4 Understanding the Human Being as Co-existence of Self (‘I’) and Body

Learning Outcome
Introduction and Meaning
Needs of Body and Self: Continuous or Temporary
Needs of Body and Self: Quantitative or Qualitative
Fullfilling nedds of the Self and the Body
Mixing up two set of needs
Activities in the self and the body
Activities of knowing,assuming,recognizing,and fulfillingin the context of self and Body
Summary

1.Learning Outcome

After completing this module, the students will be able to:
Understand human being as co-existence of Self (‘I’) and Body Describe the needs of Self (‘I’) and Body
Discuss activities of Self (‘I’) and Body
Explain difference between Self and Body

2.Introduction and Meaning

Human being is more than just a body. In fact, the human being is a co-existence of the

‘Self’ and the ‘Body’. There is a need to understand human being not only as human body but also in context of Self which acts as observer or user of Body. Body is the physical appearance with a particular structure and features whereas Self is the aliveness of the person i.e. the entity that keeps the body.

To understand basic difference between ‘Body’ and ‘Self’(I), answer to simple questions will help. Like, who needs food ‘I’ or ‘Body’? Who needs shelter? Who needs clothes? Who needs respect? Who needs happiness? The answer for first three questions is ‘body’ and remaining two is ‘I’. However, the further discussion with help in understanding this difference clearly.

‘Self’ ( I ) and ‘Body’ are different in terms of their needs. Needs of body are physical in nature. However, the needs of self are not physical in nature. Body needs food for nourishment, clothes for protection from different kinds of weather and some other facilities to ensure right utilization of body. These can be categorized as physical facilities or suvidha. Self ( I ) needs respect, happiness, trust etc. Thus, the need of Self is to live in state of continuous happiness.

There is a need to work for physical facilities of Body. It is equally important to work for Self to ensure respect, happiness and trust in I.

3. Needs of Body and Self: Continuous or Temporary

For body, the food is a temporary need. For example: X’s friend offers him burger and X eats it. After finishing it, if he (X) has no desire to eat more, then same friend’s insistence for having more burgers will turn into punishment. In other words, body needs food only periodically.

Similarly, body does not require same type of clothing during different weather conditions. Its need for clothing is temporary. One cannot wear same sweater or warm clothes during winter and in summer. Body requires a change in clothing according to different weather conditions.

There is a need to protect body from adverse weather conditions and therefore, a house is required. House provides shelter and protection but one cannot live in house or in a room throughout one’s life to remain protected. It will become imprisonment. Thus, house is needed for a limited time during day/ different days. So, need for house is also temporary in nature.

In the same way, other facilities for the body are required temporarily. For example: One cannot sit in an airplane for a very long period.

This can be concluded that body does not have a continuous need for physical facilities. Clothing, food, shelter and other facilities are required for some amount of time or in other words, the body’s need for physical facilities is temporary in nature.

On the other hand, the needs of Self ( I ) are continuous. Everyone wants to be happy all the times. Similarly everyone wants acceptance in relationship continuously and not for sometimes only. Each of us wants respect continuously. No one wants to lose the feeling of being respected or feeling of happiness even for a single minute. Thus, needs of ‘I’ are continuous in nature whereas the needs of body are temporary.

There is not a single need of body that is continuous. This is also true in case of need for air. While breathing, one inhales once and next moment one exhales. Thus, breathing is interrupted. But need for feelings and happiness for ‘I’ is continuous in time. No one wants respect only at one moment and being disrespected the other moment.

4. Needs of Body and Self: Quantitative or Qualitative

The needs of body are quantitative. One can quantify the requirements of body like clothes, food, shoes, rooms, cars etc. The number of these requirements can be small or large for body of different persons but this is limited in quantity. For example, one may require one chapatti only in a day whereas one’s friend may need three chapattis in a day. Similarly, one person may need a scooter to travel whereas the other person may require a bicycle. But, unlimited quantity of chapatti, scooter or bicycle is not needed. Thus, all physical facilities are needed in limited quantity. This can be verified by making a list of things one uses and seeing if anything in the list is such need of the Body that is required in unlimited quantity.

It is, thus, right to say that physical facilities are needed in limited quantity only. Now, imagine what will happen if one tries to consume /use physical facilities limitlessly.

