Why do people do what they do? Is there a theory of human nature? In his book 'The Tasks, Responsibilities and Practices' published in 1972, while commenting on the Maslow's hierarchies and theories X & Y, the management guru Peter F. Drucker said that X & Y are not theories of human nature at all and said despite all claims by psychologists and behavioral scientists, no theory of human nature has been discovered yet.
We haven't seen an update from Prof. Drucker so far on this topic, but if any one came closer to discovering a few important aspects of human nature in modern scientific history it was Prof. Lotfi Zadeh, the inventor of fuzzy logic whose invention of fuzzy sets and membership functions as a generalization of probability theory had revolutionized the field of Artificial Intelligence.
Knowledge doesn't need recognition. It is knowledge itself that helps one recognize every thing else.
Looking for a theory of human nature in Veda is like looking for trees in a forest. Every Vedic statement has interpretations at cosmic and personal levels. In this article we will take up the verses I.V.5, 8, 9 & 10 from Brhadaranyaka Upanishat which were so far left untouched by commentators over the last 3000 years. In the first part of this article, we will give our final interpretation of I.V.5-10 to help first time readers. In the second part of the article, we will revisit the interpretations from the scriptural angle.
According to Br.U. I.V. 5-9, there are three independent nervous entities/fields in the mind/body which decide why people do what they do. They are: the Known, the Knowable and the Unknown.
In any situation, there has to be something that is known - that is the starting point to think. There has to be something that is unknown - that is what makes people act. And there has to be something desirable to know, or at least a something that fills the gap between the known and the unknown; we call it the Knowable. Psychologically all situations can be reduced into a combination of known, unknown and knowable.
The first of the reasons we will consider is the Knowable. The Knowable has its source in what people call mind/brain, or more accurately the Central Nervous System. According to common usage, the "Knowable" is a physical object or a conceptual goal, that the mind desires to achieve or acquire. The desire to know is the driving force that prompts one to work towards the Knowable.
According to Veda, Desire to know is the first born of Unknown; and the knowable objects are born of this desire. Desire is not born after seeing the knowable object. Desire to know is born even before seeing the knowable object, and Desire to know itself is the cause of the knowable object.
The second reason why people do what they do is The Unknown. It is a matter of experience that there is an unknown factor that drives us. What is it that drives us without our knowledge? Common people and scholars alike had asked this question for centuries but found no answer till date. That it is unknown is no excuse for anyone not to make a guess.
Veda was the first and the only till now, to recognize that the Unknown has its source in, and is identified with the involuntary nervous system in the body. It is well known that the involuntary nervous system is associated with the spine, and that it controls almost every part of the body, and is capable of taking actions even in the absence of a decision from the brain.
Why does Veda equate the involuntary nervous system to the Unknown? The argument that explains the connection is strikingly Vedic: The way the involuntary nervous system controls the body is not known to the brain. Because it is not known to the brain, it is the Unknown!
Thousands of books have been written to describe the working of the mind in millions of words; but the recognition that the involuntary nervous system represents the Unknown reduces all logic, whether comprehensible or not, to simple physics of interaction between brain and spine.
The third reason why people do what they do is the Known. It is well known that the knowledge a person has is stored in the brain, and this stored knowledge is called memory. The Known is identified with memory that resides in the brain.
Let us remind ourselves: the Knowable and the Known, are both associated with the brain. The brain is only one entity, but it has two functions: to store knowledge and to give conscious instructions to the body. The knowledge stored in the brain is the Known. The instructions given by the brain are the Desires and these desires are non different from Knowable. Every desire can be mapped on to Knowable and vice versa.
The known, the knowledge stored in the brain and associated with memory, finds its first expression in Speech(vAk). In Veda, the word Speech is used as a collective noun for the sensations observed in the regions of mouth, lips jaws, tongue, neck, face, chest, shoulders, skin of the head etc. The spoken word is only one aspect of Speech.
To repeat what we just said, the knowledge stored in the brain finds its first expression in Speech, therefore Speech indeed is what is known. Though we decided that the knowledge stored in the memory is what is known, speech being the first expression of what is known, is the effect of the Known (Known being the cause). As per Vedic convention, we will accept the cause to be non-different from the effect.
Speech indeed is what is Known, because people know neither the real nature of the objects (at the object-end), nor do they know the real nature of the self (at the subject-end).
