Being a part of existence with ingrained measures (balance for Truth, order for Sustainability, and law for Justice) for smooth and continuous function, human beings must not be different. Apart from human beings, all other orders of existence, namely, the material order (solid, liquid, and gaseous matter), the energy order (vegetation, plants, and trees, etc. with inspiration and expiration) and the animal order exist and maintain themselves according to the existential order.Each unit in these orders is a system in itself and participates in the higher order by creating conditions for the survivability of the higher order. The higher order, in turn, replenishes the lower order to sustain all orders in a mutually satisfactory manner. However, human beings utilize their capacities (which afford them the power of imagination and freedom in action) inconsistent with those of the lower orders and thus deviate from the existential order.
Whereas, a human being, a unit of the knowledge order, is a system in itself. Collectively, they create imbalance by taking the natural resources of the lower orders and not replenishing them for sustainability of their natural cycles.
Correspondingly, the outcome challenges survivability of their own order by depleting the very resources (the land, the water, and the air) they depend upon. Continuation of this abuse creates unpredictable consequences and uncertainty of natural environment. For a number of years, we are witnessing conspicuous pattern of visible environmental degradation, climate change, and unsustainable economic stratification. However, there are different philosophical views regarding the survivability of human race and sustainability of the environment from one of natural evolution that would correct itself to impending natural catastrophe to conditions caused by human intervention that may annihilate all life to extinction.
A responsible course of action to correct the situation is education. Education consistent with the existential order would arrest the momentum of the rapid environmental degradation and unsustainable economic disparity. An educational program that prepares the students with global awareness for reversing the situation created by irresponsible human actions would produce sustainable solutions for the humankind. Over a certain period of time, the new generations of the knowledge order would begin to live in synchronicity with the lower orders for the human and environmental sustainability.
The current education has failed to impart the right understanding in the students that would instil in them a sense of preservation of resources and their replenishment. It can only be had by inculcating in them the merits of cooperation, duty, and excellence in their pursuits. On the contrary, the present system based on competition has bred selfishness, greed and violence. The competition has further promoted the attitude to win and be right always giving rise to anger, jealousy, opposition, and struggle in the families and communities, breaking human bonds and arousing conflicts and war between people, states and nations. The current education system also prepares the students to develop certain unnecessary and specialized skills that motivate them to conceive, design and develop gadgets, appliances, instruments and machines that further weaken the human bond dependent upon relationships and connectivity paramount for human emotional stability and spiritual growth.
The big-business dependent education is bringing about total machine dependence. The resulting automaton life-style devoid of physical labor has: reduced emphasis on preventive healthcare modalities, increased consumption of produce and other foods chemically treated for ripeness, freshness and increased shelf-life, and grown dependence on telecommunications so that the resulting environment is creating physically weak, mentally imbalanced and emotionally unstable human beings prone to diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and arthritis which further suppress their immune system. The independent life-style ignores human values important for healthy human relationships within the family and community. People are living in a state of confusion with a perceived feeling of deprivation. Correspondingly, accumulation of material goods and hoarding beyond their needs are making each household a museum.
The major catastrophic situations include imbalance in nature, environmental degradation, climate change, and resource depletion. There is now a question mark on the survivability of the human race, and the Earth itself. Proper understanding must come from the right education. Education is the combined responsibility of: the parents and family members (father, mother, and grandparents, etc.), formal schooling (teachers in school, college, etc.), and society (Government, media, sports, business, and role models in society etc.). It is with the above background in mind, toward a paradigm shift in education, that the Institute of Global Harmony (IGH) was conceived and developed.
“There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.”
(Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion)