What is the relevance of human life in the Universe?
or
What is the essential relationship between a human being and the Universe?
This is the fundamental question that forms the basis of philosophy, theology and science alike.
If we move closer to this question, we may see that there are certain implicit notions in this inquiry – notions, when examined, appear true and self-evident.
One such assumption is that the Universe and us are interrelated; that the reality of the Universe as well as of a human being cannot be fundamentally different. We can say that a sense of oneness underlies the question.
This view entails that when one knows oneself truly, one knows the Universe also, at once. The inscription in the Delphi temple in ancient Greece – Man Know Thyself, points to this prospect. The wisdom sayings like as is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm, the knower of the Absolute is the Absolute itself, are also experiential confirmations of this essential verity – Oneness.
If we accept thus that a human being and the Universe are one alone, we are also acknowledging that psychology and cosmology are not two different subjects. They contemplate and explain the same reality from two different yet complementary angles. When Vedanta called reality both Atman (Self) and Brahman (Absolute), it was acknowledging this aspect. If Atman is the term for reality from a psychological perspective, Brahman is the term for the same reality from a cosmological perspective. These counterparts exist in theology as human being (individual self) and God (the Universal Self).
This one on one connection of both psychology and cosmology means any shift in understanding one part would be mirrored by the other. For example, a transition from a God who needs to be feared all the time, who will burn ‘sinners’ in hell forever, to a God that is Love, reflects a paradigm shift in how one perceives and experiences both oneself and the Universe.
Now, what if we start to see the whole cosmos as mere matter? Or, what if most of us are being mentored by a knowledge system which insists that any knowledge that is not measurable cannot be true and valuable knowledge? That approach would inevitably turn the whole reality into matter – the measurable. Or, it would make all that is immeasurable, irrelevant. We can call this process the materialization of knowledge or existence.
This approach to knowledge is called Empirical Methodology or popularly – Modern Science. To understand the consequences of this approach is to understand the Modern Man.
The Origins of Modern Cosmology or Psychology
To comprehend modern cosmology and the sense of self it has been producing for the last few centuries, one has to first examine the cosmology/psychology that immediately preceded it.
In pre-modern Europe, cosmology or psychology had entirely been dictated by Catholic Church that prescribed a geocentric view of the Universe theorized by people like Aristotle and Ptolemy, and later conveniently modified by the Church itself. According to this cosmology, earth was the center of the universe and had been staying motionless while all other celestial bodies, including the sun and moon, were orbiting around it. This was the divine order established by God with a divine purpose in his mind. The centrality of earth in that cosmological scheme, if psychologically viewed, meant the centrality of human beings in the great order of things.
Though, for postmodern worldviews, this may seem as an anthropocentric assertion over everything else, it is pertinent not to overlook the philosophical imperative of placing a human being at the center of the whole (knowledge) situation. It is a human being who is in need of understanding themselves or the Universe, and seeking the same. That is, all knowledge gathered, in one way or another, must be relevant to a human being. In this sense, for all knowledge systems including for cosmology/psychology, a human being is the normative reference around whom they all must orbit. The Greek philosopher Protagoras (c. 490 BC – c. 420 BC) was acknowledging this necessity when he said Man is the measure of all things.
Hence, when Copernicus (1473 – 1543) and later Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) suggested that earth is not the center of the universe but the sun, it was not a mere change in the prevailing map of the cosmos, but was an earth-shattering shift in how one make sense of oneself as well as of the whole existence. The gravity of the situation further accentuated when later explorations soon proved that even the sun is not the center of the universe, that even the whole solar system is just a speck in the cosmos. This tectonic shift took the human being from the position of an absolute centrality and certitude about its significance, to something completely relative and more or less nonsensical.
As we have already seen, this was also a shift from philosophical and theological approaches to reality to an empirical way which insisted that only that knowledge which can be observed, measured or experimented with, is true knowledge. Prior to this shift, scientific studies had always been happening within the overall outline given by philosophy or theology. Science was considered only as an extension of philosophy and hence was called natural philosophy – the study of nature as ordained by philosophy. But in the new situation, telescopes and microscopes started to command contemplation.
