It is essential
| develop a clear vision of the future you want.Holistic Management has its roots in environmental management. But, as it is essentially a decision-making process it is applicable to people in all walks of life - households, both rural and urban based businesses, government and educational organisations. By changing the way we make our decisions, we can tackle many of the problems we . |
Allan Savory, ecologist, biologist, game warden, farmer,
soldier, politician, renowned environmentalist and winner of the Banksia
International Award 2003, and the 2010 Buckminster Fuller environmental award
is the founder of Holistic Management.
As a young graduate employed in various Southern African
national parks in the 1960's, Allan realised that the land and wild life he was
working with was doomed. Later, when working in the USA he came to realise that
this deterioration of the African environment was not a result of the often
quoted reasons of overpopulation, poverty, overstocking, lack of technology,
poor extension services etc. Comparable deterioration was occurring in Western
Texas, USA, where the climate was similar to that of Southern Africa. However,
western Texas had a declining population, the latest technology, sophisticated
extension services etc. The only common denominator between these two
situations was the decisions the human managers of these environments had made.
“Learning to manage holistically, which is a
process of decision-making, I believe should be a life skill practiced by all
and taught at schools and understood by law makers. The course has made me
optimistic about the future.”
Paddy Reynolds, Bega, NSW
"Ultimately, the only wealth that can sustain any
community, economy or nation is derived from the photosynthetic process - green
plants growing on regenerating soil."
Allan Savory
Part
3: The Evolutionary Crisis
4.
The
evolutionary crisis today in Indian business and in the world : the end of the
curve of reason and the signs of subjective and spiritual age:
a) The
new physics and paradigm bringing era of new challenges-9
b) Unmanageably huge structures and massification challenged
c) The
new cycle of individuals and then subjective age.
d) Prosumers,
customization, lateral thinking, IT
enabled infoage, Coolaborative design
and flat organizations, The Chaos, and complexity.
e) AI
and VR revolution, Genomes and singularity come as prevading possibilities of
future in management
f) The
search for Suprarational Good and Suprarational Beauty
g) Turn
to the spiritual age: the early signs
h) Sri
Aurobindo’s vision of the future: India’s way of Integral management by
consciousness:
7.
Sri Aurobindo’s integral thought
on Management: The excerpts from
a) The
Human Cycle and The Ideal of Human Unity: The cycle of society
b) The
Life Divine
c) The
Foundations of Indian Culture
d) The
Mother
e) The
four Powers: Wisdom, Strength, Harmony and Perfection
f) The
ideal of five sheath person and spiritual
leader: Rajarshi
g) Sri
Aurobindo’s Evolution of Consciousness Approach: Synthesis: Comparative
tabulation of Management, Sri Aurobindo’s words and gems from Indian Scriptures
Evolution of Consciousness and march of the nations
‘Sri Aurobindo sees evolution
primarily as an ongoing evolution of consciousness. He holds that the human
mind is much too imperfect a type of consciousness to be the final resting
point of nature, and that just as life developed out of matter, and mind out of
life, a still higher form of consciousness is bound to develop out of the
present stage of mind.
The evolutionary march is cyclic and spiral and not linear and logical.
It is zig zag and swinging to and fro. It includes ascent and integration both.
The ascent also has transformation of the lower. The evolution of human species
and the laws of that evolution follow development of faculties of body, life
and mind, of physical base and infusion of powers from above.
As soon as lower elements achieve a certain point of maturity, they
tend to higher grades of achievements in a gradual manner so as to interweave
lower and higher in a complex series of harmony of conflicting claims.
Evolution is a continuous process and
humanity is a crucial link in it. Beyond mind are higher, deeper, wider ranges
of consciousness which must be attained. As animal is a living laboratory to
evolve to man the mental being, similarly, man is living and thinking
laboratory for Nature to raise higher than man.
Sri Aurobindo states:
The animal is a
living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man. Man himself
may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious
cooperation she wills to work out the superman, the god. Or shall we not say,
rather, to manifest God? For if evolution is the progressive manifestation by
Nature of that which slept or worked in her, involved, it is also the overt
realisation of that which she secretly is. We cannot, then, bid her pause at a
given stage of her evolution, nor have we the right to condemn with the
religionist as perverse and presumptuous or with the rationalist as a disease
or hallucination any intention she may evince or effort she may make to go
beyond. If it be true that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is
secret God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself and the realisation
of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to
man upon earth. 2
Now onwards the evolution is not confined to unconscious progression of
Nature. It is conscious effort, aspiration from human being and grace from the
Divine which accelerate this process. There is sense of freedom that comes with
deviation of Self consciousness, and with process of rational and normative
Consciousness. That bring the element of chance or alternate possibilities,
some of which can be perilous as well . hence Sri Aurobindo terms this as a
great adventure of consciousness. Free will is must in this process and not any
sort of determinism. There has been three preoccupations of individual and
collective :
1. Complete development of the individual being
2. Complete development of the collective being
3. Perfectability of the society.
4. Or best possibilities of the individual and collective relations :
individual with individual’
individual with collectivity, collectivity with other collectivities.
