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Introduction
This proposal is based on the millennia-old Vedic metaphysical perspective expounded so eloquently 700 years ago by the great Marathi sage Jnaneshvara
- that all humankind, for all the differences within it, and indeed ail the Universe, with its boundless variety, is fundamentally a single Whole.
Though inspired by the ancients, the perspective no longer needs to derive its authority from metaphysics. It can now rest directly on irrefutable
empirical evidence. The holistic perspective has been confirmed in this century by experiment after experiment in the field of sub-nuclear physics.
The dynamic homogeneity of the Whole, known within the discipline as the unified, is now anundisputable fact, at least vis-a-vis the appearance of
discrete fragmentation projected by the macro perception of sensory receptors.
Conventional view-points for seeking world peace are based on the assumption that the prevailing divisions represent the normal condition of humankind,
and therefore the starting point for any progress. The main thrust of these view-points is therefore to look for ways to unite these divisions. Their focus seems to be on joining the edges of the divisions, rather
than synthesizing all the divisions within a single conceptual framework.
Empowered and emboldened by this century's empirical confirmation of the holistic nature of reality, this proposal adopts a contrary stance. It looks
upon the unity of humankind, and the unity even of the whole universe, as the true nature of things. The norm, the default mode of all things is already and always will be unity. From this standpoint, the historical
divisions among humankind must be seen as an aberration in the cognitive medium that merely needs to be identified and corrected.
From this contrary standpoint, it becomes clear that a few conceptual dynamics are distorting the intrinsic unity of Wholeness to appear fragmented,
manifest in conflict at the human level. This proposal accordingly shows that world peace is not something that can be sought directly. Instead it identifies the strategy of removing conceptual barriers to its
natural operation, namely, these artificial dynamics would automatically allow human society to revert to the Universe's default modes of flow, symbiotic harmony and cooperation. Specifically, this proposal
identifies these aberrations, isolates their root source at the conceptual dimension, and outlines measures to dissolve and remove them through education.
Problem Definition
Humankind and the Earth are in more danger than ever before. This danger is getting more severe every day. At risk is our very survival, perhaps even
of life on our planet. Technologies capable of genocide and environmental devastation already exist in plenty. There is no guarantee that they will not be used.
Direct Cause of Problem
Conflict is widespread among humankind. We are split up in different and ever changing groups. Many of these groups consider the beliefs and ways of
other groups to be inferior, false and threatening. These divisions keep terror and war flaring up among them.
This is primarily because each group is based on a different conceptual foundation of tents and values. This foundation is typically unique and
inconsistent with those of others. The resulting world views are cultivated and perpetuated each through the medium of education. The term education is used here in its fullest sense. It comprises the dissemination
of convictions, knowledge, practices and skills, through instruction and example, largely from older and influential people like parents, teachers and community leaders.
These 'authorities' generally get their own education from the authorities of the earlier generation. So the divisions among humankind, with a little
modification contributed by each generation, go back all the way to the beginnings of each division. Each division itself originated as a variation of a previous division, inspired by a creative improvement
identified either by a visionary from a pre-existing division, or the forced or infiltrated influence of another division.
Root Cause of Problem
Education, defined in the broad sense above, indoctrinates the individual of a group into accepting as truth - statements about conditions or events,
which, however true, cannot be directly experienced by oneself. By the time the individual emerges into adulthood within a group, one is severely programmed to accept many of the essentials of one's cultural
framework as undisputable truths. As long as human beings can be divided by conceptual frameworks that cannot be challenged against our direct experience, we will continue to be divided and take our divisions
seriously. As long as we are committedly divided, conflict among us is inevitable. Already today, and in the future, conflict can trigger violence in the form of terrorism or war that can have cataclysmic
consequences.
Language is the primary medium of education. It is with language that we both store and share our experiences. Language evolved as a means of referring
to our physical experience. The concreteness and discreteness of such physical phenomena allowed us to expect precision in the correlation between words and the concepts they referred to (Sun, moon, tree, river,
etc.).
As language extended beyond the physical into our vague and subtle non-physical experiences (the conceptual, the imaginative and the emotional), we
inadvertently transferred our habitual assumption of precision in language to our non-sensory experiential content as well. As much of the conceptual foundations of any culture is based on such vague and subtle
concepts, our unwitting acceptance of their precision misled us to trust their validity far more than their fuzzy content would really merit.
