Personal autonomy and self-realisation are two facets of the same process: self-realisation is to make real your possibilities and potentialities. The ‘I’ in charge of a particular body becomes autonomous to the degree it becomes aware of the numerous controls and combinations of its vehicle, the body. Making this awareness real and operative in daily life is realisation.
For a person engaged in the quest for personal autonomy or self-realisation, the question of which organisation he belongs to is of secondary importance. It is good to remember that man is born into an organisation. To talk of some extraordinary state in which he is free of all organisation is like talking of a man in a vacuum. Such a man might be born one day. Right now, we are talking of you and me whose very model of metabolism requires a social setup of some kind. A goat grazes grass. It does not require ten goats to grow grass and two goats to cook it.
So you are always in an organisation: family, friends, clubs, hostels, institutions etc. The common factor in all these organisations is just this: YOU AND THE OTHER PERSON. This is the first thing to remember: You are nothing without the other person. The second thing is that it is your body with its immense, ill-tapped, poorly used powers and functions, which is your sole means of interaction You are nothing without your body.
In dealing with this other person, all the deficiencies and potentialities come to the fore. Most of our deficiencies get respectable names and a plethora of justifications. You tie yourself down, and your enormous gift, your cerebral organisation, to the few responses whose range is just about the lowest, commonest average of the largest mass of people.
You, ladies and gentlemen, in this medical institution for instance, teach others about the body, nervous system and so on. Your Institute does not prevent you from putting this knowledge to use.
For instance, a large portion of you is skeletal musculature. Nobody prevents you from playing games, walking and so on, and in other ways taking the sloppiness out of your musculature. There are funds for this, though God knows what funds are required to make man walk or run! Yet, how many of you pay attention to this, and yet some of you will be prescribing physiotherapy to a patient, because it is the prescribed thing in the syllabus.
It is elementary knowledge that the blood supply to your brain depends on using the body; if large portions of the body are not used for long lengths of time, fatigue, and depressive or irritable reactions develop more easily.
The more accurate your external work becomes, the more are the movement-combinations of your musculature, and the more are the areas of your brain which become activated. The disused brain areas do not remain silent - they play havoc.
You constantly learn or constantly disintegrate.
The more and more you become accurate, the more supple become your cortical processes. Accuracy means accuracy, not cleverness, which is merely a rehash of old tricks.
Human society is a complex, collective nervous system. If you watch your activity in hostels, you can see how by your behaviour, you can disturb or demoralise one another; how often your speech, the most potent human instrument, is used destructively, much like an ape uses a razor. If you do not see for yourself, the damage this instrument of speech does to you or others, and you do nothing to correct it, it is little use talking of group psychotherapy and so on, or of doing Hathayoga to learn speech control.
An organisation is made up of individuals, though it is questionable whether you can call them individuals. Unfortunately each individual is really not an individual, but a discordant bundle of habits encased in a discreet skin sheath. Unless you see that this discordance within each of you is causing you damage, and you take some measures to deal with this internal anarchy, and progress towards becoming an individual you will only succeed in spreading the infection all round you. WIthout some interest in organising yourself, all talk of reforming organisations to which you belong or of really treating others who are disorganised is just so much moonshine.
Nobody is asking you to become saints, but for heaven’s sake, give some evidence to yourself that you are taking some interest in your own body and yourself, and your own health.
Health is not a noun, but a verb - a constant activity putting body and brain to more and more effective and harmonious interactions with those around you.
DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT ORGANISATIONS FOR YOU ARE THE ORGANISATION.
For a person engaged in the quest for personal autonomy or self-realisation, the question of which organisation he belongs to is of secondary importance. It is good to remember that man is born into an organisation. To talk of some extraordinary state in which he is free of all organisation is like talking of a man in a vacuum. Such a man might be born one day. Right now, we are talking of you and me whose very model of metabolism requires a social setup of some kind. A goat grazes grass. It does not require ten goats to grow grass and two goats to cook it.
So you are always in an organisation: family, friends, clubs, hostels, institutions etc. The common factor in all these organisations is just this: YOU AND THE OTHER PERSON. This is the first thing to remember: You are nothing without the other person. The second thing is that it is your body with its immense, ill-tapped, poorly used powers and functions, which is your sole means of interaction You are nothing without your body.
In dealing with this other person, all the deficiencies and potentialities come to the fore. Most of our deficiencies get respectable names and a plethora of justifications. You tie yourself down, and your enormous gift, your cerebral organisation, to the few responses whose range is just about the lowest, commonest average of the largest mass of people.
You, ladies and gentlemen, in this medical institution for instance, teach others about the body, nervous system and so on. Your Institute does not prevent you from putting this knowledge to use.
For instance, a large portion of you is skeletal musculature. Nobody prevents you from playing games, walking and so on, and in other ways taking the sloppiness out of your musculature. There are funds for this, though God knows what funds are required to make man walk or run! Yet, how many of you pay attention to this, and yet some of you will be prescribing physiotherapy to a patient, because it is the prescribed thing in the syllabus.
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| By RickyBennison - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55597235 |
The more accurate your external work becomes, the more are the movement-combinations of your musculature, and the more are the areas of your brain which become activated. The disused brain areas do not remain silent - they play havoc.
You constantly learn or constantly disintegrate.
The more and more you become accurate, the more supple become your cortical processes. Accuracy means accuracy, not cleverness, which is merely a rehash of old tricks.
Human society is a complex, collective nervous system. If you watch your activity in hostels, you can see how by your behaviour, you can disturb or demoralise one another; how often your speech, the most potent human instrument, is used destructively, much like an ape uses a razor. If you do not see for yourself, the damage this instrument of speech does to you or others, and you do nothing to correct it, it is little use talking of group psychotherapy and so on, or of doing Hathayoga to learn speech control.
An organisation is made up of individuals, though it is questionable whether you can call them individuals. Unfortunately each individual is really not an individual, but a discordant bundle of habits encased in a discreet skin sheath. Unless you see that this discordance within each of you is causing you damage, and you take some measures to deal with this internal anarchy, and progress towards becoming an individual you will only succeed in spreading the infection all round you. WIthout some interest in organising yourself, all talk of reforming organisations to which you belong or of really treating others who are disorganised is just so much moonshine.
Nobody is asking you to become saints, but for heaven’s sake, give some evidence to yourself that you are taking some interest in your own body and yourself, and your own health.
Health is not a noun, but a verb - a constant activity putting body and brain to more and more effective and harmonious interactions with those around you.
DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT ORGANISATIONS FOR YOU ARE THE ORGANISATION.
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