Discernment and Conscious Living
To find happiness on earth, one has to do things with moderation. The moderation required of man or woman is not in seeking any mid points but rather considering things in context and applying the right measure in terms of judgement. Knowing the right measure is not an easy task. It is for that
reason that we used the word discernment as opposed to just thinking through.
Discernment involves more than just sensitivity, judgement, shrewdness, and
perspicacity. It involves the mentioned but as inclined towards nothing but the
truth. Therefore, it is about being acutely sensitive and striving for correct
judgments, correct insights. Judging involves affirming or denying. Correct
judgement involves affirming what really is and denying what is not. Correct
insights follow from correct judgements.
Life therefore should be about
discernment i.e. examining every detail at our disposal for the purposes of
correct judgements. It does not surprise me that life in this world is to some
great extend chaotic. Ideally, we hope that all people will be keen on
discernment so that they may make the right judgements for progress or
development. Realistically, I am embarrassed to mention and to assert that some
people never discern. Correct judgements for them come by chance. Their concern
is never ‘ what they want to make of themselves in this world’ but rather ‘how
to enjoy and have pleasure in this world’. This people care only about what
they can have for today. Conscious, concentrated planning is typically unknown
to them. Given they are humans, they naturally find themselves looking ahead
and thinking through but never do they discern and make concrete plans. Their
view is very narrow- they think only about how they will drink, eat, have sex
and sleep for today, tomorrow will take care of itself. We have repeatedly
affirmed that human beings are determined auto-determiners. Planning is natural
to them; however, some have never taken the trouble of systematizing the way
they planning. To systematize how to plan means that one takes conscious steps
to plan own life. This kind of planning requires discernment. It is not just
thinking through and finding a solution for now but working out and seeing if
the solution is viable for tomorrow or does applying the given solution
guarantee a better tomorrow?
Focus in
Life: There are two categories of people i.e. the
visionary and the practitioners. Among the practitioners, there are two
categories; those who are good at what they are involved in at the present (the
experts) and those who good at nothing but hopelessness, helplessness and
recklessness (the beaten ones). The former only focus on what they are doing in
the here and now. The latter are the kind that make meaninglessness of the
world and therefore give no damn about anything. Among the visionaries, there
are those who foresee and strategise in the present towards the desired future
(entrepreneurs). The rest of the visionaries only dream and dream and dream;
theirs is to wish things were better so as to move towards a given state of
being of things but they never attempt anything to make a difference (the
wishers). The experts of this world plan but to the narrow extend of their
professions and as they see necessary for now. The entrepreneurs of this world
plan but having focused on the future; discerned and identified the better
ways of moving towards the better future. The beaten ones of this world do not
plan at all. They only care about what they will eat today, where to find some
pleasure, drink and sleep comfortably. The Mr/s. wishers of this world are the
disenchanted guys who are always blaming, blaming and blaming. They look, think
and discern the future. In their minds they have a clear picture of what a good
society should be like. Rather than thinking further on how that good society
can be realized they blame others for not having enabled the dawning of the
good society.
It is in my opinion that many people in
the less rich countries are the beaten ones, another great percentage are the
wishers while the experts and the entrepreneurs fight for a share of the little
remaining percentage. I am convinced that many people in the rich countries are
experts. Another large percentage goes to the beaten ones while the
entrepreneurs and the wishers fight for the small space in the hierarchy of
largeness. Due to some already discussed factors, many people in less rich
countries are helpless beaten ones and wishers.
Once there are more beaten ones and
wishers than experts and entrepreneurs, development becomes elusive. We said
that development involves in increase of capacity for auto-determination.
Entrepreneurs are more developed because not only do they have capacity to
dream things, they have capacity to discern ways of realizing their dreams.
These are the people who are informed thus they are prepared enough to identify
opportunities when they arise and discern the means of utilizing the
opportunities towards better standards of living.
Entrepreneurs,
Material and Spiritual: Among the entrepreneurs we
can easily discern two categories. There are, let me say, the material
entrepreneurs and spiritual entrepreneurs. Material entrepreneurs are the ones
concerned with the material welfare of human beings while the spiritual
entrepreneurs are concerned with the spiritual welfare of the people. Material
entrepreneurs look at people in the world of today, their numbers, their tastes
and preferences and discern how to meet their needs of today but also influence
them towards certain tastes and preferences that can be satisfied in the today.
They also look at people and discern what they will need in the future and what
might be their tastes and preferences. Then, accordingly, they work towards
that.
Spiritual entrepreneurs are concerned
with the spiritual needs of the people. The spiritual need of human beings is
not very different from the object of their intellectual anticipation. As we
already said, the object of our intellectual anticipation is meaning. Spiritual
entrepreneurs look at the world in its complexity and discern the meaning of it
all. They look at the world in its permanence and fluctuations and discern the
meaningfulness of it all.
We already said that meaning determines
all else as far as human actions are concerned. The way we live our life
depends on the sense we make of the circumstances we live in and what we see as
the purposefulness of our life. It therefore follows that even the
entrepreneurs are determined in their search by the meaningfulness they attach
to life as well as the meaningfulness they make of given circumstances they go
through in this world. Spiritual entrepreneurs depend on the good discernment
of material entrepreneurs for their material nourishment in this world.
However, we stated that meaning determines people’s focus. Therefore, we can
comfortably say that material entrepreneurs depend on the guidance of the
spiritual entrepreneurs if their undertakings are to make sense to them. I will
give an example to illustrate what I am stating. Material entrepreneurs saw
that it is fit to go genetic if material human needs will be well catered for
in the future. However, their genetic undertakings have to make sense to them.
That is why, there is always heated debate on issues like genetic food, tube
babies, clowning etc. Therefore, it follows that spiritual entrepreneurs have a
very important role to play in society. It is on the theories and doctrines
that they promulgate that society runs its affairs and makes sense out of them.
Transcendence: Discernment is at the heart of entrepreneurship, we said.
Discernment calls for transcending. We have to go beyond things as they appear
to things as they really are. More so, we need to go beyond things as they are
in the here and now to visualizing how things will be in the next minute, near
future or distant future.
This would be a
hard undertaking save for the fact that the Designer enabled us by allowing us
faculties for the same. Human beings are capable of transcendence to the extend
that they can go beyond, outside themselves and look at self. This is referred
to as self-transcendence and is the positive condition for other perception. We
always perceive in relation to the I. without
affirming I, there is no possibility for the other. The other is in relation to
the I. Transcendence is the full proof of there being of a beyond. To observe
myself from the distance and affirm I, there necessarily have to be the beyond
myself into which I am moving to observe myself. This is not a material exercise,
it is a spiritual exercise and thus the beyond we talk about is not in any way
material.
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