity in the self (‘I’). They are: desires, thoughts and expectations.
Activities: The activities are: imaging, analyzing, and selecting/tasting. The activity of analyzing means breaking down the image into various parts or to open it up. Selecting/tasting is with the expectation of fulfilling our desires with the expectation of The activity of selecting/tasting is the basic level via which the self interacts with the body.

A simple example to understand these activities is a follow:

We may have desire to have respect by being the owner of a big house. This is in the form of imaging – we have an image in us of fulfillment of this need for respect via a
Based on this desire, we start working out the details of the house. Ex of rooms, storey’s, on which floor in will stay. The image of wanting respect from the house is split into many parts

– this is called analyzing. The activity of analyzing means breaking down the image into various parts.

Now that we have worked out the details of the house, we go about choosing the size, colour etc. of the room. This is called selecting /

Q. What do you mean by right utilization of the body?

Ans: Normally we tend to believe that the body is an instrument for sensory enjoyment, which is

not correct. We also happen to our body to exploit other human beings or rest of the nature, which is also not right utilization. Body is the instrument of the self and the body needs to be given nutrition, protection and utilized to work as an efficient and effective tool for the right purpose. This utilization is termed as right utilization. In other words, employing our body as an instrument for sensory enjoyment, and to exploit other human beings or rest of the nature is not the right utilization. On the contrary utilizing our body for right behaviour and work is actually the right utilization of the body.

Q. What are the programs for ensuring the health of the body? Explain.

Suggest programs to ensure proper functioning of your body. Can we sustain them without right understanding? (MTU 2010–11)

Ans:Our present lifestyle and conditionings are not very conductive to keep the body fit and therefore it is important to understand sanyama and swasthya correctly and maintain proper harmony with the body. As a proposal, we need to work for the following few things

To understand and live with

To understand the self organization of the body and ensure health of the
1. Understanding and Living with Sanyama: Sanyama implies that the self takes the responsibility for proper nurturing, and right utilization of the body. For this it is essential to understand the functioning of the body instrument. It is also essential to understand that this instrument has a limited life span and undergoes a pattern of growth and The interaction of the self with the body has to be in consonance with the above objectives which are achieved through sanyama.

2. Understanding the self organization of the body and ensure health of the body:

Nurturing of the Body: Proper Food, Air, Water, Etc.: In the process of selecting food for the body, I need to make out the elements which make a complete food so that it gives required nutrients and energy to the body. On the basis of understanding of the harmony of the self with the body, it can be said that the food needs to be eaten only when we feel hungry. The choice of the food has to be such that it is easily digestible and the food needs to be taken with

proper posture of the body and in right quantity.

Protection of the Body: The second issue is the protection of the The clothes we choose for protection need to be such that they ensure proper interaction of the body with the environment. The right amount of exposure of the body to the air, water, and sun is required to ensure its proper functioning.
Right Utilization of the Body (Sadupayoga): Right utilization of the body as an instrument necessitates understanding the purpose for which this instrument is to be used. Normally, we tend to believe that the body is an instrument for sensory enjoyment, which is not correct. We also happen to use our body to exploit other human beings or rest of the nature which is not right utilization. It is important to realize that the human body is an instrument to facilitate right understanding and its actualization in

Q. What is sanyam? How is it necessary in ensuring svasthya?

Define Sanyam and Swasthya. How are they helpful in keeping harmony between self and body. (UPTU 2011–12)

Ans:Sanyama means the feeling of responsibility in the self (I) for nurturing, protection and right utilization of the body. Self-control or sanyama is the control of the mind and its desires, urges, emotions and delusions. It is controlling the outgoing tendencies of the mind and the senses and bringing them back to our self within. Swasthya is the condition of the body where every part of the body is performing its expected function. The word swasthya literally means being anchored to the self, being in close harmony with the self. In other words, swasthya, in Sanskrit means self– dependence (swa = your own). Also, embedded in its meaning are health, sound state, comfort and satisfaction. So we can say that sanyam ensures swasthya.

With right understanding, I get self-organized and take care of the body properly. With lack of right understanding, I am able to do it and the body becomes unhealthy. With right understanding and right feelings, the body gets favorably affected. For example; when I am happy, the temperature and pressure in the body are normal, when I am angry or tense, they get upset. It means if I am in disharmony, say in anger or stress or despair, it immediately starts affecting the body adversely.

There are many diseases of the body that are caused due to disharmony in ‘I’. These are called psychosomatic disease, such as asthma, allergies, migraine, diabetes, hypertension etc. so we can say that sanyam has a strong effect on swasthya.

Q. What is the responsibility of the self towards the body? How is it fulfilled?

Suggest any two programs that you can undertake to improve the health of your body.

How does the feeling of sanyam ensure health of the body? List two programs of sanyam. (UPTU 2010–11)

Explain the relation between the self and the body. What is the responsibility of the self towards the body? (UPTU 2009-10)

What do you mean by Sanyam? How does it ensure harmony with the body? Explain. (UPTU 2011–12)

Ans: The self has the responsibility for nurturing, protection and right utilization of the body. For this self has to follow some programs. We need to work to understand the self organization of the body and ensure health of the body.

Nurturing of the Body:

Proper Food, Air, Water, Etc.: In the process of selecting food for the body, I need to make out the elements which make a complete food so that it gives required nutrients and energy to the body. On the basis of understanding of the harmony of the self with the body, it can be said that the food needs to be eaten only when we feel hungry. The choice of the food has to be such that it is easily digestible and the food needs to be taken with proper posture of the body and in right quantity.

Protection of the Body:

The second issue is the protection of the body. The clothes we choose for protection need to be such that they ensure proper interaction of the body with the environment. The right amount of exposure of the body to the air, water, and sun is required to ensure its proper functioning. To ensure the heath of the Body, we need to take care of the following- i) Ahar-Vihar, ii) Shram- Vyayam, iii) Asana-Pranayam and iv) Aushadhi-Chikitsa. We have already discussed about Ahar (Food), let us now discuss about the others:

Proper upkeep (Vihar) of the Body: When we work, the Body gets tired. When we take rest, the Body becomes fit to But again, there is a limit to the amount of work and rest we need. We also need to ensure proper time, posture and ways to work and to rest. We need to provide hygienic conditions for proper functioning of the Body. These issues are included in the upkeep of the Body.
Labour:Labour is another requirement. It means employing the body physically for production and maintenance of physical facilities. The labour we do helps each part of the Body to function
Physical Exercises: We are aware of physical While doing labour, some parts of the Body may get stressed much while others may not get employed to that extent. With exercises, we can employ all the parts of the Body in the desired way.
Asan-Pranayam: This is another way to keep the Body function properly. In Asanas, we give the body proper postures by sitting or lying, and in Pranayam, we ensure reguation of the breathing
Treatment of the body: When the Body gets hurt, or is in disorder by either misuse or because of the adversities of the environment etc., there is a natural tendency of the Body to heal and come back to its desired state of We only need to facilitate this process, and not suppress it. Thus, when unpleasant sensations come from the Body indicating disorder, they are to be properly interpreted and attended to.

With all the care we take, the body may require treatment at times. There are several approaches to ensure this. It may be that just by going without food for some time, the Body gets cured. Right choice for food may also help. The treatment of the Body can be done by proper exposures of the Body to air, water or sun too. Use of herbs or medicines may also serve the purpose. Here one thing to understand is that, the system of the body works in a self-organized way and I only need to facilitate the self-organization of the body by arranging for material things. One thing to take care

about is that while curing the Body of one problem, we need to choose ways which do not give rise to other problems.

Right utilization of the body (Sadupyog): Right utilization of the Body as an instrument necessitates understanding the purpose for which this instrument is to be used. Normally we tend to believe that the Body is an instrument for sensory enjoyment, which is not correct. We also happen to use our Body to exploit other human beings or rest of the nature which is also not right utilization. It is important to realize that the human body is an instrument to facilitate right understanding and its actualization in life. This is an important issue. I need to ensure that I use my Body for right behaviour and work. When I do so, it has favourable effects on the Body. On the other hand, if I use it for acting in opposition with other human beings or nature, like quarrelling, fighting, hitting, it has adverse effects on the Body. I also need to arrange for equipments/ instruments for right utilization of the body. They increase the efficiency and capacity of the body.

Q. In what way can we say that the human body is a self organized unit?

Ans:The human body is a self organized and highly sophisticated mechanism. The body is made up of several organs and glands and the different parts of the body keep working in a close co- ordination. All the activities keep the body fit for the use of ‘I’ (self or jivana) so that ‘I’ and the body may work in synergy as a human being. The silent aspects of this harmony b/w ‘I’ and the body are:-

The body acts according to the needs of I.
There is harmony among the parts of the
What our body follow only by the permission of
There is a strong coupling b/w I and the If I am in disharmony e.g. in anger or stress or despair. It immediately starts affecting the body adversely.
There are many diseases of the body that are caused or accentuated due to disharmony in These are called psychosomatic diseases such as asthma, migraine, hyper-tension etc. On the other hand, when there is a strong disturbance in the body manifesting in the form of severe pain, it distracts I from its normal functions.
I have the feeling of sanyama for the body and the body has swasthya. Sanyama is basic to

UNIT-III

UNDERSTANDING HARMONY IN THE SOCIETY-HARMONY IN HUMAN RELATIONSHIP

Q 1 Define trust or how is ‘trust’ the foundation value of relationships?

What do you understand by ‘trust’? What is its importance in human relationship?

ANS. Trust or vishwas is the foundational value in relationship. “To be assured that each human being inherently wants oneself and the other to be happy and prosperous” is known as trust. Having faith in others and believing them. Trust is the expectation of people that they can rely on our word. It is built through integrity and consistency in relationships. To keep the trust on ourself and others, we have to pay attention on the intensions and to understand if we or the other person is not able to do benefit, it is because we are lacking competence. Trust is the result of right understanding of the intention of all the human beings around us. This trust helps to improve our competence in others and in ourselves.

Q 2.Explain the feeling of ‘respect’

ANS. Respect means individuality. The sense of individuality is prime object. This is the first basic step towards respect (sammana). Once we realized that we are individual then only we can see ourself different from others. In other words, respect means right evaluation, to be evaluated as I am.

Q 3.Define ‘affection’ or how does affection lead to harmony in the family?

ANS. Affection is the feeling of being related to the other. Affection comes when I recognize that we both want to make each other happy and both of us are similar. Then for the first time, I feel that I am related to the other that the other is a relative of mine. This feeling is called affection. The feeling of affection comes only if trust and respect are already ensured. Without trust and respect, we feel the other is trying to make us unhappy, does not wish well for us and hence we can never feel affection for him/her. We always see the other as being in opposition.

Q 4.Explain the feeling of ‘care’

ANS. The feeling of care is the feeling to nurture and protect the body of our relative. Or in other words a state of mind in which one is troubled; worry, anxiety, or concern is called care. Care is level of active concern, or lack of negligence, towards avoidance of possible dangers, mistakes, pitfalls, and risks, demanded of a party as a duty or legal obligation. We understand a human being as a coexistence of the self (‘I’) and the body, and the body is an instrument of ‘I’. Based on this understanding, we take the responsibility of nurturing and protecting the body of our relatives.

Q 5.Explain the feeling of ‘guidance’

ANS The feeling of ensuring right understanding and feelings in the other (my relative) is called guidance. We understand the need of self (‘I’) for right understanding and feelings. We also understand that the other is similar to me in his/her faculty of natural acceptance, desire of wanting continuous happiness and the program of living in harmony at all the four levels. The other is also similar to me in the potential of desire, thoughts and expectation.

Q 6.Explain the feeling of ‘reverence’

ANS. The feeling of acceptance of excellence in the other is called reverence. We understand that we aspire for continuous happiness and to realize it, we have to understand harmony at all the levels of our living, and live accordingly. When we see that the other has achieved this excellence- which means to understand and to live in harmony at all the levels of living ensuring continuity of happiness, we have a feeling of reverence for him/her. This feeling of accepting the excellence in the other is called reverence.

Q 7.Explain the feeling of ‘glory’

ANS. Glory is the feeling for someone who has made efforts for excellence. We find that there have been people in the history, or even around us, who are investing their time, energy and their belongings to achieve excellence (to understand and to live in harmony at all levels of living ensuring continuity of happiness), to make others excellent. This gives us a feeling of glory for them.

Q 8.Explain the feeling of ‘gratitude’

ANS. Gratitude is the feeling of acceptance for those who have made efforts for my excellence. Gratitude is an emotion that occurs after people receive help, depending on how they interpret the situation. Specifically, gratitude is experienced if people perceive the help they receive as (a) valuable to them, (b) costly to their benefactor, and (c) given by the benefactor with benevolent intentions.

Q.9 Define love.

How can you say that love is the complete value?

Ans: Love is called the complete value since this is the feeling of relatedness to all human beings. It is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In other words, love is a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend. It starts with identifying that one is related to the other human being (the feeling of affection) and it slowly expands to the feeling of being related to all human beings.

The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure (“I loved that meal”) to intense interpersonal attraction (“I love my wife”). “Love” can also refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, the emotional closeness of familial love, or to the platonic love that defines friendship, to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

This feeling or value is also called the complete value since this is the feeling of relatedness to all human beings. It starts with identifying that one is related to the other human being (the feeling of affection) and it slowly expands to the feeling of being related to all human beings. The feeling of love leads to an undivided society, it starts from a family and slowly expands to the world family in the form of love.

Q.10 what is meaning of justice in human relationships? How does it follow from family to world family? Or what is ‘justice’? What are its four elements? Is it a continuous or a temporary need?

What is justice? How does it lead to mutual happiness? (UPTU 2011 – 12)

Ans: Justice is the recognition of values (the definite feelings) in relationship, their fulfillment, the right evaluation of the fulfillment resulting in mutual happiness. Justice concerns itself with the proper ordering of things and people within a society. There are four elements: Recognition of values, fulfillment, evaluation and mutual happiness ensured. When all the four are ensured, justice is ensured. Mutual fulfillment is the hallmark of justice. And justice is essential in all relationships. Justice starts from family and slowly expands to the world family. The child gets the understanding of justice in the family. With this understanding, he goes out in

the society and interacts with people. If the understanding of justice is ensured in the family, there will be justice in all the interactions we have in the world at large. If we do not understand the values in relationships, we are governed by our petty prejudices and conditionings. We may treat people as high or low based on their body (particular caste, or sex or race or tribe), on the basis of wealth one possesses or the belief systems that one follows. All this is source of injustice and leads to fragmented society while our natural acceptance is for an undivided society and universal human order. Having explored the harmony in the human beings, we are able to explore the harmony in the family. This enables us to understand the harmony at the level of society and nature/existence. And this is the way, the harmony in our living grows. We slowly get the competence to live in harmony with all human beings.

Q.11 How do we differentiate in relationships on the basis of body, physical facilities, or beliefs? What problems do we face because of such differentiation?

How have we differentiated people on the basis of body and beliefs?

What is the meaning of respect? How do we disrespect others due to lack of right understanding of this feeling? (UPTU 2010–11)

How do we come to differentiate between human beings on the basis of body? Explain. What are its consequences? (MTU 2011–12)

ANS. Respect means accepting individuality and doing right evaluation (to be evaluated as I am). Our basis for respect today is largely quite contrary to our discussion above. Instead of respect being a basis of similarity or one of right evaluation, we have made it into something on the basis of which we differentiate i.e. by respecting you mean you are doing something special, because you are special or have something special or are in some special position. Thus, all of us are running around seeking respect from one another by trying to become something special.

