The Functional World: Relationships and Human Experience

Why Functioning Requires Relationships

In the functional world, relationships and human experience arise together, as functioning itself depends on the interaction between entities. Without relationships, there can’t be coherent operations. 

Distinct dynamics exist between a student & a teacher, a mother and a child, a pet and its owner, a vendor & a buyer, an employer and an employee, a colleague and its peer, even a tree & its cultivator. 

This association is not only limited to relationships between animate beings, but it also extends to our relationships with inanimate objects. For example, our connection with money, consumer products, playthings, etc. 

How Relationships Give Rise to Experience

Through these associations, meaningful functionalities emerge that give rise to physical, mental, emotional, and intellectual phenomena. 

A cow, by association with a bull, produces a calf. A student forms a mental perception about the corporate world by interacting with an alumnus. Encountering the diseased son, a father feels sad. And reflecting upon the movement of a ball thrown at you, you can derive the laws of motion.

All these 4 kinds of phenomena deflect the needles of experience in 4 dimensions, i.e. physical, mental, emotional, and intellectual. An experience can range from physically painful to pleasant. Similarly, it can vary on a spectrum from unpleasant to pleasant on a mental dimension, and emotional dimension. Intellectual experiences can also vary from impenetrable situations to eureka moments.

The most important fact is that these domains are closely interrelated. They do not exist in isolation. For example, physically painful experiences often lead to emotional unpleasantness and obscure perceptions. 

The key idea, therefore, being portrayed here is
Functional World → Relationships → Experiences

Experiences result from various relationships that one enters with other entities of this machinery, called nature. And these relationships exist because nature needs to function. 

Consciousness, Freedom, and the Divine Nature of Experience

Why Does Nature Function at All?

A crucial question can be raised at this juncture as to why nature needs to function at all. Kashmiri Shaivism has a unique answer to this conundrum. It attributes the inherent property of freedom, swatantrya, of the consciousness to express itself as the functioning of nature. 

Our minds are derived from these functions, and therefore, to completely decode the absolute freedom with the limited intelligence of these minds would be a similar attempt to that of trying to burn a piece of wood using a heated pan. The heated pan is only derived from fire, which has the freedom to burn all kinds of wood. But the heated pan has no such capacity, even though it can come in direct contact with fire.

As we progress in life, our minds become localised and become self-centred. The movements of the needles of our experiences trap our attention and block our vision to grasp the picture beyond our narrow horizon.

All our experiences, sometimes pleasant and sometimes unpleasant, are the result of the absolute manifesting itself. It expresses itself through diversification and interaction amongst the entities. These associations lead to experiences. 

Experience as a Manifestation of the Absolute

Every experience, therefore, has an inherent component of divinity for being the direct manifestation of the absolute. However, it is hidden beneath the layers of perceptions and meanings that our minds have come to accumulate through their dealings within the functional world. 

Good – bad, high – low, superior – inferior, pleasant — unpleasant, black — white, etc., are all the concepts of the functional world. They are quite helpful in deriving experiences. Without them, there can’t be objective experiences of the world. Imagine a world where everything is white. Wouldn’t the visual experiences be extremely limited?

The Personal Illusion and the Roots of Human Suffering

Psychological Suffering and the Burden of Self-Awareness

The nature, in order to function the way it is intended, requires relationships. For those relationships to be further manifested in a myriad of experiences, the concepts and perceptions are essential. 

In this process, however, the ignorant humans get trapped in the cycle of suffering. Other beings suffer physical and mental pain owing to unpleasant circumstances. But human beings suffer the psychological pain the most because of their higher self-awareness capability. We can’t let go!

The most sophisticated feature of self-awareness, which makes us capable of enjoying life in various forms, making outstanding progress, etc., also has a terrible downside. It entraps us in the perception of a personal world.

Ownership of Experience: “My Life, My Relationships, My Pain”

We live in an illusion that whatever happens to me is only because of my personal effort. I become the centre of the world, and every phenomenon occurs to affect me. We become engulfed in a personal view of the world.

Every experience that we go through is therefore perceived with the utmost personal view. The pleasantness associated with it is entirely mine, and I am the rightful owner of it. Similarly, the unpleasantness, the pains, the sorrow, etc., are mine, and the underlying cause is taken to be deeply personal. 

Likewise, the relationships with our surrounding animate and inanimate objects are held with a sense of privacy & intimacy. We find it enticing to believe that my relationships are intensely personal. “My Father”, “My Mother”, “My Wife”, “My house”, “My money”, and so on.

Our belief systems are heavily predisposed towards a view wherein the causes of all our associations are attributed to one’s own efforts or the lack thereof. All our encounters and associations are therefore observed through the lens of their effects on our personal lives, the utility they bring to us, or the damage that they cause. 

If we closely introspect on these aspects of our experiences and the associations that bring forth these experiences, it’s not hard to identify that the psychological suffering is because of this faulty belief system. 

Don’t we suffer when we hold this belief that “My wife/my husband” should act in a certain way, but they act in discord? Don’t we suffer when “my money” is lost in fulfilling the wishes of someone else?

The mindset that entraps us in such personal views of the world, where every unfolding is perceived to have an intention of bringing us pleasant or unpleasant experiences, prevents us from growing. 

Freedom Through Impersonality and Expanded Vision

With self-reflection, wise company, and mindful practices, we have to overcome this mindset and enter into the region of higher consciousness, where the personal view of life is discarded. 

An impersonal mindset allows us to see the divinity all around us while experiencing the ups and downs of life. It connects us to the bigger picture of life, and not to get lost in the narratives of the middlemen(our minds). It frees us in the midst of our struggle. 

Seen this way, relationships and human experience are not personal events, but expressions of the Absolute. And freedom is not found by escaping experience, but by seeing through the illusion of personal ownership within it.