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Welcome to episode ten of Prout Consciousness and our exploration of Prout’s concept of theory. First, what comes first: theory or practice? It varies. Sometimes people do stuff and then formulate a theory representing their experiences and outcomes. The reason for such theory is for others to achieve the same or similar results by the method the theory proposes. This is called practice before theory and it works well provided the relative factors of time, place and person remain conducive to the theory. It means that theories that worked well once upon a time may no more provide the same value when the world has changed beyond the limitations of that theory. For example, as long as human beings did not travel very far, the idea of a flat earth worked splendidly for them, which it no longer does in our age of universal spherical understanding. Nowadays only theories of round, or slightly elliptical, celestial bodies work for space scientists and astronomers.

There seems to be innumerable reasons for people to place hypothetical theory before practice. Once upon a time somebody watched as rain showered from clouds and formulated theory about the source of such clouds. They may have chanced upon the idea that smoke is the sourced of clouds, and later, in time of drought, may have attempted to realise this theory by way of burning huge fires in order to harvest much needed rains. Further down the road, such popular belief may have been adopted by religion so that smokey fire offerings became intrinsic to religious ritual. Today we know that clouds are not formed by smoke; consequently smoke-cloud theory is only found on history’s scrapyard and perhaps seen practiced in some religious places. In general, theory before practice seldom yields useful results for most people. Still all kinds of unrealistic theory have passed as legit theory, and in this episode we shall look at a few categories of such impractical and indeed harmful theory.

Sound theory is based on real experience. In rational ways such useful theory explains how concrete results may be achieved. For instance, one starry night somebody gazed into the skies and decided space is very vast, perhaps even endless, and—tada!—a theory of endless space was born. That theory may or may not be entirely correct but the good thing about it is that it will eventually lead to a correct conclusion. Today, people of developed intelligence may conclude that, because space itself is a manifest reality, it cannot be endless, it must have a form, a beginning and an end, and therefore its infinite nature may not be reflected in its physical appearance but rather in its being—it simply exists forever. This idea of something finite existing in infinity presupposes another entity, which we also may theorise about, such as a creator of that limited space of infinite existence, which may in turn lead us to conclude that behind all phenomena there is a noumenal timeless, spaceless and impersonal entity—the Great. Our next step would then be to evolve concrete means to realise this theory and achieve its practical result. In various philosophies of the world there are theories, or ideas, about such a primordial entity, and some of those philosophies even suggest practical means for us to achieve that infinite state even while remaining in this human body of ours.

So here we posit that the central idea of a theory may or may not represent an ultimate practical truth but would be part of the evolution of human thought and existential understanding. Such evolution is part of our being; we all get ideas about existence and present them to each other. Some theories of ours may have practical value, others not, some of them may evolve into further theory, others not etc., etc.

What sort of theory is Prout? It is clearly practical, based on real life experience both from the standpoint of mundane socioeconomics and further existential understanding. One one side, Prout states that physical wealth is limited and therefore should be subject both to particular wealth regulation and general rational distribution. Unregulated private wealth accumulation cannot be accepted by those who want to see the welfare and all-round progress of all. On the other side, Prout is related to neohumanism and spiritual practices that present ways and means for human beings to evolve beyond the physical that is psychically and spiritually to achieve greater life aims, both individually and together.

How can we say that the subtle psychic and sublime spiritual may be of practical foundational value to theory when they have not been proven by modern science? This seems to be an arresting question, is it not? Well, equally arresting would be to turn the tables on science and scientists: why have they not been able to research the subtle psychic and sublime spiritual sufficiently so that they can either dismiss their existence altogether or on the contrary examine them so that their basis, potentialities and ultimate states are clarified and properly mapped once and for all?

