Essay on Culture and Consciousness a Contemporary Challenge

Introduction:

Culture like love will analysis elude definition and remain an awareness beyond world and concepts, a precious belonging that is within us also around linking us to a whole expanse of life, retaining its own uniqueness in time and space. For each one of us it will have a special meaning and significance.

Development of Thought:

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Apart from shrinkage of space in the mind or man and his daily concerns, contemporary man has established a new relationship with time. All men and women of our time can confidently feel that man is now, more than even before, a maker of his own destiny, a conscious and masterful agent in the process of evolution.

The three great challenges confronting man his societies are mans physical survival, man’s moral integrity and m an as a spiritual entity which call urgently for accurate knowledge and deep wisdom to act together far the creation of a new man and new world order.

Conclusion:

We are moving towards that moment of man’s destiny when the choice is narrowed to the shooting at the stars by mobilizing fully the power and potentiality of the inner man and harnessing his physical, intellectual and spiritual energies for new creations of conscious transcendence or perishing in confusion, selfishness, greed and fear with a bang or a whimper.

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It is necessary to understand the content of culture in the broad and comprehensive -sense. This in itself is a challenge because no exact definitions are possible, even desirable, in the case of such an emotional and intellectual complex as the culture of a specific society.

A living and vital culture is rooted in authentic and healthy traditions, has the capacity of continuous renewal and adaptation, and is developed by new aspirations and bold innovations; in this way the past, the present and the future are reflected together in that life of the mind and the spirit that is the indefinable complex of culture.

The fantastic growth knowledge and the rapid pace of change in all spheres of life make it necessary to initiate deeper reflections on the content of culture, the role of cultural values and the nature and methodology of cooperation. The need for cooperative and interdisciplinary research and meaningful dialogues is obvious and urgent.

Never before the emergence of our own contemporary age was it possible to consider consciously systematically and synthetically the challenge to man and his larger society from a global, even cosmic point of view.

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Contemporary man has to seek his salvation along with the salvation of his society and apart for his local and national homes; his global habitat is now a reality. Both his scope of action and responsibility of choice have taken a universal dimension of possibilities and consequences.

In the past thoughtful persons living beyond the prison of the passing moment and seeking some unattainable vision have speculated over the future of their own life spans and the mystery beyond life and death, but never before have they probed into the living problems of all humanity or even their own civilization or culture in order to find solutions and plan for appropriate action.

In addition to this shrinkage of space in the mind of man and his daily concerns, contemporary man has established a new relationship with time.

Different cultures have viewed the phenomenon of time in diverse ways but all men and women of our time, sharing the universal advance of science and technology and the explosion of knowledge, can confidently feel that man is now, more than ever before a maker of his own destiny.

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The fulfillment of this destiny calls for new capacities, for new responsibilities and duties, which are not beyond his grasp and performance now.

The three great challenges confronting man and his societies can be briefly stated as follow.

Man’s physical survival is perilously endangered by a trinity of evil forces that are not unrelated. These forces are:- (a) the terrible consequences of the armaments race and man’s mad and increasing investment in the power house of death and destruction which draws an enormous part of his intellect and wealth (b) the dangers of unbridled consumerism which lead to waste, the pillage of nature and decadence of man’s moral and spiritual nature (c) the persistence of poverty and sheer starvation among large sections of humanity when some optimum well-being is clearly within the reach of all if we can only act wisely in a spirit of sharing together and in mutual cooperation.

The challenge to man’s moral integrity assumes three important forms: (a) care for human dignity by battling against misery and wretchedness and recognizing the innate worth of all living beings, (b) promotion and defending freedom, which is the birth right of all and also an essential condition of any worthwhile civilization and culture, (c) attaining a large measure of equality and social justice within each society and among all societies of both the so-called developed and developing nations.

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The over riding factor in the making of civilization is always the spirit of man, which is now unfortunately depressed and threatened by the technology and institutional network of power and vested interest.

The foremost challenge of contemporary man is the discovery and affirmation of men’s spirituality and bringing it into full play in the marvelous play of life and for the attainment of some new leap forward in the creation and transcendence.

Only such an affirmation and transcendence can solve the numerous problems that be devil us in the process of temporal life, and threaten man’s essential moral nature and even his physical survival.

How can we go about meeting this supreme challenge of affirming and generating mans spirituality for greater quality of life, a new civilization of order and beauty and the best refinements and creative sparks of culture?

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When things go wrong in the normal working of human affairs and the business of day-to-day living becomes sour and bleak to the taste and the eye, it is good to think of the larger dimensions of existence that are always with us but the end to fall into oblivion in the passion of frenzy of living and in the rush of the ‘get and grab’ tempo of daily life, inspired by the rather low pursuits of power and acquisition.

Beyond the dimension of the present moment of temporal existence filled by tine needs of the body and its earthy drives of flesh and lucre, there are always two other dimensions, the cosmic and the elemental, to which we belong, deeply and irrevocably, and in a sense more intense and relevant than the seeming immersion in the temporal.

To ignore and forget these realities of our external home in cosmos and our origins in the elements of nature and heredity is to invite disaster to the integrity and wholeness of the human person.

The lure of temporal existence, dominated by the pursuit of power and the might of technology, and obsessed with the needs and desires of life experienced in moments and fragments, deludes us into such a condition.

