“If you wish to know the Divine, feel the windon your face and the warm sun on your hand.” ~ Buddha
Know Thyself!
So who are we?
Where did we come from?
Are we just accidents?
What’s our place in existence?
Do we have a purpose?
Where do we all fit in this great cosmic dance, we call life?
Answering these questions accurately will go a long way in determining the conditions of our lives whilst here in physical reality.
As the old saying goes- ‘The truth shall set you free’.
Truly knowing what we are, who or what created us, and more importantly why, will reveal to us some very different aspects of our self than previously we were led to believe. This knowledge will hopefully give us a more accurate picture of the true nature of reality and our role within it and afford us a foothold, albeit temporary, in the shifting sands of creation- the chaos of human existence.
“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.” ~ Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Ever since man first emerged blinking into the bright light of self-awareness, he has been attempting to understand and describe his place in the cosmos. Mankind’s early struggles in this endeavor were numerous and varied–they started with the physical world that surrounded them- the sun of course, the sky above them, the earth below their feet and the elements around them all featured heavily in these early struggles for understanding. Look around you today and whatever you see you can be sure that someone’s had a go at worshiping it- rivers and oceans, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the natural environment, (Animism) trees, rocks, mountains, mushrooms, and animals as diverse as chickens, bulls and elephants to dung beetles and snakes, in fact pretty much anything we thought was bigger or stronger than our own fragile selves. And as our awareness and knowledge grew, so did the complexity of these explanations.
Vast religions were built around the most popular of these ‘ideas’, we only have to look at the cosmology of the ancient Egyptians or classical Greeks to see the depth and breadth of some of these theories, some of which have stood the test of time and are still around today- Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Paganism, and Taoism, to name but a few, are all still highly influential in forming our societal and individual views of the world thousands of years after their conception.
Brave New World
In the last few centuries as the power of our old religions faded, our scientists felt brave enough to challenge the old-world order. No longer shackled by the constraints of religious doctrine, they began to fill the vacuum left by countless centuries of religious confusion.
Slowly but surely a new set of ideas about reality emerged and took shape- ‘Scientific Materialism’. These new ideas took any form of ‘other’ out of the equation. Replacing our God and Goddess’s with science, our faith with scientific method, and our priests and shaman with scientists and mathematicians.
The 19th and 20th centuries were a golden age for our scientists; after centuries of religious and political suppression, our greatest minds were finally given the free reign they must have long yearned for.
The freedom to think…
It was an age of tremendous scientific discovery, an age of objects- of solidity. Mathematics, facts, constants, and calculations ruled the day. Cause and effect was king, and every action had an equal and opposite reaction. Newton’s Principia ruled the waves.
New ideas and theories abounded. And these new theories gave our scientific minds something to really get their teeth into- a magnificent mechanical puzzle to solve. With great excitement they thought they could at last see the way to that scientific nirvana, a ‘Great Theory of Everything’.
God was dead and they would be the ones to lead mankind into a glorious technological future. Scientific discovery they predicted would render our religions, myths and superstitions obsolete, in fact would negate the very reason for religious belief at all. Science I’m sure they envisaged would become the new religion and scientists its high priests.
Humanity’s future would be based on solid facts- not beliefs, fantasies and fairy tales, unhindered by religious doctrine and dogma.And the battle between these two very different views of the world continues right up to the present day.
A Room with a View.
Our academics call these struggles for understanding whether esoteric or scientific– ‘World Views’.
“A world view is the framework you use to interpret the world and your place in it.” ~ Glenn Sunshine, Writer
Each of us holds a world view whether we realize it or not- it is the sum total of our life experiences, knowledge, and beliefs, both conscious or subconscious, that we hold about how the world works. These assumptions about reality can be true, partially true, or completely false. The way we view the world is fundamental in dictating the circumstances of our lives whilst here on earth. We use it to anchor, orientate and define our place in the chaos of life. We build our entire identity on what we believe to be true about ourselves and the world around us. It is our attempt to give our lives meaning and ground ourselves somewhere in the vastness of time and space.
And without these, some would say self-imposed boundaries and limitations, we fear we will be forever lost and vulnerable in the chaos of physical reality. Our world view has a profound effect every aspect of our lives. We wear our imaginings about ourselves around us like a cloak against the darkness of our ignorance and its influence will underpin every single choice we make in our lives!
