Man's Fate and God's Choice, Bhimeswara Challa [best free ereader .TXT] 📗

is done about this before it is too late, the disastrous consequences are so tremendous that one hardly dares to think about it. Today your world stands on the bridge as it were of destruction. Anytime that bridge, which is in itself so unreliable that it is doubtful if it will sustain the weight that is placed upon it, because man himself, unconsciously, and in some ways consciously, has brought into being such a condition of confusion, such a condition of hatred and intolerance.”364 This reveals yet another ‘gap’ in human knowledge that defies bridging. But what we do know is that these men’s greatness came not from their intellect and not even from what they preached. And they lived from the deepest recesses and depths of their heart, not of their mind. Their footprints on the sands of time have imprints far deeper than those of reason and science. Einstein, a great scientist but also a great spiritualist, wrote that although our time is distinguished by great achievements in the fields of science and technology, human beings have every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the devotees of objective truth. What humanity owes to the Buddha, Moses and Jesus ranks far higher than all the achievements of the inquiring and constructive minds. People like the Buddha and Gandhi were born as humans, but transcended the limits and constraints inherent in ‘being human’ not by marshalling their mind-driven intellect but by attaining a higher level of consciousness.

Any radical change in the dynamics that govern the environment of human life is well nigh impossible with the present mode of cognition and perception. And that can be changed only through transformation of the human consciousness, which is filled with anger, fear,

 

 

 

364 Mahatma Gandhi Speaks. Excerpt from the Woods/Greene collection of direct voice recordings with direct voice medium Leslie Flint. Accessed at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~wichm/gandhi.html

 

malice, and greed. There are levels of our consciousness which are too deep for us to understand, but that is where our problems are rooted and the solutions lie. For a real and lasting spiritual upliftment, the human consciousness must cease to be mind-centered. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, his spiritual companion, called for an Operation of Consciousness or Supramental Consciousness, which they said, “gives form to matter. It fashions matter by sending out the corresponding vibration, as today we fashion thoughts with the word.”365 The path that they proposed was to penetrate the four layers of the mind: intellectual, emotional, sensory, and physical. How can we, mundane mental men, accomplish such a stupendous task? When the mind is like an ocean tossed about by a typhoon, how can we question it?

When the mind is brimming with venom and vermin, how can we cleanse it? When the mind is taken over by separateness, divisiveness, and intolerance, how can we transform it into an instrument of Oneness heralding Universal Consciousness? Can man evolve out of this suffocating civilization, the crippling infirmities of his mind and body, and become a kinder and a gentler being? Is there a spring, a switch, a lever, or a trigger hidden somewhere in the human organism, that can alter the very dynamic of our consciousness? Can man’s ‘earthly God,’ science, help? Can religion, shorn of its bigotry and absolutism, help mobilize the latent energies in the human body? New technologies, we are told, might enable man to download his mind into computers and reinvent himself. Such is our state of mind that we are confused what it portends and if we should be excited or alarmed.

The war is within; the crucible is the consciousness. It is consciousness that determines the human condition and shapes human behavior. It is what differentiates modern man from men of yore. It is consciousness that lets us separate the past from the present, and the present from the future, the important from the immediate. The ancient or the primitive man lived in the natural state; we exist in a synthetic state. The gap between the primitive men and their creator or Nature was much narrower. Their nobility, truthfulness, selflessness, and righteousness were not the outcomes of daily battles within between good and evil or right and wrong, but they were outcomes of their first impulses, spontaneous and effortless. Madame Blavatsky believed that the primal or the original man lived by intuition, not reason, by the heart, not by the mind. And the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of Nature”,366 and our reason is always deceived by false shadows. Elaine Matthews wrote that “the brain is not our only source of intelligence, that we have a second kind of intelligence which Nature intended to act in biological Dynamic with our brain intelligence: intelligence of the heart.”367 The Indian sage Meher Baba characterized the transition from sensation to reason as one such step (in human evolution); the transition from reason to intuition will be another.

To make any progress towards that goal, one has to journey inside, embark on an odyssey within. And it must be in tune with the direction of terrestrial evolution, which is the evolution of consciousness. Man must realize that the cosmos is loftier than creation, that he is merely a part and not the whole, and that his sensory world is constricted. For example, “our eyes can visualize only 3-dimensional configurations, while remaining oblivious to the panoply of subliminal energies from other dimensionalities interwoven into a flowing

 

 

 

365 Satprem. Mind of the Cells. 1999. Institut de Recherches Evolutives. Paris, France. p.71.

366 Alister E. McGrath. Christian Literature: an Anthology. 2001. Wiley-Blackwell, USA. p.464.

367 Elaine Matthews. The Heartbeat of Intelligence. Trans4Mind. Accessed at: http://www.trans4mind.com/counterpoint/index-success-abundance/matthews.shtml

