Think, Experience, and Act Here and Now: A Challenge for Adult Education

Think, Experience, and Act Here and Now: A Challenge for Adult Education Our present is characterized by a life context of people that may be called “a globalized social psyche.” People live their lives in an environment of sophisticated networking and an overwhelming offer of ways of material consumption, entertainment, social communication, and social relationships that are heavily directed toward the populations of mostly economically developed countries, and these populations also welcome them willingly.

In simple terms, people in economically developed states today have a permanent feeling of spiritual hunger, a hunger of the mind (psychic hunger), and a hunger of the body. What characterizes the present time as an era of a “hungry spirit”? In fact, there is a lot of material, and often even quasi- or truly spiritual and mental things, and people still experience a lack of fulfillment of the needs of their own spirit, their own soul, and their own body. But the truth is that people have the right and therefore also the real possibility to:

• Develop and protect their spirit and spirituality, because they cannot survive without their spiritual energy of faith, meaning of life, and spiritual strength.
• Develop and protect their soul and mental life, because they cannot survive without their mental energy of thought, emotions, feelings, values, attitudes, and actions, and without their mental strength.
• Develop and protect their body and embodiment, because they cannot survive without their physical life energy, health, and physical strength.

We support the view of the unity of a person’s spirit, soul, and body with the statement of Longchenpa, a 14th-century Tibetan teacher, who described three aspects of undefiled or flawless human existence as follows (In: D. Boadella, 1996, pp. 10-11):

• Indivisibility

• integration of the tear inside the human being and his or her integration into the surrounding environment.

• Joy
• a fundamental experience of not being split, not being against oneself.
• Radiance
• a quality that expresses the joy of being and the unity of spirit, with a radiant attractiveness.

If these three primary qualities of undefiled—flawless—human existence are “separated” from one another, Longchenpa says they “turn,” and he explains this turning as follows:

• The Turning of Joy

This lowers bioenergetic level, leads to domination by libido and drives, to dissatisfaction, to the loss of pleasure, and to the desire to think only in utilitarian terms. - The Turning of Radiance This increases heart rate, intensifies agitation and aversion, amplifies separation from basic attitudes, introduces confusion, and disturbs inner peace. - The Turning of Indivisibility It appears as dullness, loss of luster, and a depressive, languid, lazy, and hard-to-understand soul.

According to H. Guenter (In: D. Boadella, 1996, p. 11):

• Primary

, that is, the “unriven apart” life process leads to higher organizational forms of the human psyche with an optimal state of values and flexible opening of personal boundaries. - Indivisibility is by its very nature non-entropic and supports openness of being. - Secondary

, that is, a “ripped apart” process is nevertheless closed in on itself, turns in a vicious circle, and leads to rigidity, loss of energy, illness, and death. The loss of integrity of the human being is entropic. Let us dwell on the serious statement that “the loss of human integrity is entropic.” We ask what this might mean for the being of a person. Existence and functioning of a person rest on the principle of integration. Disturbance of personal integration, meaning strict order in communication and human relationships, is an act of splitting apart (separation, de-integration). If a person does not integrate (spiritually, psychologically, bodily, socially), they lose their wholeness and can no longer function well, or cannot function at all.

We perceive, understand, and respect the person as a holistic (integral) being. Integrity is the key to healthy existence, and non-integrity is the key to the demise of a living system—the human person. Any being must in some form and in some quality of that existence “hold together.”

Disturbed human integrity appears as a disharmonious spiritual, psychic, and bodily state or a pathological state. In such a state of a person, “not only joy and pleasure are weakened, but radiance is soon lost as well. The eyes cease to shine and the skin is like dough. In general, life is missing.” (In: D. Boadella, 1996, p. 11.)

We proceed from the conviction that the “hungry spirit” of our time, which contributes to poverty of spirit, soul, and also to social and material poverty, is linked to disturbed personal integrity and social integrity of people.

Social education through upbringing, schooling, and counselling has the potential to prevent people from “turning away” from their essence, which in fact lies in indivisibility, in joy, in the radiance of the person. This is the foundation of a good and healthy life. People’s current way of living appears in many ways as a deviation from their own essence and therefore from good life. The purpose of social education is to help people mature spiritually, psychologically, and socially, and support their competencies for life and responsibility for their own lives.

