Universal Human Values BUHK408

Module-1: Course Introduction - Need, Basic Guidelines, Content and Process for ValueEducation

Purpose and motivation for the course, recapitulation from Universal Human Values-I
 Self-Exploration–what
Understanding Human being as the Co-existence
is it? - Its ofcontent
the Self and
andtheprocess; „Natural between
Body, Distinguishing Acceptance‟
the Needsand
of the
Self and the Body, The Body as an Instrument of the Self, Understanding Harmony in the Self, Harmony of the Self
Experiential
with the Validation
Body, Programme to ensure as the process
self-regulation andfor self-exploration
Health.
 Continuous Happiness and Prosperity- A look at basic Human Aspirations
 Right understanding, Relationship and Physical Facility- the basic requirements for
fulfillment of aspirations of every human being with their correct priority
 Understanding Happiness and Prosperity correctly- A critical appraisal of the current
scenario
 Method to fulfill the above human aspirations: understanding and living in harmony at
various levels. website: vtucode.in
Include practice sessions to discuss natural acceptance in human being as the innate
acceptance for living with responsibility (living in relationship, harmony and co-existence)
rather than as arbitrariness in choice based on liking-disliking

Need for Value Education

All human beings aspire for a happy, fulfilling life. For a human being, there
are two importantquestions pertaining to this:
 What is my aspiration? (What to do?)
 How to fulfill my aspiration? (How to do?)

The purpose of education is to facilitate the development of clarity on the

aspiration and adequatecompetence to actualize it.

For this, it is essential to understand what a happy, fulfilling and successful life is –
what is really valuable for human being; what is our purpose as a human being?
Understanding human aspiration, or what is really valuable for human being, is the
value domain. The subject which enables us to understand this domain is called „Value
Education‟ (VE). It enables us to understand our aspirations and visualize our goals
for a fulfilling life and indicates the direction for their fulfillment. In relation to these
issues, it also helps to remove our confusions and contradictions. In that sense, VE
addresses the issues relatedto „what to do?‟.

It is also necessary to learn the skills to actualize our aspirations. This is the skill
domain. The subject which enables us to learn the skills is called „Skill Development‟
(SD). It enables us to learn the science, technology, management and other skills for
fulfilling our aspiration. In that sense, SD addresses the issues related to „how to
do?‟.

Values and skills go hand in hand. Both values and skills are required. There is an
essential complementarity between the two. The priority is values, then skills; i.e.

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first understanding „what todo‟ and then developing the skills for „how to do‟. And of
course, checking if this results into a fulfilling life!

The present education system has largely become skill-biased. For developing
skills, the prime emphasis is on science and technology, without a base of values.
Skills 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 a way to decide what
really is valuable. The consequence of skill-based education is clearly visible in the
form of serious crises at the individual, societal and environmental level. Thus, there
is astrong need to rectify this situation. Value education is a crucial missing link in
the present educationsystem.

But more importantly, the prime need of value education is to understand human
aspirations, to discover what is truly valuable in life; and work out the program for its
fulfillment.

Guidelines for Value Education

For any input to qualify for Value Education, the following guidelines for the
content of the course areimportant:

Universal: It has to be universally applicable to all human beings for all time and all
places. This implies that values should not change according to sect, creed,
nationality, gender, etc.

Rational: It has to appeal to reasoning; and not be based on dogmas or blind beliefs.
It has to be open to address the related questions. It cannot be a set of sermons or
do‟s and don‟ts.

Natural and Verifiable: It has to be 'naturally acceptable' to the human being 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 assumptions. It is not merely an
intellectual exercise or information transfer.

All Encompassing: It needs to cover all dimensions (thought, behaviour, work and
understanding) and levels (individual, family, society and nature/existence) of
human life.
Leading to Harmony: It ultimately needs to promote harmony within the individual,
among human beings and with the entire nature.

Content of Value Education

The value of an entity is its participation in the larger order of which it is a
part. The context is always the larger order. Value has to do with the participation
of a unit in the larger order. E.g. a pieceof chalk is a unit. The classroom is the larger
order for this unit. The value of chalk is that it can be used to write on the blackboard
for the desired functioning of the classroom.

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The value or role of a human being is its participation in the larger order. E.g. my role
in living with the other human being is to ensure the feeling of respect in the
relationship. Interestingly, I feel happy in fulfilling my role; and it is fulfilling for
the other as well!

This value is worth understanding, worth thinking about, worth living. The value of
human being is to ensure mutual fulfillment in the larger order 1, i.e. in the entire
nature/existence, but starting from withinthemselves, then extending in their family
and in the society.

