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THE SANTOSHA INDEX

A device for putting Quality of Life into working clothes

By Otto H. Schmitt

Quality of Life is a term that is widely used as an intuitively understood preference for one situation over another, often based on valid accumulated wisdom, but seldom defined quantitatively or even qualitatively, and hardly ever dimensioned or scaled, as working scientists expect their concepts to be.

Energy, for example, is clearly defined for physical sciences with elegant rules for its conversion and transmission, while the softer Para¬normal, Behavioral and Mind-spirit developers abound with all sorts of energies from chi to personally emitted aura and even bodily mental energy.

To get Quality of Life going as a quantitative, useful concept with a rapidly growing utility, we need two things; an attractive, etymologically honest name, and a start-up set of algorithmic principles and concepts, inviting extension and popular understanding.

I suggest Santosha Index as a name. It has honest Sanskrit meaning: the best of all possible situations, joys and experiences, it has a universally recognized nice sound, and is free of the association with drug or other bad happiness that now plagues its Greek equivalent Euphoria.

I can offer a family of Biomimetic elements for incorporation into the Santoshn Index Strategy. These I can only list in this brief abstract.

  1. The homeostatic, the homeodynarnic and the dynamically restructurable nature of Santosha.
  2. The three quadrature compaction strategy common to all life.
  3. A check list of 8-10 universal principles characterizing the Cosmos.
  4. The modulated continuing-product geometric mean technique for optimizing.
  5. The hierarchical coordination of quality of life at the conscious, subconscious and superconscious levels.
  6. The Strand Epidemiological approach to continued lifelong optimization of quality of life.
  7. Cooptimization of Santosha for the individual, the affinity group or family and the community.
  8. The mathematical techniques of Interpenetrating Domain Topology, now seen as applicable to many biological systems.
  9. The enhancement of quality of life beyond mere nondeterioration and its occasional deliberate negative modification.