Let us take example of food. Mr. X is very fond of pastries. He goes to his aunt’s house. His aunt offers him pastries and tells that she has twenty pastries gifted by someone, so he can eat as many as he wants. As Mr. X is hungry, he starts eating them one by one. In the beginning, it satisfies Mr. X’s hunger and he finds them tasty. He has had two of them so far. It is ‘essential’ and ‘tasty’. He continues eating and after eating fourth pastry, he feels his stomach is full. Mr. X finds it difficult to eat fifth pastry but enjoys its taste. It has now become ‘non-essential’ but still ‘tasty’. Mr. X continues to eat sixth, seventh pastry and now he starts losing the taste of pastry. So, it has turned ‘non-essential and tasteless’. Mr. X does not stop and continues to eat eighth, ninth and very soon it becomes ‘unbearable’ and even the sight of pastries is not tolerable.

Hence, it can be concluded that as one tries to prolong the use of physical facilities, the below mentioned pattern results. With passage of time and more consumption, the same facility (here food) changes in the pattern:

It is thus evident that physical facilities are essential in the beginning, but their continuous usage or consumption become unbearable with the passage of time. One can only imagine of having limitless physical facilities but if one has too much of these physical facilities or tries to use/consume more and more of them, it starts becoming a big problem. For example, if one likes a specific type of bike, then a gift of ten such bikes from someone will become troublesome. Similarly, if one likes mangoes that do not mean that one ends up having tons of mangoes.

This gives the conclusion that body needs physical facilities in a restricted quantity. Let us now discuss needs of the Self (I )

Needs of the Self are qualitative in nature. Our feelings like happiness, respect and affection are qualitative and not quantitative. It simply sounds ridiculous if one says one kg of happiness, three litres of love or a ton of respect. So, feelings are only qualitative in nature. One is either happy or not happy. In the same way, either one feels love and affection or one does not. Thus, these feelings are either there or they are not.

Hence, it can be concluded that needs of Self are qualitative and these are wanted continuously whereas needs of body are quantitative and one does not want them continuously or one cannot have them in abundance.

5. Fulfilling needs of the Self and the Body

The Body’s need for physical facilities (i.e. Suvidha) can be fulfilled through appropriate physico-chemical or man-made things while the need of the Self, for happiness (i.e. Sukha), can be fulfilled through proper understanding and right feelings.

Both kinds of needs cannot be fulfilled in the same way. They require completely different ways. One may have adequate physical facilities but if one is not having proper understanding, one will not be happy. Similarly, persons belonging to a rich class and living together will not be happy if they do not have right feelings for one another. Thus, happiness is not ensured even if one is having sufficient physical facilities.

Further, it is clear from the above discussion that physical facilities alone are not sufficient for a human being. This is because of the fact that a human being is co-existence of the Body and the Self (I). Physical facilities are required for the Body. Use of physical facilities fulfils the need of Body alone. The needs of Self are not addressed through the use of physical facilities. Thus, for human beings, there is a need to ensure:

Proper understanding
Good relations/ Right feelings
Physical facilities

In other words, it is necessary to fulfill the requirements of both of Body i.e. physical facilities (Suvidha) and of Self i.e. happiness (Sukha). There can be no replacement of one with another.

For example: When one visits relative’s house, one expects respect or affection and also wants that food should be offered. Imagine one’s relative offers delicious food but does not treat well or treats in an affectionate way but does not offer food. In both cases, needs of only one and not of both (I and Body) are fulfilled. Here, food for nourishment of Body and respect for Self (I) are required. If only one is available, it is not sufficient.

6. Mixing up two set of needs

There is common misunderstanding that one needs physical facilities (Suvidha) only and so one requires to work for them. It will bring happiness (Sukha). However, there is a need to work for both as one is need of Body and the other one is the need of Self. Making efforts to fulfil one cannot guarantee the fulfilment of the other. For example: Only being respected or happy does not ensure food. Similarly, only having food does not ensure happiness or respect. Thus, both are important. There is a need of continuous happiness in Self and limited physical facilities for the Body.

People usually mix up Sukha and Suvidha due to lack of proper understanding. They continuously work for physical facilities but remain unable to fulfil even the needs of the Body in a desired way. The reason is that they attempt to fulfil continuous requirement for happiness (Sukha) in Self through Body with the use of physical facilities by working continuously for physical facilities and putting Body in inconvenient condition. In this process, Body suffers and happiness is also not obtained. There is absence of focus to give body what it requires to ensure health rather useless efforts are being made by doing something to body to get happiness. However, one gets some enjoyable sensations for sometime from the Body but this does not guarantee the constant happiness in Self. This points out that needs of Body and Self are different and both should be fulfilled and that too, in different ways. Both are important and cannot be replaced by each other. Any effort to replace one for the other only leads to problems in Body, Self and the outer world.

It is important to mention here that people think that they require unlimited facilities or wealth to have constant happiness but this is not true. Think of any facility, be it car, food or room, each has a limit.