Hence, to understand human values, we need to study the human reality along with
all that is there in the entire nature/existence which constitutes the larger order. We
need to explore and understand things as they are; so that we are able to recognize and
fulfill our participation with them.

That means the content or scope of study has to be all encompassing, i.e.
 It has to cover all dimensions of human being – thought, behaviour, work and
realization.
 It has to cover all levels of human living – individual, family, society, nature
and existence.

Accordingly, the content of Value Education has to be to understand human being,

human aspirations, happiness; understand the goal of human life comprehensively;
understand the other entities in nature, the innate inter-connectedness, the harmony in
the nature/existence and finally the role of human beingin this nature/existence.

Continuous Happiness and Prosperity as Basic Human Aspirations

Whatever we think, whatever we do is with some end state in mind. That end state is our
basic aspiration.

When you ask yourself:

 Do I want to be happy?
 Do I want to be prosperous?
 Do I want the continuity of happiness and prosperity?

The answers are in affirmative yes. We have a natural acceptance for continuity of
happiness and prosperity. These are our basic aspirations.

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Basic Requirements for Fulfillment of Human Aspirations

When we try to find out if we have fulfilled our basic aspiration, it is not always so
affirmative. Thereis quite a gap between our basic aspiration and our state of being.

When we reflect on all the effort we are making, we can easily see that we are
generally working foraccumulation of physical facility!
The basic problem is that we have assumed that „happiness and prosperity will
automatically comewhen we have enough physical facility‟.

This is something we need to explore in our own life. Where are we putting in our
effort?

If continuity of happiness and prosperity is not achieved by just accumulating

physical facility then what else is essential to do? Let‟s try to find out by asking this
question to ourselves:
Is the unhappiness in my family
 More due to lack of physical facility or
 More due to lack of fulfillment in relationship?

When you explore into it, you will find that the major reason for the unhappiness in
the family is the lack of fulfillment in relationship and not just the lack of physical
facility.

Now to look at the investment of your effort, find out:

 How much time and effort you are investing for physical facility, and
 How much time and effort you are investing for fulfillment in
relationship?

Generally, most of the time and effort is being invested for physical facility,
assuming that everythingis going to be fine when there is enough physical facility, and
there will be no unhappiness in the family.

The problems are more due to lack of fulfillment in relationship, and we are investing
major part of ourtime and effort for physical facility.

With this discussion, the conclusion that we want to draw out of this is a very simple
one:

For human being physical facility is necessary, but relationship is also necessary.

In fact, by seeing this, we can understand the difference between animals and human
beings. Physical facility is necessary for animals as well as for human beings. For
animals, it is necessary as well as adequate. But when it comes to human beings,
that is not the case – physical facility is a necessity, butphysical facility alone is not
going to suffice for the fulfillment of human being.
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When a human being has lack of physical facility, (s)he becomes uncomfortable
and unhappy. Once (s)he gets the physical facility, (s)he forgets about it and starts
thinking about many other things.

So, we can conclude that physical facility is necessary for animals; it is necessary
for human beingsalso. However:
 For animals, physical facility is necessary as well as adequate.
 For human beings, physical facility is necessary, but physical facility alone is
not adequate.

While we do have a natural acceptance to live in relationship, are we actually able

to ensure living in relationship? Have we understood this or just assumed it? To
explore this further, find out if:
1. You want to live in relationship (harmony) with others or
2. You want to live in opposition with others or
3. You believe, living has to be necessarily in opposition with others, i.e. there
is 'struggle for survival', „survival of the fittest‟ and if you feel happy living
this way?
A little introspection will show that out of these three, what is naturally acceptable is
the first one. Youcertainly do not want to live in opposition with others. But you may
be conditioned to think in a manner as mentioned in the third option. If we adopt the
third option, it has significant negative implications in our life, in the family and in
the society. We can see this all around today.

In relationship, what is generally happening today is something like this:

Every time when there is fight, we want to resolve it. We start the next day with
the thought that we don’t want to fight today; but a fight takes place again
(sometimes by the end of the sameday).

Does this happen with you, with your brother, sister, father, mother, spouse, children,
with your friends, co-workers, etc.? Getting irritated, angry, not speaking for days,
dragging each other to court, divorces, etc. are indicators of the situation in
relationship.

For ensuring fulfilment in relationship, it is necessary to have right understanding

about relationship.

From the preceding discussion, it may be concluded that for fulfilment of human
being– physical facility, relationship and right understanding – all three are
necessary.

We can see that physical facility, relationship and right understanding are three
distinct realities. All three are required for fulfilment of human being. One cannot
be substituted for the other.
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If we investigate into the priority among these, we can see that right understanding is
the first priority, fulfilment in relationship with human being is the second priority
and ensuring physical facility withrest of nature is the third priority.

