What does it mean to say, "I love you!"?

"Love certainly makes the world go 'round." Well, ok, love and its opposite: war (which includes hate, anger, dislike and repulsion). Between these two extremes lies the "soft center" which fills our days with endless preoccupations and activities.

I'm not saying that our daily duties and interests aren't important (to us, at least), but I am saying that they wouldn't exist if it were not for our feelings and our desire for and capacity for feeling.

Do we do anything for which we don't have a compelling "interest," or need, desire, or dislike? Even the most trivial things, like hanging up our clothes, are motivated by some sense of need or feeling for improving or fixing something or avoiding an undesirable result.

So yes, love, feeling, desire, dislike, anger: the emotional and feeling aspect of our consciousness do indeed make us go round and round. Not just spinning moment to moment, day to day, but also, as billions see it and great masters aver, lifetime to lifetime.

"The law was given through Moses, but truth and grace came by Jesus Christ." (New Testament, John 1:17). Or as has been said by others, "love is above the law."

So where does this apparent tangent fit in? Love (ok, "emotions") running amuck are our greatest foe. "Loose lips sink ships." Or, another: "a (wo)man with a six inch tongue can destroy a man six feet tall." All of these cliches point to the power of not just words, but, more importantly, the emotion, feeling, and energy behind our words AND their power to destroy or uplift.

How many crowds of people rioting and making mayhem are whipped into their insane frenzy by slogans, chanting and even martial music? It seems that mass genocide, being itself a form of insanity, dictates such intense froth.

The law fits in to give us a framework of reference and behavior for the channeling and clarifying of our emotional nature. "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" my mother used to say!

But that's not possible nor even appropriate sometimes. Nonetheless, calmness, respect, a sense of perspective and even a sense of humor all point to the need to lift the present moment of our emotions into a higher and more impersonal atmosphere. The "law" refers to "right" behavior. Right behavior is calm, respectful and sees the long picture and sees the little self (especially when warped by the intensity of extreme emotions) as biased and even harmful.

When we do respect and feel truly connected to and supportive of another person (regardless of any other aspects of our relationship: child, parent, spouse, employee, employer, etc.), then we are allowed (by the "law") greater latitude to say things which, under other circumstances, would be inappropriate or at best unhelpful.

When we try to tune into divine love, God's love, and when we actually experience a taste of it, we realize both its power and its unconditional, or impersonal, attribute. Oh, it's VERY personal in the sense that "It is I" who am experiencing it. But it's available to all, equally, without personal preference. When I am feeling that love, or even in general feeling "loving," I feel kindly towards others even, sometimes, when they are unkind to me! (A tall order for most people, but not that difficult to experience for those who have an inner spiritual life or are, in any case, dedicated to loving all without condition, for whatever reason or philosophy or inner awareness may motivate them!)

Unconditional and impersonal are more or less synonymous. The "without condition" and the impersonal are in respect to our personal preferences and biases. It is not manifested by aloofness, what to say arrogance, disdain, or indifference! It's the power to forgive, for example. Forgiveness is certainly one of life's greatest tests at least for one who seeks inner peace and divine attunement. "Do not even the tax collectors" love their own friends?, Jesus quipped!

When we say "I love you" our culture and our language tends to reserve this expression for romantic or familial love. Fair and fine so far as that goes. Nor should you go around saying this to just anyone. But what is love, anyway--as distinguished from the forms of relationships it may pour into?

Heck, how mental can a guy get to ask such a question? Well, here I am, and I'm askin' it! What does an orange taste like? Shall we dissect an orange? Love, too?

Heck, why not? Love is perhaps best understood by its synonyms. I say this because of the association of the word "love" all too often exclusively with its romantic or at least intimate forms, such as parent-child.

Love begins within you. If you have calm respect for your own thoughts, feelings and core self, this is a good beginning. Without a sense of well-being (another synonym), you cannot really feel or express love, unless you mean an impure, co-dependent, needy kind of love. And is lust, co-dependency, neediness worthy of the name love? If so, it is only so in the debased and common currency of our culture and language. But not in the language of the soul, of angels, and of the immanent divine within all creation!

What I experienced in the person of my spiritual teacher (founder of Ananda and direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda), Swami Kriyananda,, was an aura or attitude of one who was loving by nature and by temperament. When we simply and without outer condition including the condition of being loved by another or being in the presence of a loved one, feel "loving," this, for me, is the experience of love.