The consequence of a spiritual crisis in society is interference with social consciousness and subsequently with individual consciousness. In consciousness, entropic ideas settle more easily, the result of which is destructive behavior. In social life, effective social ethics plays an important role. Only then can we expect that unethical decisions and behavior by individuals and groups will not be regarded as normal expression. Conversely, ethical behavior will be considered an unusual expression. This must not happen in the current epoch of humanity, when “science has entered the ‘human age,’ when all the force of scientific knowledge will be directed toward the human being as its main object. This, however, requires social conditions corresponding to reason and humanity from which a new ethos of science will grow” (I. Frolov, 1987, p. 74), and we add that not only the ethos of science will grow, but also the ethos of social behavior and action by people.

The same author further states, “at this stage, a person can perhaps become aware of his or her uniqueness, intelligence, and humanness, but today we cannot assess what consequences will follow from that.” A humanistic approach presupposes (p. 73) a “new scientific and philosophical understanding of the meaning of human life and, at the same time, the holistic moral and social progress of humankind, today and in the future. On this path, the person will still have to change and overcome much.”

Prevention of Disharmonious and Pathological States of Human Life

The words of I. Frolov lead us to the question: What does life ask of us? Perhaps life asks:

• How have we participated in the making of life on Earth?
• Why and how have we harmed ourselves and others?
• What did we pass on to life on Earth from our talent?
• What did we give from our soul to other people and to life on Earth?
• How have we learned not to succumb to the degradation of human life and to resist manipulation and attempts to objectify human beings?
• How have we taken a stand against the hidden ridicule of the soul and spirit and of personal identity?

A person’s life is not measured by the number of their achievements, by success in personal career, or by the material possessions they have acquired, but by how much wisdom and good they pass on to Life on Earth through their creative living.

The consequence of spiritual, mental, and bodily hunger can be recognized as follows:

• At the level of spirit as spiritual hunger in the form of a disturbance in spiritual coping with life, which appears in: loss of faith in life (loss of desire to live); loss of hope connected with life meaning (hopelessness in living); loss of love for life (numbness in living). As a result, people suffer psychological and bodily illnesses. The person’s spiritual energy is disturbed.
• At the level of soul as mental (psychic) hunger in the form of a disturbance in psychological coping with life, which appears in: disturbances of thinking; disturbances of feeling; disturbances of motivation, that is, needs, motives, and goals of action; disturbances in psychological regulation and self-evaluation of one’s own actions. As a result, people suffer psychological and bodily illnesses. The person’s psychological energy is disturbed.
• At the level of body as bodily hunger in the form of a disturbance in bodily coping with life, which appears in: psychosomatic disorders and illnesses; eating disorders; substance and non-substance dependencies; “civilization diseases” (cardiovascular and oncological diseases). As a result, people suffer psychological and bodily illnesses.

In a person, bodily energy is disturbed. For clarification, it should be added that energy is not a theoretical construct but a real force that acts. The dispositional prognostician S. Sohr (2000, p. 131) states that “energy is force,” and it acts in the physical as well as in the spiritual and psychological domains.

The following italicized text is quoted from the work of D. Boadella (1996, pp. 12-13) so that we can provide readers with clarification of the terms soul, spirit, which we use frequently in this paper. We select expressions of significant scientists and specialists. D. Boadella states that the subtle dimension of being is increasingly recognized by many physicists...

According to physicist D. Bohm, there is a relationship and mutual exchange between the outer basis of our everyday life (that is, our existential wandering in a certain body, over a certain time, and in a certain place) and the inner basis... of our archetypal memories, images, dreams, and other areas of deep inner reality, which transcend time and space.

Psychologist C. G. Jung called this subtle dimension the region of the I and the region of I-ness, and H. Ali spoke of the human being of Spirit and the human being of the World.

S. White wrote of the relationship between the “condensed” universe of solid matter and the “uncondensed” universe that constantly exists behind all forms of the universe.

Biologist R. Sheldrake stirred the scientific world with this hypothesis: “The generation of form and matter is not determined only by known biochemical and physical processes, but also by equally not clearly localized morphic fields. These do not carry any recognizable energy, but communicate patterns, concepts, and information.” Sheldrake’s hypothesis supports the views of many religions that subtler levels of being organize lower levels. Just as wave phenomena contain particles.

Psychophysicist H. Andrade (prior to Sheldrake) introduced a “biologically organized matrix,” that is, a subtle information field that guides and shapes the form of the physical body. The term soul is the Slovak translation of the Greek word psyché and the Latin word anima.

