UNIVERSAL HUMAN VALUES

UNIT-1 INTRODUCTION TO VALUE EDUCATION

VALUE EDUCATION

Character oriented education that inculcates 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.

NEED FOR VALUE EDUCATION

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.

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.

Complementarity 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. 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), then, this is known as domain of skills.

Hence, there is an essential complementarity 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.

● Evaluation of our beliefs. Each one of us believes in certain things and we base our
values on these beliefs, be they false or true which may or may not be true in reality.
These believes come to us from what we read, see, hear, what our parents tells us,
our friends talk about, what the magazines talk of, what we see from TV etc. Value
Education helps us to evaluate our beliefs and assumed values.

● 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.

BASIC GUIDELINES FOR 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.

All encompassing: Value education is aimed at transforming our consciousness and living.
Hence, it needs to cover all the dimensions (thought, behaviour, work and realization) and
levels (individual, family, society, nature and existence) of human life and profession.

Leading to harmony: The value education ultimately is targeted to promote harmony within
the individual, among human beings and with nature.

CONTENT OF VALUE EDUCATION.

The scope of value education includes all dimensions (thoughts, behaviour, work and
realization) and all levels (individual, family, society and nature - existence). Accordingly, the
content of value education will be to understand myself, my aspirations, my happiness;
understand the goal of human life comprehensively, understand the other entities in nature,
the innate inter-connectedness, the coexistence in the nature- existence and finally the role
of human being in this nature/existence entirely. Hence, it has to encompass understanding
of harmony at various levels and finally, learning to live in accordance with this
understanding by being vigilant to one's thoughts, behaviour and work.

VALUES AND SKILL ARE COMPLEMENTARY

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 complementarity 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.

PROCESS FOR VALUE EDUCATION

The process for value education has to be that of self-exploration, which includes two things:
verification at the level of natural acceptance and experiential validation in living. Self
exploration is the process of finding 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 ourselves. Various aspects of reality facilitating the
understanding of human values will be presented as proposals. We need to verify these
proposals for ourselves and examine our living in this light.

SELF EXPLORATION & THE CONTENT OF 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 our self. 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?

PROCESS OF 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 our self. It is a process of focusing attention on our self, 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.

THE PURPOSE OF SELF EXPLORATION.

The purpose of self exploration is:

1. It is a process of dialogue between "what you are" and "what you really want to be": It
is a process of focusing attention on our self, 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 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.

2. It is a process of self evolution through self investigation: It successively enables us to

evolve by bridging the gap between 'what we are' and 'what to be'. Hence, the self
exploration leads to our own improvement, our self evolution - we will become qualitatively
better.

3. It is a process of knowing oneself and through that, knowing the entire existence: The
exploration starts by asking simple questions about our self, which gives our clarity about
our being, and then clarity about everything around us.
4. It is a process of recognizing one's relationship with every unit in existence and fulfilling
it: It is a process of becoming aware about our right relationship with other entities in
existence and through that discovering the interconnectedness, co-existence and other in
the entire existence, and living accordingly.

5. It is a process of knowing human conduct, human character and living accordingly: It is a

process of discovering the definitiveness of human conduct and human character and
enabling one to be definite in thought, behaviour and work.

6. It is a process of being in harmony in oneself and in harmony with entire existence: This
process of self exploration helps us to be in harmony with our self and with everything
around.

7. It is a process of identifying our innateness and moving towards self organization and
self-expression: This process of self exploration helps us to identify our swatva and through
that acquiring swantantrata and swarajya. Swatva means innateness of self - the natural
acceptance of harmony. Swatantrata means being self- organized - being in harmony with
oneself, Swarajya means self-expression, self- extension - living in harmony with others.

SWATVA > SWATANTRATA > SWARAJYA

The swatva is already there, intact in each one of us. By being in dialogue with it, we attain
swantantrata enabling us to work for swarajya.

Living in contradiction, means we are not self-organized and living with pre-conditionings
where we have assumed certain things, have accumulated desires without having first
evaluated them, then it means we are partantra. On the other hand, when we identify our
innateness, what we really want to be and establish a dialogue with it, it enables us to start
living with this harmony, it starts expressing itself through our harmonious behaviour and
work, and it naturally extends to our participation with the surroundings. This is working
towards swarajya.

NATURAL ACCEPTANCE

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 our self on the basis of natural acceptance, we feel a holistic sense of inner
harmony, tranquillity and fulfilment. Actually natural acceptance is a 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.

c) 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.

