The
research into self-organizing complexity of human dynamics illuminates
a new framework for ecological studies: the framework of wholsome
ecology.
The term “ecology” is rooted in the
Greek word oekos meaning “house”.
In the same way as the house provides a shelter for people to
live, the universe provides a 'shelter' for the infinite manifold
of unanimated and animated forms to exist and evolve together.
Thef house - oekus - is a place where its inhabitants relate to
one another and dynamically interact. Is it possible for these
interrelationships and interactions to be healthy both for the
humans and for the rest of the nature in the oekus which we share
together? This is a question asked by wholesome ecology - a vital
qiestion. If we cannot answer this question, the chance for our
survival as human species on this planet diminishes. Environmental
crises, disasters, and cataclysms emerging in result of our unhealthy
relationships with nature will continue to contribute in the spread
of uncurable diseases among us and the other living forms. Wars,
conflicts, and oppression emerging in result of our unhealthy
relationships with one another will continue to accelerate the
processes of life destruction.
At the focus of wholesome ecology is the unique web of life- and
health-supporting interactions at all levels of their self-organizing
emergence - intrapersonal and interpersonal; between the individuals
and the environment, as well as between the individuals and society;
between society and natue, as well as between society and the
whole evolving universe.
2
Medical Model versus the Model of Wholesome Ecology
The
existing medical practices are primarily concern how to fight
with diseases; the diseases are considered as 'enemies' for people.
People must be prevented for being invaded by these enemies; once
invaded, people become 'patients' from whom the diseases must
be removed so that they can be cured. ‘Cured’
is the key term in the medical model used in our days; there
is not much discussion about health in this model.
The medical model absorbs most of the money in health expenditure,
its prestige is almost unchallenged, especially in developed nations,
but contemporary thinkers about health are increasingly aware
that this model is limited, inadequate and often dangerous.
The largest part of the medical interventions become ever more
complex and costly, and produce unwanted side effects which produce
litigation, which raises the costs of the treatment and reduces
its availability in a vicious circle.
Many people today look for alternative approaches based on holistic
methods of healing rooted in the wisdom of the ancients. ‘Heal’
comes from the same root as ‘whole’
and ‘holistic’: restoring
wholeness, restoring health, which has
nothing to do with fighting with or removing disease.
In the medical model, practitioners cure patients of diseases.
In the healing model, a range of agents can heal the patient,
who is always a dynamic part of the process. This crucial part
of the process can be understood as self-healing.
The model of wholesome ecology is centred at one of the main conceptual
roots of the complexity paradigm - self-organization.
When projected on health, self-organization refers to self-healing,
that is, the self-sustaining or self-restoring
- ability of nature, which has been passed to all living creatures.
We can either strengthen and realize our natural self-healing
potential, or weaken and destroy it, depending on our culture.
Death in the wholesome ecology model is an inevitable manifestation
of transitoriness of the physical bodies of the living forms.
The occurrence of the moment of death in humans is often accelerated
by various traumas, including diseases that emerge as a result
of living consciously or unconsciously under conditions that are
destructive to health and impede the ways of realizing our self-healing
potential.
These conditions are deeply rooted in the culture of our society,
which involves also the predominant attitudes and dispositions
of people. Unfortunately, many of the dominant cultural
patterns in the world today value competition and the accumulation
of profit and power. Such 'cultural' behaviours
increase the chance of severe ecological disasters in nature,
intensify stress at individual and social scales, inducing feelings
of hostility and worthlessness in life, and therefore they act
against our health.
The start of the new millennium (with horrible acts of terrorism
and war in response to those acts) is marked by a contemporary
culture that strongly opposes harmony in nature and thus endangers
both the human and environmental health, as they are two sides
of one and the same coin.
3
Human and Environmental Health: The Approach of Wholesome Ecology
The
researc into complexity of human dynamics offers a repertoire
of models which can be used to explore different aspects of the
turbulent space of human existence in which health and 'unhealth'
interact with each other and with other aspects of human experience
and the natural world.
The drive to restore and maintain conditions of wholeness and
integrity, completeness and balance in the integrated
ecological space(IES) – the space
of space of complexly interwoven relationships between living
beings and their environment - can be seen as a fundamental emergent
property of the whole dynamic web, a property that underlies the
holistic concept of wholesome ecology.
In the paradigm of complexity, the potential for self-healing
is seen as an inherent self-organizing urge of each living entity
towards states of integrity and harmony, both at an internal level
(related to the functioning of the constituents of this entity)
and at external levels (related to the functioning of the whole
dynamic web in (IES).
In the model of wholesome ecology, disease is not a self-contained,
isolated pathological event with a set of causes acting in a linear
way. A predisposition to disease occurs when integrity
breaks, either at the level of an entity or at the level of the
whole web of relationships in IES. The broken integrity
may create obstacles that impede the self-healing ability of the
living entities. In human beings, these obstacles can be rooted
in different aspects of their culture: physiological, ecological,
social, and psychological (mental, emotions-based, or/and spiritual).