To decide why people do not know the object-end, let us argue this way: Objects are seen in the uthgItha stage of the gAyatra sAma which represents the thought cycle (remember, "Eye is uthgItha"). Now, the objects seen in the uthgItha stage of one thought cycle are in no way related to the objects seen in the uthgItha stage of the subsequent thought cycle because there is a sea of events that intervene the uthgItha stages of any two consecutive thought cycles, involving a multitude of inputs, and one of these inputs is the Unknown itself (don't rush me for proofs). Therefore it is proved that people do not know, and would never know the real nature of the objects at the object-end.
People do not know the real nature of the self at the subject-end, because the knowledge of self can not be translated into any expressible language. Therefore it is proved that people know neither the real nature of the objects at the object-end, nor the real nature of the self at the subject-end.
The Unknown can not be known at any point of time, though we give it the name "Unknown" for our convenience. The Desire is born precisely to be a bridge between the Known and the Unknown, therefore the Desire can not be known. Therefore Speech alone is known to people.
To tell the truth, even though Speech alone is considered as known to people, Speech itself can not be known due to the need of further Speech to describe it, leading to recursion. In the final analysis, all one can claim to know are the names impelled by Speech.
Of the three causes of action namely the Known, the Knowable and the Unknown, which is the lowest, which is middle and which is the greatest? The Unknown is the greatest because what we do not know is infinite. The Known is the lowest because what is we know is finite. The Knowable is in the middle because it is the bridge between the Known and Unknown.
Some people say that the Knowable is an evil and a wall between the Known and Unknown. This view can not be considered. How can there be any action without the Knowable? For those who consider the Knowable as wall, it verily becomes a wall. For those who consider it a bridge to attain the Unknown, it helps in attaining the Unknown.
Attaining the unknown is inferior to attaining Existence, and the latter is possible only after discarding the three element model consisting of the Known, Unknown and Knowable.[1]
The unknown is the greatest because people who perform difficult tasks are praised as skilled, and they derive their skill from the involuntary nervous system. The Known is the lowest because sensations observed in the region of Speech drive people in the form of habits. Habits also appear to act 'involuntarily', but they do not represent any skill, because the person driven by habits is not in control. The habits control the person. The Knowable is in the middle, driven by the Unknown (rightly) and the Known (due to illogic).
Now let us discuss the origin of the Vedas in terms of the components of knowledge. The mind (manas), which is the Knowable, is the cause of yajurveda. The involuntary nervous system which is the Unknown represented by prANa or ana is the cause of sAma veda. What people call as habits and what Veda terms as Speech (vAc), the Known is itself the RGveda.
Now let us discuss the meditations with regard to Rk, sAma and yajus. Let us imagine the human being as a shell which is surrounded by a super system. The environment within the shell is relatively calm because it is highly protected by the laws of the shell. The super system that is outside is full of violent natural disturbances, or at least it appears so as seen from inside the shell.
If a hole is made on the surface of the shell, information flows from outside into the shell. This information which flows in, is Rk. When this information is absorbed and digested by the shell, learning occurs. The process of digesting the information received from outside is sAma. The process of making the hole itself is yajus. These are the meditations.
By whatever processes people think, their thoughts are made of Rk, yajus and sAma (mantrAs), not considering whether one knows Sanskrit or not. People suffer in this world only because they are unable to express themselves in terms of Rk, yajus and sAma mantras.
If the thought process is entirely made up of Rk, yajus and sAma, why do people not realize it? That is because due to natural ignorance Rk appears as food, yajus appears as the desire to acquire the food, and sAma appears to people as the enjoyment in eating food.
Some interpreters say that upaniSads alone contain knowledge, and that the ritual portions of the Vedas are meant for satisfying material or heavenly needs. This is not correct. While the upaniSads directly teach knowledge of non duality, the ritual portions remind ordinary people how far away they are living in relation to Existence. Is this not by itself a sufficient means to attain non duality?
In other words, the non-dual knowledge contained in the ritual portions is in a highly coded form, and is apparent only to a person who has the knowledge of non-duality in the first place. There is one statement that is often repeated in the Brahmanas: "That which is appropriate in the yajnA is perfect. The rite that is being performed, the verse describes". This statement implies that, out of extra compassion, the scripture is describing how exactly ordinary people and other living beings live and behave.
I.v.8. These are what is known(vijnAtam), what it is desirable to know (vijinA), and what is unknown(avijAtam). Whatever is known is a form of speech, for it is the knower. Speech protects him (who knows this) by becoming that (which is known).
I.v.9. Whatever it is knowable to know is a form of the mind, for the mind is what it is desirable to know. The mind protects him (who knows this) by becoming that (which it is desirable to know).
I.v.10. Whatever is unknown is a form of the prANa, for the prANa is what is unknown. The vital force protects him (who knows this) by becoming that (which is unknown).