There fore there can be different extremes in this pursuit:
One is individual is all important and collectivity is only filed or
structure for individual’s growth.
Other is collective whether society, race, nation is all important and
individual is just a instrument, a consumable, a cog for the collective growth.
The soul of a collective is in its culture power of life, ideal and institutes
and ways of expression.. and individual has to do cast in that mould for its
own survival.
The second one was
more common in almost all ancient cultures. However in India there was a
special balance in two in the concept of Siddha , Bhagwata or Mukta, which
means an individual by the virtue of his will Tapas can raise to the heights of
God, can be God. Though the first three stages of life namely student and
celibate, householder, recluse were within and with the aid of society and its
meticulous structure, the forth was stage of Sanayasi, the liberated who was
super social. Thus was given a multilayered multistaged structure of four
stages of life, four ashrams, four varnas, and three gunas, with four
purusharthas…dharma,
Artha, Kaam , Moksh to help every one to grow , to evolve as per his or her
swabhava, swadharma, samskara and adhikara…
As per Sri
Aurobindo, a stage of acute conflict of standards pushes /presses us to search
for unifying and harmonizing knowledge. An individual is key to evolutionary
movement. It is only individual which becomes conscious of reality and his
relation to collectivity. India’s
allegiance is to the truth, the Self, the Spirit, the Divine,..which is in him
and in all. He is not to subordinate to mass , rather he has to help and be
helped by other individuals and community in this process.
An individual’s allegiance to use Sri Aurobindo’s own words,
must be to the
Truth, the Self, the Spirit, the Divine which is in him and in all; not to
subordinate or lose himself in the mass, but to find and express that truth of
being in himself and help the community and humanity in its seeking for its own
truth and fullness of being must be his real object of existence.
India moves upto
spiritual freedom, which is also spiritual oneness. And therefore even a Siddha
or Mukta or a incaranation also moves and turns back after enlightenment to
serve the god in mankind, to raise all who are still in delusion : Shivobhave
Jeevseva.
For the awakened
individual:
1. Realization
of his truth of being and his inner liberation-perfection of realization
2. Perfected
community can exist only by perfected individual
3. Perfection
is by a) discovery and affirmation in life and by each of his own spiritual
being. b) and discovery by all of their spiritual unity and harmony
integration..?
There can be no
real perfection in us except for our inner self and truth of spiritual
existence taking up all truth of the instrument.. existence into itself and
giving to it oneness, integration and harmony.
Real freedom :
discovery and disengagement of the Spiritual Reality within us.
Only means of true
perfection is the sovereignity and self effectuation of the Spiritual Reality
in all the elements of our nature.
In the words of Sri Aurobindo:
For
the awakened individual the realisation of his truth of being and his inner
liberation and perfection must be his primary seeking, first, because that is
the call of the Spirit within him, but also because it is only by liberation
and perfection and realisation of the truth of being that man can arrive at
truth of living. A perfected community also can exist only by the perfection of
its individuals, and perfection can come only by the discovery and affirmation
in life by each of his own spiritual being and the discovery by all of their
spiritual unity and a resultant life of unity. There can be no real perfection
for us except by our inner self and truth of spiritual existence taking up all
truth of the instrumental existence into itself and giving to it oneness,
integration, harmony. As our only real freedom is the discovery and disengagement
of the spiritual Reality within us, so our only means of true perfection is the
sovereignty and self-effectuation of the spiritual Reality in all the elements
of our nature.
..
Life was most
richly lived has left behind most precious fruits when human societies
were organized in
small independent centers. In Europe it was three stages : first when tribes in
Israel were strong, then in Greek period and finally in artistic Italy. It was
more frutiful in Germany, Italy, England and France , not in Roman and Russian
empire. In India also it was Pallavas,
Chalukyas, Pandya, Chola, Chera that she was at her best, not in mighty states
and empires. When life is diffused in vast spaces it loses its colour richness
and variety.
‘As Sri Aurobindo remarks, the organisation was great and admirable, but
the individual dwindled and life lost its colour, richness, variety, freedom,
and victorious impulse towards creation. Eventually, therefore, the Roman
Empire declined and failed; the huge mechanism of centralisation and union
brought about smallness and feebleness of the individual; mechanisation
prevailed and the Empire lost even its conservative vitality and died of an
increasing stagnation.’( Kireet Joshi )
The Problem of
Individual and collectivity: centralize and decentralize, freedom and order,
unity and diversity are few of the paradoxes which it has to manage. The ideal
law of social development needs to be found and followed. Here world must be
united but individual should be free to find himself : freedom of self
discovery, self realization and self perfection is a must.
