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Thread: nature or nurture ?

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    nature or nurture ?

    hari o
    ~~~~~~


    namasté


    I was wondering about this the other day and would like to ask others for their POV.

    The question is, what do you make of humans? When one is ~good~ are they so due to their nature ? and if ~bad~ is it their natural state? Is it their natural vibration to be more pāpa¹ or tamasic, and or to be more sattvic?


    If you put a sattivc person in a bad situation, over time will you erode this sattva from them? One could say a person is good or bad ( usually a combination of both) based upon their past actions that come to bear. Others may say it is how one is brought up, how they are nurtured and cared for that is the greater influence.

    Do you have an opinion on this matter? All are welcome to offer their POV's.

    praṇām

    1. pāpa - bad , vicious , wicked , evil , wretched , vile , low ; a wicked individual , wretch , villain
    यतस्त्वं शिवसमोऽसि
    yatastvaṁ śivasamo'si
    because you are identical with śiva

    _

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    Re: nature or nurture ?

    Quote Originally Posted by yajvan View Post
    hari o
    ~~~~~~


    namast


    I was wondering about this the other day and would like to ask others for their POV.

    The question is, what do you make of humans? When one is ~good~ are they so due to their nature ? and if ~bad~ is it their natural state? Is it their natural vibration to be more pāpa or tamasic, and or to be more sattvic?


    If you put a sattivc person in a bad situation, over time will you erode this sattva from them? One could say a person is good or bad ( usually a combination of both) based upon their past actions that come to bear. Others may say it is how one is brought up, how they are nurtured and cared for that is the greater influence.

    Do you have an opinion on this matter? All are welcome to offer their POV's.

    praṇām

    1. pāpa - bad , vicious , wicked , evil , wretched , vile , low ; a wicked individual , wretch , villain
    Vannakkam Yajvan: This was a long standing debate in my profession. You'd always get the exceptions like the nice wise student who had an alcoholic father, and Mom committed suicide because of father's alcohol. (True story, and I didn't find out until about May of the school year. She was such a smart and lovable kid.)

    I am officially undecided still.

    Aum Namasivaya

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    Re: nature or nurture ?

    namaste Yajvan, EM and others.

    As we Hindus know, the svabhAva--nature, of a jIva--person, in his/her present birth is decided by past karma; and this past karma decides the jIva's guNa combination, which in turn decide the type of mind, body and other spiritual faculties he/she acquires in the present birth. It's our belief that even such details as the family and locale are predetermined for this birth.

    • Given these circumstances, I think we can say that the nature of a person is nurtured by the circumstances of growth from childhood, only to the extent his/her own nature can accommodate.

    • Therefore, IMO, circumstances of rearing and growth do influence and nurture a person's nature, but only those traits whose seeds are already there in the individual. Perhaps this accounts for the differences of faculties among children brought up in the same family.

    • As EM has pointed out, there are always exceptions, such as the case of the drunken father and heart-broken mother of the family he has mentioned as a case. But here again, Hindus would like to believe that the parents of a jIva are predetermined.

    **********

    Perhaps it all amounts to avidyA--ignorance--the absence of the right knowledge of the spiritual how and why of men and matter--that keeps a jIva bonded to the circumstances of birth and family. People who use their freewill to know and grow can and do loosen the ties of guNa-karma to acoomplish spiritual advancement.

    बली पुरुषकारो हि दैवमप्यतिवर्तते ।
    balI puruShakAro hi daivamapyativartate |
    Human effort transcends destiny.

    VyAsa maharShi in his 'MahAbhArata' gives a beautiful analogy to explain the interaction between destiny and human efforts *1:

    Destiny or fate is like a piece of ember, which can't be extinguished. If it is destiny formed out of good karma, we would sustain and nourish its splendour with actions of further good karma, using them like the oil and wick of a lamp. On the other hand, if it is destiny formed out of bad karma, it can cause great harm, so we would strive to control the fire with the armour of good karma. We would not especially help it burn with further vigour giving it our actions of bad karma to serve as its fuel.

    The great sage VyAsa explains it further:

    यथा बीजं क्षेत्रं उप्तं भवति निष्फलम् ।
    तथा पुरुषकारेण विना दैवं न सिध्यति ॥

    yathA bIjaM kShetraM uptaM bhavati niShphalam |
    tathA puruShakAreNa vinA daivaM na sidhyati ||

    Just as a seed becomes barren without a field to plant it,
    so also is the destiny not accomplished without human efforts.

    Ayurveda explains the presence of guNas in our nature thus:

    rajo-guNam--the trait of action, energizes body and mind and makes them indulge in actions. The states and actions of wakefulness, alertness, ratiocination, memory, feeling and seeking through the physical and mental organs, etc. are all expressions and expansions of the rajo-guNam in us. This rajo-guNas acquires its full expression during the daytime, nourished by sunlight and air.

    tamo-guNam--the trait of inaction, delays all actions of body and mind except those required for the vital functions. The tamo-guNa has its full expression and expansion during night, nourished by darkness and moon, giving the states of sleep, tiredness, lazyness, feeling of indifference, and respite for the sense organs.

    sattva-guNam--the trait of harmony, is a unique power of Nature, which acquires its fullest expression and expansion during the times of saMdhi--union, of day and night, night and day, etc. providing a smooth transition from the prevailing to the succeeding state of the other two guNas.