Let us take a simple example. Everywhere psychologists talk about the mind but no one seems to know exactly what mind is, where it originates, what it consists of, how it acts and reacts under various environmental conditions, its main propensities, essential trends and basic nature, its ultimate state and aim, etc. There is no comprehensive theory about all this as few psychologists are really in touch with their own mind and therefore stand bereft of any scientific approach to there own mind and therefore that of others, not to speak of their spirit and soul, let alone the mind, spirit and soul of the world, the universe and the Cosmos. So, it is fair to say that Prout is a practical theory as it is formulated by a person with in-depth knowledge and mastery of not only mundane realities but of the universal and Cosmic as well. Prout is renaissance man Shrii Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar’s theory for all-round individual and collective expansion and liberation from bondages of any sort of limitation. Shrii Sarkar’s socioeconomic theory springs out of practice in all spheres of existence, and in this Prout is not only a modern theory, catering to the evolving notions and ideas of educated and enlightened human beings of today; it is also a theory that will come to serve all living beings far into the future, as it accommodates changes in time, space and person in ways no other theory before it has. Again you may ask, how can such a stupendous claim be made with any surety, and again our answer is, the only way to find out is to test the theory in the environments of those three spheres of existence—the physical, the psychic and the spiritual. Those are the testing grounds of Prout for a very long time to come.

Political economists have, for quite some time now, concerned themselves with the impact of social factors on economic dynamics, and vice versa, how the economy impacts the lives and times of individuals and society. For instance, how do class, education, social status, marriage,  impact people and society, their earnings, motivations, careers, achievements, etc.? This is the stuff socioeconomics have been made of and it is all rather mundane. The newness of Prout’s socioeconomics is precisely that it takes into account the entire spectrum of existence—physical, psychic and spiritual. Now, how is that possible; how can a single theory detail the dynamics of each one of us and our society in the three manifold, vast and perhaps infinite physical, psychic and spiritual worlds? Is it in the least useful and indeed practical to couple socioeconomics with mental expansion and spirituality? Is it at all possible to relate the physical to the spiritual? We know the physical can be related to the mental, and the mental to the spiritual, but how on Earth can any good come out of attempts to relate the physical to the spiritual and view those three vastly different spheres of existence—the physical, mental and spiritual—as integral and relevant to the most diverse ways each one of us choose to live our lives?

Not only does the theory of Prout conceive of this as both possible and useful. The progressive utilisation theory emphatically states that we ought to embrace the greater whole and the integral existential field of all living beings. Just look at it. We live in a transitional period, a time of shifting global dynamics on many planes—socially, politically, economic, culturally, and so on. One significant aspect of this is the shift away from the heavy physical toil that used to define the days and lives of people of the primary industry era. Today, we are speeding ahead in an era of psychic development aided by momentous advances in communication technology. Moreover, as the iron grip of religious dogma continues to weaken nearly everywhere, there is renaissance for open-minded spirituality in the form of a host of liberating physico-psycho-spiritual practices. In a socioeconomic perspective, there is no reason today to look only at mundane social factors when assessing individual and social potential. The psychic and spiritual should surely be included wherever the goal is to make a realistic appraisal of the resources, motivations and goals of developed human beings and their society.

In the previous episode on utilisation, we heard that every little and large thing has a background. We all come from somewhere, move towards somewhere and belong somewhere. A local person belongs to a locality, and that locality belongs to a district that belongs to a country, a region, a continent and the Earth is part of the solar system, and where do those galaxies and nebulas belong? Whatever great entity they belong to, whoever created them, we also belong to that great entity and not only each one of us but every little and large thing, even inanimate matter also belong. This all-inclusive principle is at the basis of Prout’s world view, its philosophy and its practice. The theory of ecology also points towards such a state of affairs, that everything and everyone belong together in a very large if not infinite, endless cycle of life. What is the nature of that endless cycle and what or who put it in motion? Is it only mechanical or more of an existential, conscious affair? Where does our query and theorising itself end?

Adequate cognition is required for evidences of any nature to be relevant. The beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, as they say. When we were toddlers a couple of years old, our cognition allowed for rudimental sensory understanding of how the world actually works. At that stage, physical feeling and emotionality rule human existence along with instinctual behaviour. Again at five or six our cognition evolves to take in greater relational feelings, and in our youth we were ready to pour all our tremendous vital energy into the world to make it an even more lovely and wonderful place than that of our guardians and forefathers. In this way, our world view keeps expanding until we attain maturity and establish a comprehensive understanding of both ourselves and the larger world as the essential pattern of adult life. Prout claims that all cognition—sensory, intellectual, intuitional and spiritual—are valid and relevant. All cognition therefore is legit to scientific inquiry; any experience of existential fundamentals is relevant to theory.

