The Vedic Model for Human Behaviour - Scientific, Practical, Joyful, Liberating
Many well-meaning philosophers have tried to explain human behaviour in order to alleviate human suffering and enhance human happiness. They came up with models for understanding human behaviour based on some tenets which they tried to prove as being fundamental.
The Vedic scriptures also provide us fundamental tenets and present a model for understanding human behaviour in this world. The fundamental tenet is that we are all spiritual eternal beings currently limited in our ability to experience happiness by the covering of our temporary material bodies. This dynamics of opposites - the soul trying to find lasting happiness in the world of temporariness - is precisely the struggle of humankind.
Even our non-gross abilities like thinking, feeling, willing are conditioned by our contact with this realm of temporariness. For example, the desires of the mind when it sees existence as eternal are different from the desires when it sees existence as temporary.
Thus, based on the Vedic model, the therapy for human suffering is education and practices that reestablish the soul in its original conviction of being an eternal being having only superficial and temporal connection with this material world.
The true Vedic lifestyle has this foundation. It is practical because it understands the current entanglements and inclinations and instincts of the soul conditioned by this temporary world. At the same time it tries to extricate the soul by providing a regulated lifestyle that doesn't let instincts get the better of intelligence. The regulated lifestyle has optimal room for the expression of natural instincts while in the process reducing the inclination for them.
Obviously this lifestyle has to be conducted under the supervision of an expert who understands the extent of material entanglement of each soul and customises the regulation accordingly.
The reasonable man will do well to consider the Vedic model rather than embracing the many models based on observations and experiments merely from this material sphere.
Many well-meaning philosophers have tried to explain human behaviour in order to alleviate human suffering and enhance human happiness. They came up with models for understanding human behaviour based on some tenets which they tried to prove as being fundamental.
The Vedic scriptures also provide us fundamental tenets and present a model for understanding human behaviour in this world. The fundamental tenet is that we are all spiritual eternal beings currently limited in our ability to experience happiness by the covering of our temporary material bodies. This dynamics of opposites - the soul trying to find lasting happiness in the world of temporariness - is precisely the struggle of humankind.
Even our non-gross abilities like thinking, feeling, willing are conditioned by our contact with this realm of temporariness. For example, the desires of the mind when it sees existence as eternal are different from the desires when it sees existence as temporary.
Thus, based on the Vedic model, the therapy for human suffering is education and practices that reestablish the soul in its original conviction of being an eternal being having only superficial and temporal connection with this material world.
The true Vedic lifestyle has this foundation. It is practical because it understands the current entanglements and inclinations and instincts of the soul conditioned by this temporary world. At the same time it tries to extricate the soul by providing a regulated lifestyle that doesn't let instincts get the better of intelligence. The regulated lifestyle has optimal room for the expression of natural instincts while in the process reducing the inclination for them.
Obviously this lifestyle has to be conducted under the supervision of an expert who understands the extent of material entanglement of each soul and customises the regulation accordingly.
The reasonable man will do well to consider the Vedic model rather than embracing the many models based on observations and experiments merely from this material sphere.
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