Summary:

In session IV, dated 28th September 2007, we saw how the replacement of ‘welfare’ by ‘optimisation of scarce resources’ as the sole objective of economic activities, culminated into confining a homo sapiens sapiens (modern wise man) to a homo economicus i.e. an economic man, whose life mission is only want-gratification by acquiring resources in a competitive environment.

The worship of competition to the complete neglect of cooperation, as a principle of life, worsened the situation, under the influence of the Cartesian Newtonian Conceptual framework. The policies of economic development, under this conceptual framework, have brought the world to the brink of extinction. As the new conceptual framework accepted by the physical sciences has not effectively been incorporated into the social sciences, the en-tire set of activities conducted by an economic man, are motivated by what Bhagawadgeeta calls a diabolic attitude. The disastrous results inevitably follow.

The Problem:

Once the materialist (sensate) outlook towards economic activities in particular and towards life in general was accepted (under the influence of the Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework), the homo economicus syndrome prevailed over the human minds. Bhagawadgeeta analyses the behaviour of such people under its study of the divine and diabolic attitudes of the people in Chapter 16, verses 7 to 15. The characteristics of the people with a diabolic (Aasuri) attitude described in these verses, exactly match those of the Homo economicus.

The people with a diabolic attitude, are ignorant of what they should do and what they should not. They do not possess cleanliness, nor proper behaviour nor truth.

The sole objective of life for an economic man is the gratification of wants, irrespective of what they are and what effects do they lead to. Hence harmful commodities like tobacco products and liquors are produced, advertised and sold. Products like fossil fuels which cause air pollution and also like chlorofluorocarbon, which widen the Ozone hole and nuclear power plants, causing the radiation hazard, are used only for their economic cost effectiveness, without any consideration for the disastrous effects of these on the next generation. Jungles are cut for the richer population’s fancy for new furniture every six months.

For the short-sighted objective of a conspicuous consumption of a variety of goods and services, we destroy nature’s cyclical mechanisms of recreating resources. It is a common knowledge today that, if all the people in the world today, demand the same quantity and variety of consumer goods that an average American citizen consumes, we will need seven earths to provide for that kind of demand.

Surprisingly, though during the time of Bhagawadgeeta, not even a semblance of the today’s environmental problems existed, the analysis and diagnosis of the nature and genesis of the diabolic mindset that causes the destruction of the world is unequivocally predicted. Second, the characteristics of the diabolic mindset exactly match those of the homo economicus syndrome, under the Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework, as can be clearly seen in the following verse.

Those (people with a diabolic mindset) say that this world is unreal, (because) there is no foundation or a controller to it. Various objects in it, are unrelated to each others and what objective could there be for it to exist, other than gratification of desires?

The Cartesian Newtonian conceptual framework, dictates a reductionist approach for observing and analysing the world around us. Every phenomenon has to be broken (analysed) into its components and each component is to be studied as though it is independent of the other components.

The Einsteinian revolution in Physics has shaken the very foundation, if not the existence, of this framework. Under the new framework, everything in this universe is related to everything else. Second, the so called unbreakable, solid atom visualised by the Newtonian Physics, was found to be a space in which the negatively charged electrons orbit round the nucleus and the position of an electron at any particular point can be told only in probabilistic terms (The so called Uncertainty Principle of Heisenberg). Dr. Fritjof Capra, in his epoch making book, Tao of Physics¹ displays how the old framework of Physics has now been replaced by a new holistic framework and how the intuitive findings of the ancient (Upnishadic) Indian and Chinese thinkers, exactly match the experimental findings of the Einsteinian school.

The so called materialistic thinkers, be they Physicists, natural scientists or Economists, cannot even admit the existence of a superhuman power like God, controlling the activities of the various agents functioning in the universe, because it is beyond logic. Hence, like the people of a diabolic mindset, these scientists also deny the existence of God. However, there are many riddles in the study of the nature of reality, which cannot be comprehended (let lone analysing them) by the framework of a three dimensional universe.

The economic scientists, unfortunately have not yet come out of the old framework and so are stuck to the optimisation complex of want gratification at the individual level and want saturation on the social level.

What is the inevitable outcome of this Homo Economicus syndrome? Bhagawadgeeta warns,

With this mindset, the people with a diabolic attitude, having lost their conscience and intelligence as a result, engage themselves in horrible actions, which culminate into the destruction of the world.

Do we need to comment on this? The leaders all over the world today, enamoured by the Homo economicus syndrome, have brought the world to the brink of extinction.

1. Dr. Fritjof Capra, Tao of Physics, Sambala, USA, 1975.