Right Understanding, Relationship and Physical Facility

Human being wants to live with continuous happiness and prosperity and this is
possible by ensuringright understanding, fulfilment in relationship and physical facility
in the correct priority. This is living with „human consciousness‟.

On the other hand, if one is living for physical facility alone, and not ensuring right
understanding andright feeling in relationship, s(he) feels unhappy and makes others
unhappy too. This is one outcome.

The other outcome is that if the right understanding is missing, one is not able to
identify the need for physical facility. Now, if we are not able to identify our need
for physical facility then regardless of how much physical facility we accumulate, we
never feel that we have enough. We keep wanting more. This feeling of not having
enough is the feeling of deprivation. As a result, one is deprived, exploiting and
depriving others.

While physical facility alone may suffice for animals, it is not adequate for human
being to be fulfilled. Under this condition, one is living with „animal consciousness‟.

There are generally two kinds of people today:

1. Those lacking physical facility, unhappy and deprived
2. Those having physical facility, and yet unhappy

and deprivedTry to find out where you are – at 1 or at 2?

Whereas we really want to be is in the following state, i.e.

3. Having physical facility, happy and prosperous.
It is easy to see that we naturally want to be in the state 3, of having more than required
physical facility, happy and prosperous. However, today we seem to be at 1 or 2 and
our effort is generally for 2. You can see that what is called development today
largely takes us from „1‟ to „2‟.

Now, if we are able to ensure all three, i.e. right understanding, relationship and
physical facility, in that order of priority, let us see the outcome (refer to fig. 3-5).
 Through right feeling in relationship, based on right understanding, we can
ensure mutual happiness – happiness for ourselves as well as happiness for
others.
 With right understanding, we can identify the need for physical facility. We can
also learn how to produce using a mutually enriching production process.
Once we are able to ensure the availability of more than required physical

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facility, we have a feeling of prosperity; isn‟t it?

Development of Human Consciousness

We can clearly envisage holistic development as the transformation of
consciousness –to human consciousness. Of course, it will necessitate working on
all three – right understanding, fulfilment inrelationship as well as physical facility;
and in that order of priority.

Role of Education-Sanskar
(Enabling the Transformation to Human Consciousness)

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The role of education is essentially to facilitate holistic development, i.e. the

individual transformation to human consciousness as well as the societal
transformation to a humane society.
For this, the education-sanskar has to ensure:
1. Right understanding in every child,
2. The capacity to live in relationship with other human beings, and
3. The capacity to identify the need for physical facility, the skills and practice
for sustainable production of more than what is required, leading to the
feeling of prosperity.

Education is developing the right understanding (holistic perspective).

Sanskar is the commitment, preparation and practice of living with right

understanding. The preparation includes learning appropriate skills and
technology.

Key Takeaways
The prime need of value education is to understand human aspirations, to discover what
is truly valuable (human value) in life. Value of any entity is its participation in the
larger order of which it is a part. The value of human being is its participation
towards mutual fulfillment (harmony) starting from within themselves, then
extending in their family, in the society and in nature. The content of value education
has to be universal, rational, natural, verifiable and leading to harmony. The process of
value education has to be a process of self-exploration, rather than being
prescriptive.

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The basic aspiration of a human being is continuity of happiness and prosperity. To

fulfill this, three things are required in order of priority: right understanding,
relationship and physical facility, and onecannot be substituted for the other.

Human consciousness is living with continuous happiness and prosperity by

ensuring right understanding, fulfillment in relationship and physical facility in the
correct priority. Holistic development is the transformation from animal
consciousness to human consciousness. Education- sanskar has the most significant
role to play in this transformation.

Process of Value Education – Self-exploration

Human Values can be understood by an appropriate process of self-discovery,
because they arepotentially there in each and every human being. There is already
a natural acceptance for values in ahuman being. It is only that we have to discover
them or become aware of them. Thus, the process forValue Education has to be that
of self-exploration, and not of giving sermons or telling dos & don'ts. Whatever is
found as truth or reality may be stated as a proposal and every student is to be
encouragedto verify it on his/her own right.

You can check if you want to be able to decide on your own right or you want
somebody else to decidefor you? This somebody may be a group of people; it may
be the society or the education system, etc.If you are not able to decide on your own
right then:
 Someone else is programming you (deciding what is valuable and what is not
valuable for you)
 Unconsciously you keep accepting those things as values
 You get busy with how to implement them, how to realise them and materialise
them

This process of Self-exploration has to be in the form of a dialogue – a dialogue

between the teacher and student to begin with; and finally, within the student –
between „what I am‟ and „what I really want to be‟, which is the innate natural
acceptance.