Solé
and Goodwin, biologists from Santa-Fe Institute of Complexity,
use the concept of ‘dynamic attractor’ to understand
the surprising and paradoxical phenomenon of self healing: "health
is the typical or natural condition of an organism; it is the
dynamic attractor to which the self-healing organism tends to
return spontaneously" (Solé and Goodwin, 2000).
The integrity of the whole web of interrelationships is responsible
for sustaining dynamic attractor of health. At the same time,
the self-healing dynamics supported by this attractor play a crucial
role in sustaining the integrity of the whole dynamic web of interrelationships
in IES.
Because of this vital interdependence, anything in IES that destroys
the web of relationships, anything that divides, separates
or excludes, appears as an obstacle for realization of the self-healing
potential of the living entities.
Example
In terms of the medical model, persons who suffer a headache take
a medicine aimed to treat headaches. Many such medicines have
negative side-effects on other organs of the body, say the stomach
or heart. Headaches have a complex meaning because they can indicate
many different conditions, from stress to brain tumours. To ‘solve’
a health problem by taking a pill is to neglect the vital interdependence
of the attractor of health and IES. Let us imagine that instead
of taking a pill, one uses the approach of the wholesome ecology:
goes for a long walk in the nearest park, takes a couple of deep
breaths, or consciously relaxes for a while. This approach would
stimulate the realization of the self-healing potential of the
organism as a living entity inseparably embedded in IES, and therefore
it is open to the influence of a multitude of factors supporting
the dynamic attractor of health. In our example, the health-supporting
factors are: walking, breathing, enjoying the scenery, listening
to birds, smelling the fragrance of the flowers, relaxing, etc.
Even if the headache were to prove to be due to a tumour, a positive
attitude will still be beneficial in coping with this serious
condition. Moreover, there are many examples of cancer remission
due to a conscious strengthening of the spiritual dimension of
the individual self-healing potential.
The
realization of the self-healing potential of each living entity
depends on the interplay of many factors in IES.
Some of these factors emerge out of the dynamic web of relationships
between the entities, the rest of them appear as a result of the
interaction between the entities and their environment. In order
to capture the wholeness of the dynamic interplay of interrelationships
under conditions of high energy, it is illuminating to model it
as characteristically taking a vortical form, similar to that
of a whirlpool or tornado, able to produce powerful self-organizing
forces.
Our hypothesis is that these vortical forms of interactions between
the multitude of factors in IES may be responsible both for sustaining
the self-healing potential of each entity and for activating it
into a powerful urge towards integrity and harmonious dynamic
relations with the environment, and therefore towards better health.
We refer to these vortical forms as vortices of health.
While living at the vortex of health, an entity feels empowered
to realize its self-healing potential. Living outside the vortex,
its self-healing ability may diminish and disappear; various diseases
may emerge or take a more severe form, and death comes closer.
Conceivably, human beings can learn how consciously to
energize the vortices of health and thus facilitate and support
the self-healing forces which emerge out of them. These
forces keep the dynamics in IES at the attractor of health, a
metaphor for the 'healthy area' in IES. The key role for wholesome
ecology is to explain people how to 'fire' the vortices of health
and thus sustain their lives and the life of nature at the attractor
of health.
In
chaos theory the occurrence of bifurcations marks transition from
order to chaos in the dynamic model of the population growth in
biology. In the model of wholesome ecology, ‘bifurcations’
can be used to describe the transition form health to unhealth
occurring within IES at individual, social, or/and environmental
levels.
One can consider the emergence of the ozone hole, the green house
effect, disappearance of certain kinds of species, soil degradation,
and so forth as manifestations of bifurcations occurring in the
dynamics of nature. The collapse of health of a drug (or alcohol,
or nicotine) addict reveals the emergence of bifurcations in the
form of qualitative changes in individual dynamics that may be
irreversible. An irreversible change is signaled by a chronic
disorder that is likely to be accompanied by a decrease in the
self-healing potential of the individual.
At minor scales, breaks and restorations in IES occur continuously.
Their interplay leads to ‘the edge of chaos’,
a concept used in the complexity paradigm to explain dynamic behaviour
at the intermediate level between order and chaos. When applied
to wholesome ecology, the edge of chaos refers to a region in
IES where the living entities need to balance themselves so as
not to drift into too much disorder on the one hand, and too much
order on the other hand. Such balancing requires a high
level of self-organizing ability of the living entities, that
is, ability for co-adaptation and co-evolution
(Kaufman, 1993).
As far as the self-organizing ability of the species, which reaches
its highest level at the edge-of-chaos regions in IES, manifests
through their self-healing potential, and the latter is maximised
when the species dwell at the vortex of health, we can conclude
that the vortices of health exist at the edge of chaos. Both
the orderly and disorderly patterns of individual dynamics are
equally dangerous for health; the former leads to repetitive
behavioural patterns, stereotypes, and addiction, the latter leads
to disharmony and break of one's connectedness with the environment.
It is the 'edge of chaos' that facilitates the emergence and sustenance
of the vortices of health.