The implications
The displacement of an immeasurable, mystical Universe by a measurable, matter of fact Universe was the displacement of everything poetic and sacred. The Universe became a mere aggregate of electrons, neutrons and protons; human beings, a collection of cells and secretions. The Eternal-Infinite, the Here and Now, full of intimate mystery, got replaced by a dull emptiness and a ticking clock in a factory. Life started to contain nothing more than daily life practicalities and its mundane comforts and pleasures. Struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest became the laws of that life.
In the context of market economy, materalization meant commodification – everything has become something to be sold or bought, where the value is understood only in terms of the calculable – money.
In short, the Being got replaced by becoming, a rat race.
By all these, as the man became a teeny-weeny speck in the Universe, a marauding nothing, ever prone to illness, accidents and even death, fear and insecurity set in in our lives as a constant. As there is no universal value that can transcend or at least counterbalance the individual ego, the necessary counterpart of that ego – the other, also became something that cannot be integrated and transcended. Thus, as the constant fear of a mere mortal met an immutable other in a survival of the fittest world, a militant state armed to the teeth to protect everyone (especially the fittests) appeared natural and necessary.
Values, including basic human rights, as they are not measurable, turned out to be mere social constructs we collectively and conveniently imagine for the purpose of social harmony. Therefore, they became alienable as per the whims and wills of the fittests.
A universe without a center or a normative reference, necessarily birthed a postmodernist worldview wherein a human being is nothing more than their context and its conditionings.
Where the Absolute is negated, the relative (identities) becomes the absolute.
When does a paradigm shift?
A paradigm shift happens when a given community realizes that its philosophy of life is unphilosophical and hence its science is unscientific. Usually, this transformation is forced when the degenerative effects of that unwisdom become practically intolerable. For instance, the modern scientific paradigm emerged when the corruption and malpractices of the Catholic Church met new scientific discoveries that challenged its geocentric cosmology. Likewise, the priestly-brahmanic cosmology/psychology in India, coincided with a Buddhist/Jainist philosophical movement, when the hegemonic, racist, tendencies of the former hit the fan.
Nowadays, we are also amidst of a paradigm shift. The value-void materialism of modern science and the technocracy it is cluelessly aiding, is literally taking us into the brink of extinction as a species along with our fellow beings. The Self-negation in the domain of knowledge is practically manifesting as a suicidal lifestyle.
This overwhelming situation, marked by personal mood disorders to havocking wildfires, is creating both contractive and expansive movements within humanity. Lots of people are desperately clinging to what is familiar – to patriarchal and dogmatic beliefs and rituals essentially tainted by otherness. On the other hand, an unprecedented number of people are embracing lifestyles based on universal values and inclusive self-care by making use of resources exchanged on a global scale.
Psychology – The Personal is Global
So far we have been exploring the overarching modern paradigm – a vision of life from which a human being derives their essential identity. This vision includes ideas on individual, community, humanity, nature, universe, daily routine and practices in an interrelated manner to produce a coherent sense of self.
In this larger context, what does it mean for mental health professionals to practice psychology, one of the subjects most intimately connected to the self? What if they are not aware of the fundamentals of the current paradigm and its all encompassing effects on the self? The main consequence would be that, as a community they will end up as a priestly class, who inevitably offer mediocre solutions to vulnerable clients, who would never upset the prevailing power status quo. Little would be the difference between their consultation rooms and the confessionals in a Church. They are in the league of allopathic doctors, charity workers and scavengers, cleaning up the Augean stables of modern life without much clue about lasting solutions.