Today, we are differentiating in the name of respect. We either differentiate people on the basis of their body, on the basis of their wealth and possessions or on the basis of their beliefs. There is no notion of respect in terms of right evaluation. Thus, there is no real feeling of relationship, only one of differentiation.

On the basis of body

Ø Sex/gender: We ignore the fact that being male or female is an attribute of the body, and not an attribute at the level of ‘I’. And differentiate in giving respect on the basis of gender called male and females. In many countries, people even prefer a male child to a female child, and in some other societies, the other way round.

Ø Race: If the person is of the same race as oneself, then we treat them differently. For example, we differentiate on the basis of skin colour – white, brown, black etc. or on the basis of whether the person is of Aryan race, Mongolian race etc. or on the basis of caste. Again here, we don’t do the evaluation on the basis of ‘I’, but on the basis of the body

Ø Age: We have notions such as ‘one must respect elders’. There is no such notion as respect youngsters. Here, we see that we are again evaluating at the level of the body – age is related to the body, and not to ‘I’.

Ø Physical strength: If someone is stronger, we again treat him/her differently. This is again at the level of the body. In fact, we think that we are respecting the other while it is fear; the fear that if we do not treat them like this, we will be harmed.

On the basis of physical facilities

Ø Wealth: We differentiate people because some have wealth than others. What we term as a “rich person” gets idolized. We don’t even bother to find out whether such people are feeling prosperous, or if they just have wealth. This way, we are over-evaluating physical facilities first, which are just meant to fulfill the needs of the body, and then on this basis, we are wrongly identifying our relationship.

Ø Post: We try to respect on the basis of a person’s position. The post is wrongly evaluated as the mark of a person’s excellence and differentiation sets in. The post is considered important either on the basis that it gives more physical facilities or on the basis that certain positions are assumed to be important. In our education, we are trained directly or indirectly to earn posts for us to fetch respect.

On the basis of beliefs

Ø ‘Isms’: ‘Ism’ means any belief in terms of a ‘thought-system’ that we have, or that we have adopted. There are also many modern ‘isms’ such as capitalism, socialism, communism, etc. The people following these sets of beliefs are called capitalists, socialists, communists, and so on. The people that have adopted them or are following them have been exposed to them since childhood. Believing theirs to be the right belief. However, all beliefs, as we have seen are at the level of desires, thoughts and expectations (selections) in ‘I’. There is no definiteness at this level, and hence, this becomes a cause for differentiation.

Ø Sects: People of one sect only consider those with a similar belief system to be their ‘own’ and worthy of respect. Following a particular tradition, or what we call as religion, becomes the basis of respect and disrespect in relationship.

12 ‘Discrimination leads to acrimony in relationships’. Explain. What problems are created when we discriminate? (UPTU 2010–11)

Explain the problems faced due to differentiation in relationship.

Ans: Differentiation based on sex/gender: Issue of women’s rights, and women protesting and demanding for equality in education, in jobs, and in peoples’ representation. People are insecure and afraid of one another based on their gender.

Differentiation based on race: there are many movements and protect against racial discrimination and demands for equality, racial attacks, movements against cast discrimination has people living in fear of such racism, racist attacks, casticism and discrimination.

Differentiation based on age: Protests and movements demanding for equal rights for children on the one hand and for rights for elderly people on the other, generation gap

Differentiation based on wealth: Class struggle and movements to do away with class-differentiation. Many people suffering from a lack of self-esteem and some even committing suicide,

Differentiation based on post: Protests against high handed government officials. At the level of the individual, leads to depression, etc.

Differentiation based on ’isms: Fights, turmoil, terrorism and war, people converting from one Ism to another in order to be able to get more respect.

Differentiation based on sects: Countless religions and sects and each sect has its own movement to ensure that there is no discrimination against people of their belief. Demands for special provisions in jobs and in education

13 Difference between respect and differentiation.

What is the difference between respect and disrespect? Which of the two is naturally acceptable to you?

Ans: Difference between respect and differentiation

Respect	Differentiation
1. Respect is right evaluation.	1. Differentiation is lack of understanding of respect.
2. Respect for others is generated by the right evaluation and understanding which leads to fulfilment in relationships. This further creates a sense of respect among people.	2. This differentiation can take the form of: o Gender bias o Generation gap o Caste struggle o Power play and domination o Communal violence o Clash of race, religion, etc. o class struggle,
	3. This leads to the escalation in the problems of society which further lowers the respect shown to others in society.

.Q. 14 What do you understand by trust? Differentiate between intention and competence with examples.

How do you differentiate between intention and competence, when you have to judge the other? Why is it important?

How do you differentiate between intention and competence when you have to judge the other? Why is it important? (MTU 2010–11)

Ans: Trust or vishwas is the foundational value in relationship. “To be assured that each human being inherently wants oneself and the other to be happy and prosperous” is known as trust. Mutual trust is a shared belief that we can depend on each other to achieve a common purpose. Trust is the expectation of people that they can rely on our word. It is built through integrity and consistency in relationships. There are two aspects in trust:

Intention (wanting to – our natural acceptance)
Competence (being able to do)

Both intention and competence are the aspects of trust. Intention is what one aspires for (our natural acceptance) and competence is the ability to fulfill the aspiration. In intention every human being wants to do what is right, only the competence may be lacking which needs to be developed through proper understanding and practice. But what we are doing today is that when we are judging ourself we are judging on the basis of our intention, whereas, when we are judging the other we are judging him on the basis of his competence.

We trust our own intention while we are not ready to trust the others intention. It is the same for other as well. We find that while we look at our intention, we are sure of it, we are not sure of the other’s intention. We are actually seeing their competence, and making a conclusion on their intention. Hence, mistrust is born and we deny the relationship. We seldom look at our competence and other’s intention.

It is very important to differentiate between intention and competence. If we have trust on intention, we have a feeling of being related to the other and we start helping the other to improve his competence, if he does not have enough.

15 Enumerate some of the important values which lie at the base of good relationships. (UPTU 2010–11)

What are the foundational values of relationships? How can they be used to ensure strong and mutually relationships? Or Name the values which are called as “foundation value” and “complete value”. Define both these values. (UPTU 2010–11)

List down the foundation value and the complete value in human relationship. Explain each with one example. (MTU 2011–12

Ans: There are certain basic and important values in maintaining relationship. These values, we all know, are the backbone of health and happy family relations. The feelings, emotions, sentiments and respect all are of real importance. These values lead to elimination of friction and establishment of total harmony in relationship on long term basis. Values that are important in any relationship are

Trust: Trust or vishwas is the foundational value in relationship. “To be assured that each human being inherently wants oneself and the other to be happy and prosperous.” If we have trust in the other, we are able to see the other as a relative and not as an adversary.
Respect: Respect means individuality. The sense of individuality is prime object. This is the first basic step towards respect (sammana). Once we realized that we are individual then only we can see our self different from others. In other words, respect means right evaluation, to be evaluated as I am.
Affection: Affection is the feeling of being related to the other. Affection comes when I recognize that we both want to make each other happy and both of us are similar.
Care: The feeling of care is the feeling to nurture and protect the body of our relative. Or in other words a state of mind in which one is troubled; worry, anxiety, or concern is called care.
Guidance: The feeling of ensuring right understanding and feelings in the other (my relative) is called guidance. We understand the need of self (‘I’) for right understanding and feelings. We also understand that the other is similar to me in his/her faculty of natural acceptance, desire of wanting continuous happiness and the program of living in harmony at all the four levels.
Reverence: The feeling of acceptance of excellence in the other is called reverence. When we see that the other has achieved this excellence- which means to understand and to live in harmony at all the levels of living ensuring continuity of happiness, we have a feeling of reverence for him/her.
Glory: Each one of us wants to live with continuous happiness and prosperity. Each one of us has the similar faculty of natural acceptance, has the same goal and program and we have the same potential to realize this. Glory is the feeling for someone who has made efforts for excellence.
Gratitude: Gratitude is the feeling of acceptance for those who have made efforts for my excellence. Gratitude is an emotion that occurs after people receive help, depending on how they interpret the situation.
Love: Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In other words, love is a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend. This feeling or value is also called the complete value since this is the feeling of relatedness to all human beings. It starts with identifying that one is related to the other human being (the feeling of affection) and it slowly expands to the feeling of being related to all human beings.

The above mentioned values are the core of all relations. One has to follow all to gain on the day to day problems. These values are intrinsic and available in every person. We need to find out in ourselves and implement. Without implementation, one cannot think of a strong family relation.

16 “When we are assured of the intention of the other and find that the competence is lacking, we become a help to the other. When we doubt the intention of the other, we get into opposition.” Explain.

In our behaviour, we generally observe our intention and others’ lack of competence. Does it lead to mutual happiness? What is the alternative? Explain with the help of an example. (UPTU 2010–11)

Ans:We trust our own intention while we are not ready to trust the other’s intention. It is the same for the others as well. They would also have the same answers as we, to the table above. While the other trusts his/her own intentions, he/she does not trust mine. Hence, mistrust is born and we deny the relationship. When we are judging our self we are judging on the basis of our intention, whereas, when we are judging the other we are judging him on the basis of his competence. We are sure in point 2 a) that we want to make the other happy, but in point 4 a) we are not sure that the other wants to make us happy. We find that while we look at our intention, we are sure of it, we are not sure of the other’s intention. We are actually seeing their competence, and making a conclusion on their intention, we say “I wanted to do well, but I could not”. But for the other, we say “He did not want to do well”. “Wanting to”, is the intention, “could not”, is the lack of competence.

We can see that as we are not able to fulfil our intentions in terms of our competence at all times. It is the same for the other as well. We want to be related to the other, and we want the other to be related to us, irrespective of who this other is. If we have trust in the other, we are able to see the other as a relative and not as an adversary. We then become ready to become a help to the other. Intentions are always correct; it is only the competence that is lacking, which can be improved by right understanding.

Q 17 There is a common saying; if you trust everybody, people will take undue advantage of you.

What is the basic error in this statement? Explain. (MTU 2011–12)

Ans: The basic error is that if we trust everybody people will not take undue advantage of me. On the contrary, it gives us inner strength and we become far more effective in interacting with and “dealing with different people”. This is simply because, we already are sitting with the knowledge of what the person truly wants, truly intends, even though the person may not know this himself/herself! Hence, our ability to interact with people becomes far more effective and in the process, we don’t get hurt, we don’t get disturbed, we end up becoming an aid to the other. In other words, becoming aware, having the right understanding, living with the assurance in relationship does not mean becoming “stupid”! It only makes us, more competent. Further, what is being said here is that we have trust on the intention of everyone, but, when it comes to making a program with someone, I evaluate my competence, I evaluate his competence and make the program accordingly. This makes me more effective.

Q.18 Write the program to attain comprehensive human goal. Give examples also.

What are the five dimensions of human endeavour in society conducive to ‘manaviyavyavastha’?

What are the five dimensions of Human Endeavour? How are they helpful in achieving the

Comprehensive human goal?

What are the programs needed to achieve the comprehensive human goal? List and define each briefly. (MTU 2011–12)

Ans: Comprehensive human goals are right understanding, prosperity, fearlessness and co-existence. Programs needed to achieve the comprehensive human goals are:

Education – Right Living (Siksha – Sanskar)
Health – Self Regulation (Svasthya – Sanyam)
Justice – Preservation (Nyaya – Suraksha)
Production – Work (Utpadan – Kriya)
Exchange – Storage (Vinimaya – Kosh)

Education – Right Living: Education refers to understanding hormony at all four levels of living. While right living refers to commitment and preparedness to live in harmony at all four levels of living.

Health – Self Regulation: Sanyama refers to a feeling of responsibility for nurturing, protecting and rightly utilizing the body. When the body is fit to act according to the needs of the self (‘I’), and, there is harmony among the parts of the body, it is referred to as health or svasthya.

Justice – Preservation: Justice (nyaya) refers to harmony in the relationship between human beings, while preservation (suraksha) refers to harmony in the relationship between human being and the rest of nature.

Exchange – Storage: Exchange (vinimaya) refers to the exchange of physical facilities between the members of the society, while storage (kosa) refers to the storage of physical facilities that is left after fulfilling the needs of the family.

We can now see how these five dimensions of humanistic society are able to ensure the human goal:

Education – Right living leads to Right understanding

*Having the process of education and right living leads to right understanding in the individual.

Health – Self-regulation leads to Prosperity

*Having the program for health and sanyam leads to well-being of the body, nad identification of need for physical facilities which along with production ensures feeling of prosperity in the family.

Justice – Preservation leads to Fearlessness and Co-existence (respectively)

*Ensuring justice in relationship, or mutual fulfilment in relationship on the basis of values like Trust, Respect, etc leads to fearlessness in society, while Suraksha of nature – via enrichment, protection and right utilization leads to co-existence in nature.

Production – Work leads to Prosperity and Co-existence

*Production and work are for physical facilities, and this leads to a feeling of prosperity in the family. Production is done in harmony with nature, and hence, this also leads to co-existence with nature.

Exchange – Storage leads to Prosperity and Fearlessness*When we store and exchange for mutual fulfilment and not for exploitation, then it leads to fearlessness (trust) in society.

Q.19 Explain the comprehensive human goal. How does fearlessness follow from right understanding and prosperity? (UPTU 2009-10)

What do you mean by comprehensive human goal? Explain. How is it related to your goal in life? (MTU 2011–12)

Ans: In order to facilitate the fulfillment of the basic aspirations of all human beings in the society, the following human goal needs to be understood in a comprehensive manner:

When one does not have the right understanding, one remains disturbed and also acts in a manner so as to create disharmony with other human being as well as with rest of nature.
Prosperity in the family means that the family is able to identify its needs and is able to produce/ achieve more than its requirements.
Trust in society means every member of society feels related to everyone else and therefore there is trust and fearlessness.
Co-existence in nature means there is a relationship and complementarity among all the entities in nature including human beings.

Abhaya means fearlessness; it is a permanent state where there is no question of ever experiencing any fear. A person with abhaya is continuously aware if his own reality; for him to become subject to fear would be impossible. We should not consider this quality of abhaya as just the absence of fear. The fearlessness in the society begins from the individual. We need to ensure right understanding in the individual as the foundation of harmony in the society. With right understanding, the need for physical facilities in the family can be ascertained. By assessing our needs correctly and by producing more than required the family can be prosperous. Assurance of right understanding in the individuals and prosperity in the families, understanding of human relationships leads to harmony and trust (fearlessness) in the society. When every individual is able to live harmoniously in relationship, and the needs of all the families are ensured, fearlessness (mutual trust) in society will naturally follow. Thus the state of absence of fear at society level will only be achieved when we have right understanding at individual level and prosperity at the level of family.

20 Right understanding in the individuals is the basis for harmony in the family, which is the building block for harmony in the society. Give your comments.

Ans:Right understanding in the individuals is the basis for harmony in the family, which is the building block for harmony in the society.