The
medical model is linear: X causes or contributes to disease D,
Y alleviates or cures it. The experience of being or becoming
well or ill often shows a more complex pattern of causality, requiring
other ways of representing causality. One of these that comes
from the complexity paradigm is the idea of harmonious resonance
(Dimitrov, 2001). If being healthy means to be in a state of integrity
and harmony, a living entity may be in such a state if it functions
in harmonious resonance within its own (internal) network of 'agents'
and with the larger (external) whole of the environment. And it
is within the areas at the edge of chaos in the IES where this
two-fold harmony manifests through the vortices of health.
If the agents (organs, cells, systems) of a living organism resonate
harmoniously with each other as an inseparable whole
and with their environment, the organism is more likely to be
healthy. When harmony and integrity are destroyed and agents within
the organism 'speak' separately to each other and to the environment,
then a kind of disease or illness is under way.
If the influences between the internal agents of the individual
organism, and those between the latter and its environment are
reciprocal, as is assumed in holistic models of health, then resonance
needs to be understood accordingly as a kind of double harmonious
resonance, that is, a resonance that is both internal and external.
Is this kind or resonance possible?
Yes,
it is, as it occurs in IES, where the species and their environment
are considered inseparably connected. So, harmony in functions
of the internal organs of a living entity reflects the harmony
of its relationship with the environment, and vice versa: the
harmonious relationship of the living entity with its environment
is an outward projection of its inner harmony. In the case of
human being, the notion of inner harmony has much richer meaning
than simply a harmonious functioning of the organs and systems
of the human body.
When an entity functions under conditions of double harmonious
resonance, it dwells at the vortex of health.
The
vortex of health of an individual can be imagined as an energy
pattern emerging out of the individual’s dynamics; it cannot
be borrowed from other individuals or implanted from outside of
one's inner nature. No doctor in the world, no matter
how competent, can make it whirl; the individual alone is responsible
for the functioning of their vortex of health. In order
to understand this functioning and to support it wisely, we need
the help of our consciousness, of our experience, and of our inner
impetus to live and know.
Through studying how to concentrate and relax the mind
and the body, through practicing techniques that help us acquire
inner peace and harmony, the flow of energy coming from the natural
environment can be consciously directed inward and used to activate
the vortices of health. Otherwise, our self-healing capacity
remains in a dormant state and we need to rely upon help from
outside when feeling sick. By doing this, we substitute the holistic
effect of the realisation of our self-healing potential with short-term
partial effects produced by the use of various chemical medicines.
The more intensively we use medicines (and one cannot help but
keep using them, as the effect of each dose is only temporal),
the more addicted we become and the stronger the numbing effect
that the 'curative' chemical substances exert on our self-healing
potential. Eventually, the addiction results in losing
self-healing capacity.
Many people in the world die as victims of the great delusion
of our days that the help for our health comes from outside! The
society continues to amplify this delusion, because strong economic
forces are behind it. The global pharmaceutical corporations
make unbelievable amount of money on this delusion; a great number
of medical practitioners keep this delusion powerful.
In the context of wholesome ecology, there is an explanation of
the ever-increasing massive use of medicines in today's society.
The more polluted the natural environment, that is, the more saturated
with health-threatening chemicals, the less efficient the realisation
of our individual self-healing potential, as the latter crucially
depends on the support of such basic natural resources like air,
water, sunshine, plantation, etc.
* The efficiency of our self-healing capacity goes down, and we
look for the use of medicines to help us while the following also
happens:
* The air is full of carbon dioxides produced by our cars and
the industrial complexes spread all over the world.
* Dangerous chemical wastes, including nuclear, continue to be
released in monstrous amounts.
* The soil and the water are irreversibly contaminated.
* The process of deforestation and extinguishing natural species
goes with an ever-increasing tempo.
* The ozone holes make the sunshine spread cancer in our bodies
instead of healing them.
* The rains are acid and the fruits and vegies eaten are full
of chemicals (or 'genetically engineered') to look commercially
attractive, but detrimental for our health.
So we are entrained in a kind of health-damaging vicious circle:
we continue to pollute nature with one kind of chemicals
and at the same time fight the effects of this pollution on us
by using another kind of chemicals. The more we pollute
nature with the first (technological) kind of chemicals and thus
gradually convert it into a source of new emergent illnesses,
the more we use the second (medical) kind of chemicals to fight
the illnesses and thus become gradually addicted. In the both
cases, the result is one the same: serious destruction of our
health.
Is there any way to go out of this vicious circle?
Wholesome ecology can reveal such a way: Only if we take
care about the natural environment and help it restore its own
self-healing capacity. This will facilitate the increase
of our self-healing potential (as we are 'children' of
nature and our health totally relies upon its support)
and help ourselves reduce our dependence on medicines.
One
essential aspect of the multi-faced mission of wholesome ecology
is to show the fatal danger of the reliance on the help of medicines,
while neglecting the vital factor for our health. thatis, our
potenyal for self-healing. Nature has endowed us with this potential
at the moment when we emerged out of her womb, and it is a grievous
failure not to develop and use it to the full. Nature
is the main supporter of the self-healing potential.
It is her generous and free supply of energy - her sun and air,
water and soil, flora and fauna, harmony and beauty - that help
the vortices of the human health move and generate their healing
forces.