    • Nature expresses its power of sattva-guNam through our mind, which spurs or controls all the actions of a human being. When the mind becomes the seeker of knowledge, moving away from avidhyA, its sattva-guNam gets progressively strengthened.

    Negative feelings and states are more substantially and tangibly perceived than their positive counterparts. For example, duHkham--misery/sorrow, is more clearly defined to us than its counterpart sukham--happiness; we know and feel our diseased condition more than our state of being healthy.

    Thus, ignorance tends to linger where knowledge is evanescent. The wise seeks to sustain and nourish the evanescent and retain its light light to guide their life.

    Ref:
    01. 'svasthacharyA', a Tamil book on health according to Ayurveda
    by shrI S.V.RAdhAkRShNa shAstri, Agastyar Publications, Trichy, TamilnADu
    रत्नाकरधौतपदां हिमालयकिरीटिनीम् ।
    ब्रह्मराजर्षिररत्नाढ्यां वन्दे भारतमातरम् ॥

    To her whose feet are washed by the ocean, who wears the Himalayas as her crown, and is adorned with the gems of rishis and kings, to Mother India, do I bow down in respect.

    --viShNu purANam

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    Re: nature or nurture ?

    Quote Originally Posted by saidevo View Post

    only to the extent his/her own nature can accommodate.
    Vannakkam Saidevo: Certainly I agree with above, and your other words in general. My problem with putting the focus largely on nature is its effect on our (mine anyway) simple mind. It leads to the belief in fate. Such phrases as "I was born to be a criminal" or its opposite, "I was born lucky" are negative and untrue aphorisms. We have free will. My Guru said, "You can change your future any time you want to." This was within the context of a wider talk on will power.

    Of course your statement above really rang true within a classroom. The goal was always just to have each student work up to his or her own potential academically, physically, or emotionally. In other words, to develop will, and the self-discipline that comes with it. I found it all too sad when the person themselves, or the parents, held an unattainable goal in front of them. It usually led to emotional situations. The old adage still used by some motivational speakers that, "You can do anything you want to if you try hard enough" is just an outright lie.

    So like the rich person who walks past the poor and excuses his own uncaring attitude bu saying it's the poor chap's karma. To me this is the intellect rationalisibng another way to act adharmically.

    Aum Namasivaya

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    Re: nature or nurture ?

    hariḥ oṁ
    ~~~~~~
    namasté

    Some very good insights on this nature and nurture. One thing I found about one's 'nature'. It takes the right conditions for it to bloom completely.

    Lets say a person has the tendency to become angered and then loose his temper. If this condition does not arise , then this 'nature' does not come out.

    It's like a match - if there's no friction for the match to ignite, the fire stays within the match, dormant by not extinguished. It seems to me this is the nature of saṃskāra . The impression is there yet the environment must present itself for a certain behavior to arise.

    So, enters habits. Those things that once started re-enforce a behavior , a nature that one has difficulty breaking. This can work to one's benefit if the habit is life supporting.

    Its been said , if you wish to learn something new, break an old habit. I found this to be true.
    praṇām
    Last edited by yajvan; 31 October 2010 at 07:10 PM.
    यतस्त्वं शिवसमोऽसि
    yatastvaṁ śivasamo'si
    because you are identical with śiva

    _

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    Re: nature or nurture ?

    Namaste,

    I'm very interested in seeing how this thread will go, in the perspective of Sanatana Dharma. The nature vs. nurture debate is one that has been constantly thrown at me when I was in college. The scientific community has long moved on from the argument, not really being sure what to make of it from lack of proof, I guess.

    I have nothing really to add that hasn't already been offered by Saidevo and EM. I'm also of the opinion that it's really down to a combination of both. I believe that anyone has potential to be good (or bad), but as nobody can grow up in a vacuum, one's nature is can be influenced by those around him, situations, socio-economic circumstance. In EM's example of a bright student with an unfortunate background - who knows what effects this might have on her when she is older?

    Excluding either nature or nurture, or pitching genetics against social upbringing and one's environment is, as usual, a pointless endeavour only serving to widen the rift between those who are more likely to posit nature (naturalists) and those who advocate nurture (behaviourists) as the reason for human nature.

    One thing I found about one's 'nature'. It takes the right conditions for it to bloom completely.
    Yes, and that's largely my stance on nature, even though I am well aware how powerful a driving force it can be. Good point about habits - they are basically the sum total of our behaviour, and in turn, our very nature.
    "Watch your thoughts, they become words.
    Watch your words, they become actions.
    Watch your actions, they become habits.
    Watch your habits, they become your character.
    Watch your character, it becomes your destiny."

    ॐ गं गणपतये नमः
    Om Gam Ganapataye namah

    लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु ।
    Lokaah SamastaaH Sukhino Bhavantu

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    Re: nature or nurture ?

    hariḥ oṁ
    ~~~~~~

    namasté sunyata,

    Quote Originally Posted by sunyata07 View Post
    I'm also of the opinion that it's really down to a combination of both. I believe that anyone has potential to be good (or bad), but as nobody can grow up in a vacuum
    Yes, I see this - a combination. trying to make it one or the other always causes miscalculations.