It is an inner state that is hardly distinguishable from inner joy and it is effervescent. It simply bubbles over, as it were, in a mellow light of kindness. Whereas as joy might incline in the direct of energy, even laughter, and may bubble "up and down," love bubbles outward you might say spherically, calmly, and with warmth. Joy is "gay" and love is "warm." But they are, essentially, like two sides of a coin: distinguishable but connected.

Spiritually speaking, however, it is deemed safer to focus more on joy than on love because we are so invested by habit towards conditional love. At Ananda Village in California (Ananda's first intentional community), a rule, honored in the breach, is that new members in training (who are single) are asked to not enter into new relationships during their year of training. As one enters the spiritual path and the inner experience of meditation, one works on developing and expressing devotion: love for God. In the awakening of the heart's natural love, its long-established habit of affixing itself to an outer, human form too often means that one "falls in love with the first person one meets!" This is very distracting to the one-pointed focus of one's year of spiritual transition! Like Queen Titania in Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer's Night Dram, the pixie dust of spiritual awakening (of kundalini) can accidentally cause us to mistake the form for the spirit behind the form.

This tendency includes the tendency to place a spiritual teacher or other devotees on a pedestal of one's own making. You can guess what the "end of that story" always comes to! The same ending that infatuation comes to!

So, yes, seeking joy is safer. The litmus test of unconditional love has two sides like that coin: the effervescence of a loving nature and the adamantine ability to accept impartially criticism, dislike, hatred and even injury from others without responding in kind.

"I love you" means I love you as a manifestation of God in human form, and as a reflection of the divine love I feel in my own heart.

Happy Valentine's Day (weekend),

Swami Hrimananda aka Hriman aka Terry aka your own Self!

The Seattle Seahawks Secret Weapon: Meditation!

Ok, now that we know the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl, we can let the secret out that under the direction of their coach, Pete Caroll. Former coach of the New York Jets and the Boston Patriots, Pete had a change of heart some time ago about how to motivate his team. He realized that rather than berating his players, he need to encourage and support them.

One thing led to another and now he encourages his team to meditate together which many, if not most do, and the players like to practice yoga as well.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9581925/seattle-seahawks-use-unusual-techniques-practice-espn-magazine

The benefits of yoga and meditation are too numerous and too well documented to bother to list, but there it is. Their secret is out and guess what happens next? Soon you'll find meditation and yoga spreading like wildfire throughout the sports world. In fact, that's not really news for those of us in the yoga world, but it will come as big news to many.

Go Seahawks and congratulations. You had a roomful of otherwise calm and dispassionate yogis cheering our heads off (with non attachment and inner joy, of course) this afternoon.

Paramhansa Yogananda predicted that some day the practice of meditation would encircle the globe bringing healing and harmony to a world which knows too much strife.

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman

Who will win the Super Bowl? God knows. Reflections on the Super Bowl Battle of Life

Super Bowl Sunday, February 2, 2014:  Seattle SeaHawks against the Denver Broncos

The Divine Incarnation: the Avatara

Today we come to contemplate the great battle of life, between the people of the sea and the people of the mountains. The people of the sea are like hawks flying high and swooping low to snatch and harass their prey, the wild and bucking broncos who are of earth and mountains. The people of the sea are swift, flexible, and wise; the people of the mountain are hard, obstinate, and tough. Who will win?

Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita taught that we must take up arms and fight the battle of the Super Bowl of life. He taught that the owner of the game sent his son, the manager, as the brains behind the whole creation and that the son’s divine mother cheerleads and inspires the quarterback, God’s own prophet, to take the team to victory.

We live in an age of individualism. It’s every person for himself. All knowledge can found and accessed by anyone willing to make the effort. Social barriers, prejudices, glass ceilings: all impediments created by socially imposed rules have been dismantled or are under attack. Hierarchy, rulership, and leadership are looked upon with suspicion and disfavor. Cultures are in varying degrees embracing, fighting, or otherwise adapting to this new wave of consciousness that, so far as we know, has never occurred on a mass scale before in human history.

The freedom to do what we like and want is assumed and what we do is presumed to be our right until proven otherwise. That’s a revolution and a half, for sure.

And it isn’t wrong. But it can be misunderstood and abused, causing harm to oneself and others. It can foster selfishness, laziness, and narrow mindedness. Freedom can also inspire one to reach for the heights of one’s potential.