Self-healing is a holistic phenomenon - an expression of the self-organizing
ability of the individual as a whole, and there is only one way
to stimulate it: through holistic means. Such are the means of
nature! Thousands of years ago, this was fully understood by the
creators of Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system
of health ('ayur' means life and 'veda' means knowledge in Sanskrit),
according to which no single agent by itself can bring health.
Ayurveda views the person as a composite of the same primary forces:
air (force of expansion), water (force
of adhesion) and fire (force of transformation),
which compose nature as well. When these forces act harmoniously
in the individual, that is, in the way as they act in nature,
they fulfil three functions: digestion (generating
inner energies), absorption (sustaining the inner
energies) and elimination (release of worked-off
energies). These functions when considered holistically, that
is, in their simultaneously physical, emotional, mental and spiritual
realisations, create health. Ayurveda defines health as soundness
of three inseparable wholes: body
('shrira'), mind ('manas') and soul
('atman') (John, 2001).
The earlier in life we understand the wisdom of the ancients about
the vital role of nature in the conscious developing and strengthening
of our self-healing capacity (which is in abundance when the organism
is young and full of vigour), the more efficient the realisation
of this capacity.
So, another aspect of the mission of wholesome ecology
relates to the health education of the young people;
this kind of education is a key factor in promoting health.
Nature
embraces the whirling complexity of dynamics (forces, energies,
substances, forms and processes) that create, sustain, change,
or destroy all animate and inanimate forms. These dynamics support
the self-organizing potential of nature.
"Everything in nature tends towards fulfilment of its potential"
wrote Aristotle, who called this property of nature 'entelechy'
(from Greek en telecheia - “be in fulfilment”
or “completion”). Examples of entelechy
are the capacity of a seed to unfold its potential to grow when
appropriate conditions arise, and the capacity of an organism
to heal itself. These processes are inexplicable in terms of mechanistic
causality, but it is evident that they happen all the time in
biological life, including human existence.
Through its urge to move and self-realize, nature represents an
all-embracing wholeness where no thing and no being exists in
itself or for itself but only in dynamic relationship with other
things and beings. This is a basic premises in the paradigm of
complexity, which directly relates to the integrity of existence
considered as a complex of dynamics, whose creative, sustaining,
or destructive powers are constantly demonstrated in nature. It
is through these dynamics that everything that exists, emerges,
moves, changes and transforms from an elementary particle to a
gigantic galaxy, becomes connected in an inseparable web of mutually
dependent, intricately interwoven and co-evolving relationships.
It is at the same time something that can only be grasped and
thought about with an appropriate kind of fuzziness; fuzziology,
the study of fuzziness imbedded in human knowing, reveals the
secrets of understanding the meaning of complex holistic concepts
like health, harmony, rhythm, self-organization, and nature (Dimitrov,
2002a; Dimitrov and Hodge, 2002).
The
rhythm of nature beats through us. The closer our connection with
the natural environment and the more aware we are about its forces
and life-supporting energies, the clearer is our perception of
its rhythm.
From the digesting activity of our intestines to the firing of
the neurons in the brain, every single function of the organs
and cells in our bodies reflects the beat which mirrors the rhythm
of nature. The state of our health: physical, emotional, and mental
is entirely dependent on this rhythm. When the rhythm stops beating
through the vital trinity of each individual's nature: body, mind,
and soul, the individual dies.
The health of the natural environment, with all its variety of
animated and non-animated entitF is entirely rhythm-dependent.
The rhythm of nature maps into its fractal geometry,
discovered by Benoit Mandelbrot (Mandelbrot, 1983) and its self-organized
criticality, firstly described by PerBak (Bak, 1993); both fractals
and criticality can be characterized by power law distributions.
In this sense, the power laws describe mathematically the rhythm
of 'how nature works'.
The rhythm of natural environment mirrors the rhythm of Gaya,
our living planet (Lovelock, 1995); the rhythm of Gaya mirrors
the rhythm of the galaxy, and thy rhythm of the galaxy mirrors
the rhythm of the whole universe, because Gaya and the galaxy
and the universe are only different scales, or fractal levels,
of one and the same dynamic existential wholeness.
Rhythm is an inherent characteristic of the self-organizing dynamics
of nature. The way nature self-organizes, unfolds and
evolves, is through rhythmic patterns. The vortices of
health discussed above reflect these rhythmic patterns.
The self-organizing capacity of nature's dynamics is sustained
through the constant interactions of the astonishing variety of
the living creatures and their environment. What is crucial to
be underlined in the context of wholesomee ecology is that every
single entity existing in nature, be this entity animate
or non-animate, is equally important for the
realization of the dynamic interactions of the living creatures
and their environment, and therefore for the support of the self-organizing
urge of nature and its all-pervading rhythm.
Every single entity in nature is endowed with equal right
to exist, interact, and evolve, and thus to contribute
in its overall self-organization and rhythm. And vice versa, the
self-organizing urge of nature and its rhythm manifest through
the motion, interaction, and evolutionary potential of every existing
entity, without assigning ranks of priorities among them; they
all are equally open for this urge to make them move, interact,
and evolve in synchrony.