    As I see it, each person has the divine in them. But for some it stays dormant for some time, for others, it comes to the surface quicker.
    For society it benefits when it comes to the surface sooner; society benefits and has a lesser burden with mischief and grief. Nature too benefits
    as there is less abuse to it.

    Its like a perfect gem that resides inside of a rock... the rock holds it tightly ( ignorance) , then the miner (teacher) begins to chip away at the stone to get to the gem. Once the gem is revealed then the polishing can begin ( higher states of consciousness). Yet before that time the rock does not know what it holds, and may even sit on the side of the road gathering dust and being kicked, thrown or used as a door stop. Once the gem is revealed , the whole world changes.

    यतस्त्वं शिवसमोऽसि
    yatastvaṁ śivasamo'si
    because you are identical with śiva

    _

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    Re: nature or nurture ?

    namaste EM.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eastern Mind View Post
    My problem with putting the focus largely on nature is its effect on our (mine anyway) simple mind. It leads to the belief in fate. Such phrases as "I was born to be a criminal" or its opposite, "I was born lucky" are negative and untrue aphorisms. We have free will. My Guru said, "You can change your future any time you want to." This was within the context of a wider talk on will power.
    As we have discussed elsewhere in HDF (quoting HH shrI Chandrashekhara BhArati, who was the pontiff of Shringeri Shankara MaTham *1), Fate and Freewill are closely related. Fate is past karma, and Freewill is the propensity to create present karma.

    Freewill also includes the ability (which is acquired by progressive knowledge--jnAna), to wither the seeds of the past karma, that is fate, which is the purport behind VyAsa maharShi's statements about the capability of human efforts changing the destiny, as quoted in my last post.

    It turns out therefore that:

    • A 'healthy belief' in Fate need not be a negative trait, but could be useful knowledge, if we know the fact that Fate is our past karma--more specifically prArabdha karma, which is destined to play out in this birth.

    • The physical body and mental propensity are thus the outcome of our past karma (Fate), which together constitute the svabhAva--inherent nature of a person. But then any negative traits in svabhAva can be changed by progressively gaining knowledge and overcoming ignorance by the use of Freewill. And any positive traits should be adequately nourished to earn their benefits.

    • If a man has the feeling "I was born to be a criminal", thinking that he has a criminal propensity that can't be changed, it would only amount to advidyA--ignorance. Suppose we have a reforming system that imparts the right knowledge about karma, Fate and Freewill, I think it can go a long way in rehabilitation with corresponding reduction in crime rate.

    • Similarly, a rich person who feels "I was born lucky" and "walks past the poor and excuses his own uncaring attitude bu saying it's the poor chap's karma", is steeped in ignorance. With the right knowledge of karma, he would know that by such adharmic attitude he is creating negative karma for him, and that only if his wealth is justified by the dharma of dAna--charity, to the right vessels, it would benefit and last for many generations in his family, or else will be squandered by his immediate successors.

    A cuckoo lays its egg in the crow's nest and the host crow hatches and nourishes the cuckoo chick. But the newborn cuckoo chick, because of its svabhAva, can never adapt itself to its host family, nor the host would be willing to adopt it, so once it finds its voice, it moves out to its own, independent world.

    Ref:
    01. The Riddle of Fate and Free-Will Solved
    http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/artic...e_and_Free.htm
    रत्नाकरधौतपदां हिमालयकिरीटिनीम् ।
    ब्रह्मराजर्षिररत्नाढ्यां वन्दे भारतमातरम् ॥

    To her whose feet are washed by the ocean, who wears the Himalayas as her crown, and is adorned with the gems of rishis and kings, to Mother India, do I bow down in respect.

    --viShNu purANam

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    Re: nature or nurture ?

    Quote Originally Posted by yajvan View Post
    The question is, what do you make of humans? When one is ~good~ are they so due to their nature ? and if ~bad~ is it their natural state? Is it their natural vibration to be more pāpa or tamasic, and or to be more sattvic?
    I'm interested in the bolded part above. What is meant, I wonder, by the "natural state of man?" Does a person even have a well-defined natural state apart from his karma? Many people look at all the evils humans have concocted over the millenia and summarily conclude that humans are evil by nature. This, however, doesn't account for altruism, and ignores the fact that some people have a definite tendancy towards evil while others have a tendancy towards good. So can we even say that there is such a thing as natural state? Or is it entirely determined by karma and one's experiences in the current birth?

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    Re: nature or nurture ?

    Namaskar,

    As mentioned by Saidevo, I also completely believe in svabhAva. It seems to me that each person has an inherent svabhAva or nature which is difficult to change if not impossible. For example, let's say one is an introvert. With practice he/she may become a good public speaker but because that's not the natural inherent svabhAva of that person, he/she will always retreat to his/her natural comfort zone of being an introvert whenever possible.

    For myself I have almost concluded that ones svabhAva the inherent nature cannot be changed no matter what.
    satay

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