In former times, the imposition of social castes and taboos forced people to live within tight constraints of action and attitude. In this confinement, unnecessary desires and impulses were suppressed or redirected into the channels of one’s narrowly defined station in life. One could go deep into dharma or suffer greatly under the lash of adharma. The image of God projected in such times and out of such attitudes is not surprisingly one of King to his subjects; one of absolute ruler whose mandates were not questioned and were eternal and fixed. Religion in such circumstances is characterized by ritual, formal prayers, highly stylized music, and rigid forms of art. It is top-down and hierarchical. God as King delegates to others a portion of his absolute authority over his subjects. This is of course the priestly class who claimed sway even over kings and princes.

This rigidity of authority is fast crumbling and is rapidly being eroded by those in every walk of life as well as religion who want to take matters in their own hands. This is generally a positive step. The democratization of religion is called “spiritual but not religious.”

What we potentially lose in this new-found freedom to think and act for ourselves is the remembrance that “truth simply is.” Like the law of gravity, its existence does not depend upon our acknowledgement. It’s not just the laws of nature that exist outside our assent, but the moral laws that guide the unfoldment of our consciousness. After the twentieth century’s experimentation with the outside boundaries of behavior, we have seen a rise in conservatism which affirms traditional values.  Unfortunately with this affirmation has come all the trappings of hierarchy and dogma. Thus a great struggle is taking place in the world today: between earth and water, between rigidity and fluidity, between social rules and individual freedom.

The age of individualism is, however, unstoppable though its dark side of violence and selfishness will always result in a reactionary step backwards whenever the dark side threatens too greatly that status quo.

So we come, then, at last to today’s subject: Does God incarnate in human form?

Such a teaching has been with humanity as far back as one can determine. It is expressed literally but also indirectly, as in when God speaks to and through his human prophets. The teaching of God’s involvement in human history and human lives has always had a place in spirituality and religion.

Some religionists will say God “Himself” incarnates in human form. One obvious example would be the Christian teaching that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God and that God, in creating the universe, manifests Himself as One in Three: the Trinity. Another would be the dogma that great prophets like Krishna are literal incarnations of the Hindu god, Vishnu, preserver of dharma and creation.

In the other direction we have Buddha and Mohammed being described only as human messengers. But in various sects of Buddhism we see the Buddha revered every bit as much as Jesus Christ or Krishna, even if the theology can get a little murky. Buddha, unlike Jesus or Krishna, made no overt claim of divinity. The thrust of the Buddha’s teaching is to emphasize self-effort, not dependency upon grace or higher powers.

But no matter how narrow or wide the slice of dogmatic pie may be, the intercession of God, divinity or truth into the affairs of human lives and history is an undeniable tenet of the world’s major religions and most of the lesser branches of spirituality.

Here at Ananda we are in the lineage that includes Krishna, Lord Rama, and many other great prophets of India. Our lineage includes Jesus Christ and a link-up between east and west. We sit squarely in the traditional teaching that God descends into human form. Well, perhaps not exactly that way!

Paramhansa Yogananda refined the teaching of the avatara (descent of God into human form) toward a middle path. He taught that the human incarnation of divinity occurs through an individual soul who, though many lives, has achieved Self-realization. In achieving the realization that he and all creation are but manifestations of the one and sole reality, God, such a one becomes a true “son” of the Infinite Spirit of God beyond all creation. In this distinction, a Jesus Christ, Buddha or Krishna is not a divinely created puppet who is almost non-human and more like an alien but is, instead, a soul like you and I. Not different in kind but in level of soul realization and Oneness with the Father.

On a sidebar, Yogananda also explained that the entire cosmos and creation is “avatara” in the sense that God didn’t make the universe like a carpenter who goes out to obtain building materials. God became the universe by vibrating His consciousness from its eternal rest in bliss. In doing so, he became triune because Bliss remains untouched (as God the Father) by creation; the vibration itself creates the illusion of separate objects and yet is God in vibration (as the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Aum, the Witness and the Word), while His intelligence and consciousness which remain immanent at the still heart and center of vibration constitute His reflection in creation as the “only-begotten son.”

This sidebar relates more to the cosmogony and cosmology of creation and isn’t directly related to the avatara as the savior and guru-preceptor.