If some entities were favoured by nature at the expense of others,
the integrity of nature: its unity, wholeness, and interconnectedness
would be immediately destroyed and this would destroy its rhythm.
Nature can never act against its integrity, as
far as the latter is sine qua non for its existence,
but we can, when our minds immerse in selfish pursuits and forget
that our natural environment and we are inseparably connected
through the rhythm of the universe. When the finite in the form
of our ego-centred thinking clings to existence for its own sake,
without reflecting the infinite, it carries seeds of destruction,
disease and death within itself.
Although
we are able to reflect the rhythm of nature, we are able also
to act against it. This happens, when we do not focus our awareness
on the natural rhythm, as if it does not deserve any consciously
directed attention and 'works' only automatically until it destroys
because of a disease or death. It also happens when we are aware
of the rhythm, and yet do not care about providing conditions
to support its constant 'work' through the body-mind-soul integrity
of our human nature.
In the first case, we usually become aware of the rhythm
when it is destroyed, often irreversibly. For example,
a sudden heart attack can loudly announce that the rhythm has
been destroyed. Usually, we hurry to 'fix' it by using medical
drugs. As far as the rhythm is a holistic characteristic of our
natural self-organizing ability rooted in the body-mind-soul integrity,
it can hardly be fixed by an artificially made chemical
drug. Any drug acts in isolation and directs its effect
upon a certain organ or a function only; but the rhythm is essentially
holistic, it cannot be restore by a partial intervention.
In the second case, the physical body simply follows what the
mind pushes it to do. As far as our minds are preoccupied with
much more 'important'thoughts than listening to the natural rhythm
- thoughts how to earn more money, to exercise more power, to
pursue achievements and higher social status, and to indulge in
all kinds of pleasures, we are usually able to notice that the
rhythm goes wrong when it is too late to restore it.
4.3
'Rhythm' in Society against Nature's Health
When
looking back in history, we see that nations and states follow
periods of development and downfalls. Both the periods of economic
growth and the periods of crises are inherent in the capitalist
system. These periods have little to do with the rhythm of nature.
Their underlying causes remain in the fundamental contradictions
on which any process of exercising political or/and economic power
in human society is based. "The crises are never more than
momentary, violent solutions for the existing contradictions,
violent eruptions that re-establish the disturbed balance for
the time being" (Marx, 1981).
Chaos theory or stochastic analysis might help the experts to
build chaotic attractors or long and short-term economic cycles,
which can mathematically map the chaotic or stochastic dynamics
of a selected set of economic and social indicators, but their
'rhythm' is entirely different than the rhythm of nature. For
example, the frantic ups and downs of today's market economy are
reflections of the pressure of the largest financial corporations
and their aggressive striving to establish global economic power
According to Hardt and Negri, the establishment of global
economic power means emergence of a global empire: "a
decentred and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressively
incorporates the entire global realm within its open, expanding
frontiers" (Hardt and Negri, 2000). The 'rhythm' of the social
dynamics in the empire becomes nothing but a "pure
exercise of command, without any proportionate or adequate reference
to the world of life".
While the world of life must reflect the rhythm of nature and
the universe in order to exist and reproduce, the global order
in the empire recognizes only one kind of rhythm: the rhythm of
the financial transactions directed to increase the wealth of
the economic giants.
The distribution of power in society has become so drastically
unequal and the gap between the powerful corporate minority and
the majority of people existing in hard-to-bear economic conditions
has become so big that the humans belonging to these two polar
parts of society started to resemble two different kinds of species.
The high power differential in society impedes the self-organizing
capacity of human society. The latter can manifest only if the
social interactions are between individuals, each with an equally
open space of opportunities for self-realization. In the global
empire, this is impossible.
The rhythm of social self-organization can be sustained only in
societies where the power differential tends to zero.
This proposition relates to the social dimensions of wholesome
ecology and is analogous to the proposition about the rhythm of
nature; the rhythm of any process of self-organization of the
all-embracing web of interrelated and dynamically interacting
agents in nature and in society requires both recognition and
realization of their equity. When human species strives
to dominate in nature, and the richest strive to dominate in society,
the rhythm of natural and social self-organization becomes distorted.
Then ecological and social disasters emerge with negative effects
on the human health, on the health of the society, and on the
health of the whole planet.
Culture
in general use refers to patterns of behaviour peculiar to humans,
not to bacteria, but in its deeper sense it can still refer to
both. Culture is the set of attitudes and behaviours expressed
in the normal functioning of a society, human or other. These
patterns create the harmonious set of self-organized forms we
admire in nature, where plants and animals follow their natural
drives to create the intricate and functional systems of nature.
The culture we humans have developed seems to be a second nature
opposed to nature itself, responsible for the continuous worsening
of the ecological conditions on the planet today. Our
scientific and technological inventions create serious ecological
problems impeding the process of self-organization in nature.
And as far as we are product of this process and vitally depend
on it for our survival as a species, the obstacles rooted in our
culture at the same time obstruct the unfolding of our lives and
our potential.
Like
all other animals, we use resources of nature to sustain our physical
existence, but these resources are incomparably less than the
resources utilised for establishing power over nature and in society.