This misplaced and unwitting trust in the foundations of our cultural foundation makes them appear absolute. This, in turn, makes their authority over
us absolute. It turned many of us into willing instruments to the perpetuation of its assumptions and values. In its most extreme forms it fosters fundamentalism and fanaticism to the point of making us willing to
annihilate whole societies of other groups.
The local educational concept programs the individual to identify oneself with the local cultural view of oneself and the world. The notion of what is
real (God, cosmos, nature, matter, etc.); what oneself is within the real (man, woman, observer, agent, etc.); and one's relationship with one another (friend, relative, pupil, etc.), with other identity groups
(community, nation, religion, race, party, class, etc.), and with the rest of the world (nature and the environment).
These identifications drive the national, communal, racial, religious, political divisions and interest groups, all competing for the individual's
acceptance, obedience and resources. Whether one is Christian, Serb, Tamil, Nazi or Communist, the basic tenets and values of one's heritage seem engraved into one as being self-evident truths. So deep is this
programming that it may be called hard-wired in today's computer idiom. Little wonder that the fanaticism they generate finds expression in the many forms of persecution, violence, and destruction discussed above.
Fundamental Solution
Apply the hard scientific method, which is the only means of developing knowledge in a way that excludes all authority except that of our direct
experience. Extend the application of this universally trans-cultural tool to include the subtle and vague content of our non-sensory experience.
Specifically, apply and extend the use of the scientific method to develop a new conceptual framework for a global culture, to function as a common
ground on which hitherto conflicting cultural ideologies may seek to be understood and applied by people of different backgrounds, no longer as different truths, but merely as different and relatively innocuous
articulations of the same truth.
We are all increasingly familiar with the hard sciences and their application through the discipline of engineering into technology that works so
reliably that it could even plan and succeed in sending human beings to the moon and bring them back safely, and even repeat this stupendous feat. Hard science, engineering and technology - all are reliable because
it can be tasted and refined by different people, regardless of their-cultural origin.
How can we apply these wonderful transcultural cognitive disciplines to the vague and subtle (soft) content of our psychological experiences? By
deploying a concept that has hitherto not been used, that of a concept so Whole, so all-inclusive that nothing that was, is or might yet be real can be excluded from it. Such a concept that would include both the
Universe and God, Self and Other, Matter and Spirit, Subject and Object, would establish a single perimeter, which when any part is delineated within it, automatically defines its relationship with the rest of the
Whole. This would permit a higher standard of precision in referring to soft experience. The current system that has no such all-inclusive concept permits no such a mutually exclusive relationship between an
experience and other experiences.
The great sage Jnaneshvara has already provided the philosophical ground work for such a concept by postulating the notion that the perceiver and
perceived both together comprise the indivisible Whole. He goes on to stipulate that the perceiver is itself not to be perceived, except as the perceived (the Universe), its extension within the Whole that cannot
itself perceive.
Such a frame would demonstrate to all cultures that the divine in their cosmologies may be found in the perceiver facet of the Whole, which by virtue
of being unperceivable, must be the great and mysterious entity that creates and transforms the Universe in its interaction with the rest of itself as the perceived.
An education that is based on an all-inclusive conceptual framework will fuse both the material focus of the West and the spiritual focus of Eastern
thought. This universally common foundation is empirical (common to everyone's direct experience), integrated (provides a common basis for all the branches of knowledge) and liberating (permits conscious scrutiny,
revision and synthesis of knowledge content) so that the Perceiver, God, the self, Consciousness, or the Spirit, by whatever name, is free to apply its innate intelligence in all of us, so that we may participate in
creation as extensions of the perceiver into the perceiving facet of the self-same Whole.
Here is another way to confirm Jnaneshvara's elegant articulation in today's terms: Subnuclear physics has established the extremely high likelihood
that reality (all that exists) is a single homogenous dynamic substance (the Unified Field). This fact confirms the insights of sages the world over and overtakes all previous assumptions about the discreteness of
human organism and other objects and events within reality.
Part of this Unified Field, humans, animals, plants, etc. is capable of experiencing the rest of the Field. The Unified Field is therefore obviously a
self-experiencing entity. Hence me Unified Field may be said to comprise an Experiencer (the self) and the Experienced (the world). As the Experiencer, the Self itself cannot be experienced. This self is pure
Subject, unlike the world and all the experienceable objects and events that comprise it.