The harmony in the society begins from the individual. We need to ensure right understanding in the individual as the foundation of harmony in the society.
With right understanding, the need for physical facilities in the family can be ascertained. By assessing our needs correctly and by producing more than required the family can be prosperous.
Assurance of right understanding in the individuals and prosperity in the families, understanding of human relationships leads to harmony and trust (fearlessness) in the society. When every individual is able to live harmoniously in relationship, and the needs of all the families are ensured, fearlessness (mutual trust) in society will naturally follow.
When human beings with right understanding interact with nature, it will be in consonance with the coexistence and will be mutually enriching.

We may also understand it in the following sequence.

Right understanding ® 2. Prosperity ® 3. Fearlessness (trust) ® 4. Co-existence
21 Explain how production activities can be enriching to all the orders of nature. Give any two examples.

Ans:In nature, there are four different kinds of entities. One of entity includes materials, the other kind is plants, herbs, etc., the third kind has animals and birds and the fourth kind includes human beings. When we look at their interrelationship, we find that the materials, plants and animals are enriching for the others including human beings. There is cyclic and enriching process in nature, and based on this process production is naturally taking place in the nature. Humans only have to understand this feature of nature. The purpose of science and technology is to facilitate the cyclic processes in nature and make human beings more and more fulfilling to the other entities. But we will find that human beings are neither enriching (fulfilling) for humans nor for the other three kinds of entities. If only we understand the processes in nature, we can design our production systems through application of science and technology in such a way that this fulfillment is better ensured, rather than disturbing it.

UNIT-IV

UNDERSTANDING HARMONY IN THE NATURE AND EXISTENCE

Q1. Define harmony in nature. OR Explain the harmony in nature.

Ans: The aggregate of all the mutually interacting units – big or small, sentient or insentient together can be called nature. These units are infinite in number and we could easily observe that there exists a dynamic balance, self regulation among all these units. This self regulation is harmony or balance in nature. The law of nature has a unique cause and effect system which must be understood in order to be in harmony with the natural law of things.Natural harmony is necessary for the following reasons:

Natural harmony is necessary to solve the problem of global warming and depletion of non-renewable natural resource can be avoided.
Natural harmony with trees cure all problems like – reduction of wind velocity, energy savings, doing companion planting, development of an eco-subsystem in terms of establishing a forest garden, reduction of building heat.
It is possible to achieve natural harmony in the establishment, maintenance and management of educational institution like schools, colleges and universities.
One can understand the depths of harmony and alignment in natural by contemplating and reflecting upon the natural order. It is possible to unravel the mystery of the natural synthesis in the midst of ongoing chaos at the material plane.

Q2. What do you mean by co-existence?

Ans: Co-existence in nature means there is a relationship and complementarily among all the entities in nature including human beings. Co-existence is a state in which two or more groups are living together while respecting their differences and resolving their conflicts non-violently. Co-existence has been defined in numerous ways:

To exist together (in time or space) and to exist in mutual tolerance.
To learn to recognize and live with difference.
To have a relationship between persons or groups in which none of the parties is trying to destroy the other.
To exist together (in time or place) and to exist in mutual tolerance.

The world is full of Diversity – there are different nations, cultures, religions, communities, languages, and beliefs. The beauty of existence can only be maximized if everything in this world is in harmony. Peaceful, symbiotic co-existence is the key to harmony in the world.

Q3. What do you mean by ‘innateness’? What is the innateness in the four orders?

What do you understand by the term ‘innateness’ (dhaarna) in nature? Explain the innateness of material and animal order in nature.

Ans:Innateness (dharana): Innateness means qualities which are innate to the unit. Each unit in existence exhibits an innateness, an intrinsic quality that cannot be separated from it. We refer this principle as innateness also called dharna of that unit. This is intrinsic to the unit.

Material order: When we burn coal and it has finished burning and only some ash is left and smokes have gone out, it is not that the basic material, the fundamental particles in coal, have ‘cease to exist’ or ‘disappeared’ from existence. They may not be visible to the eye at that moment, but they continue to exist, they still are in the form of other matter or in the form of gases, etc. This is there with all material units. We cannot destroy matter, we can only convert it from one form to the other. Thus, “to exist”, or ‘existence’ is intrinsic to all material, it is innate to it. We cannot separate the ‘existence’ of a thing from the thing itself.

Plant/bio order: Because the pranic order is a development of the material order, it also has the innateness of ‘existence’. In addition, it also exhibits the ‘growth’. This principle of ‘growth’ cannot be separated from any units of this order. If it is of pranic order, it will grow. For example, if you have a plant, you cannot stop it from growing. It will continue to respire and keep changing in this way. The only way you can stop it from growing is by cutting it, but when you do that, it ceases to belong to the pranic order, instead decays and then belongs to the material order. So, as long as you have a plant, it will grow.

Animal order: The animal body is a development of the pranic order and therefore this order inherits the innateness of the previous order namely ‘existence’ and ‘growth’. This is at the level of the body, which is physico-chemical in nature. In addition, all units in this order have the ‘will to live’ in ‘I’. Indeed no unit in this order can be separated from this ‘will to live’. It is intrinsic to every unit in this order.

Human (knowledge) order: When we look at the human being, we find that ‘existence’ and ‘growth’ are fundamentally present in the body, just as in the animal body. At the level of ‘I’ however, in addition to the ‘will to live’, a human being’s innateness is the ‘will to live with happiness’.

Order	Things	Innateness
Material order	Soil, water, metals, etc.	Existence
Pranic order	Plants and trees	Existence + growth
Animal order	Animals and birds	(Existence + growth) in body + will to live in ‘I’
Human order	Human beings	(Existence + growth) in body + will to live with happiness in ‘I’

Q4. What is the svabhava (natural characteristic) of a unit? Elaborate on the svabhava of a human order.

How does the natural characteristics (svabhava) of material order helped man to lead a better life?

Explain the natural characteristics of the material and pranic orders. Give examples. (UPTU 2011–12)

What are the natural characteristics (swabhava) of human order? Explain. (MTU 2011–12)

Ans: When we look at the different orders in nature, we find that each order has a certain value. In a fundamental way, this is the ‘usefulness’ or ‘participation’ of the order in existence. This ‘value’ or ‘participation’ is also referred to as “natural characteristic”. The ‘characteristic’ the order displays in ‘natural to itself’. This is the same as the value of the entity, or its participation also called ‘svabhava’. The svabhava of material order is ‘composition/decomposition’, of Plant/bio order is ‘composition/decomposition’ and to nurture or worsen other pranic units. The svabhav of animal order and human order can be understood in two aspects: body and self. The svabhav of animal order is Composition / decomposition, nurture / worsen in body and non cruelty, cruelty in ‘I’. The svabhav of human order is Composition / decomposition, nurture worsen in body and perseverance, bravery, generosity in ‘I’.

Similar as to the case in animals, the human body also belongs to the plant/ bio order and hence has the same svabhava or value/natural characteristic as the pranic order. It either nurtures or worsens other pranic units. As in the example above, when I digest the vegetable, I absorb the plant and it worsens, while my body is nurtured. The svabhava/ value of the self (‘I’) in human beings is perseverance (dhirata), bravery (virata) and generosity (udarata).

ØPerseverance (dhirata): Being assured that the all encompassing solution is to understand and live in harmony at all levels of existence, living with this commitment without any perturbation.

ØBravery (virata): Being assured that the all encompassing solution is to understand and live in harmony at all levels and I am ready to help the other to have the right understanding. This is the commitment to help the other have the right understanding of the harmony and living at all levels of existence.

ØGenerosity (udarata): Being assured that the all encompassing solution is to understand and live in harmony at all the four levels and I am ready to invest myself, my body and wealth to help the other have the right understanding.

Human beings are not living as per this natural characteristic; even though we have a svabhava, we are not living according to this. This is basic reason for the contradiction and conflict that we see in human being. This is what leads to a state of unhappiness. Only when we live according to our basic human characteristics as mentioned above, we have definite character, otherwise, it is not definite, it is uncertain, unlike other three orders as discussed above.

Order	Things	Natural Characteristic
Material order	Soil, water, metals, etc.	Composition / decomposition
Pranic order	Plants and trees	Composition / decomposition + nurture / worsen
Animal order	Animals and birds	(Composition / decomposition, nurture / worsen) in body + (non cruelty, cruelty) in ‘I’
Human order	Human beings	(Composition / decomposition, nurture / worsen) in body + (perseverance, bravery, generosity) in ‘I’

Q5. What are the four orders of nature? Briefly explain them.

Ans: All the physical objects that are in solid, liquid or gas state either living or non-living, collectively termed as nature. In other words, the aggregate of all the mutually interacting units – big or small, sentient or insentient together can be called nature. These units are infinite in number and we could easily observe that there exists a dynamic balance, self regulation among all these units. There are four orders of nature:

Material order: The big land mass of the continents, gigantic water bodies like ocean and seas, mountains and rivers, the atmosphere above, the heaps of metals and mineral below, the dense gases and fossil fuels deep below the surface of the earth – all fall into the material order or padarthaavastha. In fact, if we look around beyond the earth, the material order is visible even in the form of stars, planets, moons and several astronomical bodies.

Pranic order: Our land mass is covered with grass and small shrubs and they form the lining on the entire soil. Shrubs, plants and trees form huge forest along with the flora in the ocean. All of this is the plant/bio order or pranaavastha and it is the next big order on our planet. (The material order is far greater in quantity compared to the plant/bio order)

Animal order: Animals and birds form the third largest order and we call them the animal order or jivaavastha. Here again, we see that the plant/bio order is far greater in quantity than the animal order.

Human order: Human are the smallest order and they are referred to as human order or gyanaavastha. Animals are far greater in quantity as compared to the human order.

Q6. Explain the differences and similarities between animal order and human order. What is the relation between the two orders? (UPTU 2009-10)

Present the difference and similarity between a human being and an animal. Give examples to support your answer. (MTU 2010–11)

ANS.The two orders can be distinctly recognized in terms of their characteristics, participation with other units in similar order, activities, pattern of inheritance, etc. We can see this in the following diagram:

Order

Things

Activity

Innate-ness

Natural

Characteristic

Basic Activity

Conformance

Animal

order

Animals

and

birds

(Composition /

decomposition,

respiration) in

body + selection

in ‘I’

(Exisetence

+ growth) in

body + will

to live in ‘I’

(Composition /

decomposition,

nurture / worsen)

in body + (non

cruelty, cruelty)

in ‘I’

(Recognising,

fulfillment) in

body +

(assuming,

recognising,

fulfillment) in

‘I’

Breed

conformance

Human

order

Human

beings

(Composition /

decomposition,

respiration) in

body +

(selection,

thought, desire)

in ‘I’

(Exisetence

+ growth) in

body + will

to live with

happiness in

‘I’

(Composition /

decomposition,

nurture / worsen)

in body +

(perceverance,

bravery,

generosity) in ‘I’

Recognising,

fulfillment in

body +

(knowing,

assuming,

recognising,

fulfillment) in

‘I’

Right values /

sanskara

conformance

Things (Vastu)

Animal order: The animal order is made of various kinds of animals and birds. These entities display both a body (physicochemical activity) as well as a conscious activity (self or ‘I’). The animal order thus is the coexistence of the animal body (pranic order) and the self (or ‘I’ = consciousness).

Human (knowledge) order: The human order is constituted of all the human beings. Each human being is coexistence of the self (‘I’, conscious entity = consciousness) and the body (pranic order).

Activity (Kriya)

Animal Order: Body In Animals – Physico-Chemical Activities: The body displays respiration, or breathing, or pulsating also there is composition/ decomposition in the body.

‘I’ In Animals – Conscious Activities: The activities in ‘I’ are fundamentally different from those in the body. ‘I’ is a unit that has the ability or capacity of assuming. Animals make assumptions. If we have a dog and some strangers come into the house, the dog may start barking at him. If this person stays at our house, the dog may stops barking at him, but will continue to bark at other strangers. What has happened here is that the dog’s ‘assumption’ about this person has changed, due to which; the way in which it responds to the person has changed. We call this assuming.

Human Order: The activities in human body are similar to that in the animal body, i.e. composition/ decomposition and respiration. When it comes to consciousness or ‘I’, however, the human displays more than just an ability to ‘select’ or make choices as animals do. In human beings, ‘I’ has the activities of desiring, thinking, and selecting/tasting, with a possibility or need for understanding and realization. Only humans have this need to know and that is why it is called gyanaavastha – the knowledge order.

Innateness (dharana)

Animal Order: The animal body is a development of the pranic order and therefore this order inherits the innateness of ‘existence’ and ‘growth’. This is at the level of the body, which is physicochemical in nature. In addition, all units in this order have the ‘will to live’ in ‘I’. Indeed no unit in this order can be separated from this ‘will to live’. It is intrinsic to every unit in this order.

Human Order: When we look at the human being, we find that ‘existence’ and ‘growth’ are fundamentally present in the body, just as in the animal body. At the level of ‘I’ however, in addition to the ‘will to live’, a human being’s innateness is the ‘will to live with happiness’.

Natural Characteristics (Svabhava)

Animal Order: The body of the animal belongs to the plant/bio or pranic order, and hence has the same ‘usefulness’ or ‘value’ as the pranic order. Thus ‘nurture/worsen’ is the svabhava of the animal body. The svabhava of the self (‘I’) of the animal order is non-cruelty (akrurata) and cruelty (krurata). Cruelty (krurata) means the feeling that it can fulfil its needs through violence and forcefulness. For ex., cows may largely be living with a feeling of non-cruelty (akrurata); while animals like tigers and lions may exhibit cruelty (krurata).

Human Order: Similar as to the case in animals, the human body also belongs to the plant/ bio order and hence has the same svabhava or value/natural characteristic as the pranic order. It either nurtures or worsens other pranic units. As in the example above, when I digest the vegetable, I absorb the plant and it worsens, while my body is nurtured. The svabhava/ value of the self (‘I’) in human beings is perseverance (dhirata), bravery (virata) and generosity (udarata).

Perseverance (dhirata): Being assured that the all encompassing solution is to understand and live in harmony at all levels of existence.
Bravery (virata): I am ready to help the other to have the right understanding.
Generosity (udarata): I am ready to invest myself, my body and wealth to help the other have the right understanding.

Basic Activity:

Animal Order: there is only recognising, and fulfilment in body, and in self (I) there is the basic activity of assuming, recognising, fulfilment.

Human Order: human displays the same basic activity as that of animal body i.e. Recognising, fulfilment, but in self (I) human have one more activity i.e. knowing.

Conformance (Anu-Sangita)

Animal order: Animals conform to their lineage. How animals are, their behaviour is according to their lineage they belong to, the lineage they come from. Hence, we say that an animal conforms to its breed, or has ‘breed conformance’. This breed conformance method is the mechanism by means of which the continuity of an animal species is maintained in nature/existence.

Human (knowledge) order: We humans are not according to our lineage or race, as in animals. We humans are according to our imagination; according to our desires, thoughts and selection in ‘I’. The desires, thoughts and selections we have in ‘I’ can come from past memories, our parents, the environment, and the media, anywhere. In the case of humans, we can say ‘as the education, so the human’. Together, we call these ‘sanskara’. Hence, we say that a human being conforms to his or her sanskar or has ‘sanskaar conformance’.

Q7. What are the four orders in nature? Describe their activities and natural characteristics?

What do you understand by ‘activity’? Write down the activity of the four orders in nature. (UPTU 2011 – 12)

Distinguish between the activities of different orders of nature giving an example of each. (MTU 2011 – 12)

Ans:Combination of all that is in solid, liquid or gas state, or the aggregate of all the mutually interacting units – big or small, sentient or insentient together can be called nature. We can categorize all these units into four distinct orders.