An ego-centred human mind is obsessed with the idea of exercising
power everywhere. The highest realisations of the human
intellect were and continue to be directed towards accumulation
and realisation of military, economic, and political power in
society: creating advanced tools to kill each other,
to exploit each other, to make those with less power follow the
will of the strongest, and if they resist, to teach them lessons,
seek revenge and eventually extinguish them.
How can health, as an expression of harmony and integrity of nature,
be sustained within a culture that wills to power? In the developed
capitalist world, the will to power is often masked by
charismatic political speeches about democracy, freedom, and equal
rights for everybody. At the same time a vast propaganda
machine keeps the consumption drive in society at its highest
possible level and thus reinforces the establishment of a hard-to-oppose
global economic order.
Besides
the obsession with power and its destructive social and ecological
consequences, wholesome ecology points to other serious obstacles
in our culture that impede the fulfilment of human potential.
The hardest obstacles to remove relate to addiction, to
all kind of unhealthy habits, prejudices and dogmas, as well as
to activities centred mainly in individual selfishness (like
avarice, greed, craving for luxury, self-praising, gluttony, envy,
jealousy, lust, hatred, evil-doings to others, and revenge). While
showing tendency to self-propel and grow in magnitude, these obstacles
absorb enormous amount of our physical, mental and emotional energy.
Day after day our self-organizing capacity is wasted in 'cultural'
attractors, which have very little to do with the growth of our
intelligence, with the urge to understand the secrets of our inner
nature, expand our consciousness and open our spiritual potential.
To open your spiritual potential means to remove the obstacles
on its path. If you remove hate, love starts flowing.
You are not to create love, nobody can create love. If you were
to create love then it would be impossible. Love is already in
you; you just remove the hate with the power of your heart and
you will see love streaming. Remove the unconsciousness with the
power of your awareness, and you will see your capacity to know
arising in you. Remove the negative with the power of
your mindfulness and the positive starts unfolding itself.
It is almost as if a rock is blocking a tiny little stream of
pure water; you remove the rock and the stream starts moving.
When the rock blocking its path, it may not ever be possible for
the stream to come. We are carrying many rocks within our culture
- call them blocks in your energy - and those blocks have to be
dissolved and removed, if you want to let the tiny little stream
of your spiritual endeavour come. Then nourish and care for it
with all your love and all your knowing until it becomes a mighty
river hurrying to unite with the ocean...
So speaks the spiritual master to those disciples who are thirsty
to know.
The
ancient wisdom provides powerful hints for dealing with enigmas
and paradoxes of human existence. "There was a time when,
in a small strip of the worldís land surface, man achieved
an almost total equilibrium with his environment and created a
society as near perfect as he has so far been able even to dream
about..." (Rice, 1991). Greatest philosophers of Ancient
Greek like Pythagoras, Plato, Hippocrates, Thales of Milet, Galen,
and Homer visited Egypt in search of Wisdom.
The life and work of Pythagoras, perhaps the most famous ancient
philosopher of all, who spent more than 20 years in the sanctuaries
of Egypt, provides an important clue if we wish to get insight
from the Egyptian Wisdom. Pythagoras established a doctrine
of unity, which encompassed the physical and the spiritual. He
shows us a holistic ehilosophy - an essentially Egyptian perspective.
The variety, complexity and multiplicity which we see never implied
separation; unity was ever present. Life in the heavens
and life on earth were considered to be one, an indivisible unity.
Human beings considered themselves indistinguishable from their
environment, products of the same forces of nature responsible
for creation of the heavens and the earth. To learn and acquire
knowledge was to observe these forces at work. In the great Egyptian
temples all branches of learning were housed under the same roof,
regarded as aspects of the single wisdom. All diverse branches
were encapsulated within this sacred wisdom. It is in it where
people looked for insights to deal with enigmas and paradoxes
of their lives. The essential preoccupation of the Egyptian
thought was to know the origin and matter of existence.
In our fragmented world, knowledge has become also fragmented.
Our society has become insulated from nature.
When discussing sustainability, for example, we speak about environment
as something separated from us, something 'over there' with which
we need to establish friendly relationship. We say that the cars
pollute the air outside of us, forgetting that it is the same
air inside of us without which we simply cannot survive. We speak
about waters somewhere there around us, totally neglecting the
fact that water is essential ingredient of our cells.
So far from us is the idea of unity, a central idea of all ancient
wisdom, that even such a simple and transparent truth that the
same forces which work at the universe work in us seem strange
for us. Can we use this truth to make money out of it? No? Then
forget it! Think about something more serious, for instance, think
about sustainability: how to continue exploiting the environment,
and at the same time live healthy and happily? Or how to continue
current predatory processes led by us in nature and society and
at the same time to preach about governmental and citizen-based
mechanisms designed to ensure greater accountability of business
and industry?
Before
organizing citizen-based mechanisms we must have those citizens.
Does somebody teach us how to be citizen? Without understanding
the concept of unity and living with it, we can not be citizens.
Do we have governments which are honest stewards of the public
interest related to contemporary environmental issues? One
of the pathologies of our fragmented social reality is that in
their efforts to hold on to power, politicians and political parties
rely on crucial financial support from wealthy corporations which
are not environment-friendly when making money.