NATURAL ACCEPTANCE AND EXPERIENTIAL VALIDATION

Natural Acceptance is a mechanism of self exploration. Self exploration is a method to

explore ourselves. Natural acceptance is process to understand our self first. Natural
acceptance implies unconditional and total acceptance of the self, people and environment.
It also refers to the absence of any exception from others. In other words, Natural
acceptance is way to accept the good things naturally.

Experiential Validation is a process that infuses direct experience with the learning
environment and content. It may be regarded as a philosophy and methodology in which the
direct experience and focused reflection of the individual helps to increase knowledge,
develop skill and clarify values. Most of what we know about our self is not only through our
own opinion of our self but also because of others view. When, what we already believe to
be true of us is validated by some situations, phenomena or outcomes. We may term it as
experiential validation.

CONTINUOUS HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY – THE BASIC HUMAN ASPIRATION

HAPPINESS

Happiness may be defined as being in harmony/synergy in the state/ situation that I live in.
"A state or situation in which I live, if there is harmony in it then I like to be in that state /
situation. The state of liking is happiness." Happiness is a state of mind or feeling
characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure or joy. Happiness may be
described as consisting of positive emotions and positive activities. There may be three kinds
of happiness: pleasure, engagement, and meaning. In other words, freedom from want and
distress, consciousness of the good order of things, assurance of one's place in the universe
or society, inner peace and so forth. Happiness is the state of mind, where we feel good in
most of the walk of life.

MEANING OF 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 non-existent 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.

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 non-existent 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.

HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS LIFE

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.
Some of the consequences of such trend are summarized below:

● At the level of individual: rising problems of depression, psychological disorders,

suicides, stress, insecurity, etc.
● At the level of family: breaking of joint families, mistrust, and conflict between older
and younger generations, insecurity in relationships, divorce, dowry tortures, etc.
● At the level of society: growing incidence of terrorism and naxalism, rising
communalism, spreading casteism, racial and ethnic struggle, wars between nations,
etc.
● At the level of nature: global warming, water, air, soil, noise etc. pollution, resource
depletion of minerals and mineral oils, etc.

All the problems are a direct outcome of an incorrect understanding, our wrong
notion about happiness and prosperity and their continuity – this is an issue for
serious exploration.

SVDD, SSDD & SSSS

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’s 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
SVDD and SSDD, while the natural acceptance of all human beings is to be in the category of
SSSS.

PHYSICAL FACILITIES - ANIMALS & HUMAN BEING

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 degree, or job.

For Humans: While physical facilities are necessary for human beings, they are not complete
by themselves to fulfil 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 fulfil our needs.

Hence we can say that for animals – “Physical facilities are necessary and complete.”

For humans “Physical facilities are necessary but not complete.”

BASIC REQUIREMENTS TO FULFIL HUMAN ASPIRATIONS

Our basic aspirations are happiness (mutual fulfilment) and prosperity (mutual prosperity).
Happiness is ensured by the relationships with other human beings and prosperity is
ensured by working on physical facilities.

Right Understanding: This refers to higher order human skills – the need to learn and utilize
our intelligence most effectively.

Good Relationships: This refers to the interpersonal relationships that a person builds in his
or her life – at home, at the workplace and in society.
Physical Facilities: This includes the physiological needs of individuals and indicates the
necessities as well as the comforts of life. It means the feeling of having or being able to
have more physical facilities than is needed.

In order to resolve the issues in human relationships, we need to understand them first, and
this would come from ‘right understanding of relationship’. Similarly in order to be
prosperous and to enrich nature, we need to have the ‘right understanding’. The ‘right
understanding’ will enable us to work out our requirements for physical facilities and hence
correctly distinguish the difference between wealth and prosperity. With nature as well, we
need to understand the harmony in nature, and how we can complement this harmony.

ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

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 good 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.