We spoke of theories that do not work well in people’s everyday life, when theory precedes practice. One type or category of speculative scheming is the hypocritical. Hypocrite psychology allows for the untrue to be put forward in the service of vested interests without the least intention of materialising its main idea. For instance, we live in the age of fake information where the sky is the limit as far as farfetched claims and conspiracy theories are concerned. In the socioeconomic field, trickle-down economy is a vintage example of hypocritical theory. This theory says that as the rich becomes richer, wealth will flow towards the less wealthy all the way down to the poor as well. In reality, since US President Ronald Reagan popularised trickle-down in the 1980s, the gap between rich and poor in the US has become much more pronounced as wealthy Americans only has become much richer. This development led the chief author of a report on this development, Dr Clara Martínez-Toledano of London’s Imperial College Business School, to announce: “High levels of economic inequality can lead to economic and political instability; this is why action needs to be taken before societies become polarised.” Today, we can say with considerable surety that Dr. Martínez-Toledano’s theory appears to be much more correct than President Reagan’s. In fact, we would be right to label trickle-down economics as pseudo-theory with no basis in reality. Where traditional capitalism generated tax payers to keep the public sector going, the latter-day centralisation of wealth in the name of trickle-down theory generates much less income for the tax department and thereby effectively undermines public services. Trickle-down is a pseudo-capitalist lie dressed up as theory.

Mixed economy is another hypocritical theory intended for maintaining political and economic hegemony. It is both a pseudo-capitalist and pseudo-socialist theory. In fact, the mixed economy model reveals the fact that capitalism and socialism are systems of the same ilk. Rather, it would be better to call the economic system of socialist states as state capitalism whereas mixed systems favour private capitalism; it is democracy for the sake of capitalism. I have tried in vain to find a purely capitalist state, an absolutely non-mixed system. Such a state simply does not exist and never will. The reason is that capitalism is individualistic, and a purely capitalist state would mean a state of individualists, which is a misnomer as a group of ideal individualists would not form a society but remain a number of detached individualists. Who among those hardcore individualists would take initiative and responsibility for forming and developing society among them? Societies are made up of people who at the outset care for their commonality, for each other.

Social people want to remain and move together. Countries with mixed economy feature a combination of capitalist market economy and socialist policies. In socio-democratic mixed economy welfare states, some industry is owned by the government and some by private interests. The trend of mixed economy systems is decidedly towards increased private ownership and erosion of the public welfare state. The hypocrisy of mixed economies as far as being societal is concerned, is that they patently fail to maintain and increase the welfare of ordinary citizens over time. Rather, socio-democratic mixed economies work just fine for those who like to see the wealth gap grow and all kinds of social diseases creep in. Insecurity and outsiderness are the fate of all those no longer able to maintain even an appearance of middle class or proper working class aspirations, quite contrary to the theory of the socio-democratic welfare state.

A second category of theoretical failure is theoreticians’ theory, which by the way is not the same as theory about theory, or metatheory. Theoreticians’ theory is speculation thickly insulated from existential realities. Somebody may ask: Are human beings evil or does the world sometimes make us do evil things? This may happen when people say: “I did not do it, it is you who made me do it!” or “Your bad mood made me do it!” “The weather made me do it!”, etc. Here questions will arise about who created that bad mood or bad weather in the first place and who is responsible for the actions supposedly resulting from it. The Greek philosopher Plutarch helped popularise this sort of meaningless discussion by asking what came first: the hen or the egg. Plutarch never had in mind to research the history of evolutionary biology but to explore the possibilities of infinite regress; whether or not the world of intellectual analytical inquiry has a beginning and an end. Such theoreticians make vast metaphysical oceans out of simple life phenomena and their boat of incessant inquiry never reach the shores of practical wisdom and elevated thought. Instead, their ideas remain expressions of intellectual extravagance and quite useless sophistication. It may be that some such discussion among nerds in a tiny corner far, far away from the lives of ordinary people or high above any worldly concern is harmless to the larger world. But what good will it do if proponents of theoreticians theory claim centre stage only to kill other people’s time and by that set them back in their development? Luckily, discussing the chicken and hen theorem is no longer fashionable since evolutionary biology has determined that the egg indeed came first. When certain aquatic reptiles stepped ashore they continued to lay eggs on land, and in the course of evolution their eggs begun to produce chicken-like creatures. Still, beware of updated versions of theoreticians’ theories!