Þ Material order ÞPranic order

Þ Animal order Þ Human order

The four orders can be distinctly recognised in terms of their natural characteristics and activities.

Order

Things

Activity

Natural Characteristic

Material

order

Soil, water,

metals, etc

Composition / decomposition

Pranic

order

Plants and

trees

Composition / decomposition +

respiration

Composition / decomposition + nurture / worsen

Animal

order

Animals and birds

(Composition / decomposition,

respiration) in body + selection in ‘I’

(Composition / decomposition, nurture / worsen) in body + (non cruelty, cruelty) in ‘I’

Human

order

Human

beings

(Composition / decomposition,

respiration) in body + (selection, thought, desire) in ‘I’

(Composition / decomposition, nurture / worsen) in body + (bravery, perseverance, generosity) in ‘I’

Q8. How will you show interconnectedness and mutual fulfilment in four order of nature with examples?

There are four orders in nature. How does each order participate in the harmony in the nature? Give few examples. (UPTU 2010–11)

What are the four orders in nature? How can the human order be responsible to the other three orders? (MTU 2010–11)

Critically examine the attitude of humans today towards the other three orders of nature. Try to make a proper evaluation of human efforts. (MTU 2010–11)

How is the human order related to the other three orders in nature? How does this understanding help in choosing the production activity for a human being? (MTU 2011–12)

Ans:In the nature, all the units are connected to each other and fulfilling each other. Human being is related to all other human beings. On this basis, we have feelings and emotions for everyone. Human being is connected to all the material units in the existence and gets aware of it as he starts exploring it. We can see this interconnectedness and mutual fulfilment in the following diagram:

Material Order and Plant/Bio-Order: The material order provides the nutrients to the plant/bio order in the form of soil, minerals, etc while the plant/ bio order decays and forms more nutrients, thus enriching the soil. The plant/bio order also decays to substances like oil and coal, which are stored deep within the earth as protection against the heat from the molten core inside the earth as well as the heat from the sun (today, this is the material we are removing and using as fuel). Plants help move the nutrients through the various layers of the soil. The roots of the plants hold the soil together and prevent the soil from erosion. Plants produce oxygen/ carbon dioxide and thus help in the movement of the material order. There is a mutual interdependency and co-existence we can see here.

Material Order, Plant/Bio- Order and Animal Order: The material order provides the basis for movement of all animals, birds and fishes. Water, oxygen and other gases are necessities for both plants and animals. At the same time, the animal order helps enrich the soil with its excreta and these excreta help the plants with nutrients. The plant/bio order provides food for animals, birds and fishes. The animal Order helps in pollination of the flowers of the pranic order.

Material Order, Plant/Bio- Order, Animal Order and Human Order: We humans also have a natural acceptance to be mutually fulfilling to these three orders. However, we are not able to ensure this mutual fulfillment. We are dependent on the material order for soil and minerals and metals, but only end up polluting the soil and depleting the fossil fuels; we are dependent on plants for our food and holding together the larger ecosystem, but we have destroyed forests and destroyed multiple species of plants and herbs; we are dependent on animals to carry out our production and transportation activities, but have made many species of animals extinct, and are today known for our cruelty towards animals. We can see that there is interconnectedness and mutual fulfillment in all the orders of nature except human order. We have to work on this.

Q9. Explain how there is recyclability and self-regulation in nature Or Explain the recyclability in nature with any two examples.

There is recyclability in nature. Explain this statement with any two examples. How does it help in production activity?

Explain the recyclability of any two units in nature with examples. How is it useful for sustainable production activities?

Ans: There are several cyclical processes that we can see in nature. For example the cycle of water, evaporating, condensing and precipitating back to water giving the weather phenomena. The cycles keep these materials self-regulated on the earth. Breeds of plants and animals are similarly self-regulated in their environment. In a forest, the growth of trees takes place in a way so that the amount of soil, plants and animals remains conserved. It never happens that the number of trees shoots up and there is a lack of soil for the trees. The appropriateness of the conditions for growth of both plants and animals are self-regulated in nature keeping the population proportions naturally maintained. This phenomenon is termed as self-regulation. In a single breed of animals, the number of males and females generated through procreation is such that the continuity of species is ensured by itself. This happens with humans too, but inhuman practices have led to disproportionate numbers of men and women. These two characteristics namely, cyclical nature and self-regulation provide us with some clues of the harmony that is in nature.

Q10. What do you mean by ‘conformance’? Explain the conformance in the four orders.

Ans: Each unit conforms through the principle of conformance or anusangita. It means how the continuity of the fundamental nature of the unit is preserved.

Order

Material order

Pranic order

Animal order

Human order

Things

Soil, water, metals, etc

Plants and trees

Animals and birds

Human beings

Conformance

Constitution

conformance

Seed

conformance

Breed

conformance

Right values / sanskara conformance

Material order: The continuity of the fundamental nature of the material unit is preserved through the physical and chemical processes. Take iron for example. Each atom of iron conforms to the constitutional structure of ‘Iron’. There is no atom of iron that will be unlike the other atom of iron, if it were, we would not call it iron. We call this ‘constitution conformance’. The material order exhibits constitution conformance. We can verify this for all things in the material order. For example, oxygen, nitrogen, other gasses, gold, silver, aluminum… all of them conform to and are always according to the constitution of their kind. Hence, we say that any matter conforms to its constitution or has ‘constitution conformance’.

Plant/bio order: A neem seed will always sprout a neem plant. All of us know this. Its fruits, its leaves, the taste of the leaves, the colour of the leaves, all this information, this basic information of every neem plant are stored in the seed. Thus, we say the plant is always as the seed, or we can say, ‘as the seed, thus the plant’. Hence, we say that a plant conforms to the seed, or has ‘seed conformances’. This ‘seed conformance’ method is the mechanism by means of which the continuity of a plant species is maintained in nature/existence.

Animal order: We see that a cow is always like a cow, and a dog is always like a dog. Animals conform to their lineage. How animals are, their behavior, is according to their lineage they belong to, the lineage they come from. Hence, we say that an animal conforms to its breed, or has ‘breed conformance’. This breed conformance method is the mechanism by means of which the continuity of an animal species is maintained in nature/existence.

Human (knowledge) order: We can see that we humans are not according to our lineage or race, as in animals. We may pick up something from our parents as we grow up, but we are usually very different in many ways from them. We humans are according to our imagination; according to our desires, thoughts and selection in ‘I’. The desires, thoughts and selections we have in ‘I’ can come from anywhere. It can come from past memories; it can come from our parents, the environment, media and from anywhere. In the case of humans, we can say ‘as the education, so the human’. We are according to our desires, thoughts and selections. Together, we call these ‘sanskara’. Hence, we say that a human being conforms to his or her sanskar or has ‘sanskaar conformance’.

Q11. How the activity is in human order is different with that of animal and plant order?

Ans:An activity means something that ‘has motion’ and /or ‘has a result’. The material order is active in multiple ways, and the same with the plant order or animal order or human order. We are sitting in a room. But we are active. We are thinking, desiring, the body has breath running, heart throbbing. The air in the room is blowing. The wall standing constantly also has activity. The chair in the room is also active. It may not be very visible to our eyes but the chair is still active.

We can understand this activity in two ways:

Ø Things that we see are ‘visibly moving’, through the naked eyes, such as a spinning top, a moving bus, a running man, are active, and

Ø All things that are ‘visibly stationery’, are not moving, are also active. Like a stationary chair. The activity of chair is that the wood of the chair is interacting with the environment and as a result it decays with time.All units around us, including ourselves, are active, all the time. They are interacting with the environment. In the activity, there is a state or configuration and motion simultaneously. This remains all the time.

Order	Things	Activity
Material order	Soil, water, metals, etc.	Composition / decomposition
Pranic order	Plants and trees	Composition / decomposition + respiration
Animal order	Animals and birds	(Composition / decomposition, respiration) in body + selection in ‘I’
Human order	Human beings	(Composition / decomposition, respiration) in body + (selection, thought, desire) in ‘I’

Material order: All material things (i.e. units in the material order) can be understood as an activity of ‘units’ coming together to form a bigger unit. We call this ‘composition’. For example, the chair is made of smaller pieces of wood. Bigger units can also separte from each other to form smaller units and we call this ‘decomposition’. Like a wooden chair can decay after a few years. Thus any unit in the material order can be understood as an ‘activity of ‘composition/decomposition’.

Plant/bio order: When we look at all the units that make up the plant/bio order we will find that they can be understood in terms of composition/ decomposition and respiration. Not only do plants compose (following new plants) and decompose (decaying), they are also breathing, or pulsating, which we call respiration.

Animal order: We can understand the activities of animal order in two aspects:

Body In Animals – Physicochemical Activities The body displays the same activities that we see the plant. The body displays respiration, or breathing, or pulsating, as we call it. The body is also formed at one point in time and keeps building cells as well, i.e. there is composition in the body. Hence, the activities in the body are the same as that in the plant/bio order, which are: composition/ decomposition and respiration. Hence, we say that the body belongs to plant/bio order.
‘I’ In Animals – Conscious Activities The activities in ‘I’ are fundamentally different from those in the body. ‘I’ is a unit that has the ability or capacity of assuming. Animals make assumptions. If you have a dog and some strangers come into the house, the dog may start barking at him. If this person stays at your house, the dog may stops barking at him, but will continue to bark at other strangers. What has happened here is that the dog’s ‘assumption’ about this person has changed, due to which; the way in which it responds to the person has changed. We call this assuming.It is important to note that this consciousness or faculty of assuming is not in the body. The body belongs to the plant/bio order, and is physicochemical in nature. It just responds to physicochemical inputs.

Human (knowledge) order: The activities in human body are similar to that in the animal body, and we have seen this in detail as: composition/ decomposition and respiration. When it comes to consciousness or ‘I’, however, the human displays more than just an ability to ‘select’ or make choices as animals do.Thus, in human beings, ‘I’ has the activities of desiring, thinking, and selecting/tasting, with a possibility or need for understanding and realization. Only humans have this need to know and that is why it is called gyanaavastha – the knowledge order.

Q12. Explain the basic activity in the four orders in nature.

Ans:

Order	Things	Basic Activity
Material order	Soil, water, metals, etc.	. Recognizing, fulfillment
Pranic order	Plants and trees	Recognizing, fulfillment
Animal order	Animals and birds	(Recognizing, fulfillment) in body + (assuming, recognizing, fulfillment) in ‘I’
Human order	Human beings	Recognizing, fulfillment in body + (knowing, assuming, recognizing, fulfillment) in ‘I’

In the material and pranic order, there is only recognizing and fulfillment. Such units do not have the activities of assuming and knowing. Take for example, hydrogen and oxygen recognize the relation to each other, and combine to form water. A brick and the other brick have a definite relation, recognize it and get arranged to form a building. A plant recognizes the relation with sun and water, and fulfils it by acting accordingly. Such activities take place in a similar way all the time, there is no selection involved here. A plant does not choose to turn or not to turn to sun, absorb or not to absorb water. Similarly, the fan in your room does not choose to rotate clockwise or anti-clockwise. It turns as per the winding in the motor. No choice.

When we look at the animals and humans, we find selection taking place.

Q13. Comment on the statement: “Nature is limited and space is unlimited.”

Ans: Nature has four orders and there are units in each order. Each unit is limited in size. The size ranges from being really small (atom) to really big (galaxies). Each and every unit is finite and limited in size, be it the smallest particle or the biggest galaxies. Space, on the other hand is unlimited. Space has no ‘size’, unlike units, it is not bounded. So, there is no beginning or end to space, as there is to units. For example, when we take a book, we know that it starts and finishes. We say the book is ‘limited’ in size. When we take space, there is no such thing. There is space behind us, inside us, between us and the book, between the book and the earth, in the book, in every page of it, inside the page, and beyond the earth…. all the way till we can imagine. We find that space pervades; it is all-pervading. Units, on the other hand are not all-pervading. This is how we recognize them as units.

Q14. How can we say that ‘nature is Self Organized and in space Self-Organization Is Available?

Ans:Every unit is an organization. A unit recognizes other units and combines to form a bigger organization. Starting from the atom, to the big galaxy, this organization goes on, as a self-organization. At every level, we get a self-organization. Sub atomic particles recognize each other and come together to form atoms. Cells recognize each other and form organizations like organs and a body. Planetary bodies, solar systems, galaxies are still bigger organizations. We are not organizing it. We are not supplying it organization from outside.

When we look at humans, we see that we are self-organized at the level of the body. We are not organizing the body. We are not doing anything for the coordination between the heart, kidneys, lungs, eyes, brain, hands, legs, etc. All these are functioning together. Our input is needed only to provide the required nutrition, and to assist the body when we fall sick/get injured. At the level of ‘I’, we are not self-organized, but being in space, self-organization is available to the self (‘I’). That’s why we are in pursuit of happiness, which is essentially being in harmony. Whenever we are not in harmony, we are unhappy. All the units of four orders are self-organized. No one is organizing them from outside. No one is supplying this organization. This self-organization is available to units being in space. Hence, for space, we say ‘self organization is available’.

Q15. Define existence? Show that existence is in a form of co-existence.

Existence is co-existence of mutually interacting units in all-pervasive space. Explain. (UPTU 2010–11)

“Existence = Nature submerged in space” – Elaborate this point.

Differentiate between units and space. How are units self-organized in space?

What are the various attributes of units and space? Explain each.

Write a short note on ‘nature (units) submerged in space’. Explain the meaning of submerged here. (UPTU 2011 – 12)

‘Existence is co-existence’. Give your opinion. (UPTU 2011 – 12)

Ans:All the units together constitute nature. All the units of nature exist in space which is an important reality to understand. Existence is nothing but the nature in space.

Existence = Exist + Essence, whatever exists.

¯ ¯

To be harmony

We define unit as something that is limited in size. Like a small blade of human hair to the biggest planets we know of, they are all limited in size, i.e. bounded on six sides. So, all the ‘things’ we have been studying so far: the human beings, animals, lumps of matter as well as various atoms and molecules, are all ‘units’. We can recognize them as such, they are countable.

But there is another ‘reality’ called ‘space’. We normally don’t pay attention to this ‘reality’, because it’s not a ‘unit’. We can’t ‘touch it’, smell it. We normally just ‘see through it’. But the fact is because we can’t ‘touch it’ or ‘see it’ as we would see a unit like our body, our friends, or a piece of rock, doesn’t mean it does not exist. Space exists everywhere. Co-existence is a state in which two or more groups are living together while respecting their differences and resolving their conflicts non-violently. Coexistence has been defined in numerous ways:

To exist together (in time or space) and to exist in mutual tolerance.
To learn to recognize and live with difference.
To have a relationship between persons or groups in which none of the parties is trying to destroy the other.
To exist together (in time or place) and to exist in mutual tolerance.

EXISTENCE

Nature submerged in Space
(Collection of units) (Empty)
Limited Unlimited
Active No activity
Energized Equilibrium energy
Recognizes and fulfils the relation All reflecting, transparent
Self organized Self organized is available
Unit All pervasive
Abundance with diversity All pervasive
Consciousness (I) – NirantarNitya
Material- Anitya (Ulimited in space and time)
(Niranatar: Limited in space, Unlimited in time, Anitya: Limited in space and time)

When we look at the existence around, the first thing we see is space. And then we see the units in space. Between every two units there is a space. The units exist in space. If we were to define this, we would say that there are two kinds of realities in existence and these are: space and units (in space). So we say,

Existence = space + units (in space)

Since nature consists of the four orders we have been discussing, we can say,

“Existence = Nature submerged in space”.