We can talk a lot about precautionary principles,
preventative approaches, extended producer responsibilities, clean
production, corporate accountability, national public hearings,
community participation, and many other issues related to sustainability,
but the effect of all these talks willbe insignificant
unless we are able to grasp to idea of unity and work with it
in our every day life. The society needs education in
this regard, at schools and universities, in local communities,
and global corporation. The simple message from the ancient
wisdom is the message that unity can save us from self-destruction.
Or at least make it not so painful.
One of the endeavours of wholesome ecology is to spread the message
of unity; there is no health out of IES, in which the humans and
nature are linked forever.
6
In Search of Universal Principle of Harmony in Nature and Society
In
a search for justice it seems clear that existing levels of inequality
are unhealthy, yet nor is it the case that equality is possible
or even desirable. Something else is needed which is not as precise
and definite as equality, but nonetheless meets the human craving
for balance; a key concept here is harmony (Dimitrov, 1989). This
was a key concept for the Greeks, a conjunction of three strands
of meaning. Its root meaning was aro, join, so “harmonia”
was what joined. Another meaning was proportion,
the balance of things that allowed an easy fit. The quality of
joining and proportion then came to be seen in music and
other arts.
The precondition for harmony for the Greeks was expressed in the
phrase “nothing too much”. It also
had a mysterious positive quality, which became the object of
enquiry of their finest minds. Thinkers such as Pythagoras
sought to capture the mystery of harmony as something both inexpressible
yet also illuminated by mathematics. The mathematics
of harmony explored by the ancient Greeks is still an inspiring
model for contemporary scientists. Crucial to it is their discovery
of its quantitative expression in astonishing diversity and complexity
of nature through the golden mean (golden ratio), (phi): ,
which is approximately equal to 1.318. It is described by Euclid
in book five of his Elements : "A straight line is
said to have been cut in extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole
line is to the greater, so is the greater to the less".
Any quantity Q can be divided in golden ratio, if its greater
part Qg is chosen in such a way that it relates to the smaller
part Qs exactly in the same proportion as the whole quantity Q
relates to its greater part Qg , that is,
As later scientists have discovered, pervades both animate and
inanimate forms in nature, from galactic spirals to chromosome
threads. Leonardo da Vinci characterised as a
“divine proportion” and used its
aesthetic appeal in his consummate masterpieces. While
natural forms undergo permanent changes, is preserved in their
topology. For example, the unfolding of the galactic
spiral preserves in its geometry; the growth of the human body
preserves the golden ratio in placing the organs; the dynamics
of the arrangements of leaves, seeds and petals also follow .
The
Golden Mean as an image of harmony can be applied as a ratio,
which is itself mathematically precise, although it may not be
clear what precise quantities are involved or how those quantities
could be determined in practice. In this form it will express
in a precise and clear form an idea of harmony which is in other
respects indeterminate, to produce insights which are clarifying
and enabling and can be translated into practice. We will illustrate
this with reference to the theme of energy.
Our planet is like a huge collector, producer and reservoir of
energy. Partly this energy comes from outside the planet,
from the sun and other cosmic sources, and partly from
sources of energy accumulated in the depths of the Earth and on
its surface. The so-called 'energy crisis' is bound up with the
many other crises facing the planet, seemingly presenting insuperable
obstacles on the path to health, for individuals, nations and
the planet. It is another situation where we can look
to the wisdom of as image of harmony.
Let E denote the whole amount of energy available to our planet
at an arbitrary moment t. The planet needs this energy not only
for supporting the natural drift (co-evolving) of all living forms
of its biosphere, but for supporting also an enormously complex
physico-chemical ‘metabolism’. Because of this gigantic
metabolism, James Lovelock referred to Earth as a living
entity called Gaia, the ancient Greeks’ name for
the goddess of Earth (Lovelock, 1995).
Part of E is used by animate and non-animate nature to keep going
the processes of emergence, sustenance, evolution and destruction
of the living forms on the Earth. Let us denote this energy by
E(n), where n stands for nature.
Being an inseparable part of nature, we, the human species, also
use this energy, which is essential for our survival. It is this
energy that supports the dynamic attractors and vortices of health
discussed in the previous chapters. Much more intensively, however,
we use energy for purposes which have nothing to do with
our health. On the contrary, some of those purposes
are directly opposed to the sustenance of life.
For example, an incredibly huge amount
of energy goes to support military-industrial complexes on the
planet. This includes highly energy consuming production of more
and more sophisticated weapons, rockets, planes, and bombs, more
and more sophisticated military technologies to demonstrate power
and exert control. Huge amounts of energy support satellite espionage
activities and cosmic experiments of the industrially developed
countries. Ever increasing supplies of energy go to produce
ecologically disastrous chemicals, to support huge air-conditioning
areas, and to satisfy continuously growing desires for luxury
and comfort, to amass wealth and fame.
Let E(h) denote the flow of energy used by humans
for purposes like the purposes indicated above, where h stands
for human, although it would be more appropriate to use ah (standing
for 'anti-human') for this kind of monstrous energy expenditure.