What is Self-exploration?
It is a process of seeing the reality on our own right, by our own investigation,
observation and analysis. Through this process, we are trying to understand the
reality that exists and our participation with it; this participation is what we are
calling values.
The first step is to verify the given proposal on your own right, by referring it to
your „natural acceptance‟. If the proposal is naturally acceptable to you, it is right
for you. If it is not naturally acceptable to you, it is not right for you.

Further, self-exploration is a process of dialogue. To begin with, it is initiated as a

dialogue between us and you. This course systematically presents a series of

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proposals for your exploration. As you explore,you try to verify the proposals and start
asking these questions to yourself. Then, it turns into a dialogue within your own Self.

The Dialogue Within

It is a dialogue between “what I am” and “what is naturally acceptable to me”.

“What I am” has to do with my desires, my thoughts, my expectations; all that is

going on in my imagination. It includes the way I feel, the way I think, how I make
decisions, what I expect from others and all that. It is my current competence on the
basis of which I live.

“What is naturally acceptable to me” is what I really want to be, that is my natural
acceptance. It is my intention. It is a basic reference which is a part and parcel of
every human being. We may or may not be referring to it at present, but it is always
there.
When we are in harmony within, we are in state of happiness. When we are in a
state of contradictionwithin, we are in the state of unhappiness.
Therefore:

Happiness is to be in a state of harmony.

Unhappiness is to be forced to be in a state of contradiction.

We don't want to be in contradiction, so whenever there is contradiction, we want to

run away from it; but if we cannot run away, and if we are forced to be in that state,
we call it unhappiness.

It is possible for each one of us to do this self-exploration. The dialogue within

constitutes the majorpart of it. Through this, we:
1. Discover our natural acceptance
2. Become aware of “what I am”
3. Can make effort to ensure harmony and happiness within by ensuring that
“what I am” is inline with my natural acceptance.

The Content for Self-exploration

The content for self-exploration has two sub-parts:
a) Desire: What is our basic aspiration?
b) Program: What is the way to fulfil this basic aspiration?
If we are able to get the answer to these two things, practically all our questions are
answered

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The Process of Self-exploration

Whatever is stated here is a proposal; do not assume it to be true or false, right or
wrong. Verify it – verify it on your own right, on the basis of your natural
acceptance. This is the first part of the process.

The second part of self-exploration is experiential validation. It means trying to live

according to the proposal. In living, there are two parts – one is the behaviour with
other human beings and the second is work with rest of nature. When we are
behaving with human being on the basis of this proposal, we want to verify whether
it leads to mutual happiness or not. If it leads to mutual happiness, it is a right
proposal; if it does not lead to mutual happiness, it is not a right proposal. Similarly,
when we are working with rest of nature on the basis of this proposal, we want to
verify whether it leads to mutualprosperity or not. If it leads to mutual prosperity, it
is a right proposal; if it does not lead to mutual prosperity, it is not a right proposal.

Understanding Natural Acceptance – the basis for Right Understanding

(Distinguishing between acceptance and natural acceptance)

Natural acceptance has to do with something fundamental, something related to our

purpose, something related to our basic desires. When we ask a question related to
these, we get a definite answer from ournatural acceptance. For example,
 Is happiness naturally acceptable or is unhappiness naturally acceptable?
 Is it naturally acceptable to live in relationship or in opposition?
 What is naturally acceptable – to nurture your Body or to exploit it?
For all these questions, we get a definite answer when we refer to our natural
acceptance.

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On the other hand, we have an acceptance for our likes and dislikes, assumptions,
pre-conditionings, beliefs, world-view, perspective, etc. but these may or may not be
naturally acceptable to us.

Of course, all acceptances are not wrong. Passing them through our natural
acceptance will validate them and contribute to our self-confidence.

Some of the characteristics of natural acceptance are:

 It does not change with time
 It does not change with place
 It does not change with the individual
 It is uncorrupted by likes and dislikes or assumptions or beliefs
 It is innate, a part and parcel of our being; we don’t need to create it
 It is definite

As we refer to our natural acceptance, we become self-referential.

To conclude, the complete process of self-exploration yields right understanding as

the tangible outcome.