It is true that there are therapeutic approaches with strong philosophical basis as some mindfulness based approaches do. Indeed such a philosophical foundation alone can give us a space to stand outside the transactional and to embrace the timeless. However, if such an understanding is not integrated with the paradigm/system thinking, if it remains in the domain of individuals’ healing alone, then its ways are likely to be limited to a privileged class, to those who can afford to access it. The effects of such one-on-one processes may spill over into other sections of the community, but only eventually. From the perspective of the larger community, this approach to therapy can be called a trickle-down approach – a perennial error too many philosophical traditions have been committing. It bypasses both the collective body and the body politic.
Conversely, Gabor Mate, in his book The Myth of Normal, points out to the importance and urgency of understanding the personal and the global integrally:
Chronic illness – mental or physical – is to a large extent a function or feature of the way things are and not a glitch; a consequence of how we live, not a mysterious aberration. The phrase “a toxic culture” in this book’s subtitle may suggest things like environmental pollutants, so prevalent since the dawn of the industrial age and so antagonistic to human health.
From asbestos particles to carbon dioxide run amok, there is indeed no shortage of real, physical toxins in our midst. We could also understand “toxic” in its more contemporary, pop-psychological sense, as in the spread of negativity, distrust, hostility, and polarization that, no question, typify the present socio-political moment. We can certainly fold these two meanings into our discussion, but I am using “toxic culture” to characterize something even broader and more deeply rooted: the entire context of social structures, belief systems, assumptions, and values that surround us and necessarily pervade every aspect of our lives. That social life bears upon health is not a new discovery, but the recognition of it has never been more urgent. I see it as the most important and consequential health concern of our time, driven by the effects of burgeoning stress, inequality, and climate catastrophe, to name a few salient factors. Our concept of well-being must move from the individual to the global in every sense of that word.
This movement of the concept of well-being from the individual to the global would enable mental health practitioners to channel their learnings in diverse ways, in order to reach every nook and corner of the collective body, and in turn, to have a deeper and layered understanding of the mental health practice itself. In fact, it will only be a due acknowledgement that, no body exists in isolation. On the other hand, the movement also needs to be bi-directional – the global needs to be translated into personal, intimate terms, so that it can be truly embodied instead of remaining as a concept.
Facing Fear
If someone wants to squarely meet one’s own philosophical depths, paradigmatic awareness, and to know what needs to be done practically, all at once, there is a shortcut – facing one’s insecurities around survival or money-making. For sure, there are things to be concerned about surviving in this fish eats fish economy. However, if we take a closer look at this insecurity, we may see that there are many imagined, conditioned, classist, aspects to it. For instance, consider the conveniences of urban life which condition and confine us to certain territories and numb us to too many abnormalities. The same conveniences also demand more and more money-making from us. So, what are our priorities? Or how grounded we really are?Do we have skills to live outside urban spaces? Do we know how to grow food? Prepare medicines? Aren’t we lacking a nurturing community around us, especially when it comes to raising children? What are we doing to develop intimate communities? Do we have skills to live in communities, outside our nuclear families?
Are we making money while doing something substantive or are we doing something substantive to make money? Why even the more knowledgeable, talented, amongst us, who start from the former, too often end up at the latter and even fail to recognize that shift?
What is our connection with Nature? With solitude? How are we nurturing our living relation with the Universe, which alone can enable us to trust and leap beyond the ‘practicalities’? Briefly, to what extent can we, who are bound by our own insecurities, who let those insecurities lead our lives, truly empower those who are similarly insecure?
All these questions may sound patronizing. However, their sole intention is to bring forth the embodied blind spots of our modern-day life, which condition our understanding and practices of mental hygiene. Awareness of the same may also help us to avoid being co-opted to an abnormal paradigm.
The creative genius of Mahatma Gandhi was that he integrated non-dual understanding with everyday rituals of people. When people tilled their land, weaved their clothes, made medicines and formed communities around certain ideals, they also became part of an independence movement unprecedented in history. It was made possible by a unitive vision of life that was more than its activities.
We are currently facing an existential threat of global scale. It necessitates us to bring together both the personal and the global. And if we look deeper, it means understanding the psyche and the cosmos, the unique and the universal, non-dualy. That is the necessity, that indeed is Freedom.
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