Let us think of the larger dimensions of the cosmos and of the elements of our being beyond the plight of the temporal in the present moment.

The cosmic dimension of the life relates to the vast totality of awareness received through the mind and the sense from all the known wonders of the sciences, the arts and the humanities, and the warmth of sheer living and human relationships experienced in an ever-growing sensitivity of the spirit.

It also includes the consciousness of the ultimate mystery, which may remain distant and unfathomed, but can never disappear or become insignificant.

In fact, the more we know and experience the greater is the consciousness of the mysterious, and the best perspective of life often emerges from the living reality of the mysterious, felt and experienced vividly alongside the luminosity of knowledge and the intensity of sensual awareness. The cosmic dimension, therefore, comprehends both reason and faith, science and poetry.

The cosmic dimension brings experience of timelessness in love, worship and beauty. It calls for several ways arid moods for its revelation, the ways of reason and faith, the moods of active-strife and patient waiting, depending upon one’s condition, choice and temperament.

Each one develops his own way the style of transcendence in the pursuit of the same urge for reaching beyond the self” and is present predicament to higher dimensions of awareness and vision.

The elemental dimension is also a reality to be reckoned with, an essential art of existence. While the cosmic partakes largely of the world of the mind and the spirit, the elemental dimension is comprised of the seed and sap of life and the essence of the life-force.

The main components of the elemental are nature and heredity. Nature is the larger environment of our earthly habitat from which we derive our biological origins and our sustenance through life. Heredity conditions limits, moulds our individual make-up and offers participation in the life of the past the past of our tribes and societies, and indeed, of the entire species, the past of man which each man shares.

The elemental dimension of existence, highlighting as it does our identity with nature and our origins in the past, is also an experience of a larger whole than the moments and patches of the temporal present. The two dimensions of the cosmic and the elemental are to a way similar, though the former extends far beyond the nature and scope of the latter.

We are citizens both of our lovely planets pulsating with life and the beauty of nature and of the larger cosmos spread in the infinity of space and time. The awareness of this dual citizenship is for the highest achievement of the human person and the most precious element of the quality of our life.

The extension of this personal awareness to a larger awareness shared by the society enriches the social life and adds an essential element to all progress and development.

The temporal present should always comprehend the point of revelation of the cosmic vision and the awareness of the elemental reality. Any sense of alienation from the temporal present clouds the vision of the cosmos and undermines the relevance of the elemental.

We are made to live in all three dimensions at the same time and in some balance and harmony that joins all three. This balance and harmony is the product of human creativity. Therefore, the fullness of life is given to creative persons living harmoniously on all three dimensions of the cosmic, the elemental and the temporal.

Creativity, then, is the power to balance, harmonies and integrate, to be aware of all the parts that make a whole without losing sight of the whole that is far more than its parts, and to be able to live in the intensity of fullness at least in the moments of creation.

A sense of harmony, the wholeness of integration and the intensity to know, express and transcend are the three essential hallmarks of creativity. All three operate together, in periods of long labour or prolonged waiting, or in moments of sudden flashes of luminosity, emanating spontaneously from some kind of simmering that had gone both consciously and unconsciously.

The apparent manifestations of the birth of vary widely, depending upon the nature of the creating agent, the object of, and the integrity and equality of the final creation itself. The achievement of creation is marked by three elements of discovery, uniqueness and communicability.

Some sense of discovery always enters into the creative process. The creator is impelled by an itch or urge to know the unknown and to build what has never existed before. The sense of discovery leads to the creation of something special and unique. The creation may be small and familiar; it is never commonplace and tri vial.

The uniqueness 25 of creation lies in the quest of the creator who brings into play the entire uniqueness of his personality, harnessing all its resources in the fullness of the: creative effort. Ordinary, routine and commonplace living expresses moments and fragments of thought and action in time and space.

Creative living is always in search of transcendence, groping towards meaning and synthesis defying the limitations of time and place, always achieving some measure of expansion or flight of the spirit in success or failure.

A creative act cannot be repeated because its uniqueness has given it a form and a meaning which were born out of circumstances that will never again be the same.

Communicability is the third element of creation. By its very nature the product of creativity is intended for a larger sharing or the striving to be universal. It is, as it were, an offering of the creator to all creation. That is how God created the universe and the spirit for such a divine creation can be felt by all created things.

For us mortals of the human species on a tiny speck of the universe the measure of our creation is infinitely small and insignificant; but the quality and thrust of the creative act partake of that spirit of the divinity from which we ourselves emanated an element of universality enters into all creation.

Man’s frequent sloth and faint-heartedness, and his abiding fear and greed, often employed in the pursuit of false gods of power and worldly values, have so far condemned him to a track of history which has projected prominently only his lower nature, hiding the few beautiful creations of saints, sages and artists among the vast ocean of meaningless, forgotten deeds.

Can we reverse this process? Instead of being so sparse and exceptional, cannot creativity be the normal manifestation of human life? We believe such a leap of transcendence to be not only possible but inevitable if we have to survive as a species and avoid the temptation of committing secede by senseless violence or sheer decadence.

The enormity of the danger and the supreme challenge to human life now posed to all mankind may generate that rare spark of creativity and the upsurge of moral and spiritual resources to keep it alive which are necessary to the blossoming of wisdom, compassion and courage for the attainment of transcendence in an ever ascending perception and experience of life’s meaning and quality.