Man's Fate and God's Choice by Bhimeswara Challa (ereader for textbooks TXT) 📖

liberation. It is this that offers scope for man to change himself, and hope to change his future. It is this that gives immediacy and importance to human effort.

And it is never too late for change or hope. And then the teasing question: is human effort really and solely ‘human effort’? Or is that also an illusion, an invention of the human mind to lull us into complacency?

Conceptualizing and comprehending consciousness is as difficult as identifying what constitutes human content and human essence. The word is used differently by different people. Some say that “consciousness could be the final frontier in man’s quest to know what life is really all about. At the broadest level, being conscious is to be awake and aware, having a sense of self, and a feeling of embodiment, of knowing the difference between you and the world around.”362 Our brain, we are told, will never understand its ‘own

 

 

 

360 Sri Aurobindo. The Future Evolution of Man. Chapter 5: The Development of the Spiritual Man. Accessed at: http://www.mountainman.com.au/auro_5.html

361 Richard Bach. QuoteWorld.org. Accessed at: http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/811

362 New Scientist. UK. 4 September 2004. p.30.

 

consciousness’ because it is not equipped to understand itself. In terms of consciousness, humans claim that what distinguishes them from animals is an awareness that can communicate complex information with a sense of self-referral, and that information culled from the outside world passes through our senses through the brain’s electromagnetic field to neurons in the brain and then back again to the field, creating a self-referring loop that could be the key to consciousness. Essentially it means that consciousness is a product of over 100 billion electrically active neurons of the brain. It has also been said that the basic problem is that our subjective experience of consciousness does not correspond to the neurophysiology of our brain and that we really do not know how all the physically distinct information in our brain is somehow bound together to the subjective image: the so-called ‘binding problem’.

There is also a view that consciousness continues after a person’s brain has stopped functioning, and he has been declared clinically dead. The conclusion is, consciousness ultimately cannot be defined, only realized, like the Self in the Upanishads. Mark Hamilton, in his book God-Man: Our Final Evolution (1998), said that man did not have a consciousness till about as late as 3,000 years ago, reflecting the thesis expounded in Julian Jaynes’s much acclaimed book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976). He argued that until as recently as two or one thousand years, human beings were not conscious and their behavior was directed by what he called ‘auditory hallucinations’, which they thought came from the voice of their chief, king or gods.

According to Jaynes, the change came when man along with other primates functioned by mimicked or learned reactions, what Hamilton calls ‘automatic guidance system.’ Bicameral means a combination of the left and the right halves of the brain, and the development of consciousness is a result of the neglect of the right-brain and the dominance of the left-brain. Bicameral can also be a combination of the inquisitive capacity of the heart and the reasoning capacity of the brain — the mind. Man was forced to develop consciousness in order to survive as his hallucinating voices no longer provided guidance for survival. In other words, what is called consciousness is synonymous with mind-centered intelligence and reasoning faculties. They became the guidance system, which since then has been the dominant force in human consciousness, and conduct, in the world. Researchers like Mark Hamilton have been of the view that mankind might be in the middle of taking an evolutionary leap into a far more competitive species. Hamilton describes what he calls a Neo-Tech World, in which the God-Man will “enjoy Six Ultimate Gifts such as spectacular love and sex, and a slim, sexy body; superior intelligence; millionaire wealth; exceptional health and longevity; an exciting profit-building and profound security and safety”. The God-Man “also attracts two other gifts, including beautiful women, powerful men, and rich and famous friends.” He “will become the Sun at the center of your personal universe.”363 In Hamilton’s Neo-Tech World, man will say adieu to his ‘bicameral mentality’ as mind ‘becomes its own authority.’ This is truly breathtaking and scary stuff, a blend of euphoria and Utopia or pure nightmare. In other words, the world will have more of the ‘mind thing’ that brought man to the brink of the abyss, even the feeble stirrings of feeling and emotions will forever be snuffed out, and the mind will, aided by technology, make the man of reason a demi-god with a sexy body and super intelligence. This has to be the scariest doomsday scenario, the ultimate triumph of the material man over the spiritual man. To call this carnal man ‘God-Man’ must rank as the strangest of ironies. Let us first cross the threshold of ‘good-man.’ Other scientists and thinkers sketch a different scenario, more plausible and more desirable, in which man will learn to strengthen heart-generated intuition and intelligence, and restore the balance in the

 

 

 

363 Mark Hamilton. God-Man: Our Final Evolution. 1998. Integrated Management Associates, Nevada, USA.

 

consciousness, which Hamilton calls bicameral mentality and which he implies has been a drag on human evolution.