Nature = Four orders (Material, Plant/Bio or Pranic, Animal and Human Order)

Q16. Explain the concept of holistic perception of harmony in existence.

Ans: The existence is units in space. Space is the empty area all around. The units are of two types: material (insentient) and conscious (the sentient ‘I’). The material units are transformable, and their composition keeps on changing, hence these are gathansheel. The other category of units, the sentient ‘I’, does not transform and are complete in composition, hence gathanpurna. The material units are changeful (with activities of recognizing and fulfilment only) while the other kinds of units are continuous (with activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilment). The material units are available in two orders – material order and pranic order. In the material order, an atom combines with another atom to form a molecule; a molecule similarly forms a molecular structure. Molecular structures are found in two forms: lumps and fluids. Fluids give nutrition to pranic order. In pranic order, the smallest units are plant cells which combine with other cells to form plants, animal bodies and human bodies. The co-existence of ‘I’ with the animal body becomes the animal order, and the co-existence of ‘I’ with the human body becomes the human order. Completion of right understanding in human being is called kriyapurnataand ability to live with complete understanding is called acharanpurnata.

If we look at the left side of the chart, the transformation keeps taking place and the transformation is cyclic in nature. But on the right hand side, the transitions are acyclic. This implies that what we have understood continues to stay with us. We will never miss it. This is a transition in one direction. This is actually called development (vikas).

So, Existence is in the form of co-existence. It is in Harmony. We don’t have to create this harmony, it already exists. We only have to understand it to be in it. This means that having the knowledge of self (‘I’) gives me the knowledge of humane conduct (how to live in existence, with the four orders). With this knowledge, I can live with humane conduct. This is the pending task we have to complete.

UNIT V

IMPLICATIONS OF THE HOLISTIC UNDERSTANDING – A LOOK AT PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

NATURAL ACCEPTANCE OF HUMAN VALUES: Natural acceptance implies unconditional and total acceptance of the self, people and environment. It also refers to the absence of any exception from others. Once we fully and truly commit ourself on the basis of natural acceptance, we feel a holistic sense of inner harmony, tranquility and fulfillment. Actually natural acceptance is way to accept the good things naturally. Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in, and in our own way absorb it; do not become others. We can easily verify proposals in the basis of characteristics of natural acceptance mentioned below:

Natural acceptance does not change with time. It remains invariant with time. For example our natural acceptance for trust and respect does not change with age.
It does not depend on the place. Whatever we have accepted, in our life, at any time of our age, does not change, even if we move from one place to another one.
It does not depend on our beliefs or past conditionings. No matter how deep our belief or past conditioning, as long as we ask ourselves the question sincerely, as long as we refer deep within ourselves, the answer will always be the same.
This natural acceptance is ‘constantly there’, something we can refer to. Natural acceptance is always there. Whatever we do, this natural acceptance is within us, it is telling us what is right.
Natural acceptance is the same for all of us: it is part and parcel of every human being, it is part of humanness. Though each one of us, may have different likes and dislikes and means to live and to react etc. but if we go deep in our mind the purpose of our work, behaviour, efforts etc. are based on common goals like need to be happy, need to be respected, need to get prosperity. So our basic acceptance remains the

Natural acceptance is there in all of us. It is within us, all the time and we can refer to it, access it to know what is right for us. We only have to start referring to it.

DEFINITIVENESS OF ETHICAL HUMAN CONDUCT: The right understanding gained through self-exploration also enables us to identify the definitiveness of human conduct which may also be called the ethical human conduct. It is the same for all human beings. So we are also able to understand the universality of ethical human conduct which is in consonance with the universal human values. Accordingly, all debates and confusion about what is ethical for one may not be ethical for others etc. also lose their base. Let us now understand the salient features of this definite human conduct i.e. the ethical human

Each one of us wants to have a definite conduct but presently we may not be able to ensure that. This is because we are presently living on the basis of our pre-conditionings or assumptions which are not in consonance with the truth or the right understanding. But, this situation neither gives satisfaction to us not to others. We do see the human beings struggling to find out what the right conduct is and in the process, exhibiting a wide variety of attributes.

We also see people debating endlessly about what they consider to be ethical. But unless we have the right understanding, we are not able to identify the definitiveness of ethical human conduct. It can be understood in terms of the following:

Values (Mulya)
Policy (Niti)
Character (Charitra)

Values (Mulya): Competence of living in accordance with universal human values or the participation of a unit in the larger order- its natural characteristics or svabhava. Values are a part of our ethical conduct. They are the natural outcome of realization and right understanding, which are always definite. Values need not to be imposed through fear, greed or blind belief. The values of a human being can be enumerated as thirty, which are listed below:

Values in self (Jivan Mulya): The values are :
1. Happiness (Sukha): Definitiness of expectation (selecting/ tasting) based on definitiness of thought manifests as
2. Peace (Shanti): Definitiness of thought based on definitiness of desire manifests as

Satisfaction (Santosh): Definitiness of desire based on understanding manifests as

Bliss (Ananda): Understanding based on realization manifests as

Values in Human – Human Relationship (Sambandh Mulya): The values are :
1. Established Value (Sthapit Mulya): The established values are in self or I and manifest as expressed values in behaviour with other humans. The expressed values are
2. Expressed Value (Shisht Mulya): The way of expression of established values in behaviour is called expressed value. For example, if we have the feeling of trust established in us, it gets expressed as complementariness in behaviour with others. The expressed values are also

	Established – Values	Expressed – Values
1	Visvasa (Trust)	Saujanyata (Complementariness)	10
2	Sammana (Respect	Sauhardra (Compliance)	11
3	Sneha (Affection)	Nistha (Commitment)	12
4	Mamta (Care)	Udarata (Generosity)	13
5	Vatsalya (Guidance)	Sahajata (Spontaneity)	14
6	Shraddha (Reverence)	Pujyata (Obedience)	15
7	Gaurava (Glory)	Saralata (Ease)	16
8	Kritagyata (Gratitude)	Saumyata (Self-Restraint)	17
9	Prema (Love)	Ananyata (Unanimity)	18

What we need to have is the established value; the expressed value is a natural outcome.

Values of a Human Being in its Participation in Universal Human Order (Manav Mulya): The values are :
1. Perseverance (Dhirata): Being asured that the all-encompassing solution is to understand and live in harmony at all four
2. Bravery (Veerta): Being assured that the all encompassing solution is to understand and live in harmony at all four levels, and I am ready to help the other getting assured of

Generosity (Udarta): Being assured that the all encompassing solution is to understand and live in harmony at all four levels and I am ready to help the other getting assured of it, and I am also ready to invest myself, body and wealth to help the other getting assured of

Kindness (Daya): If a person has the ability but does not have the means to fulfill his or her needs, the participation in relation to make available the means to fulfill th needs is known as kindness.
Beneficence (Kripa): If a person has the means to fulfill his or her needs, but does not have the ability (competence) to utilize it, the participation in relation to imbibe the ability in him/ her, is beneficence.
Campassion (Karuna): If a person neither has the ability nor have the means to fulfill his/her needs, the participation in relation to make available the body is

Values of Human Being in the Interaction with the Rest of the Nature (Vastu Mulya): The vastu mulya is the participation of the human being with the rest of the nature. It is further chategoriized as:
1. Utility Value (Upyogita Mulya): The participation of human being in ensuring the role of physical facility in nurture, protection and providing means for the

Artistic value (kala mulya): The participation of a human being in ensuring the role of physical facility to help and preserve its utility. Proper preparation and presentation is the artistic value.

Policy (Niti):

Having been convinced about the values and about the inherent harmony in the existence, I am able to develop an ethical sense in all my pursuits. I always think, behave and work towards nurturing this harmony. It leads us to adopt policies conducive to human welfare- conducive to enrichment, protection and right utilization of mind, body and wealth. This is an outcome of the definiteness of my desire, thought and expectation (selection) as guided by right understanding. In other words, the decision (plan, program, implementation, results, evaluation) about the enrichment, protection and right utilization of the resources (self, body and wealth – mana, tana and dhana). The policy has three parts:

Economic Policy (Artha Niti): The policy for enrichment of wealth
Political Policy (Rajya Niti): The policy of protection of body and wealth
Policy for Universal Human Order (Dharma Niti): The policy for right utilization of mind, body and

Character (Charitra):

The definiteness of my desire, thought and selection gives definiteness to my living. Definitiveness of character is the outcome of the definiteness of my behaviour and work. This can be mainly characterised in terms of the following:

Chastity in conjugal relationship i.e. chastity in husband – wife relationship (sva nari, sva purusa).
Rightful production, acquisition and utilization of wealth (sva dhana)
Kindness in behaviour and work (dayapurna vyavahar and karya)

This definitiveness of human conduct in terms of values, policies and character is termed as ethics. The ethics in the living of an individual can be imbibed only through inculcation of values, policies and character, and this is possible through the process of ensuring right understanding through self-exploration.

In other words ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about norality – that is, concepts such as good vs. bad, noble vs. ignoble, right vs. wrong, and matters of justice, love, peace and virtue.

A human being with ethical human conduct coupled with requisite professional skills only can be a good professional, namely, a good engineer, a good manager, a good teacher and researcher, a good technocrat, etc.

Ethical conduct implies that it is naturally acceptable to me and does not give rise to conflict
Ethical conduct implies that it is in consonance with the right understanding of the reality – the underlying harmony at all
Ethical conduct implies that it leads to mutual fulfillment with other people and mutual enrichment with rest of

Thus, the ethical conduct is self – satisfying, people friendly, eco-friendly and universal.

Identification of svatva leading to svatantrata and svarajya

We are exploring our svatva and in the process of self-verification and living accordingly, we are attaining svatantrata and svarajya. Having discussed the content of right understanding, we can see how we explored our svatva (our natural acceptance) at different levels of our living and how the dialogue that started in us helped us getting rid of our priconceived notions, our dilemmas, contradictionds and complusions, either external or internal. Having explored our svatva, we are able to live accordingly and this way, we become svatantra. The more, we attain this self- organized state, we are able to live in harmony with others and also we are able to help others attain this state. This leads to our participation in svarajya. It is a natural process. It leads by itself, without any external force.

From here we get an important message: the effort towards ensuring orderliness in the society is possible and is sustained by ensuring orderliness in ourselves. Every mechanism to bring order in the society needs to be based on this. This is an important implication of right understanding when we go to make policies for nations and the world.

Development of human consciousness

Having gone through the self exploration, we can see how it helps us to initiate the development process of our consciousness. Accordingly it affects a change in one’s goals, priorities and selection criteria. In animal consciousness we give all the weightage ot physical facilities, to the maximization of sensory pleasures, to accumulation of wealth. Our criteria of evolution are primarily body centric, targeted towards maximization of conforts and sensory pleasures. As indicated earlier, this propensity proves to be a misery trap for human beings causing multifarious problems within us as well as in outside world as we are experiencing now a days. As we transform to the human consciousness, we are able to base our thoughts and activities on right understanding, give relationship a higher priority than physical facilities, identifying our physical needs and ensure it through avartansila production, enriching rest of the nature as well.

Implication of value based living

Value based living means to live on the basis of values. Why should we have a value based living because it give us following benefits:

At the level of the individual – happiness, peace, contentment and bliss in the self, perseverance, bravery and generosity in living of the individual. This value based living of the individual would reduce the feeling of financial in security which is caused by ill
At the level of the family – mutual fulfillment in relationships, prosperity in the family, sustenance of joint families, family as the building block of societal order in place of law enforcing bodies, respect for all without differentiation on the basis of age, gender, caste, race, money, post, creed,
At the level of the society – when we start giving higher priority to relationship over the physical facilities the society becomes fearless, holistic systems for education, health, justice, production, exchange and storage, harmony between nations, world growing as a

At the level of nature – co-existence of all units in nature, earth getting more and more suited for sustenance of all entities on the globe, balance of seasons, proper development. This will help to reduce the problems like pollution, over exploitation of resources

Vision for the Holistic Alternative: Basis for Humanistic Education and Humanistic Constitution

The right understanding prepares us for moving towards the ‘holistic alternative’ (universal human order, svarajya) which will be sustainable as well as conductive to fulfill the basic human aspirations for all human beings. It will be a mode of living which is self satisfying, people friendly and eco friendly. Then all human ingenuity, all the knowledge and skills available can be harnessed to actualize such a model of living.

The primary step to move towards the holistic alternative is to develop the right understanding among human beings and the commitment to live accordingly and then to develop the requisite skills and know how to implement the right understanding in real life.

Professional ethics in the light of right understanding

Professional ethics means to develop professional competence with ethical human conduct. Ethical human conduct means definitiveness of human conduct. Ethical human conduct is the foundation of professional ethics. The only effective way to ensure professional ethics is through correct appraisal and systematic development of ethical competence in the professional (the human being). Profession is a significant domain of human activity targeted towards participating in the larger order which includes the society and nature around. Thus, it is a meaningful participation for each one in one or more of the five domains of human Endeavour needed for a harmonious society. Of this, one important domain happens to be in the form of production and production related activities. It also makes available the necessary physical facilities (livelihood) for oneself and one’s family. Here, one has to interact with other human beings as well as the living and non-living entities of rest of nature. Through professional education, one acquires the specific skills and knowledge in order to make this contribution in the larger order. Ethical conduct of profession implies the right utilization of one’s professional skills towards the fulfilment of comprehensive human goal and thus, meaningfully participates in the larger order.

Professional ethics may be defined as a form of applied ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment.

Professional ethics concerns the moral issues that arise because of the specialist knowledge that professionals attain, and how the use of this knowledge should be governed when providing a service to the public.

However, to be able to achieve this, it is essential to develop the value competence or the ethical competence in the human beings along with the requisite skills. It may be easily appreciated that a significant implication of the right understanding is to develop this ethical competence and thereby facilitate professional ethics.

Profession – in the light of comprehensive human goal

As mentioned earlier, any profession is a channel for participation by human beings in the larger order in pursuance of comprehensive human goal. In the process, one is able to contribute towards the livelihood of one’s family and also participate in the larger order constituting the society and the nature around. All these activities do require a certain degree of skill and are expected to be performed in consonance with the comprehensive human goal. Then only, these will be conducive to the sustained welfare of the individual as well as the society. The excellence or the success of any professional activity is to be judged from this comprehensive point of view only and not in terms of just wealth generation. Accordingly, the profession is not only a means of earning one’s livelihood but a means of one’s evolution by appropriate participation in the larger order. It is an important acitvity to authenticate one understands, whereby interact with other human beings and with rest of nature in a mutually fulfilling manner. Thus, profession is a ‘service’.

Ensuring competence in professional ethics

Why people act unethically? It is primarily because of lack of correct understanding about happiness and prosperity. If a person views happiness in terms of maximization of sensory enjoyment and prosperity in terms of accumulation of physical facilities, then the motivation naturally becomes that of wealth maximization. In this pursuit, all other considerations become secondary. Therefore, it leads to more and more unethical practices as these seem to cater well to the above tends to make people adhere to this wrong notion firmly. In this context, the ethical considerations are considered to be too idealistic to follow in real life.