What we think about ourselves and the way the ‘world works will dictate every interaction we ever have. It will affect how we treat others, how we treat ourselves, our attitude to money, human rights, immigration, material possessions, environmental issues, sexuality, poverty, authority…
And ultimately of course how we face our deaths.
If it helps think of your world view as a lens through which you view and experience the world. If your lens is defective, distorted or warped in any way then so will everything you view through that lens.
The clearer the lens the clearer the view.
Follow the leader
So how do we get our ‘world view’?
How do we know who to believe?
How do we get our identity?
Do we come pre-programmed?
And if so, who does the programming?
For most us the indoctrination starts very early in our lives, almost from birth. And not without good reason, for we are born virtually helpless into an extremely hostile and dangerous environment; And our own and ultimately our communities survival depends on us learning and adopting the ‘ways’ of our group as quickly as possible. Without question!
The hope is that as we grow and gain experience, knowledge, and hopefully a little wisdom our view of the world will continue to grow and develop to encompass our newly expanded awareness… but in reality most of the conditioning has already taken place in our childhood and for most lasts a life-time.
“Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.” ~ St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), Catholic Saint
Our upbringing, our culture, our family, our education, our economic status, our gender and sexuality all have a tremendous influence on the way each of us forms our view (idea) of the world. But without doubt our spiritual and religious beliefs, or lack of them, have the greatest effect on our inner psyches- on who we think we are in the grand scheme of things. And from what I can see, the single biggest deciding factor in what faith we follow and hence what we believe is simple geography.
The randomness of our birthplace will ultimately decide what ‘truths’ most us believe. Born in the west then it is most likely that your core beliefs and values will be based on the Greco/ Roman/Judo/Christian (God Almighty) view of the world. Deep within your core, wrapped up tight and entwined with your identity and ego, you will carry the core beliefs of your upbringing- maybe the protestant work ethic of the Calvinists or perhaps the guilt-based control tactics of the Catholic Church.
Where will your dice land?
Western culture is also the main breeding ground of many of our non-believing rationalist (though in my eyes not believing in anything is still a belief), schools of thought; Atheism and Scientism chief amongst them.
And if the lottery of life puts you in the hot sands of the Middle East chances are that you’ll find yourself in locked into an ancient cosmology that demands a whole lot of your attention- perhaps one day you’ll find yourself paying homage to a crumbling old wall or on pilgrimage to a land far away; And the sad thing is most of us won’t even know why… or care... as we stumble blindly along the prescribed path home. Like lemmings headed for the cliff.
Born in the East, the odds are your dice will land on a more exotic and esoteric flavor of the truth, gentler even, than we have on offer here in the west. Maybe you’ll find yourself as ‘part of the all’ - at One with the Universe, or perhaps spinning around on a vast reincarnation wheel on your way to Nirvana.
And for the long shot merchants out there, if the opium of the masses doesn’t appeal to you… you can of course bet your life and death on one of the other estimated two thousand five hundred recognized faiths and religions in the world today; each one being the one ‘true path’ of course.
God is King.
But regardless of what our intellect and the scientific evidence may tell us, the majority of us do continue to buy our ticket in this great lottery of life and death.
“There are few Men so obstinate in their Atheism, that a pressing Danger will not reduce to an acknowledgment of the Divine Power.” ~ Plato (428-348 Est), Greek Philosopher
Almost 80% of the world’s population (last count over 8 Billion), including those in our scientific and academic institutions, do indeed continue to believe in something greater than ourselves...
An intelligent source of our existence.
A creator.
Or an ‘Other’ as some of our more enlightened scientists have begun to call it.
It is when we attempt to define this ‘Other’ that things get a bit more complicated on this side of the argument.
A Rose by any other name…
Throughout mankind’s history there have been countless attempts to identify and objectify the source of our being.
One of the most common of course is GOD
Be it the single all-powerful God of the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews or the multiple Gods of the Hindus and Taoists. In most of our western faiths, we view our Gods as separate and external deities or forces that exist independently outside of ourselves- a father like figure/force that enjoys full dominion over us, our actions, and our fates. A ‘higher’ power, superior to our lowly selves- one that we have to worship and beg if we desire any change in our lives, doomed to be forever looking outside ourselves for validation of our existence, desperate for meaning and a place in the shifting sands of reality. Powerless flawed and impotent, subject to the whims of some Super Being, desperately clinging on to our worthless lives in the hope of some promised future salvation.
