Deep Ecology and Self-Realization
By Krishna Keshava Das, originally published at Substack.
In both ancient Eastern and Western civilizations, the spiritual path begins with self-inquiry. The Vedanta Sutra from ancient India starts with “athato brahma jijnasa,” now therefore inquire about spirit, and the Delphic oracle from ancient Greece says “gnothi seauton,” know thyself. In ancient India, further development of self-knowledge is called “sambandha-jnan,” meaning knowledge of spiritual relationship, and has been discussed by Sanatan Goswami. The Western thought of the ancient Greeks has been systematically carried forward by the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, whose conceptual realism addresses the dynamic between infinite and finite Spirit.
In my article, “A 21st-Century Environmental Ethic: Theistically-Conscious Biocentric and Biomimetic Innovation,” I discuss self-realization as relevant to Arne Naess’ deep ecology and how it contributes to Aldo Leopold’s call for a land ethic. The quotes below are from my article. Conservation efforts are empowered when they connect with religious duty. Self-realization is the ecologically relevant state of spiritual development in which a person comprehensively perceives the dynamic nature of the whole and the functional relationships among its unique parts.
“Leopold said, ‘No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions. The proof that conservation has not yet touched these foundations of conduct lies in the fact that philosophy and religion have not yet heard of it’ (Leopold 1949, pp. 209–10).”
“Leopold prefaced this [land pyramid] section of The Land Ethic by explaining that the pyramid is intended as a ‘mental image’ of the land to which people ‘can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in.’”
For one’s religious duty to effectively extend to conservation efforts, it is best for them to maintain a metaphysics of dynamic oneness, unity-in-diversity. If a metaphysics of abstract monism is overemphasized, then diverse functional relationships will be overlooked or undervalued. If duality is overemphasized, then the overarching purposes that the living totality/whole exerts on its parts will be neglected. These requirements must be there for an effective mental image of the land, as Leopold calls for. In this way, the article humbly offers an outline of a framework for discerning the value of species and individuals within species.
“An environmental ethic that genuinely hopes to prioritize collective well-being and appropriately inform economic decisions impacting nature must encompass a comprehensive estimation of unique individual capacities that inevitably serve as vital functions within the community (which may correspond to an economic value that is contextualized within biocentric values), as well as the individual rights necessary to allow those unique capacities to flourish.”
It also offers an outline of the personal characteristics of one who can effectively utilize the framework to make ecologically appropriate decisions, including an account of self-realization relevant to environmental ethics.
“it is essential that the qualified moral agents who properly discern ecologically progressive and socially tolerable decisions embrace the path of self-realization. […] An individual informed by these views is fit to enter the economic arena and make unbiased choices that benefit the ecological community as a whole.”
“[…] Based on everyday observations, Naess described that the self has a fluid boundary. It not only encompasses one’s own person—yourself or myself—but also the clothes one wears, the computer one uses or the house one lives in, and even our loved ones. He ultimately suggested that the self be identified with all those in the ecological community where “the interest or interests of another being are reacted to as our own interest or interests” (Naess 1985, p. 225). In Naess’ initial conception, the emphasis remains on self-centered interest, but the negative ecological implications of selfishness are bypassed by theoretically extending the self to include all living entities. This is what he considers the practical state of self-realization to be. By considering Vaiṣṇava philosophy from ancient India, we are able to penetrate deeper into the ecological implications of the ideas that Naess initially raised, going beyond self-centered motivation.
Interestingly, the basis for Naess’s conception of self is the Sanskrit word ātman. Further, his idea of the highest attainment of self-realization comes from Bhagavad-gītā verse 6.29. Naess offers four translations that roughly amount to the same interpretation of this verse. Here is the first translation offered: “He whose self is harmonized by yoga seeth the Self abiding in all beings and all beings in Self; everywhere he sees the same.” Inspired by this verse, Naess concludes that the “absolute maximum” of self-realization is “the mature experience of oneness in diversity” (Naess 1985, p. 224). Here, it is significant that Naess is not advocating some mystical oneness in which individuality is annihilated. This was the basis for our argument against Leopold’s land ethic in Section 1. Naess clearly rejects “mystical traditions [that] stress the dissolution of individual selves into a nondiversified supreme whole. Both from cultural and ecological points of view diversity and individuality are essential” (Naess 1985, p. 225).”
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