"To be in a state of harmony is happiness”

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction,

pleasure or joy. Happiness may be described as consisting of positive emotions and positive
activities. In other words, freedom from want and distress, consciousness of the good order
of things, assurance of one's place in the universe or society, inner peace and so forth.
Happiness is the state of mind, where we feel good in most of the walk of life. One
important characteristic of this feeling is that we like to continue this feeling. Or in other
words, "The state/situation in which I live, if there is harmony/ synergy in it, then I like to be
in that state or situation." i.e. "To be in a state of liking is happiness." If we explore our life
we will find that respect is a state of harmony between two human beings. When I respect
the other and the other respects me, I like to be in that situation. It gives me happiness. Take
other example, when there is harmony in my thoughts and feelings, I feel relaxed and I want
to be in that situation. This feeling is happiness.
CURRENT SCENARIO - HAPPINESS & PROSPERITY IN THE SOCIETY AND THEIR
CONSEQUENCES

Happiness may be defined as being in harmony/synergy in the state/ situation that I live in.
“A state or situation in which I live, if there is harmony in it then I like to be in that state /
situation. The state of liking is happiness.” Whereas, prosperity is the “feeling of having or
making available more than required physical facilities”.

In the current scenario, we are generally trying to achieve happiness and prosperity by
maximizing accumulation and consumption of physical facilities. This is an attempt to
achieve happiness through pleasant sensory interactions. The physical facilities are not seen
in terms of fulfilling bodily needs, but as a means of maximizing happiness.

This has resulted in wrong assessment of wants for physical facilities as being unlimited. But
this pursuit is self-defeating. Neither can we hope to achieve continuous happiness through
sensory interactions, nor can we have prosperity, as it amounts to trying to fulfil unlimited
wants through limited resources. This effort is engendering problems at all the levels. It is
becoming anti-ecological and anti-people, and threatening the human survival itself. Some
of the consequences of such a trend are summarized below:

1. At the level of the individual – Rising problems of depression, psychological disorders,

suicides, stress, insecurity, psycho-somatic diseases, loneliness etc.

2. At the level of the family – Breaking of joint families, mistrust, conflict between older
and younger generations, insecurity in relationships, divorce, dowry tortures, family feuds,
wasteful expenditure in family functions etc.

3. At the level of the Society – Growing incidences of terrorism and naxalism, rising
communalism, spreading casteism, racial and ethnic struggle, wars between nations,
attempts of genocide, fear of nuclear and genetic warfare, etc.

4. At the level of nature – Global warming, water, air, soil, noise, etc. pollution, resource
depletion of minerals and mineral oils, sizeable deforestations, loss of fertility of soil.

All the problems are a direct outcome of an incorrect understanding, our wrong notion
about happiness and prosperity and their continuity. It therefore, calls for an urgent need
for human beings to correctly understand happiness and prosperity as well as the
sustainable way to achieve these.

METHOD TO FULFILL THE BASIC HUMAN ASPIRATION

Our basic aspirations are happiness (mutual fulfilment) and prosperity (mutual prosperity).
Happiness is ensured by the relationships with other human beings and prosperity is
ensured by working on physical facilities. Relationship refers to the interpersonal
relationships that a person builds in his/her life - at home, at the workplace and in society.
Physical Facilities includes the physiological needs of individuals and indicates the necessities
as well as the comforts of life. It means the feeling of having or being able to have more
physical facilities than is needed.

Today we are unable to have fulfilling relationships all the time: in family, outside family, and
as a society - in the world at large. If there is a problem in relationship, we feel uneasy, it
bothers us. Even if we are interacting with someone, and something we said or did offends
them, it makes us uneasy; i.e. we want mutual fulfilment in relationship. Similarly, we want
to feel prosperous, but end up working only for accumulation of wealth. We want to enrich
nature, but are exploiting it, destroying it. But our natural acceptance is that we want to live
in harmony with nature.

The reason behind these problems is that we have to focus on one more aspect, i.e. right
understanding. Right Understanding refers to higher order human skills - the need to learn
and utilize our intelligence most effectively.

In order to resolve the issues in human relationships, we need to understand them first, and
this would come from 'right understanding of relationship'. Similarly in order to be
prosperous and to enrich nature, we need to have the 'right understanding'. The 'right
understanding' will enable us to work out our requirements for physical facilities and hence
correctly distinguish the difference between wealth and prosperity. With nature as well, we
need to understand the harmony in nature, and how we can complement this harmony.

Thus we can say that when we use right understanding with relationships it gives us mutual
fulfilment because if we have right understanding, then we can be happy in ourselves and
work to have fulfilling relationships with humans and mutual prosperity with nature. If we
do not have the right understanding, then we have problems. Thus, our happiness depends
on the fulfilment of these three basic requirements.

Right understanding + Relationship = Mutual fulfilment.

Right understanding + Physical facilities = Mutual prosperity.