The law of ideal
development for individual can be :
1. Free
development from within,
2. respect,
aid and get aided by same free development in others
3. To
harmonise his life with life of social aggregate
4. To
pour himself out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity.
The law for community or nation is :
Similar like above
5. Free
development from within,
6. respect,
aid and get aided by same free development in other nations or communities
7. To
harmonise community or national life with life of greater communities like
continent or the world
8. To
pour self out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity.
Law for humanity is
:
Pursue upward
evolution to find and express Divine in the type of mankind taking full
advantage of free development and gains of all individuals, nations, and
groups, realize and dream of a divine family and even then also respect, aid
and be aided by growth of all individuals and aggregates.
The law for humanity
is to pursue its upward evolution towards the finding and expression of the
Divine in the type of mankind, taking full advantage of the free development and gains of all individuals and nations
and groupings of men, to work towards the day when mankind may be really and
not only ideally one divine family, but even then, when it has succeeded in
unifying itself, to respect, aid and be aided by the free growth and activity
of its individuals and constituent aggregates.
This ideal never
got operative in the imperfect stages through which mankind has travelled so
far. However present stage is a time when human beings are trying more and more
to know themselves, to find ideal law of his being and his societal existence,
to find and to become gradually that which is perfection. This is subjective
stage as per Sri Aurobindo when knowledge is increasing and diffusing itself
with an unprecedented rapidity and when individuals, societies and nations all
are discovering their respective subjective selves.
He explains that in
Human cycle that the society passes through symbolic, Typal, Conventional,
Rational and Subjective stages. In rational stage, different ideals like
Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood were floated and cherished, each true in
itself but contradicting other. Equality is tolerable only with greasing of
love and brotherhood. Liberty is possible only when Equality is not imposing
and only aiding the growth. Harmony holds the key and at rational stage as mind
divides and pursues its reductionist idea as if that is the sole truth, it is
difficult to harmonise the apparently contradicting ideals: but in
suprarational age: that is turn to true subjectivity it is something which can
be achieved.
Sri Aurobindo states:
Yet is brotherhood the real key to the
triple gospel of the idea of humanity. The union of liberty and equality can
only be achieved by the power of human brotherhood and it cannot be founded on
anything else. But brotherhood exists only in the soul and by the soul; it can
exist by nothing else. For this brotherhood is not a matter either of physical
kinship or of vital association or of intellectual agreement. When the soul
claims freedom, it is the freedom of its self-development, the self-development
of the divine in man in all his being. When it claims equality, what it is
claiming is that freedom equally for all and the recognition of the same soul,
the same godhead in all human beings. When it strives for brotherhood, it is
founding that equal freedom of self-development on a common aim, a common life,
a unity of mind and feeling founded upon the recognition of this inner
spiritual unity. These three things are in fact the nature of the soul; for
freedom, equality, unity are the eternal attributes of the Spirit. It is the practical recognition of this
truth, it is the awakening of the soul in man and the attempt to get him to
live from his soul and not from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion,
and it is that to which the religion of humanity also must arrive before it can
fulfil itself in the life of the race.
I
This is the age of
acute crisis which appears multidimensional and multidisciplinary, but in its
essence it is an evolutionary crisis according to Sri Aurobindo.
Role of reason is
not to govern but to mediate and only the inner freedom or spiritual freedom
can create the spiritual order and a spiritual anarchy. Three forces seem to be
dominant now: 1.First is asserting Barbarism , 2. second is human reason
spinning dreams but not fulfilling them, 3. Human being consents to rise above
Reason and get spiritual.
It is a spiritual, an
inner freedom that can alone create a perfect human order. It is a spiritual, a
greater than the rational enlightenment that can alone illumine the vital
nature of man and impose harmony on its self-seekings, antagonisms and discords.
A deeper brotherhood, a yet unfound law of love is the only sure foundation
possible for a perfect social evolution, no other can replace it. But this
brotherhood and love will not proceed by the vital instincts or the reason
where they can be met, baffled or deflected by opposite reasonings and other
discordant instincts. Nor will it found itself in the natural heart of man
where there are plenty of other passions to combat it. It is in the soul that
it must find its roots; the love which is founded upon a deeper truth of our
being, the brotherhood or, let us say, for this is another feeling than any
vital or mental sense of brotherhood, a calmer more durable motive-force, – the spiritual comradeship which is the expression of an
inner realisation of oneness. For so only can egoism disappear and the true individualism of
the unique godhead in each man found itself on the true communism of the equal
godhead in the race; for the Spirit, the inmost Self, the universal Godhead in
every being is that whose very nature of diverse oneness it is to realise the
perfection of its individual life and nature in the existence of all, in the
universal life and nature.
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