D. Boadella (1996, pp. 15-16) presents some meanings of the soul—psyché—among which we quote the following: the soul is the unconscious (personal and transpersonal), the superconscious, consciousness, the opposite of the body, and the life of the body.

Psychotherapist D. Boadella uses the word soul (1996, p. 16) to express “the creation and formation of a deep, personally significant center during one’s journey through life. In this sense our soul cannot be separated during life in the body from our somatic experience.”

Self-identification as the most important factor in human development

The primary task of social education is, from our perspective (M. Machalová, 2014): To teach people, and to learn mutually how to live in such a way that we do not harm ourselves, do not harm other people, and do not harm all living beings on our planet Earth. The main circles of social learning, in our view, are themes connected with self-identification:

• Searching for an answer to the question Who am I? That means learning and understanding one’s own personal identity.
• Searching for an answer to the question Where do I come from? That means learning and understanding one’s own spiritual identity.
• Searching for an answer to the question What is my life task in the circle of people? That means learning and understanding one’s own social identity.
• Searching for an answer to the question What may I and may I not do? That means learning and understanding one’s own moral identity.

Yet when situations, transitions, events, and problems appear in a person’s life that the person does not understand, because “from a certain depth of the mystery of reality, they cannot understand it,” then “perhaps we must set aside our ordinary identity if we want to reveal our deepest identity. Jesus expressed this paradox to his disciples in essence: whoever wants to save his life must lose it.” (D. Boadella, 1996, p. 22.) We formulate the meaning of social learning as tasks that no one can avoid, even if they wanted to. A person has, in our view, these life tasks:

1. Task: To emerge from the sea of one’s own ignorance and mental darkness and to realize one’s person through self-awareness. To hold dialogues with oneself and to question oneself about what one believes, feels, and does. Their means is self-questioning. In this context we permit ourselves to use the words of D. Boadella (1996, pp. 22-23), in which he precisely names what we also consider important: “everything that stands between our essence and its expressions in our daily life is shadow. We live a larger part of our life in darkness. But shadow wants to be seen. It is hungry for light... the shadow can show us the way; its finger points to an obstacle that we must remove. Its finger also points to the light that lies beyond that obstacle.” Teaching: Krishnamurti said, “If you want to solve a problem, do not try to solve it. Sit down and really look at it. Give it light.”
2. Task: To respect and fulfill one’s own calling on this Earth in a dignified, truthful, and honest way through self-realization.

The decisive perspective of lifelong learning is neither economic nor professional nor career-related. It is the perspective of the development of one’s talent for one’s own life in the form of systemic capability of the person to live.

The main life task of social education of a person is to be a person who is spiritually, psychologically, and socially developed in accordance with one’s own genotype and the cultural heritage of ancestors. A person is obliged to learn from conception to grave, and even beyond the grave. After all, who will master the transition for us from early life in the material world to life after earthly life?

What is the result of people’s learning

It is knowledge transformed in each person into his or her own intellectual, emotional, and moral experience. Knowledge in every person is original and unique, and therefore absolutely non-transferable. Knowledge of a person must be internalized—that is, the person must internalize and make one’s own what is known. Only when knowledge of something has been internalized (made one’s own) has a person truly learned it.

To know means a higher level of psychological regulation and functioning of the person, who is a whole (holistic) spiritual, mental, and bodily being. To know means to transform knowledge into life through one’s own action by means of reason (thinking, feeling, evaluating) and heart (intuition, feeling, evaluating).

A person as a holistic being always thinks, feels, and evaluates. When one knows, but also when one knows how, and also when one acts. The person is an authentic being with their own reflection, experience, and wisdom, but also with their own psychological immaturity.

What should social education of the person be aimed at?

At the formation of people’s capacity for living, with the intention that they become able, ready, and courageous to protect:

• their unique identity,
• their autonomy and dignity,
• their natural reason and authentic thinking,
• their ability to create and to be a creating person.

If people are capable of this, they become spiritually and psychologically developed persons who feel, think, evaluate, and act as social and cultural persons. They enact social roles and identify with the spiritual values of the community in alignment with their own values, while fulfilling their personal history as a human being on Earth.