As human existence strongly depends on the energy flow supporting
the life on the planet, E(n) must be greater than E(h) otherwise
the biological survival and the sustenance of health of the species,
including people, would not be possible. We assume that the energy
flows responsible for the dynamics of Earth as an inseparable
living entity in the solar system, naturally tend to self-organize
in such a way as to preserve the Golden Mean in their relations
to each other, which implies
Consequently, E(n) is equal to E divided by and E(h) is equal
to E divided to squared. With 1.32 as an approximate value for
, the following expressions are valid:
E(n) = 0.32 E
E(h) = 0.38 E
The principle of harmony in human drift (co-evolving) with nature
requires that for human existence to be in harmony with nature,
the energy E(h) used by human society is less than 40% of the
whole amount of energy E available for supporting the gigantic
'metabolism' of our planet as an inseparable entity in the solar
system.
The larger part of E, that is, more than 30%, is needed for supporting
life on Earth.
Natural drift of species, including humans, is under a threat
of destruction every time the energy available to nature E(n)
falls below the critical value of 30% of E, or equivalently, when
the energy used by human society becomes greater than 40% of E.
6.2
Human Actions against Harmony
Harmony
as a fuzzy concept and has mathematical and non-mathematical dimensions.
There is enough evidence in life today that the harmony
of people's co-existence with nature has being destroyed. Mass
extinctions of species, expansion of the ozone-hole, rapidly increasing
pollution of air and water on the planet, frequent occurrence
of large scale natural disasters and emergence of new severe diseases
caused byenvironmental problems are but a few manifestations of
an ever growing disharmony in nature-human co-existence.
In pursuit of technological advancements our society does not
care about the energy supply of other than human living forms.
Whether E(h) is higher or lower than 40% of E, who cares? Everybody
knows there are no 'objective' ways for measuring energy E, and
therefore no scientific method can be used to raise the alarm
when E(h) reaches a critical value. Moreover, many people continue
to think that our planet has an unlimited supply of energy, that
the use of solar energy and energy contained in the atoms' nuclei
will provide people with never ending energy flow. Unfortunately,
the energy capable of supporting the natural metabolism of our
planet is limited.
The human drive for technological development cannot be
stopped, so E(h) will permanently increase, and therefore,
humanity will move further and further away from what the principle
of harmony requires. If this is the case, why do we bother to
speak about harmonious co-existence, divine proportions, and wholesome
ecology? Is it not better to learn how to adapt to ever-deeper
disharmony of human life?
Unfortunately, living forms cannot adapt to ecological
catastrophes and disasters. If disasters occur, species die.
And in our days, ecological disasters clearly demonstrate a tendency
to increase in number and magnitude.
We know that we are inseparably connected with nature. We are
its products. We know that when we destroy nature, we
destroy ourselves - our health and survival - at the same moment.
When we pollute its air and water, its plants and animals, we
pollute the air, the water and the food sustaining the integrity
of our physical, emotional, and mental lives. Nature is not over
there, while we are staying here. It is in us as much as we are
in it.
To preserve nature means to preserve all its forms of life including
our human form. And vice versa, to preserve our human form means
to preserve nature. This is the way of co-drifting with nature
in accordance with the principle of harmony. This is the way of
life, the way of harmony, the way of health. All other ways breathe
diseases and death. We cannot divide among us and nature the air,
water, sunshine, and so forth in the 'divine proportion'. But
we can share these precious natural gifts with each other and
with the other species. We all are Nature. What matters are the
acts of sharing, sharing with other people not only material goods,
knowledge, skill, experience, but also humanness: goodwill, warmth,
respect, and love.
The wisdom of the ancient Vedas reminds us that everything that
we try to hold on to, be it air or food, possession or knowledge,
turns into poison not only for our physical health, but also for
the health of our mind and soul, for the health of nature.
Every act of sharing with others is an acknowledgment
of our interdependence and inseparability, from each other and
from nature. Every act of sharing has a strong spiritual
connotation. The more we share, the more united we feel with each
other and with the spiritual essence of the universe. When the
acts of sharing are in accordance with the principle of harmony,
they have an immense transformative power. They change us from
ego-centred to eco-centred, from ill to healthy, from destroyers
to co-creators of the whole evolving ecological universe.
And to help for the realisation of this transformation is the
main mission of wholesome ecology.
Acknowledgments:
The author acknowledges the help of Prof. Bob Hodge in the preparation
of this chapter, and particularly in the work on the second section.
7 References
1.
Dimitrov, V. (1989) Principle of Harmony in Econometric Modelling,
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9. Lovelock, J. (1995) The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living
Earth, W.W. Norton & Company
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11. Marx, K. (1981) Capital, vol. 3, Penguin (p 357)
12. Næss, A. and Rothenberg, D. (1990) Ecology, Community
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Books (p.113).
Note:
Dr.Vladimir Dimitrov can be addressed @ :
University of Western Sydney, College
of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Locked Bag 1797, Penrith
South DC NSW 1797, Australia Email v.dimitrov@uws.edu.au
Phone: 61 (0) 2 45 701903
Fax: 61 (0) 2 45 701255
