A bird-eye‛s view of the development of human consciousness
[based on: God and the Evolving Universe - The next step in personal evolution (GEU) ch 2]
[This involves, of course, also the becoming conscious of the god-concept. Sp. II]
The general Evolution Story entered a new era with the evolvement of human beings. With it came the consciousness that awoke our ancestors to their own ‛self‛ and slowly began the advance toward the truth of their higher nature leading to its irrepressible drive to exceed its apparent limitations, and its ever-astonishing capacity for further development, in search for the Transcendent.
This evolutionary development found an early expression in the Shamanism of the Stone Age. Shamans had the capacity to enter an ecstatic trance ands they could alter states of waking consciousness, from which they gain powers to heal their fellow human beings, interpret dreams, and bring their community into closer rapport with worlds beyond the reach of the ordinary senses.
Several thousands of years later it were the Vedic hymns and the Upanishads of India. These texts refer to direct spiritual instruction, literally "sitting at the feet of a master," and it leads the aspirant to direct experience of the Ultimate, or Brahman, which in essence is one with atman, the deepest self. The most famous statement from these texts is "Thou art That" that reverberated through the ages till our time (see f.i. Joseph Campbell).
It taught that not through learning is the deepest self reached, only through direct experience can we know our essential self, which is one with Brahman, the transcendent and omnipresent reality.
Somewhere else, and somewhat later, we find the so called "mystery schools in Greece, Syria, Anatolia, Egypt, and Persia, involving adoration of various deities, rites of spiritual transformation and elaborate religious dramas based on sacred marriages of the gods and their deaths and rebirths. Expressions can be recognized f.ex. in the works of Homer, the mysteries in honor of Mythra, in Plato‛s famous parable of the cave and in Paul‛s statement "I bring you a mystery".
From the 7th to the 4t century bce, there was another extraordinary surge of intellectual and spiritual creativity in Asia, Greece, and the Middle East. Where the Vedic culture was giving birth to the Upanishads, Taoism arose in China, the Buddhism flourished in India, and among the Jews several of the world's greatest prophets appeared, in Athens and other Greek citystates, philosophic speculation made their evolutionary leap. Some have called this period the "Axial Age" in reference to the dramatic ethical and spiritual turn that occurred among peoples across half of the world. Never before had so many cultures advanced at once in religion and philosophy.
A few more details about them.
Taoism
In China Taoism arose. The word "tao" means "way", like in the way ‛water finds its natural course or clouds move with the wind‛. Taoism teaches that nothing in life is static, that all is in dynamic flow, and that inner peace and well being can only occur if a person comes into harmony with this fundamental feature of worldly existence. It teaches that one cannot seek spiritual liberation ‛with brute will or excessive self-consciousness‛, it will only bring failure. "Easy is right" is what Chuang Tzu said.
Taoism has given us many ways to cultivate the world's natural beauty and grace. Its influence can, for example, be detected today in the rediscovery of "design with nature" in architecture and gardening, and the emphasis in the use of herbal medicines and acupuncture. It contains a set of practices that promote harmony with the natural structures and rhythms of the Earth and human nature.
Buddhism
Buddhism emerged in the 5th c. bce, as a reform of Indian religious culture. Its founder was Gautama Buddha (= the Enlightened One), who offered the principles of enlightenment. These principles comprise the Buddha's four "noble truths." The first is that all life is marked by suffering, the second that suffering is caused by desire, and the third that release from suffering, or nirvana (literally, "blowing out" the flames of desire) can be realized. And the fourth noble truth is that the way to nirvana can be found in the "eightfold noble path." The greatest gift of Buddhism to us come from its wealth of methods that can transform. This immense body of experience has its roots in the yogas of ancient India, and incorporates also shamanism of Tibet, Siberia, and Mongolia, as well as thinking from Taoism and other Chinese traditions.
Greek Philosophy
Another development, that happened in the Greek area of the Mediterrean Sea, was the philosophy of democracy that gave rise to that sense of individual's rights and potential greatness that would help inspire the European Renaissance.
Through Pythagoras, Plato, and other thinkers, Greek culture made possible a connection between speculative metaphysics and mystical insight, and the spirit of science. This historic development gave us the integral spirit so needed to explore the complexities of our evolving world and human nature. But let‛s not run ahead.
Socrates
First there was Socrates (470-399 bce), of whom it was said that no man was wiser than him. For him wisdom was: knowing that he knew nothing. He claimed that most conventional assumptions about the world had to be questioned. The unexamined life was not worth living. His relentless efforts to stimulate self-inquiry and examination of social norms led to rejection, and eventually his death, which he choose above not being accepted for his ethical integrity.
Plato
Plato explored the timeless questions about our identity and the means by which we acquire knowledge. He also proposed practical ways to live a good life, improve education, and govern social and political activity.