But it relates in this way: we, as souls, as are as much “God” as the avatar and as the Trinity because nothing within or without creation is ever “wholly other.” All is God: God alone is the sole substance of reality.

But as a wave cannot claim to be the ocean, but can only claim to be a part of the ocean, so too neither the savior nor you or I, or any single and separate aspect of creation, can claim to “be God.” “He who says he is God, isn’t. He who says he isn’t, isn’t. He who knows, knows.”

And yet, Jesus did claim, as does Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, that he is “one with the Father.” When chastened for boasting, Jesus retorted that he knew of what he spoke but they did not. So, yes, claims are sometimes made by the avatar. And, unfortunately, so are such claims sometimes made by those who are not Self-realized.

The history of religion is as much about frauds and wanna bees as the real thing. Such is the human drama and the inherent illusionary nature of creation. When Jesus asked his disciples “Who do men say I am,” it was Peter who declared Jesus to be the “son of God.” Jesus remarked that Peter’s gnosis came not from outside himself but was erected on the “rock” of his soul intuition. It is through intuition, ultimately, that we know God: whether in human form or in the formless state of our own soul.

God cannot be proved. “Ishwar ashidhha.” And of course this is where religion and spirituality get sticky. But are the material sciences free from constant doubt and paradox? Hardly. Ultimately the verdict lies with each and every one of us to find our path and our way to the truth.

To ignore sources of wisdom in the name of going on alone or being free from false teachings and teachers is simply not possible for truth is One (though men call it by many names). Truth is something we open ourselves to. We don’t create it to suit our personality, biases, or temperament. Truth comes to us both from outside ourselves as scripture, teachers, life experience and, yes, in the form of the Godhead in human form.

Yet its ultimate reality is as much in ourselves as in every atom and in the form of the guru-preceptor.

We need to start where we are and do so with an attitude of listening, of openness, and freedom from personal bias, likes or dislikes. To receive truth we go step by step shedding every vestige of ego attachment or self-identity. In the end we receive the pearl of great price by offering the “human sacrifice” of body and personality into soul and soul into Infinity.  This is the deeper meaning of the many and varied forms of sacrifice: harvest, animals or human. We offer all matter, all lower forms of consciousness, all materiality back into the consciousness from which all things derive.

This is not a condemnation or denial of matter or form but a recognition of the only reality that is absolute, eternal and unchanging. Ever-existing, ever-self-aware, and ever in the bliss of Spirit — this describes our true Self as unique manifestations of God.

The existence of the avatar is the promise of our own immortality in God. If such a one did not exist, how could we possibly aspire to such a realization? To acknowledge divinity in such a form is to acknowledge our own potential.

The “first-coming” of the Christ divinity is thus in the human form of the avatar. The “second-coming” is the awakening of the Christ within ourselves which is sparked and nurtured by the spiritual teachings and consciousness of the living Christ in human form. There is no “third coming” in the sense that the creation itself ever becomes Self-realized. It may be dissolved wholly or in part by the forces of nature and the divine will, but only consciousness can become Self-realized because to be realized is an awakening of consciousness, not matter as matter.

It could be said that the first descent, or avatar, is the creation itself, but this gets confusing since the creation as creation is not, as such, Self-realized.

The Super Bowl of Life then is the cosmic battle of the forces of matter which are empowered to go outward and multiply versus the Spirit’s invitation to awaken and go within to find itself and reveal itself to the inquiring Mind. In Self-realization all paradox and duality and conflict are resolved in the One. But in the creation itself, the pendulum of the opposites means we will have Super Bowls onto eternity. As water is more fluid than earth, may the hawks of the sea prevail!

May the best team win!

Nayaswami Hriman

 

Search for Meaning : Final Post (7 of 7) :Meditation & Freedom

Part 7 - Meditation & Freedom

As science reveals the vastness of the cosmos, meditation reveals the vastness of thought and consciousness; as science perennially seeks new sources of energy, so meditation reveals a fount of creative energy within us; as science seeks to discover new labor-saving, life-saving, health-restoring devices and cures, so meditation reveals the subtle energy of life force which brings health and vitality into everyday life. As science seeks solutions to life’s material problems, so meditation discovers the innate joy of consciousness which is itself the greatest problem solver of them all because it brings unconditional happiness: the pearl of great price which cannot be bought cheaply at Wal-Mart.