The development of ethical competence is a long term process to be achieved through appropriate value education. As profession is only a subset of the life activities, the competence in profession will only be the manifestation of one right understands. The salient features characterizing this competence can be summarized as follows:

Competence in professional ethics

Clarity about comprehensive human goal: samadhan – samridhi – abhay – sah-astitva, and its fulfillment through universal human
Confidence in oneself: based on the right understanding of oneself and the rest of
Mutually fulfilling behaviour: clarity and confidence in ethical human conduct and its correlation with sustained personal as well as collective happiness and
Mutually enriching interaction with nature: self-sufficiency in fulfillment of physical needs; ability to assess the needs for physical facilities for the family and their fulfillment through production systems ensuring harmony in the nature. In the light of the above, one acquires the ability to identify and develop appropriate (people-friendly and eco-friendly) technologies, production systems etc.

Issues in professional ethics

The unethical practices are rapidly increasing and their impact is also becoming far-reaching. Corruption in multifarious manifestations is afflicting all the professions like a virus. Similarly, other unethical practices are also proliferating and getting out of control. It appears as if human ingenuity is being increasingly harnessed to devise newer and subtler ways to thwart the ethical conduct of profession, to twist the laws and to beat the system.

As a result of this ‘epidemic’ of unethical practices, we are frequently coming across serious scams, major economic offences and kickbacks in large scale purchases. Lapses on the part of big organizations in ethical conduct of profession have led to large scale disasters, such as Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the Chernobyl Disaster, etc. endangering public life and prosperity, and causing serious degradation to environment.

This menace becomes even more serious as unethical politics are adopted collectively by large industries, cartels, multinational corporations and even national governments. We are also quite familiar how misleading propaganda, advertisements using sex-appeal, the influence of show business ad celebrities are being employed to influence the public mind for promoting all types of products which are not quite conductive to human welfare. We may enlist some salient categories of these unethical practices as follows:

Corruption in multiple forms and at various levels.
Tax evasion, misappropriation and misuse of public funds.
Misleading propaganda, unethical advertisements and sale promotion.
Cut-throat competition.
Exploiting the weakness of consumers through various enticements
Adulteration and spurious production
Endangering the health and safety of public at large.
Hoarding and over-charging etc.

The holistic criteria for evaluation

The modern technologies and systems are all human inventions in response to the needs visualized under the influence of the prevailing worldview. There are three broad criteria to guide the development of such technologies and systems, they are:

Catering to appropriate needs of lifestyles
People friendly
Eco friendly.

In addition, these have to promote local self-sufficiency and optimal utilization of local resources and expertise. In accordance to the above general considerations, the specific criteria for judging the appropriateness of technologies, production systems and management models may be identified as follows:

Criteria for technologies

Catering to real human needs
Compatible with natural systems and cycles
Facilitating effective utilization of human body, animals, plants and materials
Safe, user-friendly and conducive to health
Promoting the use of renewable energy resources
Low cost and energy efficient
Promoting decentralization
Enhancing human interaction and cooperation
Durability and life cycle recyclability of products etc.

For production systems

Optimal utilization of local resources and expertise
Economic viability and sustainability
Priority for local consumption
Decentralized systems capable of meaningful employment of people in the community
Facilitating production by masses and not mass production in a centralized mode
Ensuring requisite quality of production
Using people friendly and eco friendly technologies
Safe and conductive to health of persons involved in production as well as others
Promoting individual creativity and sense of accomplishment

For management models

The whole unit working as a well knit family
Cooperative and motivational
Ensuring correct appraisal of human labour
Effectively integrating individual competencies and complementarily
Targeting employer – employee as well as consumer satisfaction and not profit

STRATEGY FOR TRANSITION TO UNIVERSAL HUMAN ORDER:

Transition is the gradual change for betterment which take place at two levels;

At the individual level

At the Society level

At the Individual level

Perform services only in the areas of competence •Uphold and enhance the honor, integrity, and dignity of their respective profession •Provide opportunities for the profession development of the employee under their supervision •Promote safety, health and welfare of the public in their respective area of services. •Strive to the principles of sustainable development •To be accountable for their action •Morally responsible for their respective organization

At the Society Level

Collective measures for prevention and removal of threats to the peace. •Promote the value based education for the ultimate betterment of society. •Framing positive agenda, mission statement, objectives, values and behaviors of the business and service etc.
Sustainable development •Assigning the possible social role to its respective members • Promoting self awareness and enhancing healthy employer-employee relationship and ultimately the human inter-relationship.

To sum up we can say

Profession implies meaningful participation in the larger order including society and nature in pursuance of comprehensive human goal and in the process also making available the necessary physical facilities for one’s family.
Developing ethical competence in the individuals (professionals) is the only effective way to ensure professional ethics.
The increase of unethical practices in various professions, the contradictions and dilemmas are primarily due to the prevailing worldview focusing on profit maximization. These can only be resolved through right understanding.

IMPORTANT QUESTION & ANSWERS

What are the values in interaction of human beings with the material things? Give one example of each.

What is utility value and artistic value? How are both important in human life? Explain with example.

‘When there is no utility there is no scope for art too’. Explain.

Ans: Competence of living in accordance with universal human values or the participation of a unit in the larger order- its natural characteristics or svabhava. Values are a part of our ethical conduct. They are the natural outcome of realization and right understanding, which are always definite. Values need not to be imposed through fear, greed or blind belief. The vastumulya (values of Human Being in the Interaction with the Rest of the Nature) is the participation of the human being with the rest of the nature. It is further categorized as:

Utility Value (UpyogitaMulya): The participation of human being in ensuring the role of physical facility in nurture, protection and providing means for the body.
Artistic value (kalamulya): The participation of a human being in ensuring the role of physical facility to help and preserve its utility.

For example, the utility value of a pen is that it aids in writing. This provides a means to the body. Providing a cap to the pen so that the ink does not spill, a proper design for holding of the pen while writing etc, preserve the utility of the pen. A shirt has the utility that it protects the body. This is its utility value. Designing the shirt so that it can be easily put on is the artistic value.

What do you understand by definitiveness of ethical human conduct? Why is this definitiveness desirable?

What do you mean by definitiveness of ethical human conduct? How can it be ensured?

Ans: The right understanding gained through self-exploration also enables us to identify the definitiveness of human conduct which may also be called the ethical human conduct. It is the same for all human beings.So we are also able to understand the universality of ethical human conduct which is in consonance with the universal human values. Each one of us wants to have a definite conduct but presently we may not be able to ensure that. This is because we are presently living on the basis of our pre-conditionings or assumptions which are not in consonance with the truth or the right understanding. But, this situation neither gives satisfaction to us not to others.

We do see the human beings struggling to find out what the right conduct is and in the process, exhibiting a wide variety of attributes. We also see people debating endlessly about what they consider to be ethical. But unless we have the right understanding, we are not able to identify the definitiveness of ethical human conduct. It can be understood in terms of the following:

Values (Mulya): Competence of living in accordance with universal human values or the participation of a unit in the larger order- its natural characteristics or svabhava is known as values. Values are a part of our ethical conduct.
Policy (Niti): policy is the decision (plan, program, implementation, results, evaluation) about the enrichment, protection and right utilization of the resources (self, body and wealth – mana, tana and dhana).
Character (Charitra): The definiteness of my desire, thought and selection gives definiteness to my living. Definitiveness of character is the outcome of the definiteness of my behavior and work.
Comment on Profession – in the light of comprehensive human goal

Ans: Any profession is a channel for participation by human beings in the larger order in pursuance of comprehensive human goal. In the process, one is able to contribute towards the livelihood of one’s family and also participate in the larger order constituting the society and the nature around. All these activities do require a certain degree of skill and are expected to be performed in consonance with the comprehensive human goal. Then only, these will be conducive to the sustained welfare of the individual as well as the society. The excellence or the success of any professional activity is to be judged from this comprehensive point of view only and not in terms of just wealth generation. Accordingly, the profession is not only a means of earning one’s livelihood but a means of one’s evolution by appropriate participation in the larger order. It is an important activity to authenticate one’s understanding, whereby interact with other human beings and with rest of nature in a mutually fulfilling manner. Thus, profession is a ‘service’.

What do you mean by professional ethics?

Ans: Professional ethics means to develop professional competence with ethical human conduct. Ethical human conduct means definitiveness of human conduct. Ethical human conduct is the foundation of professional ethics. The only effective way to ensure professional ethics is through correct appraisal and systematic development of ethical competence in the professional (the human being). Profession is a significant domain of human activity targeted towards participating in the larger order which includes the society and nature around. Thus, it is a meaningful participation for each one in one or more of the five domains of human endeavor needed for a harmonious society. Ethical conduct of profession implies the right utilization of one’s professional skills towards the fulfillment of comprehensive human goal and thus, meaningfully participates in the larger order. Professional ethics may be defined as a form of applied ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment.

What do you mean by competence in professional ethics? Elaborate with examples.

What do you understand by competence in professional ethics? Give two examples of its implications in industry. (MTU 2010 – 11)

Ans: Professional ethics means to develop professional competence with ethical human conduct.

Developing ethical competence in the individual (profession) is the only effective way to ensure professional ethics. The development of ethical competence is a long term process to be achieved through appropriate value education. As profession is only a subset of the life activities, the competence in profession will only be the manifestation of one’s right understanding. The salient features characterizing this competence can be summarized as follows:

Clarity about comprehensive human goal: Samadhan – Samridhi – Abhay – Sah-astitva, and its fulfilment through universal human order.
Confidence in oneself: Based on the right understanding of oneself and the rest of existence.
Mutually fulfilling behavior: Clarity and confidence in ethical human conduct and its correlation with sustained personal as well as collective happiness and prosperity.
Mutually enriching interaction with nature: Self-sufficiency in fulfilment of physical needs; ability to assess the needs for physical facilities for the family and their fulfilment through production systems ensuring harmony in the nature. In the light of the above, one acquires the ability to identify and develop appropriate (people-friendly and eco-friendly) technologies, production systems etc.

What do you mean by ‘universal human order’?

What is your vision of a universal human order? Write in your own words. (UPTU 2010– 11)

What do you mean by universal human order? What are its implications? (MTU 2011 – 12)

Ans: Universal human order (sarvabhaumavyavastha) is a feeling of being related to every unit including human beings and other entities of nature. Having understood the comprehensive human goal, we are able to be in harmony not only with human beings, but also with the rest of the nature. We are able to see that we are related to every unit in nature and ensure mutual fulfillment in that relationship. On the bases of understanding of harmony, we get the notion of an undivided society and universal human order. The universal human order will comprise of:

The five dimensions of human endeavor (education, health etc.) towards a fragmented society.
The steps of organization from family to world family, each anchored in right understanding will integrated in the following way:

Family Þ family cluster Þ village / community Þ village cluster ÞÞÞ world family

What are the implications of value based living at all four levels of living? Explain. (UPTU 2009-10)

ANS. The implications of value-based living can be studied in the following terms:

At the level of the individual – Transition towards happiness and prosperity will take place at the individual level. It will instil self-confidence, spontaneous joyfulness, peace, contentment and bliss in the self, and also perseverance, bravery and generosity in living of the individual.
At the level of the family – Mutual fulfilment in relationships, prosperity in the family, sustenance of joint families, family as the building block of societal order in place of law enforcing bodies, respect for all without differentiation on the basis of age, gender, caste, race, money, post, creed, etc.
At the level of the society – Fearlessness in the society, holistic systems for education, health, justice, production, exchange and storage, harmony between nations, world growing as a family.
At the level of nature – Co-existence of all units in nature, earth getting more and more suited for sustenance of all entities on the globe, balance of seasons, proper development.

What would be the pragmatic implications of value-based living at the four levels? Briefly explain.

Ans:The implications of value based living can be understood in the following terms:

At the level of the individual – Achieve happiness, peace, contentment and bliss in the self, perseverance, bravery and generosity in living of the individual. The individual get rid of the tensions, frustrations, depression, and other such situations
At the level of the family – Mutual fulfillment in relationships, prosperity in the family, sustenance of joint families, family as the building block of societal order in place of law enforcing bodies, respect for all without differentiation on the basis of age, gender, caste, race, money, post, creed, etc.
At the level of the society – Fearlessness in the society, holistic systems for education, health, justice, production, exchange and storage, harmony between nations, world growing as a family. Differentiations on the basis of body, physical facilities and beliefs will be reduced.
At the level of nature – Co-existence of all units in nature, earth getting more and more suited for sustenance of all entities on the globe, balance of seasons, proper development. The problems of pollution and resource depletion can be solved.
How do the current world views lead to contradictions and dilemmas in professional life? – Explain.

Ans: Contradictions and Dilemmas: We can understand more clearly through examples how the contradictions and dilemmas are inherently generated by the prevailing worldview in which wealth maximization is perceived to be the prime objective. In such a paradigm, ‘your loss is my gain’. Thus the other person’s happiness seems to be in conflict with my happiness. In that case, the other people have to be exploited for one to gain affluence and there is no possibility of mutual fulfillment in a sustainable way. In the same way, exploitation of nature also becomes acceptable as it helps a person to accumulate wealth easily and there is no limit to this. Let us analyze how such a world view affects the propensity of people in different professions. Take the example of business circles, whenever there is a scarcity of commodity due to say – monsoon failure or other natural disturbances or wars etc, the people in general are in distress and need succor; however in such a situation the businessmen endowed with materialistic world view will feel elated and look at it as an opportunity to make maximum profit.

They feel that the market is ‘improving’ and they should take the maximum advantage of it, even accentuate it by hoarding and black marketing to serve their objective. Thus the interest of such businessmen and the consumers in general come in direct conflict. While in reality they are expected to be mutually complementary. In a similar way, ethical practices like adulteration and spurious production etc. are also adopted in an attempt to increase profits- albeit at the cost of greatly endangering public health and safety. An interesting example of the prevailing dichotomy is evident in the advertisements that we daily come across, particularly in case of various evidently harmful products like cigarettes, pan masala etc. Where on one hand, the use of these products is highly glamorized to attract the consumers and in the end there is an inconspicuous statutory warning indicating that the use of these products is injurious to health. Thus there is clear tendency of making profits by promoting the sale of the products which are injurious to public health. In such a situation the dilemma as to how much importance is to be given to one’s profit and how much to the welfare always remains unresolved.

What do you understand by holistic technology? Briefly explain.

What is a holistic technology? Take any two such examples from the Indian tradition and elaborate on them.

Describe briefly the criteria for evaluation of holistic technology. Support your answer with an example.

Ans: The modern technologies and systems are all human inventions in response to the needs visualized under the influence of the prevailing worldview. Accordingly, they have been designed and optimized to the objective functions best suited to this world view. In order to facilitate the development of holistic technologies and systems, it will be necessary to visualize alternative objective functions and to formulate appropriate criteria for evaluation compatible with comprehensive human goal. Generally speaking, there are three broad criteria to guide the development of such technologies and systems, viz.

Catering to appropriate needs and lifestyles,
People-friendly, and
Eco-friendly.

Criteria for Technologies: The above mentioned general criteria can be itemized into more specific form as follows:

Catering to real human needs
Compatible with natural systems and cycles

Facilitating effective utilization of human body, animals, plants and materials
Safe, user-friendly and conducive to health
Producible with local resources and expertise as far as possible
Promoting the use of renewable energy resources
Low cost and energy efficient
Enhancing human interaction and cooperation
Give a critical review of the current management models in profession.