Another point to discuss here is that people think that physical facilities bring appreciation from others and consequently it brings happiness for Self. This is again not true. For example, if one is having a luxury car, it may bring appreciation from someone or may arouse jealousy in the mind of someone else.

Thus, respect or happiness through physical facilities is not always ensured.

There is one more common mistake made by people. They think that good clothes ensure respect from others. But this is not true. When one purchases clothes, the choice for clothes is made primarily according to need of Body to protect it. If it is thought that clothes are purchased for respect then this is misunderstanding as respect is need of Self and cannot be fulfilled by putting clothes on Body.

Let us now summarize various misunderstandings prevailing in today’s world. These are as follows:

Body	=	Self (I)
Facilities	=	Happiness
Clothes	=	Respect

It has been already discussed that ‘Body’ is different from ‘I’ and physical facilities cannot ensure happiness. Similarly, clothes (being temporary and limited) cannot ensure continuous respect.

In the light of above discussion, it becomes necessary to understand human beings as a co-existence of Self (‘I’) and Body. It is equally important to learn that their needs are different. This understanding will help people to fulfil needs of both in different ways.

7. Activities in the Self and the Body

The earlier discussion has thrown light on the needs of Body and Self. Now, discussion will be carried on the activities in ‘Self’ and ‘Body’ to have further insight into the difference in the concept of Self and Body. In our daily life, various activities are carried out. These activities can be broadly classified as:

Activities that occur only in Self

Activities that occur with the involvement of both Self and Body Activities that occur only in Body with the consent of Self.

Activities that occur only in Self

Activities like imagining, dreaming, thinking, choosing, analyzing, desiring, understanding etc. take place in Self or I and can be called as ‘my activities’.

These are not occurring by themselves rather Self is the entity responsible for these activities.

It is important to mention here that these activities keep on occurring in us and we are mostly unaware of them. We can notice them by paying some attention. Another point of worth mentioning here is that these activities take place whatever may be the state of body. For example, one cannot stop thinking even if one is sick and on a hospital bed.

Activities happening with the involvement of both Self and Body

There are various activities like running, walking, eating, doing household chores, seeing, smelling, listening etc. that take place with the involvement of Body and I. The choices and decisions are made in Self and these are implemented through the Body.

For example: In case of eating, one first decides the food to eat, use hands to carry food to mouth, use mouth to chew food and then swallow it. Thus, eating activity involves both- ‘Self’ which makes choice and ‘Body’ which carries out the activity. Now the question is who gets the taste of the food? Self or the Body? The answer is obvious i.e. I (Me or Self).

In case of listening, both Body and Self are involved. For example: P’s father asks him to get medicine from another room, P goes to the room, brings medicine and gives to his father. Here, the Body’s participation is to receive the words of father. I’s involvement is to receive information from the Body and to get the meaning of those words and give direction. Then, Body works accordingly.

Activities that occur only in Body with the consent of Self

Blood flow, digesting, breathing etc. are the activities that occur by themselves but with the consent of ‘I’. These activities do not need active participation of Self. In other words, ‘I’ does not require to pay proper attention to these activities to make them occur. For example, breathing happens by itself and with I’s consent. i.e. ‘I’ can stop breathing when ‘I’ wishes to do so but does not require to pay particular attention to keep breathing. These activities are called as ‘bodily functions or simply the activity of Body.

8. Activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling in context of Self and Body

After going through the above discussion, it is now easy to differentiate the activities of Body and Self. However, these activities can also be distinguished by looking at these activities through different perspective.

Activities of ‘recognising’ and ‘fulfilling’ in the Body

Earlier discussion was based on activities of Body like flow of blood, digestion, breathing etc. The activities of Body can also be learnt as ‘recognition’ and ‘fulfilment’. Actually, the interaction between two material entities can be understood in terms of ‘recognition and fulfilment’ of their relationship. They interact with each other in a defined or definite manner. Body is considered as material entity. It interacts with another material entity in a definite way and performs activities of ‘recognition and fulfillment’.

For example: When one is thirsty and drinks juice, the Body absorbs juice to the extent required and uses for the nourishment of various body organs. It is observed here that juice has a definite relation with the Body to fulfil body’s need at that time. Body ‘recognizes’ it and ‘fulfils’ it.

Activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling in the Self (I)

In context of Self (I/Me/Jivana) which is considered a conscious entity, there are two more activities performed by Self in addition to ‘recognising’ and ‘fulfilling’. In reality, the performance of ‘recognising’ and ‘fulfilling’ activities in a human being (Self) depends upon ‘knowing’ and ‘assuming’.

Let us understand the activity of ‘assuming’ first with the help of an example.

