Friday, January 30, 2009

Fusion of Contradictions- Part I

Artificial-Natural

It would not be an exaggeration that on all the efforts in defining and redefining the conception of ‘living’, a great importance had been endorsed upon one of the most significant aspect known as ‘soul’ in the great course of human history.

There had been the emergence of distinct schools of thought exactly opposite to each other and opposing philosophies and opposing ideologies in the conceptualization of ‘soul’ and the objective realities of existence.

The emergence of such exactly opposite values and the equal recognition they could attain in the course of development of mankind, it is evident that the quest for truth is inherent in the mankind that expresses an innate feeling for harmony.

In the search for truth there is inevitability for the correct inference of ‘untruth’, only which would distinguish the ‘truth’ with clarity.

The search for truth is mostly associated with the concept of ‘soul’; that accommodates in it also the objective realities of the world, which in turn encompasses the subjective contradictions in the objective world.

In the search for defining ‘living’ and realization of ‘soul’, human mind crosses several contradictions; one fundamental among which is the contradiction between ‘artificial’ and ‘natural’ in the mind and practices of people.

The mankind in its course of growth has an inevitability to be compatible with nature to retain the very existence.

But in the course of growth an attitude of haste and aggression infiltrated in the mankind that is a tendency of opposing nature, both in the practices and also in the mind set of the people. This tendency is known as ‘artificiality’.

But on a generalized stand point, man is nothing but a product of nature and in this view whatever man does must also be natural.

But it has been widely recognized that whatever man does is artificial.

We recognize the nest of a bird as natural; a termite mound as natural; a bee hive as natural; a spider’s web as natural. But if a man builds a house then we normally say it as artificial.

In such a state of affairs it becomes necessary to distinguish the line of division between the artificial and natural, with lucidity.

In the struggle for survival at first man had made attempts to understand nature to adapt himself and also for protecting him for ensuring his survival. In the due course he became better comfortable with nature and started using it for his further comforts and also realized his inadequacy in the understanding of nature, when he formed groups towards organizing the search for solutions for various problems, when a tendency of fighting the insecurity in life became primary focus towards monopolizing the so called natural resources, which paved way for betterment of living standards and also productivity, focusing on trade and commerce. Abundant methods and means of production instigated various autonomous and isolated institutional structures while greatly curtailing human freedom due to the fetters of the so called institutional structures.

In the due course, the institutional structures became the depiction of authority, direction, regulation, guidance and so on when all the practices of the human race became focused towards strengthening the so called institutions, essentially economically, which had been assumed as the only means to attain the so called authority, thus getting far deviated from humanity, when the individual humans had no other option but to become slaves for the institutions of various forms and at times even countries turning out to be institutions.

The so called institutional structures of various forms oriented towards security, authority, power and economics did not permit even several heads and the members of the institutions to practice humanity, love, compassion and all those great virtues of mankind but to get involved in various acts against the conscience crossing various ethical and moral barriers with reduced sensitivity and increasing ignorance, while coining a tricky word known as ‘duty’ for obstinately justifying such ignorance. It is also a bitter fact that man is forced to compromise and overlook even his self respect on various occasions due to the institutional compulsions.

That is human invented institutions for his own alleviation to get organized and he got trapped with his own invention towards destruction of ‘self’.

On the other hand mankind invented a lot of means to enhance and betterment of living and the so called comfort ability. With all those inventions and various means for hurried usage of nature towards more and more comfort ability and establishment of authority, almost all the practices of man got focused towards exploitation of nature in a hasty manner.

That is, mankind invented a lot of technologies and gadgets to improve living towards more and more sophistication resulting in a very big question that, ‘where exactly are we heading towards?’

It is obvious that mankind is heading towards self destruction.

Now on the view point of the knowledge and practices of the human society, ‘artificial’ could be defined as something which is invented by man as the product of ignorance coupled with selfishness to get himself trapped in the due course towards destruction of ‘self’ and on the human society as a whole towards ‘self destruction’ and pseudo living.

In the same sense, ‘Natural’ could be defined as something which is invented by man as the product of awareness of the ignorance coupled with selflessness that elevates him towards an upper plane of consciousness and realization of ‘self’ and on the human society as a whole towards ‘existence’ and true living.

With such an understanding of natural and artificial when both of these prevail in the mind and practices of the society, a normally justified and accepted notion through the scientific perceptions is that, whatever materials invented by man that do not decay on natural course are known as artificial.

To be continued...



No comments: