UTILITY IS THE NEW VALUE SYSTEM

                                       

                                  ( Portrait of Aristotle ) 

UTILITY IS THE NEW VALUE SYSTEM

We live in an age that worships utility. Everything is measured, like fruit by its juice, by what it yields. Education is valued if it delivers a job, like a key is valued only if it opens a vault. Religion is valued if it delivers peace of mind, like a pill is valued for sleep. A relationship is valued if it delivers advantage, like a contact is valued for reach. Even virtue is valued if it delivers brand equity, like charity is valued for a photograph. The very language of value has changed. From sacred to profitable. From true to useful.

Classical civilisation asked a vertical question: does this thing participate in something higher than itself? Modern civilisation asks a horizontal question: what does this thing produce next? When usefulness becomes the only measure of worth, man himself becomes a tool. He is valuable only as long as he is useful. Love becomes networking. Learning becomes skilling. Leisure becomes productivity. Life becomes a permanent performance review.

Upanishadic Clarity

It is this anxiety that Upanishadic thought interrupts. It begins precisely where utility ends.

The Isha Upanishad opens with a declaration that destroys the entire economics of ownership: "Isha vasyam idam sarvam yat kincha jagatyam jagat". All that moves in this moving world is enveloped by Brahman. Nothing is outside. Nothing is unclaimed by that One Consciousness. Then it gives an impossible instruction: "tena tyaktena bhunjitha" . Enjoy through renunciation.

This is not a moral sermon. It is pure metaphysics. It says enjoyment is not possible through possession. Possession tightens, guards, fears loss. It suffocates the object and the possessor alike. Only when you renounce the claim of mine does the thing return to you, not as property but as Prasada, as grace.

Why does the Upanishad say this? Because it has seen that Atman and Brahman are one. If all is one, the very structure of possession collapses. Possession requires two: a possessor and a possessed. If duality is Maya, if separation is illusion, then ownership is the first illusion. Hence the searing question: "ma gridhah kasyasvid dhanam" . Whose is wealth that you should covet? To say mine is to affirm ignorance.

In this vision, service is not social work. It is not charity from a higher to a lower. It is correction of vision. When you serve, you are not being good to another person. You are remembering who you are. "Tat tvam asi". Thou art that. To feed another is to feed yourself in a deeper body.

Buddha's and Nagarjuna's Clarity

The Buddha carries this realisation forward with ruthless compassion. He said, if you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way.

For the Buddha, sacrifice is not noble sentiment. It is intelligence. The root of dukkha is Tanha, craving. The I wants to accumulate because it believes it is incomplete. Every act of genuine giving is surgery upon that craving.

Nagarjuna takes this to its final logical end. He says there is not the slightest difference between Samsara and Nirvana. The giver, the gift and the receiver are all Shunya, empty of inherent existence. Therefore true Dhaana happens only when there is no giver left to be proud.

The Atheist and Albert Camus

The atheist and Albert Camus arrive at the same abyss from the opposite side.

Atheistic existentialism denies Brahman. It says there is no cosmic Self, no divine plan, no afterlife accounting. Man is thrown into a world that does not explain itself. Camus called this the Absurd: our desperate hunger for meaning colliding with a silent universe. His answer was not suicide, not hope, but revolt. In "The Myth of Sisyphus", Camus says we must imagine Sisyphus happy. Why? Because even if the rock will roll down again, the act of pushing it together, the solidarity in the struggle, creates value where none was given.

Camus writes: In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. That invincible summer is not given by unseen power. It is created by fidelity to others without reward. His doctor in "The Plague" works without believing in heaven, risking his life simply because it is the only decent thing to do.

This is the striking convergence. The Upanishad says give because all is Brahman. The Buddha says give because the self is empty. Camus says give even though there is no Brahman, no self, no meaning: give because in a meaningless world, generosity is your revolt against meaninglessness.

Atheism removes the metaphysical guarantee but cannot remove the metaphysical result: the more you cling for utility, the emptier you become; the more you give without utility, the more real you become.

Utility asks, what will I gain? That is the language of the market, of expediency, of the absurd man who has not yet rebelled. Dharma asks, what will remain of the I when I have given all? The Upanishad answers: That remainder is Brahman. Camus would answer: That remainder is freedom.

( Avtar Mota )

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