KVE301/KVE401 Universal Human Values and Professional Ethics
Chapter 10: Harmony in Nature – Understanding the Interconnection and Mutual Fulfilment
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
Unit 5
Appendix
Human Being – Our State Today
A critical appraisal of where we stand today shows that humans are largely living like animals. If we as human beings do not exercise our capacity to know we end up being more like animals and hence we get defined as social animals.
Just living is not enough for human beings. We want to know, and live with happiness. This is why human beings are said to be in knowledge order – Gyan Avastha. Today we don’t know ‘what to do’ and are busy working out ‘how to do’. Before producing something, we don’t see if it is really needed, and what use it is for us, and what impact it will have on the environment (‘what to do, why to do’).
My Participation (Value) in Nature
(To Make Effort for Harmony in Nature)
Nature is the collection of units. These may be classified into four orders which are helpful in understanding the activity, innateness (self-organization), natural characteristic, and inheritance of every unit. It provides us with a basic guideline for interacting with these. Thus, while interacting with any unit of nature, our participation (value) is ensuring mutual fulfillment by way of its right utilization in accordance with its natural characteristic so that it can continue with its innateness and inheritance.
Therefore, while interacting with the rest of nature, we have to ensure the right utilization, enrichment, and protection. It results in prosperity for human beings and preservation (preservation and enrichment) of the rest of nature.
This human participation in ensuring multual fulfillment between the four orders has been summarized in the chart below:
Order | Human Participation for Mutual Fulfillment |
Physical | Facilitate its existence by ensuring conducive environment and maintaining / ensuring its constitution (e.g. Constitution of earth) |
Bio | Facilitate its growth by ensuring conducive environment and maintaining / ensuring its seed (e.g. seed of rice) |
Animal | Facilitate care of the body by ensuring physical facility, environment for existence & growth of body. To ensure its will to live Maintaining / ensuring its breed (e.g. breed of cow) |
Human | Facilitate care of the body by ensuring physical facility, environment for existence & growth of body Facilitate its will to live with continuous happiness by ensuring human education-sanskar, participating in developing / maintaining undivided society & universal |