Consider, friends, that the cosmos is an inextricable mix of matter and mind; objective and subjective; esoteric and exoteric; seen and unseen. As it has been proven by science that the observer is not separable from the observed, so too is consciousness an integral part of matter.

So, my scientific, skeptical, agnostic, atheistic friends: whether God exists, whether consciousness underlies creation, or whether consciousness persists in the midst of death is not the issue. Your interest in and open mind toward the subject is the issue. God gives us the free will to seek Him or to reject Him. For countless incarnations we can seek fulfillment in outer circumstances and yet will always find disappointment. As this universe has existed for untold billions of years, so have we. As energy can be neither created nor destroyed, so too consciousness! There is no death, only the outer appearance of change. Consciousness and Self-awareness simply IS. Indeed, given the transitory, fleeting appearance and disappearances of atoms, molecules, mountains and stars, Consciousness is the only reality.

We have nothing to fear for in our pure consciousness for we are eternal: not as bodies or egos, but as unique manifestations of Infinite Consciousness. This, admittedly, is a dogma (a precept) but it is one that can be proved, intuitively, step by step, even if, owing to distractions and outer circumstances, it might take more than one lifetime. The proof of pudding is in the eating and the eating is good, for the sincere and focused inquiry produces a more reliable and increasingly stable happiness. The eating is in the discipline of meditation and the art of seeking happiness (aka God). It is a money-back guarantee that meditation, combined with right attitude, right understanding, and right action will bring the greatest happiness possible in this life, bar none!

No saint who has achieved union with the Creator has returned to say, “Ah, what a scam!” By contrast, no single human talent or achievement can so boast. Its votaries invariably and eventually turn away with a yawn and a shrug. Like Ian Fleming said of fame, “At first was fun, but now it’s just ashes, old man, just ashes.” Same for money, pleasure, beauty, fortune and on and on. There’s always a fly somewhere in the soup! Like prostitutes, they are loyal to no one.

After hard experience, we may eventually recognize that self-indulgence and selfishness produce unhappiness and suffering. Then we turn to human virtue and goodness. These are our first, halting steps in the evolution of our consciousness. Most people and most orthodox religions more or less stop here. To go further, one must go on alone. For virtue, while its own reward, cannot satisfy our potential for lasting happiness. Through sincere seeking and studying truth from the wise, we awaken the intuition to see that no matter how virtuous I may be and no matter how satisfying to me my virtuous conduct is, I see that suffering, disease, old age and death still exist. I never know how or when my virtue may slip from my grasp under trying circumstances. Virtue isn’t arbitrary or inconsequential: it is a necessary stepping stone and a foundation for further evolution.

Something more is sought, therefore, as our soul evolves. Better to be agnostic than to embrace yet another unprovable dogma: atheism. Better yet, however, to have the rigor and self-honesty of mind to be open to realities beyond your next meal and to realize that it’s a matter of mind. Who can look up at the stars and ask “What’s for dinner?” Those who do can be excused for dinner, of course, but the rest of us will ask questions of life even if we also, later, eat our dinner. If you are uninterested, I don’t judge you. You judge (or limit) your own potential for happiness. The universe has lots of time. God will wait.

So, wise up, get a real life, and expand your consciousness. As Jesus put it, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Discover the truth that shall make your mind free from “dire fears and colossal suffering” (Krishna, the Bhagavad Gita).

For those of you who have followed my ramblings and reflections, I applaud your valor and endurance. It is my prayer that a bit here and a bit there of these reflections will provide some inspiration to readers and, in the process, some tribute to the memory and living spirit of my teacher, Swami Kriyananda and to our guru, Paramhansa Yogananda—a beacon of hope for a better world than that offered to us by the scoffers and skeptics. 

Search for Meaning - Part 6 (of 7) : God as Consciousness; God as Joy

Part 6 - God as Consciousness; God as Joy

Science, technology, education and travel have expanded our view of reality beyond our nuclear family to include not just our city, county, state, and nation but the planet Earth! Indeed, we gaze into the heavens above and consider the possibilities of intergalactic travel. Similarly, the great preceptors of humanity have taught that Consciousness is a core attribute of God, the underlying substrata of matter. As our cosmos and as space would seem to have no end, so God, as Consciousness itself, is Infinite. There is no realm limited to our imagination and thought, neither time nor space can constrain our idea-mind. By our attunement with God, we, then, too, potentially have no limit to the expansion of our awareness. Thus it may be that by admitting the independent existence of mind, consciousness, and feeling (happiness) one has articulated synonyms for “God.”

