The individual’s need for self-actualisation
By A.P.N. Pankaj

MASLOW expounded his theory of hierarchy of needs and described the subsistence, security, social and self-actualisation needs. Perhaps he may not have been aware of Aurobindo’s views on the impulse towards perfection and the search for immorality. When Maslow spoke of the self-actualisation needs of man, he may not have been very far from the author of the Life Divine. Vedic seers had, at the dawn of our civilisation, addressed the man as "the child of immorality" and articlulated the concept of perfection referring to it thus: "the full comes out of the full" and "taking the full from the full, full itself remains".

While this metaphysical quest for self-actualisation is the ultimate yearning of the man and we may find only one Sankaracharya or Vivekananda in our midst in centuries, an individual normally seeks to actualise himself through his various actions in the material world. Even when his basic needs of subsistence, security and status are reasonably satisfied, there lingers still a desire to be recognised, to stand apart and be counted.

Such a need may remain dormant for some time and an individual may not be aware of his abilities and therefore, not explore his potential for want of certain limiting environmental factors. This urge to reach out and do increasingly better gets reflected in a variety of ways. An infant toddling, a toddler running, and athlete jumping, a mountaineer scaling impossible heights, a dimwit blossoming into a Kalidasa, an adolescent aspiring to become Tendulkar and a soldier risking life.

Each one of them, while trying to outperform him or herself is looking for self-actualisation in some way.

This urge is at the root of all human development and provides the essential motivation for all our actions. It is quite possible due to certain childhood experiences or later influences in life, an individual may either feel repressed or hide behind the veneer of defiance. Even this stance is basically a craving for recognition. In a different context, a growing individual sees that an easy road to recognition passes through the so-called anti social behaviour, he may follow that and look for anti-heroes as his role models.

In all this, consciously or unconsciously, the individual is using his potential to achieve recognition and capture his space in the milieu in which he exists or acts. The relationship between a person and his happiness (or frustration) is in direct proportion to his expectation, through which he measures this recognition or space. As far as material pursuits are concerned since every measure of achievement throws open the possibilities or "more" and "better" and "higher", and each experience of happiness or satisfaction proves transient, the individual keeps on chasing higher goals to find greater recognition, in the form of riches, fame, progeny etc. It is in these that he often sees his self-actualisation but very soon he moves on in search of more sublime goals.

An individual, as he steps into this world and later, as he grows, brings with him and imbibes certain traits. On attaining adulthood, he starts playing certain roles in his family, his organisation, his society. This performance, qualitatively as well as quantitatively, has its effect on him and his environment. At the micro-level, such effects and influences become immediately noticeable inasmuch as they bring joy or sorrow to him as well as to those who are influenced by his actions directly. The effect on the larger environment may not be immediately visible. The effect, is more clearly seen when similar performance of several individuals in that environment snowballs into a major influencing factor. Groups, organisations and societies are driven in a particular direction by the synergy of the actions of the individuals.

Sometimes, this influence is also superseded by some more formidable factors. Plentiful-ness of natural resources may help a nation attain prosperity for a while with not a matching or greater contribution by her people. A single Gandhi may turn pygmies into giants, pool their resources, channel them in a particular direction and turn the tide of history. Such a blessing does not come everyday and once it comes, it lasts for a limited time or in a limited context although its reverberations continue to be heard for long. Ultimately, it is the individuals, working together for a given (and common) ideal or objective, in a single cluster or in a larger set-up who influence the environment, yield results and create a culture for that setup.

An individual, it is therefore said, is not responsible to himself alone. Since all his actions have their effect on his limited or larger environment, he is inevitably responsible to it. It is in this environment, that he seeks to establish his identity and comes to be recognised. In the joint family system, where every newborn has to, at the same time, imbibe the difficult art of once accommodating the others and finding space for himself. As this system crumbles, individuals are increasingly becoming self centred, thus the need to be socially responsible in order to be socially relevant can hardly be overemphasised.

In context of the individual, therefore, HRDas a concept, looks at the individual as a great reservoir of enormous available capabilities and strengths. At the same time, it recognises that a man, after all, is human and has his failings. The essence of HRD lies in exploring and augmenting latent human strengths and using available abilities optimally with a view to bringing satisfaction and a feeling of self-actualisation to the individual. Overcoming failing, converting weaknesses into strengths in the interest of reaching closer to his "primeval longing" and "ultimate preoccupation", (according to Aurobindo). As the individual traverses the course of his life, he experiences growing joy of having been born a human, a man whom God did create in His own image.

In Sanskrit, we have a beautiful word: purushartha which means "the substance of being a person". The real purushartha of each individual is to pursue the goal of self-development by integrating his internal, spiritual self with the external, material world, establish a harmony between the two and, eventually becoming one with the ultimate being.

While, it is primarily the responsibility of the individual concerned himself and he cannot attain this by proxy, there are other factors that hinder and help his quest.