Üsküdar Üniversitesi Founding Rector Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan attended the program organized by Hüdayi Foundation. In the interview held for university students, Tarhan made evaluations regarding the topic of “Being at Peace with Yourself”. Highlighting four harmonies related to being at peace with oneself, Tarhan listed them as; family harmony, professional harmony, social harmony, and harmony with oneself.
Four harmonies are very important!
Prof. Dr. Tarhan, stating that there are four criteria for a person to be at peace with themselves, said; “What we understand by a person being at peace with themselves is very important. It means being in harmony with oneself, one's close environment, and one's colleagues. At this point, four types of harmony are important: family harmony, professional harmony, social harmony, and harmony with oneself. Being able to maintain these harmonies in a healthy way is considered a fundamental criterion for a person's mental health. These are not going well in people. Existential questioning has begun especially. It is quite expected for a young person to have revolutionary thoughts. Adolescence is the period when a young person questions. They question their own identity, their cultural, ethnic identity, all of them. In fact, within this questioning, it is encoded in a person's genes to be transformative, innovative. These are very important for the development of humanity.”
“The self in humans and the self in other living beings are very different”
Tarhan explained the difference between the self-perception in humans and that in other living beings as follows; “Being at peace with ourselves means knowing ourselves. There is a self-perception. The self in humans and the self in other living beings are very different. When we look at the genes of other living beings, they are about eating, drinking, and reproducing. But look at human genes and imagination: they question the world, question life, want to develop everything, and dominate and rule everything. Human desires, wishes, and needs are limitless, but their power is limited. Animals' power and what they will do are encoded in their genes, and they live to that extent. There is a core emotion called 'self', and this limit does not exist in other living beings.”
“The sense of self is a unique human emotion”
Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan emphasized that people must be able to distinguish between the three existing realities, and if they can, they will have known themselves. Tarhan stated; “There is imaginary reality, physical reality, and dream reality. If a person separates the boundaries of these three realities, they will have known themselves. If this boundary is broken, the person becomes schizophrenic. When they daydream and believe in those dreams, they are schizophrenic; when they believe in a dream, you call them mentally ill. This means we must have the ability to distinguish these three realities. The sense of self is a unique human emotion. It says 'I' and 'others'. When a child is born, they imagine themselves to be the center of the world. However, after a person grows up, they do not imagine themselves to be the center of the world. They consider themselves a part of the social structure in the world. What should exist in a person are the ideal self, the real self, and the self perceived by the person. If there is a balance between the perceived self, the ideal self, and the real self, it means that this child or adult truly knows themselves.” he concluded.