Suppose a needle is pricked into one’s body. If needle is blunt, it will not go inside the body and if it is sharp, it will. As the Body has a definite relation with the needle, it recognizes it and fulfils it. These are the activities of ‘recognizing’ and ‘fulfilling’ performed by the Body. Now imagine, one is informed that needle is a syringe and person holding syringe is a doctor who wants to cure one by injecting. One will allow that person to prick the needle in. On the other hand, when one is informed that person holding syringe wants to cause harm, one will resist that person from pricking the needle in one’s body. It can be observed here that ‘assuming’ activity is performed by Self. The assumption of pricking the needle in one’s body, for curing or causing harm, has affected the activities of ‘recognising’ and ‘fulfilling’ in Self. Activities, of ‘recognising’ the needle by Self and ‘fulfilling’ (responding) i.e. allowing or resisting one to prick it in, change according to assumption of needle.

Thus, in ‘Self’, activities of recognizing and fulfilling change with the change of assumption. However, in ‘Body’ there is no ‘assuming’ and hence, recognizing and fulfilling are definite.

Apart from the above mentioned activities, there is one more activity in ‘Self’ and most of the people are unaware of it or have not explored it properly. This activity is ‘knowing’. It tells us what is true for us, what is true in reality. In simple terms, ‘knowing’ means having the right understanding or knowledge of reality. With right understanding, one can assume properly and thus, recognizing and fulfilling do not keep changing. They become definite. In the absence of knowing, recognizing and fulfilling keep on changing as these activities are based on assumptions which are only beliefs and have not been tested on the basis knowledge. The right understanding helps in making right assumptions and consequently, recognizing and fulfilling become definite.

Activities of Self can be written as:

Thus, in context of human beings, it can be inferred that when assuming is based on correct knowledge, then recognition and fulfillment will also be correct. But, if assuming is not based on correct knowledge, then things may go wrong.

Now, let us understand the concept of ‘conscious’ entity. When a question is asked who sees, thinks or recognizes? The obvious answer is ‘I’. It is ‘I’(Jivana) which has the feature of being aware or being conscious. Therefore, it is also called as ‘Consciousness’ or ‘conscious’ entity and it is always aware that ‘I am’.

Going through the whole discussion, it can be summarized that human being is a co-existence of conscious Self (I) and material Body. Self (I) is a conscious entity. It co-exists with the Body. It takes all decisions or makes choices and instructs the Body. ‘I’ and ‘Body’ keep exchanging information. ‘I’ directs to make available physico-chemical conditions or physical facilities for the Body.

Body is a physico-chemical or material entity. It cannot instruct or decide. It provides information (sensations) to Self (‘I’).

9. Summary

Human being is more than just a body. There is a need to understand human being not only as human body but also in context of Self which acts as observer or user of Body. Body is the physical appearance with a particular structure and features whereas Self is the aliveness of the person i.e. the entity that keeps the body. ‘Self’ ( I ) and ‘Body’ are different in terms of their needs. Needs of body are physical in nature. However, the needs of self are not physical in nature. Body needs food for nourishment, clothes for protection from different kinds of weather and some other facilities to ensure right utilization of body. These can be categorized as physical facilities or suvidha. Self ( I ) needs respect, happiness, trust etc. Thus, the need of Self is to live in state of continuous happiness.

Needs of body are quantitative and temporary in nature whereas needs of Self are qualitative and continuous in nature. Activities like imagining, dreaming, thinking, choosing, understanding etc. take place in Self. Activities like running, walking, eating, seeing, smelling, listening etc. take place with the involvement of Body and I. Blood flow, digesting, breathing etc. are the activities that occur by themselves in the Body but with the consent of I.

The human being is a co-existence of conscious Self (I) and material Body. Conscious entity (Self) performs activities of knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilling whereas material entity (Body) performs only activities of recognizing and fulfilling. There is a need to work for physical facilities of Body. It is equally important to work for Self to ensure respect, happiness and trust in I. The Body’s need for physical facilities (i.e. Suvidha) can be fulfilled through appropriate physico-chemical or man-made things while the need of the Self, for happiness (i.e. Sukha), can be fulfilled through proper understanding and right feelings.

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References:

A Nagraj, 1998, Jeevan Vidya ek Parichay, Divya Path Sansthan, Amarkantak.
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PL Dhar, RR Gaur, 1990, Science and Humanism, Commonwealth Publishers.
RR Gaur, R Sangal, GP Bagaria, 2010, A Foundation Course in Human Values and Professional Ethics, Excel Books, New Delhi.
S.K.Chakraborty, Debangshu Chakraborty, 2014, Human Values and Ethics: In Search of Organisational Integrity, Himalaya Publishing House