 

The Masters and their message

Yet another paradox stands out in human history: despite the fact that the genetic difference between any two individuals is at little as 0.2 percent, there is a yawning gap between one human and another in terms of their personalities and behavior. A few among us become great, noble, and exemplary, while the rest lead mundane, materialistic lives, trapped in the coils of samsara. In a world seething with disillusionment, desperation and despair, with God choosing to, or so it seems, stay away, more and more people are looking for gurus, guides, guardians and guardian angels, magic wands and mystical mantras. But too often, wise words seem to fall on deaf ears. But it is not as if we are impervious to external inspiration; quite a few rational, sane and ‘sensible’ people fall prey to the teachings of pseudo-spiritualists and charlatans. Why do so many people ignore Jesus, the Buddha, Zoroaster, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther, and follow the likes of Jim Jones, David Koresh, Sun Myung Moon, Luc Jouret and Mother Ann Lee. While prophets and ‘cult’ leaders are of a different genre, it is not an accident that they all administered their message dipped in religion. The word ‘religion’ has that power. It is but rare that a true atheist becomes a mass leader with a fanatical following. But the question is, what, for example, could have induced more than 900 ordinary human beings to stand patiently in line for hours to drink poison, ‘inspired’ by another man (Jim Jones), while they failed to draw any hope from the lives and legacy of prophets and saints? And let us not forget Adolf Hitler, who ‘inspired’ a whole nation. In everyday life too, everyone is constantly, albeit fleetingly, ‘inspired’ by a motley mix of individuals and influences, from movies to lyrics to rabble-rousing leaders. The human mind is at once impervious and porous, but which characteristic prevails when and under what circumstances, is something that continues to be baffling. We are not sure if it is the individual that matters or the nature of the input or influence. Despite steady decadence down the ages, few among us, while still leading human lives, have managed to transcend the bounds of being human. In that rare category come those whom we simply call ‘masters’, or as the theosophist Annie Besant called ‘masters of compassion’. The term embraces everyone, from a teacher in a classroom all the way to sublime spiritual personalities, those who have mastered their minds and have realized within their own selves their oneness with the Supreme, devoting their earthly life to inspire the mass of mankind to embark upon the same spiritual journey. Spiritual Masters have taught the timeless spiritual truths in a variety of ways, and in different idioms, essentially reflecting the environment and period of their time. And they have all said that they too were human and what they could achieve anyone else can. They invariably added that we should not act upon their message simply because they have said so, but only after applying the full range of faculties and our reflective and deliberative capacity. That most people, except a select few, have not measured up to the message of these Masters, is cause for deep reflection. Is it the hostile hold of the mind over the human consciousness that prevents the kind of transformation they were able to achieve? And is it the ingenuity of our mind to let us ‘learn’ something but not let us act upon it? The exhortation of the Masters that we must apply our own minds before practicing their teachings also seems to beg the question, so to speak. If we have that ‘capacity’ we would not need a master, but it is also said that a master or a ‘guru’ should be implicitly obeyed. Then again, the scriptures say that the mind is feeble and fickle, and that there are limits to where the intellect can take us. Who qualifies to be a ‘master’ and a ‘guru’? And, to what extent and how should we ‘adapt’ their teachings to suit our age and time? There are no off-the-shelf answers, but one must recognize the fact that whether it is scriptural sayings or a master’s teachings, the medium is the mind, and the mind puts its own stamp on them and doctors

 

them according to its own predilections. Either such teachings cannot pierce the armor of the mind, or, if they do, they get corrupted by the mind. The ‘message’ is conditioned by the medium and for any knowledge to be consummated the credentials of the individual are important.

Man may fall easy prey to evil, but that does not prevent him from aspiring to be both good and great. But in the melting pot of the human condition, the concepts of good and great do not easily mix. Most good men have been faceless, and most great men have been unscrupulous. It is easier to be good than great. From a species perspective, who is more crucial for its evolution? What triggers greatness or what camouflages goodness, is a riddle. How does a Michelangelo or a Leonardo da Vinci, or an Einstein or a Picasso or a Napoleon differ from the rest? And how do sinners turn into saints? Edmund Burke once said that all that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. What about great men? Do they carry lesser responsibilities or are they exempted because often they are not good men? There have been a few in history who were both great and good, like Krishna, Christ, Zoroaster, the Buddha, Muhammad, Mahaveer and Guru Nanak. What made them so transcendental and so lofty, and such a huge cut above the rest? One explanation, the easiest, is that they were the ‘chosen’ ones or, in Hindu parlance, ‘avatars’. But, barring Krishna, they all disclaimed any divinity. The Buddha, who, according to Osho, was the greatest breakthrough that humanity has known up to now, for instance, said that he was not an exceptional person, that he did not have any special powers, and that what he did anyone could, if he applied himself. In our time, it was Gandhi who said the same thing: ‘my life is my message’. And if we can brace ourselves to ‘believe’ the so-called mediums, Gandhi sent a ‘message’ even while being dead. A voice, purportedly of Mahatma Gandhi, manifested in the séance room of British medium Leslie Flint on 21 June 1961. The voice said “…Fear dominates the hearts and minds of man. And we know that, unless something