We fare a bit better in the eastern ‘life’s a journey’ style traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism - where though each of us is acknowledged as divine- as part of the ‘All’- we are still not there yet.
We’re incomplete…
We’re on the wheel.
Our physical lives are an aside, a process to endure.
Or at the very least a task to complete.
Our humanness is a hindrance and our task is to return to whence we came as quickly as humanly possible.
Our lives are seen as a means to an end and we must spend our time here on earth learning to eschew our natural human desires in favor of higher ‘spiritual’ goals. The promise being that though hard work, dedication, devotion, and discipline, maybe over countless re-incarnational lifetimes, we can eventually work our way back to where we came from; And then and only then can we relax and take our place in the promised land, dissolve into the whole, or if you are of the Buddhist persuasion attain ‘Nirvana’.
Or whatever particular carrot your brand of truth has you chasing.
And then what you might ask?
Well, as far as I can work out either that’s it or the entire process just begins again. The main premise of many of these belief systems seems to be that we are lost or that we’re on some sort of journey. We’re flawed or corrupt. That we need to be ‘saved’ from our own ignorance and/or wickedness- that we’re not worthy and that we need to prove ourselves in order to get ‘somewhere’- somewhere other than here; be it the quiet bliss of Buddhist nirvana or the feet of our Lord and master on high. And what’s more it will not be easy this journey of ours... Oh no, it’s going to take each of us a lot of hard work and effort, and let’s be honest luck, (for lucky you if through an accident of birth, you were born into the one ‘true’ faith to begin with.), to get out of this mess we unwittingly find ourselves in.
Science is King
The most prevalent scientific world view of western societies today (the one we teach in our schools and universities) and the one employed by our governments and the majority of our academic, science, business, political, and social institutions, is based on Newtonian principles. Built up slowly over the last few hundred years, proponents of this view believe we live in an ‘objective’ universe. The universe is purely physical in makeup and is entirely composed of random inanimate objects; each object is separate and independent from the others. The only connection between them is that they all follow the same physical laws, originate from the same source (The Big Bang) and occupy the same space and time. In this model the universe is mechanical and could be likened to a giant clock- once wound up and set in motion physics and evolution will do the rest. Which means of course there is absolutely no need for any form of divine intervention, or anything ‘Woo Woo’ in the equation at all.
Tick Tock
Every action in the universe is entirely predictable and governed by a set of immutable ‘Laws’- The Law of Gravity and Einstein’s speed of light being two prime examples. And once you understand the basic processes involved, (The Laws), you can accurately predict the outcome of any physical event. All objects from the largest star down to the smallest particle follow these same physical laws. The universe is made from matter, and cause and effect is king. Nothing else exists out with our universe and the only reality available to us is that which we can perceive with our five physical senses. The universe was created from nothing; The ‘Big Bang’, and is constantly expanding outwards. Everything and everyone that exists in our universe can trace their origins back to this one, dare I say miraculous, event. You and I are just random evolutionary occurrences caught up in this great cosmic expansion.
Happy accidents.
In this materialistic objective universe, we as human beings exist only by virtue of the vagaries of the evolutionary process. The ‘objects’ that surround us are completely random and separate from ourselves. In this model it is utterly impossible to affect anything physical with your mind. (We’ll just ignore the placebo effect here for now.)
We are born into an entirely mechanical system and subject to the whims and randomness of a cold, unfeeling, and unconscious universe. We came from nothing and we will return there when we’re done. Everything around us is dead and we have no other way of influencing our external world or circumstances except through our intellect or by employing direct physical force (cause and effect). Life has no meaning, we are born for no reason, our only aim is to survive and reproduce. We live for an indeterminate number of years and then we die.
All for nothing …
No purpose...
Does this ring true for you?
I didn’t think so...
“I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.” ~ Voltaire (1694-1778) French Writer
But intuition has no place in the science lab and our scientists were determined, you’ve got to give them that, and desperate, to prove that the universe was purely physical in makeup and could be explained and understood with no need for a God to make the sun rise, the rain fall, or the wind blow… They believed they were on the cusp of a great breakthrough in mankind’s understanding of the universe. It was only a matter of time. If they poked and probed deep enough then surely, eventually all would be revealed.