Shrii Sarkar detected a particularly serious defect in the theoreticians’ psychology. He said, quote: “Human life is trifarious: physical, intellectual and spiritual. However, the theoreticians remain confined to the intellectual realm, ignoring the physical and spiritual spheres. Thus they make no effort to practically materialise their theories. First, their theories are impractical; second, they make no efforts to materialise them.” Quote ended.

A third category of theoretical failure is inefficiency in application due to lack of skilful involvement or proper interest. Here we have those who, for various reasons, do not walk the talk. Shrii Sarkar commented that some people are indeed efficient in their own life but much less involved in collective life. There are dangers to such absence of personal factor in the field of application of theory. Say for example the ideas of a visionary thinker paves the way for a fresh glorious era. What happens when such an founder or entrepreneur of new thought passes away? Upon the demise of such a trailblazing personality, a vacuum may set in if there is no other capacity to take the new movement further forward. Here we may say the theory failed because it was not able to generate fresh personal involvement. At such a stage anything may happen, a return to the previous standstill or the oncoming of anything new. This sort of vacuum, generated by insufficient application, made itself felt in Russia when the promises of openness, glasnost, and socialist reform, perestroika, died following the fall of communism. The story of present-day Russia shows that anything may enter to fill up such sudden vacuum.

The fourth and last type of theoretical failure is environmental difficulty. The father of global industrial capitalism, the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, thought that humans are self-serving by birth and that as long as everybody seek the fulfilment of their own self interest, the material needs of entire society will be met. A main theory of Smith was that liberty is at the heart of capitalism, and at the heart of liberty lies commitment to the good of humankind. This is of course hopelessly wrong as it has nothing to do with the varied environment of the human heart. Some love in this way, others in that way, some hate in this way, others in that way, and so it goes. In fact, we all readily pursue whatever we think will provide us with liberty and happiness. In the rudimental industrial environment of 250 years ago, Smith’s theory of self-serving contributors may have worked constructively to some extent in order to stimulate growth. Today, however, it is an utter failure as far as the well-being of most people are concerned. Individualist capitalism is not a suitable system for the 21st Century complex and many-faceted global world.

This type of maladjustment on part of theory is particularly noticeable in socialist theory. Actual realities are ignored; sacrificed at the altar of socialism—the dogma of society for society’s sake. The socialist sentimental appeal to an assumed sense of universal participation has only resulted in increasing social disregard and cynicism, and such antisocial, immoral and inhuman psychology is trending in socio-democratic welfare states, too, as previously noted. Materialist socialism with its ideal of an egalitarian worker state simply does not have enough of multi-dimensional construct in it to satisfy people’s various demands and personal longings. Rather, people grow dejected and sceptical when they become increasingly aware of the fact that individualist capitalism deliver on materialist dreams whereas materialist socialism does not even allow for dreams but only for pathetic drudgery. The growing disenchantment is soon filled by capitalism’s enticing appeals to the self-centred individual. Today, individualisation and commercialisation are the guiding lights wherever Marx, Lenin and the workers’ party once ruled.

Effort for establishing a theory involves struggle against obstacles. Those obstacles make themselves felt both in external and internal ecosystems whenever previous experience is to make way for the new and fresh. A dogma is a rigid, intolerant ideas entrenched in any sphere of existence to disallow liberation of human consciousness, to stop good theory from prevailing. Genuine theory does away with dogma, and therefore the propounders of such theory, the harbingers of human liberation and salvation, are invariably met with fierce opposition from vested interest and all those who want to keep humanity imprisoned by dogmas. It happened to Socrates, to Jesus Christ and to countless others who carried the flag of freedom and redemption, and it happened to the propounder of Prout who languished in jail for seven years and more. Prison authorities, prompted by the government, attempted to kill Shrii Sarkar by administering barbiturate poisoning to him while in jail. It later transpired that Prout was the actual reason for the authorities persecution of Shrii Sarkar. In fact, upon entering into jail, Shrii Sarkar was offered by government representative that if he left Prout out of his socio-spiritual movement he would be released and given the circumstances and upkeep of a spiritual master for the rest of his life. The socio-spiritual service-movement Shrii Sarkar had built in India was strongly motivated by the socioeconomics of Prout and had become an eyesore to the authorities as well as to powerful social and religious reactionary forces.

