The God that evolved

Let’s rewind back to the beginning of human consciousness, some millions of years back in history; back in Africa, back to the time when the then hominids’ brains just about evolved to point that they realized they could understand their environment better than the other creatures. At this point (rather period) in human history the requirement was only survival. It is unlikely that they needed any god, life was mostly instinctual.

 

Forwarding a couple of million years the hominid brains almost tripled in size and this was key to self-consciousness historian say. But the world was still an unforgiving place. Only might was right; hunting and foraging was survival. Staying in groups ensured better survival and having a strong leader for the group helped well. The leader possibly became the origin of lords; Servility and condescension to the lord(s) of the group, most of the time, guaranteed security of both food and life.

 

Moving ahead in time, generations’ later, and our still-crude almost-human ancestors realized that there are forces of nature that were way more powerful that any of their group-lords. Earth (quakes), Wind (storms) and Fires were definitely on top of the list.

With the advent of agriculture on the fertile banks of rivers, human physical and belief evolutions took a fast pace. Agriculture and social structures brought security (relative to the past) to food supply and otherwise. Our ancestors had now some time to imagine: and so they thought that dark-forces (it still being a rather pessimistic time) governed the uncertainty (in harvests and in health) to life and so were gods. The earlier-identified powerful awe-elements (Earth, wind, fire & water) were never fully understood and so never discarded, just associated with these new inventions.

Wind is the carrier of disease (and of locusts), lightning the spear of the gods and volcano the seat of the gods. In fact, the then insurmountable mountains were all the seats of the gods, in most cultures.

 

A few thousand years back time was right for the need for stability and direction. The more time certain humans had at their disposal then more they wanted to make sense of the chaos of the world: Gods, sacrifices, fluid kingdom-lines, etcetra. And so arose the concept of Godhead of the gods. The creator of the minions, the more-powerful and higher in the escalation matrix! It was only logically to amalgamate the gods, based on their creative/preservative/dissolutive natures, under any of the three or two hoods. Most spiritually-progressive religions of the world had come up to this realization quite early. A good comparison is in India: over the last thousand years all the individual gods, prevalent across south Asia, were assigned as a manifestation of one of the Godheads of the Hindu trinity.

 

Last two thousand years: we contemplate that there can be only one God who is most powerful and most merciful. Notice the shift from a negative to a positive God; the One positive for humans. Now the three is boxed into One with each head being simply a face of the ultimate. That’s again only logical :)

 

Hinduism achieved this heap-to-singularity; so did its sister religions: Buddhism and Jainism; and so did the Abrahamic religions.

 

The next logical phase in the spiritual evolution is blending everything into the One! There can be no distinction between us and That; between good and evil. I am That. No duality. In this level of spiritual-maturity-model, only the eastern philosophies come close.

 

We have come a long way baby; why try harder :)

 

So I ask: what changed over the course of history? God or our concept of God? For instance, observe the character change of God/god from the Old testament to the New Testament: from a jealous, capricious, vengeful one to a gracious and merciful one.  If God is infinite how can he change in this short time-period. Its absurd to think in such lines.

The funny fact is that humans created this being(s) and changed the definition over time to rationalize the world.

Recipe for Success

There is no result without action, success or otherwise, and so therefore Intent is the core and single ingredient.

Desire is just wishful thinking; intent is cause for the action. Intent is automatic in one with conviction; Convinced that the result/goal, of the action/exercise, is imperative to the stakeholder.

Conviction > Intent > Action > Result

So if you have been a procrastinator there is nothing wrong; you just weren’t interested or convinced enough to do anything. In such cases, desperation brings the necessity to act.

A rags-to-riches story is all about a personal intent. But an individual’s intention and actions may not be sufficient for a non-individualistic result like say the history-making and/or pioneering explorations? Discovery of a new land; Exploration of the Dark Continent or the deepest point in the ocean ; Building mega structures as in Dubai; Putting a man on the moon; and Yes even revolutions : political (Say the French), religious(Protestant) or Socio-economic (White). An individual’s power is insufficient for the success of these bigger projects and thus requires collaborative action. One could transfer the intent to the team by simulating the glorious results by his/her powerful words (Mahatma Gandhi) or just by using the carrot of money (employment).