Science and endeavor they predicted would one day tame and explain our natural environment leading humanity into a brave new scientific world.
At first, they focused on the practical aspects of our reality- the mechanics: Newton’s apple gave us gravity and his opus Principia underpinned western schools of thought for centuries. We ‘discovered’ electricity, magnetism, radio waves, light waves, and photons. Galileo changed our world view forever with the heretical idea that maybe the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe and those twinkly lights in the sky may be more than just decoration. Darwin consigned Adam and Eve to the realms of fairy tales when he explained our origins and presented his theory of evolution- prompting another great shift in our ideas about ourselves. No more would we be the sons and daughters of heaven. Now we were the prodigy of natural selection- the top of our evolutionary tree-
Thinking conscious Apes.
I preferred the Son of God angle myself, but there you go, that’s progress for you.
Seven days became seven billion years (Est) as The Big Bang theory gave us a scientific alternative to the creationist’s crazy stories. Einstein’s Theories of Relativity (special or not) led us to Black Holes and the curvature of space and time. We smashed atoms and built nuclear bombs large enough to destroy the planet and flew to the moon when we weren’t too busy. We stumbled upon DNA and mapped the human genome. In every field of science; physics, medicine, biology, chemistry… great breakthroughs were made in our understanding and dominance of the physical world around us.
The universe was slowly being tamed- mapped out and reduced to a world of symbols, math and complex theoretical equations.
E=Mc2 and all that.
Physicists today can now theorize and predict with astonishing accuracy how the physical universe will act. Technological advances stemming from this research have allowed us to build great civilizations, prolonged and improved our lives in every way imaginable, and enabled us to fly higher, faster, and further than we could have ever dreamed possible- to reach for the stars. Great advances were made in understanding the mechanics of the physical world as our scientists strove to give us an alternative to the esoteric, faith-based theories/beliefs of our religions and free us from centuries of religious lies and dogma.
And what a wonderful job they did!
For a few glorious decades, the numbers worked! They held up.
Science was King!
At the end of the 20th century things were going along swimmingly for our scientists- Scientific materialism had replaced the old-world order. Scientism was almost a religion in its own right. It appeared that enemy had been routed and was on the run. Churches were closing; congregations were at an all-time low. Our mainstream religions were in disarray. God was if not quite dead, certainly in critical condition. And as they predicted, science was sweeping all our past superstitions away and replacing them with cold hard facts.
Between a rock and a hard place
So, there you have it for most of human history: our greatest minds- our scientists, our philosophers, and theologians have searched for the answers to life’s great existential questions-
Who am I?
Where am I?
Why am I?
What’s the point… is there a point?
And if we were to believe them, then we stand here today at the beginning of the 21st century- the pinnacle of human evolution, no closer to the truth than we were 2000 years ago when Plato was sitting in his cave watching shadows dance on the walls.
Mainstream science would tell us we’re just a random, piece of matter, a leaf blowing in the wind, conscious and for a brief, tantalizing moment aware of the wonder of being and then gone again into the nothingness we sprung from- spawned by a cold unfeeling universe, here with no purpose and then gone again, forgotten, into oblivion… And even crueler with the awareness to recognize our plight, our worthlessness- cruelty beyond belief surely to be given a glimpse of a life, an existence, a future we cannot ever hope to have…
Or if the idea of an accidental, meaningless universe doesn’t appeal to you can always take your chances with mankind’s other great shot in the dark…
God made it!
People who buy this ticket buy into the idea that there is more to life than the random selection our new scientific prophets would have us believe, that there is a force greater than ourselves and more importantly the game has rules! Exactly what these rules are is up for debate- some say we all part of some great mysterious, metaphysical, hierarchical conundrum that we have to figure out and master before we can move on to the next lesson, challenge, problem- sent here half-blind, handicapped and ignorant and punished severely for any ‘mistakes’ we in our ignorance/innocence might make. Others profess that only salvation we can hope for is that which we can beg for on our knees. Subject and ever subservient to some ‘God’ like figure or a myriad of other ‘higher’ beings, guides, gods, prophets, and saviors, who apparently exist further up the pecking order of spiritual existence.
“May you live in interesting times…” ~ Old Chinese curse
Fortunately for you and me, born into these most interesting of times, there is a new path emerging.
A third option...
