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TULSI-PRAJÑA, Jan.-March, 1992
alternatives, with the aim of achieving the goal of continuation of life. Every organism carries in its DNA, the instructions for doing this by dealing with various eventualities that may arise. Life continues because organisms make repeated choices among previously established sets of possible alternative actions. The very essence of living is the presence of varied possibilities of actions allowing selection of those that ensure survival.
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Thus, one of the fundamental characteristics common to all living beings without exception is the aim of survival. Every organism achieves it with efficiency rarely approached in man-made machines. The apparatus which is perfectly adapted for this purpose is supplied by nama karman and ayuşya karman which provide suitable reference standards or saṁjñās (unlearned instincts) for every category of organism. In humans, the pattern of nerve cells of the hypothalamus of the brain are the physical embodiments of fundamental standards. The patterns of human actions are set originally during embryonic development under the control of DNA which in itself is partly inherited and partly karmic. These reference standards are the primal drives or the unlearned instincts. Throughout life, they generate wants and desires, influence hunger and satiety, longings and satisfactions, love and hate, revulsions and fears. Of course, these are not the only or even the main influences and one does not follow only the hypothalamus. In human life, the standards include many further subleties derived from learning and culture. In all cultures, from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, people are continually faced with situations where they must choose what to do, what to say, what to ask for, what to buy, what to give and so on, of course their choices depend upon all sorts of individuals needs, preferences and cultural influences. Thousands of other equally powerful influences, not necessarily instinctual but learned, interact with the primal drives. They may reinforce or countermand a primal drive. 2 But all of these are subordinate to a fundamental method of acting that is embodied in the programs of the brain.
Reference Standards
Every living organism acts in a directed way, each moment of its life, this is because the highly stable DNA molecules give instructions and information providing standards indicating what to do. For humans, instructions of the genes provide, during embryonic development, the system or reference standards at which to aim, e.g., the cells of the hypothalamus ensure (as we shall see in a subsequent chapter) that the right amount of food and drink are taken and the right amount is incorporated to allow the body to grow to
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