For longer-termed projects or big-hairy-audacious goals like the above, one could add another ingredient to only sustain the first element through commitment over the time period. And that is by risking something purposefully.

By virtue of the first element (intent) something is already at risk by default: that one may not achieve any results if not committed. That apart, one may (depending on context) risk money (investments) or risk his/her image (promises).

Conviction > Intent > Action (Collective/Individual) > Results > Commitment > Bigger Results! (Success)

As politicians do one could be loud about the risk like as a public declaration or one can be silent as his/her strong conviction; the louder the more commitment and more the chances of transformations happening in the network. And as they say the Universe would conspire for the intent to happen!

The Breadboard

JM reiterates that we humans are here to learn…continuously. Anybody who ruminates a lot like me can agree that this is actually what we do … consciously or unconsciously and continuously: when we talk, when we listen, when we observe and when we act.

All experiences, good and bad, are learning experiences. Yes, there are opportunities to learn something even with traumatic experiences such as accident, physical injuries etc. and relatively minor experiences such as fall-from-grace, humiliation, divorce, disgrace etc. In fact everything is a learning experience. Even all (apparent) hindrances to one’s progress are actually opportunities to evaluate-learn-innovate-improve.

Is our innate goal to know it all and reach perfection? 

Consider the above illustration:  Brain as a platform for building information connects which in turn generates knowledge which in turn allows for ‘wisdom’. Like a breadboard where connections between points are made, connections like these together form a circuit to perform a larger function. Consider the neurons in the brain to be like these connection points waiting to be connected to another. A fresh (newborn) brain is blank and without any links….blank, happy, innocent and blissful.

A link between a few neurons may be formed when the baby learns that a smile gives (mother’s) attention in return.

Links are thereafter continuously formed and reorganized in different patterns over these infant years. Even a fall during its first steps also links connections, as this too is learning.

Later on in life, reading a book builds a few hundred connections (words, ideas, grammar, writing styles etc.)

Playing the piano builds another bus of connections in another area within the gooey matter.

Pursuing a hobby builds a few hundred.

Focusing on one area (say in one’s career) could organize the related connections from what looked like chaos at first to a pattern over the years of accumulation.

One may just not really know it all but may reach the threshold of completeness. It would seem there is infinite storage and infinite more stuffs to be learnt. But there could be peace at the stage when there is a pattern in the connections say like the image on the right.

End of Curiosity?

One of the yearnings (instincts I would say but not as basic as hunger) in human beings is “to know”. Curiosity is generally inherent in higher-brained animals but, I observe, that this itch unbearable for humans. It is as if to learn is the destiny of humans. What kicked-off as simple observation, in early humans, of patterns of danger and of the awe that is the sun, moon and stars is still in progress albeit to a very complex (or rather progressed) level. We now observe the most distant stars and the inner most particles; and also try to analyze consumer patterns which are as complex as the weather. Will this curiosity ever be satiated?

Is this state what is enlightenment (since I don’t know of another better word)?

As per Hinduism, one path to this state is Jnana yoga or the Path of Wisdom. Instinctively urged to follow this path one assimilates as much understanding as he can about the universe. Either through one source or varied, though the Hindu scriptures claim that understanding the Vedas would suffice.

 

My gatherings is that enlightenment is like the total understanding (maybe just acceptance) of everything’s place in the universe. The enlightened ones generally seem to be in a state of total calm. They also then tend to be extremely quiet and unfazed by events around then. They do not want to change anything. It is probably because they now feel everything in the universe is in its place and everything is right. Their quench for knowledge (of everything) satiated.

But enlightenment seems like conquering infinity by just understanding the finite?

Well I understand that at the point of the so-called enlightenment our brains are COMPLETE with all (necessary) findings…at least as much that a human mind/brain can process. It may not exactly be complete with everything in the universe but at least the basic patterns of the universe that explains everything i.e. the underlying basic rhythms of the universe or most fundamental equations in the universe.

Physically speaking this may indicate a brain complete with: all possible electrical connections it can achieve; all patterns it could humanly recognize.