Right understanding obtained through self-exploration can be recognised as follows:

a. It is assuring
b. It is satisfying
c. It is universal
i. Time: It holds good for all time – past, present and future
ii. Space: It is the same at all places or locations
iii. Individual: It is the same for every human being

In case the outcome of self-exploration does not fulfil any of the above three criteria,
it means that it is not the right understanding. It could be a pre-conditioning or we
have made a mistake in looking into our natural acceptance and so, we need to
continue exploring.
Self-exploration ultimately results in right understanding of the entire existence, i.e.
“realisation of co- existence”, “understanding of harmony” and “contemplation of
relationship”.

Key Takeaways
Self-exploration is a process of seeing the reality on our own right, by our own
investigation, observation and analysis. It is a process of dialogue between “what I
am” and “what is naturally acceptable to me”. It includes verifying the proposals on
the basis of natural acceptance (which is notthe same as acceptance) and validating
experientially in living.

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Exploring the Meaning of Happiness and Prosperity

As stated earlier, the proposal for happiness is:

“The state or situation, in which I live, if there is harmony / synergy in it, it is Naturally
Acceptable tome to be in that state / situation”.
“To be in a state / situation which is Naturally Acceptable is Happiness”.
i.e. “To be in a state of Harmony / Synergy is Happiness”.

i.e. Happiness = Harmony.

Some exploration will show that when we are in a state of harmony within, we feel happy
because that state is naturally acceptable to us. When we are in a situation with the
outside world in which there is harmony, we feel happy as the feeling of being in that
situation is naturally acceptable to us. This state or situation of being in line with natural
acceptance is happiness. Similarly,

“The state or situation, in which I live, if there is disharmony / contradiction in it, it is

not NaturallyAcceptable to me to be in that state / situation”.
“To be forced to be in a state / situation which is not Naturally Acceptable is
Unhappiness”.
i.e. “To be forced to be in a state of Disharmony / Contradiction is Unhappiness”.
i.e. Unhappiness = Disharmony.

Is Happiness the same as Excitement?

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The question is whether the feeling that we get is happiness or something else.
 What we get from the favourable sensation = happiness?
 Is the favourable feeling we get from the other = happiness?

What we get in both cases is a sort of momentary happiness. This is what is called as
excitement. There is confusion between excitement and happiness (a harmonious state
within). Excitement is short lived, not sustainable, while a harmonious state within is
something which can be continuous andsustainable.

Exploring the Meaning of Prosperity

Prosperity is the feeling of having more than required physical facility.

There are two basic requirements:

1. Right assessment of the need for physical facility, along with its required quantity.
2. Ensuring the availability/production of more than required physical facility.

We can have a feeling of prosperity only if we are able to do the right assessment of our
physical needs. The right assessment of physical needs, along with their required
quantity, will come through right understanding. Without that right assessment, the
feeling of prosperity cannot be assured, regardless of the availability or accumulation of
physical facility that we may have been able to do.

Just assessing the need is not enough. We need to ensure the availability or production of
more than the required quantity. This requires skills, technology and production. With
both of these, right assessment and availability, we have more than required physical
facility. Over and above that, it is a matter of feeling that we have more than enough.

When you have a feeling of prosperity, you will naturally think of nurturing and
enriching others. On the other hand, if we feel deprived then we think of exploiting and
depriving others.

Prevailing Notions of Prosperity

By and large, there is confusion between accumulation of physical facility and the feeling
of prosperity. It is generally assumed that the richer you are, the more prosperous you

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are, i.e. the more you have accumulated, the more prosperous you are. With this sort of
assumption, we pursue prosperity with anobsession for profit, for accumulation. That is
happening all around. The major focus in the society today is on accumulation of
physical facility. In particular, there is a major focus on accumulating money.

Today, most of the wealth (money) in the world is owned by a very tiny percentage of
people. Many such people are seen exploiting others, and exploiting the Earth, in an
effort to accumulate even more. Without clarity about how much is required, the effort is
for an unlimited quantity of physical facility, and by almost any means. First the efforts
may be by legal means, and then slip to even illegal means. This is all because the
quantity required is undefined and there is a feeling of deprivation!

Program for Continuity of Happiness

The expanse of our living is at the following four levels:
1. As an Individual human being
2. As a member of a family
3. As a member of society
4. As a unit in nature/existence

We are living with all this expanse of our being, at these four levels; of course, we may
or may not beaware of it.
Therefore, the programme for ensuring the continuity of happiness is:

To understand the harmony and to live in harmont at all levels of being:

1. At the level of the individual human being
2. At the level of family
3. At the level of society and
4. At the level of nature/existence

Key Takeaways
Happiness is to be in a state of harmony. The expanse of our living is at four levels
(individual humanbeing, family, society and nature/existence), and thus the program for
continuity of happiness is to be in harmony at all these levels. Prosperity is the feeling of
having more than required physical facility.

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