values or human values

Character oriented education that instils 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.

Basic guidelines for value education

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 regions.
• Rational: It has to appeal to human reasoning. 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 assumptions.

The need for value education in today’s scenario.

The subject that enables us to understand ‘what is valuable’ for human happiness is called
value education. Need for value education is:
1 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.
2 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 education. Then only we can be assured of a happy and harmonious human
society.
3 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.
4 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
valuable. 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

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 complementarily 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.

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 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:

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

2. 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’
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.

‘Natural Acceptance’ and Experiential Validation

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:
a) 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.
b) 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.
d) 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.
e) 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 same.

Prosperity
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-
1. Identification of the required quantity of physical facilities, and
2. Ensuring availability / production of more than required physical facilities.
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.

Difference between prosperity and wealth

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.

The abbreviations given as SVDD, SSDD and SSSS signify

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:
1. Those that do not have physical facilities/ wealth and feel unhappy and deprived. i.e.
SVDD: Sadhan Viheen Dukhi Daridra – Materially Deficient, Unhappy and Deprived.
2. Those that have physical facilities/ wealth and feel unhappy and deprived. i.e. SSDD:
Sadhan Sampann Dukhi Daridra – 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.
3. Having physical facilities and feeling happy and prosperous i.e. SSSS: Sadhan Sampann
Sukhi Samriddha – 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

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.

Distinguish between ‘human consciousness’ and ‘animal consciousness’.

How “shiksha and sanskar” are helpful in raising man to “human
consciousness” level.
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 complete.
• 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 priority.
• This transformation from Animal Consciousness to Human Consciousness forms the basis
for human values and values based living.
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.