The Importance of Social Education of People

Through social education, people can be supported in their motivation to become self-realizing people. The founder of humanistic psychology, A. Maslow, in his holistico-clinical studies defined the characteristics of self-realizing people as follows: (Maslow, A. 1970, pp. 153-174. In: Hall, C. S. - Lindzey, G., 1997, pp. 175)

• Their life orientation is realistic.
• They accept themselves, others, people in general, and nature as it is.
• They are spontaneous in behavior and action, in communication, in interpersonal relationships.
• They are oriented more toward solving diverse problems and life tasks than toward themselves.
• They create around themselves a social atmosphere of impartiality, objectivity, and generosity.
• They have an intense need to be alone, to have privacy.
• They see people, things, situations, and problems in a new way; they are not stereotypical.
• They most often have mystical or spiritual, but not only religious, experiences.
• They identify with humankind, have a sense of community, and social concern.
• They prefer deep human relationships with a few people who are especially beloved and loving, rather than superficial relationships with many people.
• They recognize and follow democratic values and attitudes.
• They have a philosophical rather than ironic and sarcastic sense of humor.
• They are highly creative. They resist conformity to culture.
• They tend to transcend the environment, that is, to spiritualize it, rather than merely adjusting to it.

Life Developmental and Growth Tasks and the Epoch of Impatience

In the lives of people, both as individuals and as communities, there is connection, interconnection, and bonds between generations that cannot be erased. On the contrary, in the interest of social health, interconnection of social groups must be respected and supported. All generations flow in one stream of time. However, generations have their own life-developmental tasks shaped by their genotype, and likewise their own developmental tasks shaped by the cultural, social, and educational environment in which they live. Generations of people are guided to realize their own unique socializing, educational, and developmental tasks in their specific time and environment. Contemporary life demands these developmental tasks through an uncontrollable abundance of possibilities and forms of self-realization. At the same time, however, the social atmosphere, crises of postmodern society, and the conditions of securing everyday life in many ways restrict and suppress people.

A. Carpentier (1987, p. 169) called the present an “epoch of impatience.” We agree with him. He precisely captured what we mean in relation to the important role of social education for people today. We paraphrase A. Carpentier as follows: Our epoch unfolds in the sign of impatience. The whole world is rushing somewhere. The whole world wants immediately to taste the fruits of its efforts. Some want to accumulate property; others want to achieve success. The artist and the scientist each wants to master the full wealth of artistic and scientific means as quickly as possible so that in two or three years they can bring a breakthrough in the development of painting, music, literature, or science, and make a rapid leap in their professional career. Every individual and every human collective feels a secret, unquenchable thirst for the new, whether in art, science, production, personal career, or elsewhere.

We supplement A. Carpentier’s statement with our own view of the “epoch of impatience”: The cause of the phenomena mentioned above in society and human behavior should also be sought in the devaluation of the human personality in society in general. People are not always allowed the self-realization that belongs to them. Yet people have the life task of realizing themselves and thereby giving to Life what they have received in life. Their talent and ability should be realized through lifelong effort so that through creative self-realization they pass on their spiritual and mental gifts. People have the duty, and therefore also the right, to educate themselves, to work, to create for themselves and for others, and they deserve to have optimal and supportive material, social, cultural, and spiritual conditions for this. It is a well-known truth that “there is no better fate for a person than to fulfill one’s calling well.” (Montaigne)

What Can Adult Social Education Contribute?

Adult social education is educative, instructional, and counselling support for people in helping them to:

• Self-awareness

because they should be aware of who they are, what spiritual calling they have in life, how they should act, and what they should create in their lives. - Self-respect

because they should be aware that they are unique and unrepeatable human beings endowed with unique talent and an energy of love for themselves and others. - Self-reflexivity

because they should realize their responsibility for their thinking, behavior, and actions, by which they leave an indelible trace in the world of their feelings, thoughts, and deeds. - Courage spiritually and mentally

to progress and to stand up for their person, which means: to have clarity of mind, to work honestly, not to be afraid, to leave a true testimony of their life, to care for the soul, to observe morality, and to be a responsible person. Toward what should we socially raise and educate people today?

The answer is: Empathetically and with professional competence, that is, wisely support lifelong learning of people in the interest of their personal development and with great respect for their unique spiritual, psychological, and bodily talent. The life of a specific person does not consist at all of repeating or paraphrasing the lives of others; it should be authentic self-expression and an individual, unique way of being a person in a given time and in given life contexts.

The author: Prof. doc. PhDr. Mária Machalová, CSc. Inštitút výchovy a športu – IVŠ, Bratislava References

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