Ans: If we really wish to gain an insight into the holistic systems, we have a lot to learn from systems of nature and from traditional practices. With modern developments in science and technology, and their widespread application, an impression has grown that the nature is primarily for exploitation as per the whims and fancies of human beings, the nature has to be tamed/controlled and exploited for human enjoyment. Further, it is believed that the systems in nature are all primitive and have to be replaced by man-made systems. This is how one looks at ‘development’. Similarly, it is also believed that the traditional practices are all obsolete and have to be rejected outright. This arrogant attitude towards nature and the traditional know-how has caused much damage to humanity in recent times. It is high time we critically examine these beliefs and rectify them in the light of right understanding. In reality, nature is not only our nourisher but also a learning ground. The human beings are an integral part of this self-sustaining nature and it is essential to understand its functioning and systems to live in harmony with it. After all, it is only by diligent study of nature that all the laws and principles governing various processes have been discovered by human beings. In a similar way, the systems and cycles of nature also need to be understood and emulated as required in man-made designs. Then only, we can correctly visualize and evolve the holistic way of living.

As for the traditional practices, it is true that with increase in knowledge and skills, and with changing needs, it is necessary to make improvisations in technologies and systems of human use, however, in order to do that it is essential to critically evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. It is important to identify the characteristics which have enabled the traditional practices to serve humanity for long periods.

The eco-friendly and people-friendly characteristics of many traditional practices are very much worthy of our recognition and retention. Then we will be in a better position to utilize our present day knowledge to augment the systems and make them more effective, efficient and more suited to current needs. For example, we can learn a lot from the traditional practices of eco-friendly agriculture techniques, watershed management, eco-restoration, herbal formulations, preservation techniques, and artisanal practices and so on. It does not amount to going backwards but rather enables us to avail from the vast storehouse of wisdom and experience so that we become better prepared to take the leap forward in the right direction.

Critically examine the issues in professional ethics in the current scenario. List any five unethical practices in profession today and the methods being tried to curb them.

What are the reasons of unethical practices in profession today? What is the real solution to the above problems? Give your opinion. (UPTU 2011 – 12)

Elaborate on any two practices that are unethical but still quite prevalent in profession today. Suggest few measures to solve the problems in a sustainable way. (MTU 2010 – 11)

Mention some of the unethical practices in society today. How do the prevailing world views lead to such unethical practices? (MTU 2011 – 12)

Ans: The unethical practices are rapidly increasing and their impact is also becoming far-reaching. Corruption in multifarious manifestations is afflicting all the professions like a virus. Similarly, other unethical practices are also proliferating and getting out of control. It appears as if human ingenuity is being increasingly harnessed to devise newer and subtler ways to thwart the ethical conduct of profession, to twist the laws and to beat the system. As a result of this ‘epidemic’ of unethical practices, we are frequently coming across serious scams, major economic offences and kickbacks in large scale purchases. Lapses on the part of big organizations in ethical conduct of profession have led to large scale disasters, such as Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the Chernobyl Disaster, etc. endangering public life and prosperity, and causing serious degradation to environment. This menace becomes even more serious as unethical politics are adopted collectively by large industries, cartels, multinational corporations and even national governments. We are also quite familiar how misleading propaganda, advertisements using sex-appeal, the influence of show business ad celebrities are being employed to influence the public mind for promoting all types of products which are not quite conductive to human welfare. We may enlist some salient categories of these unethical practices as follows:

Ø Corruption in multiple forms and at various levels.

Ø Tax evasion, misappropriation and misuse of public funds.

Ø Misleading propaganda, unethical advertisements and sale promotion.

Ø Cut-throat competition.

Ø Exploiting the weakness of consumers through various enticements

Ø Adulteration and spurious production

Ø Endangering the health and safety of public at large.

Ø Hoarding and over-charging etc.

………… the list could be much longer.

Explain how Identification of svatva leads to svatantrata and svarajya.

You were introduced to the words Svatva, svatantrata and svarajya. How does the self-exploration help you to identify swatva and transition to swatantrata and swarajya?

How does exploring our svatva leads to svatantrata and svarajya.

Elaborate on the meaning of swatwa (innateness), swatantrata (self-organization) and swarajya(self-expression). How are they related? (MTU 2011 – 12)

Ans: We are exploring our svatva and in the process of self-verification and living accordingly, we are attaining svatantrata and svarajya. Having discussed the content of right understanding, we can see how we explored our svatva (our natural acceptance) at different levels of our living and how the dialogue that started in us helped us getting rid of our preconceived notions, our dilemmas, contradictions and compulsions, either external or internal. Having explored our svatva, we are able to live accordingly and this way, we become svatantra. The more, we attain this self- organized state, we are able to live in harmony with others and also we are able to help others attain this state. This leads to our participation in svarajya. It is a natural process. It leads by itself, without any external force. From here we get an important message: the effort towards ensuring orderliness in the society is possible and is sustained by ensuring orderliness in ourselves. Every mechanism to bring order in the society needs to be based on this. This is an important implication of right understanding when we go to make policies for nations and the world.

Write a short note on the comprehensive human goal. Establish that it is comprehensive.

Ans:In order to facilitate the fulfillment of the basic aspirations of all human being in the society and the comprehensive values that join these human being together the following human goal needs to be understood.

Right Understanding

In Every Individual

Prosperity

In Every Family

Fearlessness (Trust)

In Society

Co-existence

In Nature

Ø Right understanding is necessary for all human beings. When one does not have the right understanding, one remains disturb and also acts in a manner so as to create disharmony with other human being as well as with rest of nature

Ø Prosperity is needed in every family. Prosperity in the family means that the family is able to identify its need and is able to produce/ achieve more than its requirements

Ø Trust in society means every member of society feels related to everyone else and therefore there is trust and fearlessness

Ø Co-existence in nature means there is a relationship and complementary among all the entities in nature including human beings

This is the Comprehensive Human Goal. With little exploration we can find that, this is the minimum level that each one of us wants and also the maximum we can think of. The moment we leave anyone of them out, there will be loss of continuity and the goal cannot be achieved.

The above mentioned four goals are not only comprehensive but also universal i.e. equally applicable to all human beings and for all times. It includes all our aspirations and this is the goal for each one of us. As our understanding and awareness deepens, we begin to take responsibility that spreads beyond the confines of ourselves and our family and begin to include the entire human society in working towards the above goal.

Lack of understanding of harmony has led astray our programs and we are not able to work for the fulfillment of comprehensive human goal today. In light of the comprehensive human goal, the following five salient dimension of human endeavor are to be shaped and implemented in society.

ØEducation – Right living

ØHealth – Self-regulation

ØJustice – Preservation

ØProduction – Work

ØExchange – Storage

These five dimensions broadly cover all the activities that are necessary and fundamental to the harmonious existence of human society and to achieve comprehensive human goal.

Explain the meaning of Value. Illustrate with examples.

Ans: Much controversy arises or is made out of the question of values; what is meant by values? Which values are good and which bed, if any? Which values are to be tolerated even if their rightness is controversial? Can any science and doctrine be neutral with regards to values? These are key issues of psychic and social development, not facts merely to observe and describe. Important and enduring beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a culture about what is good or desirable and what is not. Values exert major influence on the behavior of an individual and serve as broad guidelines in all situations. Values are more important and primary than facts in forming and understanding all kinds of human purpose. Values, rather than observable facts, are keys to understanding the reality behind the scene outwardly presented by human behavior. Values mean any ideals, goal or standards upon which action or beliefs are based and judged and criterion to estimates its value or desirability. For example; will there be any normal human being would not like to be happy, healthy and prosperous? Does anyone prefer to be miserable, sick and poor? So happiness (in mind), Healthiness (in body) and Prosperity (of physical facilities as means to fulfill our desires) are some of the Fundamental values desired by all, everywhere, always if possible. Likewise, shall we prefer to be known as Truthful and Reliable or as liar and undependable? I, as well as, all others shall prefer truth and reliability. These also are universal values.

Another example is to think of our desirability for respect and trust. We like other people give us respect and take us to be trustworthy. We also prefer other people to be so. Respect and trust are highly desired human values, liked universally.

The other example can be cited by taking the interrelation between the technology and human values. If we value the relationship with the environment, we will work to create the environment-friendly technologies and also put it to the right use, say for the enrichment of environment, replenishment of natural resources etc. conversely, if the relationship with the environment is something we do not value, things could be the other way round.

What do you mean by happiness and Prosperity? Critically examine the prevailing notions of happiness in the society and their consequences.

Ans:Happiness: It describe, the state/situation in which I live, if there is harmony/synergy in it, then I like to be in that state or situation”. In other words state of liking is happiness. When we are in such a state of happiness– we experience no struggle, no contradiction or conflict within and we enjoy such a state of being and we wish to have its continuity. It is important to note that we do get an impression of happiness through our sensory interaction, such as while eating tasty food, seeing a beautiful picture, smelling a sweet fragrance, etc. However these impressions of happiness are always short-lived and their continuity can never be insured.

Prosperity: It is the feeling of having or making available more than required physical facilities. To ascertain prosperity, two things are essential:

a) Correct assessment of need for physical facilities, and
b) The competence of making available more than required physical facilities (through production).

Prosperity often encompasses wealth but also includes other factor which are independent of wealth to varying degrees, such as health, spiritual notion, etc

The Prevailing Notions of Happiness and Prosperity in the society are:

This has resulted in wrong assessment of wants for physical facilities as being unlimited. But this pursuit is self-defeating. Neither can we hope to achieve continuous happiness through sensory interactions nor can we have prosperity, as it amounts to trying to fulfil unlimited wants through limited resources. This effort is engendering problems at all the levels. Some of the consequences of such a trend are summarised below:

1) At the level of the individual: Rising problems of depression, psychological disorders, suicides, stress, insecurity, psycho-somatic diseases, loneliness etc.

2) At the level of the family: Breaking of joint families, mistrust, conflict between older and younger generations, insecurity in relationships, divorce, dowry tortures, family feuds, wasteful expenditure in family functions etc.

3) At the level of the Society: Growing incidences of terrorism and naxalism, rising communalism, spreading casteism, racial and ethnic struggle, wars between nations, attempts of genocide, fear of nuclear and genetic warfare, etc.

4) At the level of nature: Global warming, water, air, soil, noise, etc. pollution, resource depletion of minerals and mineral oils, sizeable deforestations, loss of fertility of soil, etc.

It therefore, calls for an urgent need for human beings to correctly understand happiness and prosperity as well as the sustainable way to achieve these.

Elaborate on the basic guidelines for Value Education. What is the basis of human aspirations? Explain.

Ans:Basic Guidelines for Value Education are:

1.Universal: Whatever we study as value education has to be universally applicable to all human beings and be true at all times and all places. In addition, it does not depend on sect, creed, nationality and gender etc. So it has to deal with universal human values.
Rational: It has to be agreeable to reasoning and not based on blind beliefs. It cannot be a set of preaching or Do’s and Don’ts.
Natural and Verifiable: Being natural means, it has to be acceptable in a natural manner. When we live on the basis of such values that are natural to us, it leads to fulfilment, leads to our happiness and also be conducive to other people we interact with, as well as with nature. We also want to verify these values ourselves.

All encompassing: It is aimed at transforming our consciousness and living. Hence, it has to fill into all dimensions of our living, namely, thought, behaviour, work and understanding/realization; as well as all levels namely individual, family, society and nature.
Leading to harmony: Finally, value education has to enable us to be in harmony within and in harmony with others. Hence, when we live on the basis of these values, we start understanding that it will lead to harmony in us and harmony in our interactions with other humans and the rest of nature.

All human beings have aspiration. There are two basic aspirations of every human being: Continuous happiness and prosperity. These are at the root of all our aspirations and all our efforts go towards achieving these. How successful we are today in achieving and understanding this is a matter for serious exploration. Let us say, I want to be the first ranker in the class. Now behind this desire to get the first rank, is there a more basic desire? If we ask ourselves, why do I want to get the first rank? If we keep asking ourselves this question, we will find that there is a basic desire and desire is that, it is to be happy. If we verify this with the other want we possess, we can find all that emerges from the basic aspiration to be happy. This is applicable to all human being and all of us continuously trying to do things that make ourselves happy and every human being is capable of feeling this happiness in himself/herself spontaneously.

In addition to happiness we also aspire for adequate fulfilment of our bodily needs, i.e. the need for physical facilities. Physical facilities are material things we use to fulfil the needs of the body. When we have enough physical facilities, it gives us the feelings of prosperity. We want to have a continuity of this feeling too.

What is your vision of Happy and Prosperous life?

Ans:There is a set of feelings which I can accept effortlessly and naturally. These feelings are such as trust, respect, being confident about my future etc. These feelings are naturally and effortlessly acceptable to each one of us. I also welcome these and desire them to continue in my life. When I observe such feelings, I find that these are the situations when I am in harmony and these feelings are a reflection of that harmony. Take for example respect; respect is a state of harmony between the two human beings. When I respect the other and the other respect me, I like to be in that situation. It gives me happiness. Similarly looking, within me, when I have harmony in my thoughts, my feelings, I feel relaxed, happy. If this harmony is disturbed, I feel uneasy. When I look at all the moments when I feel happy, I will find that there is an element of harmony in it, which I like. When I am in such a state of happiness- I experience no struggle, no contradiction or conflict within and I enjoy such a state of being and I wish its continuity.

On the other hand, when I experience feeling such as failure, disrespect, lack of confidence, being doubtful in us or about others, I feel unhappy as there are states of conflict. These are the states when there is a lack of harmony, either within us or between us and others. I do not wish for a continuation of these feelings within and want to try and change them. I do not want to be in this state of mind i.e. in disharmony or contradiction.

It is easy to see that prosperity is related to material things or what we call as physical facilities. When I think of all the things that I need today, for example, I use a brush to clean my teeth, cloths to wear, food to eat, vessel to cook and eat the food in, a pair of spectacles, a two wheeler or a four wheeler vehicle, a radio set, a mobile phone, etc. So we all need physical things to take care of my body and these needs to be catered too. When I am able to cater to the needs of the body adequately, I feel prosperous. So to me prosperity is the feeling of having or making available more than required physical facilities.

So continuous happiness and prosperity is the vision of life for me and it is not only true for me can also be verified to be true for others.

Three things are needed in order to fulfil basic human aspirations- right understanding, right relationships and physical facilities. Explain meaning of each one of these.

Ans: There are three basic requirements to ensure happiness and prosperity for human beings and these viz, Right understanding; Right relationship and Physical facilities.

Right Understanding: Lack of right understanding has led us into a variety of problem at different levels of our living, be it at the level of individual or a family or society or nature. As long as we live with wrong assumptions we shall continue to have the problems in ourselves and have problems in relationship, not feel happy or prosperous and will exploit nature.

In order to resolve the issues in human relationships, we need to understand them first and this would come from right understanding of relationship.

Similarly, in order to be prosperous and to enrich nature, we need to have the right understanding. The right understanding will enable us to work out our requirements for physical facilities and hence correctly distinguish the difference between wealth and prosperity.