 

pattern.”368 Our eyes can see only certain things; our ears can hear only certain sounds. Indeed, many animals can see, hear, and smell much better than humans; but those faculties are indispensable for their kind of life. Only our brain is bigger, but it is often a mixed blessing. It has brought us this far, but to take us much farther we need a new captain at the controls. Our intellect is too handicapped to cross all hurdles. Stanford professor William Tiller says: “The break with the past will come, in part, by accepting that, like light and sound, our present band of cognition gives us a window on only a very small portion of Nature’s total modes of expression.”369 Tiller discusses the ‘supersensible domains of Nature’, and says that space and time are “not necessarily the only variables or the best variables for cognition of the broader domains of Nature.”370 Sometimes, we ‘just feel’ something intuitively before our cognition comes to the same conclusion. Einstein, for example, is said to have, “felt within his body the truth of the relationship E=mc2, and then had to work backwards to formulate his intuition into mathematical terminology.”371 All spiritual leaders and all truly creative people transcended the limits of their sensory systems and their brain-generated empirical intelligence. Man can become a ‘whole man’ only by reaching down to the deepest levels of his being. The English poet P.B. Shelley said, “Man who man would be, Must rule the empire of himself.”372 In so doing, man must pay heed to the wise words of the American Indian Chief Oren Lyons: “Keep in mind the Seventh Generation to come.”373 Today man behaves as if there will be no generation to come; indeed with his narcissistic and nihilistic bent of mind, he might be instrumental in ending all generations with this generation. Man needs a kind of consciousness with which he does not, in the words of Sri Aurobindo, “follow good for a reward now on earth or in another existence, but for the sake of good, and no longer shuns evil for fear of punishment on earth later on in this life or else in another life or in hell, but because to follow evil is a degradation and affliction of its being and a fall from its innate and imperative endeavour.”374 A heart- centered consciousness would open the way to a new vision of mystical transformation and spiritual creativity.

Whether it is due to man straying from the dharmic (righteous) path as many devout Hindus believe, or due to the ripening of his true being, or due to a still mysterious process, man is, perhaps, as never before, a slave of his senses, a captive of an enfeebling civilization. Man remains steeped in self-righteousness, while doing ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and in a stupor of selfishness, necessary or unnecessary. Although his ego is destroying him he still clings to it. To halt the drift into the abyss, brooding on the brink will not do. Sooner than later, he will

 

 

 

368 Ernest F. Pecci. In the Foreword to “Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness” by William A. Tiller. 1997. Pavior Publishers. USA. p.xvii.

369 William A. Tiller. Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness. 1997. Pavior Publishers. USA. p.ix.

370 William A. Tiller. Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness. 1997. Pavior Publishers. USA. p.ix.

371 Ernest F. Pecci. In the Foreword to “Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness” by William A. Tiller. 1997. Pavior Publishers. USA. p.xvii.

372 Percy B. Shelley. Positive Atheism’s Big List of Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotations. Accessed at: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/shelley.htm

373 Cited in: Paths of Discovery. The Seventh Generation. Accessed at: http://www.pathsofdiscovery.com.au/

374 Kishor Gandhi. Lights on Life-Problems: Sri Aurobindo’s Views On Important Life Problems. 1987. Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Pondicherry, India. p.70.

 

tumble over. Man must shift the center of gravity of his consciousness from his ego-mind to the inner heart. That, in turn requires nothing less than overhauling the entire architecture of our culture and civilization, of our terminal dependency on technology, and of the infrastructure of human value systems and institutions. For too long, man has been lamenting his fate, bemoaning the world around, blaming the ‘system’ and at the same time eager to ‘share its spoils.’ It is now time for some spine, some nerve, some resolve, and some action. Our mind’s fascination with explanations is fascinating but troublesome. Why must everything be explainable and according to what criteria? Time and again, we see the ‘unexplainable’ being ‘explained’, and what were thought to have been ‘explained’ suddenly appearing as though they are ‘yet to be fully explained.’ We do not need ‘explanations’ for what we do or do not. Most choices and consequences are simple and straightforward. What is important is not what we know through an explanation; it is what we do with what happens to us. Often, an explanation is an escape and an evasion. It is at once an aphrodisiac and opium: it excites our senses, makes us feel good about ourselves and induces stupor. For too long, have we believed in the dictum of Descartes: ‘I think, therefore I am’. It is time to tell ourselves and believe in ‘I feel, therefore I am.’

Feeling is deeper and more ‘un-spoilt’ than thinking. And it is fear that stalks many lives: fear of our dark desires, fear of disease, fear of an accident, fear of failure, fear of losing a job or a loved one, fear of old age, fear of death, fear of hell… Although consciousness is universal and integrated, the ‘reality’ is that it is splintered into myriad parts. To restore and realign those myriad parts, we need divine powers. But we too can do something. The psychiatrist Ernest Pecci says: “Moreover, even a small group of properly entrained individuals can have an exponential effect upon the general level of consciousness on the population of the planet.”