You see, the innate sense of satisfaction, fulfillment and well-being which result from an expansion of our awareness and sympathies to include others are indirect testimonies to the existence of consciousness independent of matter and, by extension, then of God. When we are angry, resentful, jealous or vindictive we are upset and unhappy. The opposite is self-evidently true. It may be true that happiness and contentment “enhance” our chances of survival (though hardly a truism) but such actions are not rooted in mere (or is it “sheer”) survival. Instead, it is the deep memory of our latent or potential for transcendent awareness. For sure, it is happiness that we seek, not only mere survival. Born from the beginning of time out of the womb of God’s bliss, we are endowed with the silent, knowing memory that happiness born of perpetual existence and self-awareness is our nature, our birthright, and our destiny.

It is simply that the drama of creation cannot perpetuate itself if all beings could achieve this final state all at once or too easily. The nature of a good drama is conflict and resolution, good and bad, birth and death. As our true nature is eternal, the impulse of the creation is to perpetuate itself. But the nature of movement is that it swings back and forth, in and out, up and down, hot and cold and, like a perpetual motion machine, it is caught in its own machinations of movement. This is the nature of creation for it is Spirit cloaked in matter. Matter cannot recognize its dilemma, only Spirit, immanent within, can cognize itself. When it withdraws back into it-Self, matter continues more or less untouched. For now, it is not important to argue or explore duality vs nonduality, for that is beyond our subject. Suffice to see that the qualities inherent in matter and creation tempt spirit-incarnate to look for itself (like the Musk deer) in all the wrong places where it cannot be found.

I say to the agnostic scientific mind, you can just as easily contemplate countless  galaxies, the history of nations, the infinitesimal world of quantum physics as to contemplate where you will go on vacation. The vacation may come and go soon enough but the galaxies remain forever (well, at least for a long time). The vacation is an unmanifested idea that has captured your fancy, while the distant galaxies are real whether you think about them or not.

Which, then, is more real? We must conclude that reality is a matter of personal interest and awareness. I am not saying that reality depends on your awareness, so much, as your perception of reality depends upon your interest and awareness.

The world teacher, Paramhansa Yogananda, taught that the joy of meditation is proof of the existence of God. That isn’t literally or logically true but it is intuitively so. The actual inner experience of a state of joy that has no outward source in pleasure, material or egoic fulfillment of any kind, and that can be experienced even in the midst of trials, tribulations, and pain shows that there exists a level of consciousness unaffected by matter. With practice and depth of intuitive perception, this strata of unconditional joy is experienced as self-existent, self-aware, and self-satisfying (needing nothing beyond itself). You need not take this on belief. Be a metaphysical scientist, and prove this for yourself.

But, there’s a catch! I cannot give this to you, like writing a check. One can inspire you; teach you; give you suggestions and counsel, but you must seek and earn it yourself, for it is within you. You have to know about it and want it. Living next door to an excellent restaurant but not being hungry does not give you the pleasure of its fare. Nor is this joy merely a product of an overactive imagination. Anyone who has experienced it would scoff at the accusation that this inner joy was imaginary. Indeed, it can transform your life. That’s reality, so far as you are concerned. And it isn’t a merely subjective reality if it helps you cope creatively, efficiently, and successfully with day to life and life’s up and downs. Nor is it merely subjective if anyone else, making a similar sustained and intelligent effort, can have the same experience. Millions of people now meditate and millions testify as to the consistent results. What more is the scientific method?

Stay tuned for our last section, Part 7 – Meditation & Freedom

Search for Meaning: Part 5 (of 7) : Evolution of Consciousness

Part 5 - Evolution of Consciousness

What if, for just a moment, we entertain the possibility that underlying all matter and form is consciousness. What if the evolutionary purpose of creation is to become more conscious, more self aware, and more connected in sympathy and feeling with others? And what if we discover that this does not pose a threat to the impulse to survive and propagate?