Right relationship: By relationship we mean the relationship that we have with other people or human being. We need to have mutually fulfilling relationships. If there is a problem in relationship, we feel uneasy, it bothers us. Even if we are interacting with someone and something we said or did offends them, it makes us uneasy, i.e. we want mutual fulfilment in relationship. Both I and the person ewe interact with need to fell the fulfilled, need to feel satisfied from the interaction. This example from our daily life will elaborate it more. If we had an argument with a friend in the morning, after that we find that uneasy feeling stays with us for a long time. Although we may physically move from the place or stop talking to that friend, we still keep thinking about it and mat get angry or frustrated. On the other hand, had there been no such problem with any of my friend rather I had a great time with the friend, then too it stays with us as a good feeling or good memory. Thus right relationship is something that we want in our life and we aspire for that.

Physical facilities: Some of our desire or wants are so with physical things. We call these physical facilities. Physical facilities are necessary and complete for animals, while they are necessary but not complete for humans. To through more light on that we need to ask our self a question. Do I want to live with a sense of prosperity or with a sense of deprivation? The answer is always wants to live with a sense of prosperity. Prosperity means the feeling of having or being able to have more physical facilities than is needed. For ensuring feeling of prosperity, identification of need for physical facility is essential, over and above having wealth. So our assumption that accumulation of wealth is the only thing that we need and the rest shall be taken care of. But this is an incorrect assumption having wealth is necessary but not sufficient for prosperity. Right identification of physical facilities is the key towards prosperity.

Distinguish between “human consciousness” and “animal consciousness”. How ‘Shiksha and Sanskar” are helpful in raising man to “human consciousness level.

Ans: Both the animals and human beings need physical facilities such as of food, water and air, shelter and security, etc. For animals these are necessary and also complete. But for human being these are necessary and not complete. Life at the level of Animal Consciousness: Such a life is focused mainly on the unlimited gain of wealth, prosperity and physical facilities. One wrongly believes that our sensual gratification obtained by these facilities to be the real source of our happiness. It is also borne out of the ignorance about our own life.

Life at the level of Human Consciousness: As a human being we need both, mutually satisfying relationship, as well as physical facilitates. It is called life lived at the level of human consciousness. In such living we emphasis more on human relationships and it gives back full satisfaction and happiness.

There is need for the development for mankind to rise from animal consciousness to the human consciousness. This is possible mainly through ‘Shiksha and Sanskar” this develops right understanding in human being. The journey towards right understanding in fact brings a transformation in the human being from animal consciousness to human consciousness. Self-exploration initiates the development process of our consciousness. Accordingly it affects a change in one’s goal priorities and selection criteria. In animal consciousness we gave weightage to physical facility, to the maximization of sensory pleasures, to accumulation of wealth. Our criteria of evolution are primarily body-centric, targeted towards maximization of comforts. As we transform to the human consciousness, we are able to base our thoughts and activities in right understanding, give relationship a higher priority, than physical facilities, identifying our physical needs and ensure it through production, enriching rest of the nature. We will slowly start getting rid of the contradictions and conflicts within and attain a state where one is able to answer his/her questions by exploring within the self. This will individual get rid of the tension, frustration, depression, one-manship and other such situations that he/she does not want to be in and will facilitate definite and predictable human conduct in him/her.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

Value Education deals with…..
What is universally valuable to all of us?
What is conductive to our individual and collective happiness?
Enables to be in harmony with ourselves, others and rest of the nature.
All of the above

ANS (d)

The form of ethics that endeavors to help professionals decide what to do when they are confronted with a case or situation that raises an ethical question or moral problem is referred to as
Professional ethics.
Ethical climate.
Business ethics.
Organizational ethics.

ANS (a)

3. The need of value education is for:
1. Correct Identification of our aspirations.
2. Understanding universal human value to fulfill our aspirations in continuity.
3. Evaluation of beliefs
4. All of the above

ANS (d)

Value education enables us ….

To understand our needs
Visualize our goals correctly
Indicate the direction for their fulfillment
All of the above

ANS (d)

Beliefs come to us from:
What we read
What we see
What parents and friends talk about
All of the above

ANS (d)

When we live with wrong understanding of values we feel Except:
Deprived
Frustrated
Unhappy
Happy

ANS (d)

The process of Self verification needs to applied to
One Proposal
Two Proposals
Ten Proposals
All Proposals

ANS (d)

Any course content on value education needs to be
Verifiable
All Encompassing
Leading to harmony
All of the above

ANS (d)

Following are the basic guidelines for Value education except:
Universal
Personal
Rational
Natural

ANS (b)

Value & Skills are
Temporary
Opposite
Same
Complimentary

ANS (d)

Value Education deals with………

What is universally valuable to all of us
What is conductive to our individual and collective happiness
Enables to be in harmony with ourselves, other and rest of nature
All the Above

ANS: (D)

Many human values seem good or right due to:

Positive feelings
Internal happiness
Natural acceptance
All the above

ANS: d

Self exploration uses two mechanisms natural acceptance and:

Experiential validation
Reason
Logical thinking
Theoretical concepts

ANS: a

Human Value is lived at 4 Levels: Individual, Family, Society and __________

Nature
World
Nurture
Universe

ANS: (a)

One of the basic desires of human being is to be always________________.

Happy
Sad
Laugh
Earn Money

ANS: (a)

If something is __________ to us, without any force and compulsion, then it are often correct and do not change with time and people.

Not Acceptable
Less Acceptable
Completely Acceptable
Naturally Acceptable

ANS: (d)

Natural Acceptance and _________ are the two main processes of Knowing.

Self-Actualization
Self-Exploration
Self-Evaluation
Self- Control

ANS: (b)

Belief is

Same for Everybody
Not same for everybody
All beliefs are Universal
All Options are wrong

ANS: (b)

Life is a

Playground
Museum
Field
Laboratory

ANS: (d)

Following are the basic guidelines for Value Education

Verifiable
All Encompassing
Leading to harmony
All the above

ANS: (d)

MCQs of HVPE

Any course content on value education needs to be

Verifiable
All Encompassing
Leading to harmony
All of the Above

ANS. (D)

The content of value education is expected to include all dimensions of

Human being
All level of one’s living
Both (a) & (b)
Only (a) is correct

ANS. (C)

3. Following are the basic guidelines for Value Education Except:

Universal
Personal
Rational
Natural

ANS. (B)

Course on value education must include all dimensions

Thought
Behaviour
Work & Realization
All of the above

ANS. (D)

Course on value education must include all level of human living:

Individual
Family & Society
Nature/Existence of human living
All of the above

ANS. (D)

Beliefs usually change with

Product
Place
Properties
Time

ANS. (D)

Values & Skills are

Temporary
Opposite
Same
Complimentary

ANS. (D)

What is Self Exploration?

Process of dialogue between what you are and what you really want to be
Process of self evolution through self investigation.
Process of knowing oneself
All of the above

ANS. (D)

Process of being in harmony in oneself and in harmony with entire existence is…..

Self Evolution
Self Recognition
Self Motivation
Self Exploration

ANS. (D)

Process of recognizing one’s relationship with every unit in existence and fulfilling it is….

Self Evolution
Self Recognition
Self Motivation
Self Exploration

ANS. (D)

Process of identifying Svatva & moving towards Swatantrata and Swarajya is…

Self Exploration
Self Recognition
Self Motivation
Self Evolution

ANS. (A)

Process of Identifying our Innateness is….

Svatva
Swatantrata
Swarajya
Partantra

ANS. C

Self-Organization means:

Svatva
Swatantrata
Swarajya
Partantra

ANS. (B)

Human being is in participation with

Other Humans
Animals
Plants, Soil
All of the above

ANS. (D)

15. Being in harmony in oneself is:

Svatva
Swatantrata (Self-Organised)
Swarajya
Partantra

ANS. (B)

Living in harmony with others and thus participation towards harmony in the whole existence is:

Svatva
Swarajya (Self Expression, Self Extension)
Swatantrata
Partantra

ANS. (B)

Fundamental questions of all Human beings is/are:

Desire
Program
Both (a) & (b)
None of the above

ANS. (C )

Process to fulfill the basic aspirations refers to:

Desire
Program
Purpose
Satisfaction

ANS. (B)

Whatever is stated to human is a:

Program
Purpose
Process
Proposal

ANS. (D)

One should verify proposal:

On the basis of his/her own rights
Live accordingly to the proposal to validate experientially
Both (a) & (b)
None of the Above

ANS. C

Proposals should be verified on the basis of one’s

Program
Desire
Scripture
Natural Acceptance

ANS. (D)

Universality means something that does not change with:

Time
Space
Individual
All of the Above

ANS. (C)

23. Process of Self Exploration involves:

Verifying on the basis of natural acceptance.
Validating by living accordingly
Both (a) & (b)
None of the Above

ANS. (C )

When a proposal is verified it leads to:

Realization & Understanding
Pre-Conditioning
Recognition
Remembering

ANS. (A)

Realization and Understanding should be:

Assuring
Satisfying
Universal
All of the above

ANS. (D)

Which one is wrong statement?

Natural Acceptance does not change with time.
Natural Acceptance does not depend on the place
Natural Acceptance does not depend on our beliefs or past conditioning
Natural Acceptance is not same for all.

ANS. (D)

Live according to verified proposal in behaviour with human leads to:

Mutual Prosperity
Mutual Happiness
Individual Happiness
Individual Prosperity

ANS. (B)

Living according to verified proposal in work with rest of nature leads to:

Mutual Prosperity
Mutual Happiness
Individual Happiness
Individual Prosperity

ANS. (A)

If you are living in Contradiction, then it means you are:

Not Organised
Not Motivated
Not promoted
All of the Above

ANS. (A)

If you are living with pre-conditionings without evaluation then it means you are:

Svatva
Swatantrata
Swarajya
Partantra (enslaved)

ANS. (D)

The human being can be seen as ______ of self & the body.

Existence
Living
Co-Existence
None of the Above

ANS. ( C)

I is

Premature in nature
Materialistic in nature
Conscious in nature
All of the Above

ANS. C

The needs of the body are:

Qualitative
Temporary in Time
Quantifiable
Both (a) & (b)

ANS. (D)

Activities in I also understood as:

Knowing & Assuming
Recognizing
Fulfilling
All of the above

ANS. (D)

35. Who is the seer, doer & enjoyer?

I
Body
I & Body
GOD

ANS. (A)

It is impossible to imagine a human being without:

Aliveness & Body
Food & Body
Instruments & Body
All of the Above

ANS. (A)

The need of I is fulfilled by

Right Understanding
Right Feelings
Right Technique
Both (a) & (b)

ANS. (D)

Seeing, talking, listening, eating, walking are the activities:

Going on I
Those involving I & Body both
Those going on in the body
All of the Above

ANS. (B)

For right utilization of body

Food
Cloth
Shelter
Instruments/ Equipments

ANS. (D)

What leads to nirvaha- Karana?

Manna
Fulfilling
Recognizing
Assuming

ANS. C

LONG ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS:

What is the need for value education?
Define self exploration. What is the content of self – exploration?
The needs of the body are quantitative. Illustrate.
Explain the activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfillment with one example.
Differentiate between the needs of self and the needs of body.
Self exploration is a process of dialogue between ‘what you are’ and ‘what you really want to be’. Explain and illustrate.
“Natural acceptance is innate, invariant and universal.” Explain this statement with an example.
What do the abbreviations given as SVDD, SSDD and SSSS signify?
Distinguish between Sukh and Suvidha in detail taking needs of yourself as an example.
How human mind gets influenced or conditioned?

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Anthony, Robert N and Govindrajan, Vijay, “HVPE “, Tata McGraw Hill.
By Jayshree Suresh “Human Values and Professional Ethics “, Response Books.
https://www.ncertbooks.guru/professional-ethics-and-human-values.

ONLINE LINKS

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SR.NO	UNITS	PARTICULARS	PAGE NO
1	UNIT-I	Introduction to Value Education	4-9
2		Self Exploration	10-16
3		Basic Human Aspirations – Continuous Happiness and Prosperity	17-22
4		IMPORTANT QUESTION & ANSWERS OF UNIT-I	23-36
5	UNIT-II	Understanding the human being as the co-existence of self and body.	37-43
6		Harmony in Self – Understanding Myself	44-49
7		Harmony of Self (I) with The Body – Sanyama And Swasthya	50-56
8		IMPORTANT QUESTION & ANSWERS OF UNIT-II	57-74
9	UNIT-III	Understanding Harmony in the Family & Society-Harmony in Human Relationship	75-87
10	UNIT-IV	Understanding Harmony in Nature & Existence	88-105
11	UNIT-V	Implications of the above Holistic Understanding of Harmony on Professional Ethics.	106-115
12		IMPORTANT QUESTIONS	116-132
13		MCQs from Complete Syllabus	133-147
14		BIBLIOGRAPHY	148

1 Semester

HUMAN VALUES,DE-ADDICTION AND TRAFFIC RULES(HVPE 101-18)

Unit I – Introduction to Value Education

“Thinking with love is truth, feeling with love is peace, acting with love is right conduct, and understanding with love is non-violence”

Animal Consciousness and Human Consciousness

We can verify this by a set of proposals.

Q. What is the meaning of prosperity? How can you say that you are prosperous?

Understand human being

Human being as a combination of the sentiment ‘I’ and material body

Human needs

A. Physiological needs

B. Safety needs

C. Social needs

D. Self esteem

E. Self actualization

Simple classification

Suvidha :

Fig: Human needs

Sukh :

Understanding myself as co-existence of self and body

1. Needs are ….

2. In time, needs are…

3. In quality, needs are…..

4. Needs are fulfilled by….

B. Understanding activities in the self and activities in the body

1. Activities in the self

2. Activities involving both the self (I) and the body

3. Activities in the body – but only with the consent of ‘I’

Knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling in ‘I’ and recognizing and fulfilling in body

2. Activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling in the self (‘I’)

C. Understanding the self (‘I’) as the conscious entity, the body as the material body

Topic: Harmony in Self – Understanding Myself

Why Should I Study Myself

Activities in Self

Activities in self are related

Form outside (the body) to inside (in ‘I’)

Form inside (in ‘I’) to outside (the body)

Imagination = Desires + Thoughts + Expectations

What is the problem today?

Preconditioning:

Sensations:

Effects of the problem…

1. Wavering aspirations:

2. Lack of confidence:

3. Unhappiness/conflicts:

4. Lack of qualitative improvement in us:

5. State of resignation:

B. Short lived nature of pleasure from sensations:

What is the solution?

Topic: Harmony of Self (I) with The Body – Sanyama And Swasthya

Our Body – A Self Organized Unit

Sanyama

Aspects of Sanyama

Will Power

Fig: The components of self control

Self Discipline

Advantages of Self Control

Obstacles in the Path of Self Control

Our State Today

A. Lack of Responsibility Towards the Body

B.

Tendency for Medication to Suppress the Ailment

C. Polluted Air, Water, Food

What is the Solution?

1. Understanding and Living with Sanyama

2. Nurturing of the Body: Proper Food, Air, Water, Etc.

Protection of the Body

Developing Self Control

Swasthya

The English word “health” comes from the old English word hale, meaning “wholeness, a being whole, sound or well”. Hale comes from the Proto-Indo-European root kailo, meaning “whole, uninjured, of good omen”.

Physical Health

Fig: The Inputs of Holistic Health

Building Physical Health

Mental Health

“A state of well-being in which the individual realizes his/her own abilities can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his/her community”.

The Impediments to Sound Mental Health

External Causes

Restoring Mental Health

Social Health

Enhance Social Health