When people feel a need for guaranteed results in the kitchen they typically turn to cookbooks and clear-cut recipes. Who can stop good theory from taking root and spread everywhere? The English word theory derives from ancient Greek philosophy where the everyday word, theoria, θεωρία, meant “looking at, viewing, beholding”. In philosophical context, theory came to refer to contemplative understanding, reflection. Some philosophers, such as Pythagoras, were interested in how such contemplation could be improved by subduing emotions and bodily desires to aid intellectual function at the higher plane of theory. Ancient Indian philosophy, much older than the Greek, termed theory as tattva. In Sanskrit, tat means “that”; tattva signifies essence, the subtler reality or experience of particular expressions of existence, such as the presence of a stone, the sweetness of a smile, the perennial motivation of human longing to always look for something more, etc. Tattva, genuine theory, points to something more subtle and sublime; it replicates itself in further development where one practical thing leads, is linked to, another. Consequently, the metatheory of tattva is that everything is one and rooted in sublime supreme consciousness.

Everywhere we look for meaning in theory, we find it akin to contemplative cognition, to existential realisation. A general metatheory is therefore that everything is of, by and for consciousness, of infinite realisation. Just think; whatever we sense or conceive of is brought into our consciousness, therefore everything to us is an expression of consciousness. As soon as something is brought to our attention it is within our consciousness. This metatheory of ever-present consciousness adds up with the fact that new things are added to our consciousness all the time. Just like water coming out of the taps and faucets in our house is water even when outside of our house, everything of existence is consciousness whether within or without our personal consciousness.

Prout concurs with the theory that everything is consciousness. This is what makes Prout a theory for all time and all places and for all people. Time, place and person are the three relative factors of the objective creation beyond which there is only pure, absolute cognition. Shrii Sarkar, Prout’s propounder, was a philosopher, social reformer, and spiritual teacher. When discoursing on Prout in 1961, he offered: “The approach of Prout is subjective approach through objective adjustment,” meaning that cognition is subject and the created world is object. As consciousness is everything, it is of both subjective and objective nature. In its pure, unadulterated form it is absolutely subjective, and otherwise it is both subjective and objective in all its relative forms of various expressions of this creation that we live in and are products of. Cognition is a broad subjective term; intellect is cognition and intuition is a still higher form of cognition evolving all the way into the spiritual and supreme cognition. The combined functioning of analytical intellectual cognition and intuitional synthetical cognition presupposes a connecting link between the two. Shrii Sarkar termed this connecting link as enlightened intelligence—elevated practical cognition. With the help of such enlightened, elevated intelligence, intellectual knowledge can be utilised for solving mundane problems, and intuitional cognition for utilising subtle and sublime potentialities for higher development and problem-solving. Prout is a theory framed by both analytical, intuitional and sublime intelligence. It comprises the mundane and supramundane world, physical and metaphysical human resources, and the overall spiritual. It is a socioeconomic theory for today and all time to come when the psychic and spiritual will play increasingly significant roles in the utilisation of all sorts of potentialities—crude, subtle and sublime.

We conclude this episode with an observation by Professor Edward Tory Higgins of Columbia University, the propounder of Regulatory Focus Theory, which is a theory of goal pursuit, quote: “The reason a ‘good’ theory should be testable, be coherent, be economical, be generalisable, and explain known findings is that all of these characteristics serve the primary function of a theory—to be generative of new ideas and new discoveries.” Quote ended. If there ever was a good confirmation of the nature, intention and spirit of Prout, this is it: testable, coherent, economical, generalisable, and explaining known findings in order to generate new ideas and new discoveries.

That is all for this episode. In the following episodes we will discuss the five fundamental principles of Prout. Until then, thank you and goodbye for now.