This is why the self cannot be sought and cannot be found. Attempts to objectify the Self as experienceable constitutes the fundamental error in many
prevailing human world views. This is why established ideologies that objectify the Self as experienceable are compelled to describe it is mysterious, omnipresent, etc. All human beings and at least other forms of
life are parts of the World through which the Self experiences the rest of the World. The true identity of every individual is a uniquely different perspective of the same single Self.
We have seen that the scientific method, the hard sciences, and engineering are the only known means to establish a reliable system of knowledge
developed from the experience of a large numbers of individuals regardless of cultural and other variation. The fruits of these disciplines are potentially available to all of humankind because of the universal
validity of empirical experience combined with a rigorous language made up of precise definitions. Science. engineering and technology thus have liberated many of us from routine manual activity that held most of us
in bondage.
When we apply the scientific method to the non-sensory dimensions of our experience, the allinclusive concept will allow us to gradually establish a
similar kind of precision as we already enjoy with our sensory experience. It will not only make it easier to liberate ourselves from the vague and absolute truths that divide us, it will also enable us to generate
knowledge from our own experience, knowledge that can be tested and refined for ever greater reliability with the experience of others. The scientific method thus liberates the individual from the traditional
authority of untestable and unverifiable assumptions, opinions and prejudices, an authority that has also held us captive in systems of thought that were not testable or applicable by everybody, and therefore
permitted our division into different and competing systems of ideology.
The application of the scientific method to the softer areas of experience like the cognitive, the imaginative and the emotional will permit the
unification of our grasp of the Whole of what can be experienced, comprising both the experiencer and the experienced. Thus there will be a common conceptual ground on which the contradictory and competing
ideologies of the subtle realms (religions and philosophies) may be integrated into a common universal understanding available to all humankind.
The release of humankind from the tyranny of manual drudgery and authoritative dogma will liberate the creative, intelligent and caring potential of
the individual and harness it towards developing solutions, services and products for the comfort and enjoyment of one another the world over.
Implementing the Solution
Some of us must work together to develop the proposed empirical foundation for all education. We must then redefine individual identity, one's
symbiotic relationship with one another and with the rest of nature. Next we must realign all the known fields of knowledge to unify within this unifying foundation, rather like anchoring all the currently disparate
branches of knowledge on a single common trunk. Then we must develop a range of educational products and services based on this realizations and media.
Those who have already yielded their sense of discrete individuality to feel their symbiotic unity with the rest of the Whole as a visceral reality,
these are the people that are best suited to work together to work on this project. They already know they are different perspectives of the same Self, they know that the filters of their programming are the only
barriers to true cooperation with one another. Sensitive to this potential flaw within themselves, they will deliberately nurture an attitude of receptivity toward one another. Thus, as fingers of the same hand, and
representing the future creative harmony of all human-kind, they will together develop this common foundation. They will also articulate it so clearly that increasing numbers of those who might still identify with
divisions begin to recognize the power of the foundation's consistency with their own experience - and begin to seep out of their division, thus de facto integrated with the Whole.
World peace will emerge when the cultural software that divides and turns us against one another and the rest of nature is debugged of content that is
not freely and easily shareable among one another. Those of us who have recognized the waste and destructiveness inherent in partial solutions to this universal problem, and have not yet been discouraged, are other
promising candidates to work together on this project. As long as those of us who do get together are willing to suspend the attribution of truth to every idea that cannot be confirmed by another's experience, and
therefore openly reach our attention to the perspectives of others, there is still much basis for hope.
Those who are interested in working together towards the strategy proposed in this proposal must first challenge every facet of it that seems
inconsistent with their own current vision for establishing world peace through education. In the process of resolving these issues, the proposal will get more clear, and easier to understand and disseminate. They
can then agree to work together towards improving, simplifying and implementing the proposal.
Ergo, as our divisions dissolve and we increasingly fuse into the indivisible Whole that we already always were, are and ever shall be, world peace
will emerge on its own from within all of us, if only simply through the reduction of conflict and all the forms of violence it breeds.
Let us bring the truth of what is knowable about who we are and our relationship with the rest of the Whole - out of the shadows of belief in opaque
dogma into the fluid light of our common experience. Let us sharpen our conceptual tools to avoid the misunderstandings that trigger our conflicts and our pain.
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