Indeed: consider how survival and propagation would fit neatly into the whole idea of reincarnation! If evolution is propelled by the intention of consciousness to take on form and through that form to become gradually more self-aware, then consciousness, so clothed, needs those forms to survive long enough to make progress. Then, in order to continue its evolution when the outer form it has inhabited has run its physical course of life, and after a “nightly” rest, it reincarnates and to do so it needs to find new forms, generally at least slightly more evolved. Indeed, such a possibility has not only been averred for thousands of years by the wise of east and west but this provides the intelligent and purposeful intention behind what otherwise seems a crude, hopeless, and mechanical explanation of life on earth. The cup of life may indeed be half full! (Something to think about, eh, Darwin?) Creation, defined as the cosmos, is “old as the hills,” and the evolution of consciousness is as much a part of it as the evolution of the forms of creation. Why not, then, mightn’t we be as old as time itself?

Just the other day a friend on Facebook shared a YouTube video from “Cosmology and Consciousness Conference” in India last month (Dec 2013) with Bruce Greyson, the speaker, an expert on consciousness beyond the brain. Here’s the link: http://youtu.be/sPGZSC8odIU He has studied numerous cases on reincarnation and other evidence supporting the idea that consciousness exists independent of form.

Any amateur psychologist will admit that the law of cause and effect governs thoughts and emotions just as much as it does chemicals, atoms and electrons! Over the long eons of creation, in this metaphysical view, perhaps as we gradually evolve through stages of mineral, plant, animal and human, we acquire more mobility, increased awareness of our surroundings, more control over our life, and, at last in human form, become self-aware. In super-human (superconscious) awareness, we achieve the Oneness spoken of even thousands of years ago! Achieving thus “Self-realization,” we are free to go (offstage, as it were, into the “bosom of the Lord”).

Instinct presumably guides the more or less automatic evolution of lower life forms towards higher life forms. But at the human level, armed with reason but heavily influenced by past subconscious tendencies, we can evolve upward or downward over time periods too great to even imagine. But intuition gradually awakens us to learn to expand our consciousness such that, as an example, we learn to love for love’s sake alone; to care for others because it is right; because it satisfies a deep need for connection; indeed, for many “reasons.” We simply know certain things about our feelings, consciousness and life. We may not articulate them in philosophical terms; or, we may do so, instead, using religious language. But the knowing is the same, regardless of the explanation employed. The left brain, reasoning mind is unable to critically examine the realm of intuitive knowing because intuition arrives on the doorstep of our awareness complete in itself, satisfied with the finality of its perception. It requires no acceptance and needs no approval. We can of course reject it. If we do so too frequently it will retreat back into silence. We can also, admittedly, misinterpret it or mistake subconscious influences, desires, and biases for true intuition. It takes practice to learn to recognize and trust true intuition.

Intuition knows that I am happier when I am calm, self-controlled, considerate, kind, energetic, and creative and so on. Our ego, by habit or self-assertion, however, wants excitement and stimulation (and to strike out at perceived threats) and then wonders puzzled when it receives the bill in the form of an emotional (or other) hangover or in returned hurts.

All great wisdom traditions acknowledge that the human psyche is engaged in a struggle between its past (and its subconscious) and its true potential in higher consciousness. Do we cling to the goal to “get ours” or do we haltingly and gradually begin to trust our intuition that happiness requires a long-term investment in an expansion of our consciousness?

The infant science we call modern psychology began with the proposal that it was more authentic to devolve in favor of our subconscious habits and to accept that these were our true self. This “solution” has been shown to be false, and worse, for it leads into greater suffering and unhappiness.

It must also be pointed out that the evolution of consciousness is not one of a species or even a group of people, but of each person, each soul, or put another way, individually. The nature of consciousness is such that evolution cannot be imposed upon itself. It awakens to itself and must choose to do so voluntarily AND individually. We call this free will.

Gradually, if we grow in wisdom and self-understanding through life’s ups and downs, we find that our definition of happiness takes us further than the pleasure of the moment and beyond self-gratification. It  expands to include the realities of others (family, friends, community, nation, and world), Even nature conspires to guide us in the direction of expanding awareness and sympathies. The young man falls in love; marries, starts a family, a career, becomes a responsible citizen and, in time, the doting patriarch of the clan. This naturally guided expansion of awareness brings us a satisfaction that the latest Smartphone or promotion cannot offer. Many a soul learns the hard way, later in life, that money can’t buy happiness.

When we take up recycling and donating to “Save the Whales,” clearly our frame of reference and scope of self-identification has expanded beyond our five senses, our immediate egoic interests, and beyond even our lifetime for it includes the welfare and well-being of other people.

Stay tuned for Part 6: God as Consciousness; God as Joy....