Have Human Values Gone Out of Style?

A Reflection on Human Values in Today’s World

By Dehyana

Well…it’s hard to believe, but I’m about to enter my seventh decade. And I’ll admit, I’ve become one of those people who notices things. Not in a grumpy way — at least I hope not. More like someone who’s been around long enough to feel when something has shifted.

Here’s what I notice. There’s a lack of basic respect in the way people interact with each other. Not everywhere, not always — but enough that it’s hard to ignore. The way people speak to each other, or don’t. The way a young person walks past an adult without a word. The way parents watch it happen and say nothing.

Now I know what you’re thinking. She’s almost 70. Every generation says this about the next.

Fair enough. But stay with me.

Human Values Are Learned Through Living, Not Teaching

I spent twenty years taking people to Sai Baba’s Ashram in India. Hundreds of people, over two decades, sitting with one of the great teachers of our time — a man who built his entire life’s work around five human values: truth, right conduct, peace, love and non-violence. Not as religious doctrine, but as the most natural thing in the world. As what we already are, when we’re not getting in our own way.

I came home from those trips changed, every time. And so did the people who came with me. So when I look around now and see what feels like a free-for-all — connection replaced by transaction, I’ll do what I want as a kind of life philosophy — I don’t just notice it as a social observer. I feel it in my soul. Something is missing. Something specific.

Have human values gone out of style?

Why Human Values Feel Lost Today

I don’t think they have. I think they’ve been under-taught. Or maybe just under-lived. Values aren’t passed down through lectures. They’re passed down through watching someone embody them. A grandmother who made you stand up when an adult walked in the room. A teacher who treated every child as though they mattered. Someone in your life who showed you, without words, that how you treat people is who you are.

And here’s the thought that stops me in my tracks — we live in an age that has a massive problem with authority. Understandably so, in many ways. But in rejecting authority, I wonder if we’ve also lost the thread back to something deeper. Because the word authority shares its root with author. And if you believe, as I do, that we were authored by something infinitely greater than ourselves — then living without any sense of that is not freedom. It’s just… lost.

The Role of Presence in Restoring Human Values

Baba used to say that what the world needs is the mother. And before anyone comes for me — I am not talking about women doing more. Lord knows we do enough. I’m talking about something else entirely. A quality. The kind of presence that actually sees the person in front of them. That quality — whether it shows up in a man or a woman — is what shapes a human being from the inside out. And I think its absence is insidiously at the root of all of this.

This is something that can be experienced, not just understood.

If you feel called, we will be gathering this Summer Solstice in Bosnia — a Spiritual Tour centred around reconnecting with what Baba spoke of as the Mother. Through time in Medjugorje, the Bosnian pyramids, and the Ravne tunnels, this is an opportunity to connect deeply with the mother; to step out of the noise and into a different kind of presence.

How We Bring Human Values Back Into the World

The pendulum has swung. It always does. And it will come back.

But what do we do in the meantime?

We just keep living it. The person in the room who is genuinely warm, genuinely present, genuinely interested in the human being in front of them — that person changes the vibe of a room without saying a word about values.

That’s always been how it works. Not top down. Person to person. One small moment of real human contact at a time. It never needed a manifesto. It just needed you to show up.

With love,
Dehyana