There are several consistent themes that mark his works. For example, he says that we learn largely by anamnesis, the remembrance of things we knew before we were born. He sees our course in life being informed by a ‛guardian spirit‛, which can be a stern taskmaster but is accessible through self-understanding. By way of logical arguments, the practice of virtue, and through contemplation, - the direct perception of the true, the good, and the beautiful, - the soul can find wisdom, flourishing to eternal life.
Aristotle
Aristotle (384-22 bce) was Plato's greatest student, who, however, eventually questioned certain aspects of his teacher's metaphysical scheme, like f.i., his Theory of Forms, that there were eternal ideas with which worldly things imperfectly corresponded. Aristotle created a ‛formal logic‛ that became central in the development of Western thought.
Though they had differences, Aristotle and Plato did share many views, like their emphasis on self-inquiry and virtue, as the bases of wisdom and human fulfillment, and by claiming that one can learn to contemplate and thus "see" the eternal activity of God.
Plotinus
With the next great thinker we are being brought closer to the time of Jesus and the beginning of the Christian era. Plotinus, who is the founder of Neoplatonism, worked mostly in Rome during the 3th c. ce. He taught that the world and each human soul have their origins in "the One", and he presses always for ‛return to the source‛. This outlook profoundly influenced subsequent pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystical philosophy and practice and it remains an important stimulant for today‛s thinking about human nature and its relation to the Transcendent.
Prophets
During the era of the 9th to 4th c. bce, the great Jewish prophets of the Axial Age broadened the concept of a tribal Yahweh and made Him the God of all peoples, and demanded from his people that they bear allegiance to his love and eternal principles. Though not all Jews held this inclusive view of their maker, the witness of Isaiah, as well as the prophets who shared his universality of spirit, gave to the Jewish people and its admirers the powerful vision of a single, personal God actively involved in the world. Their proclamations, which we find written down in the Hebrew scriptures, set the stage, for better or worse, for ‛religion to become a political force‛. The prophets were the spiritual antennae of Israel, monitoring its fidelity to the Sacred Covenant Moses made with God at Sinai. For them the heart of the Jewish religion is ‛moral action‛, not ritual, not mystical ecstasy alone. While for the great seers of Asia and most philosophers of Greece life on Earth was seen as an endless circle, a place from which the soul tries to be liberated, - for the Jews it became more and more a journey toward better things. One day a Messiah would come to set His people free, and bring with Him an age of righteousness. Through this agent of God's will, the world would be redeemed. In Jewish thinking time was seen as an arrow, not an endless cycle. Judaism became so the first religion to maintain that not only the human soul but the world as a whole is on a cosmic journey of evolution. It was in sharp contrast with Eastern and ancient Greek notions of cyclical history (cf. Eliade), and this idea that there is a transcendent purpose for world events was carried forward by Christianity, and given later new expression by European philosophers who joined modern ideas of progress with the witness to the Transcendent. The world became to be seen as a progressive manifestation of an implicit divinity.
Jesus
Several centuries later, another sage appeared, another prophet arose among the Jews: Jesus, the Jew of Galilee. He had a message for his world in danger, one that was going spiritually deaf. For him life's deepest meaning was to be found in discovering a relationship with God and in working for a just society. Some saw him later as a fulfillment of their Jewish scriptures and considered him the long waited for ‛messiah‛. He himself never took that role and title.
His following developed into small communities, each with there own view how they saw Jesus and his message (f.ex. Paul). Later, after centuries, this diversity was corrected (but also ruined) by the unity that Constantine expected from the Christian church that was to become the state religion. This made the simple wisdom of Jesus get lost in the organized system of religion. The dream "in which material and spiritual goods, political and religious resources, economic and transcendental accesses are equally available to all without interference from brokers, mediators, or intermediaries" (Crossan) developed over the centuries more and more into a church that declared itself to "possess" the teaching of Jesus, and controlled it by its power structure.
There were, however, through the ages constant signs of its remaining original spiritual values and incalculable richness, that found expression in the great men and women that have the admiration of so many, as an Augustine, Benedict, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, Meister Eckhart, and many others in the later Protestant reformed churches as a Blake, Schelling and Tillich.
An indication of a ‛weakness‛ in the Christian religion was the beginning of Islam. It taught from the start that God‛s message was distorted or lost in Jewish and Christian traditions. The Muslim believes that God therefore wanted to fully and clearly disclose Himself in Islam to humankind.
His chosen instrument was the devout and highly charismatic Arab Muhammed and the record of God's revelations is written down in the Koran, the Holy Book of Islam. Through Islam, which means ‛submission‛, one can surrender to the will of Allah and the teaching of the Koran.
Sufism
Where mysticism was the means of searching for the deeper meaning of what the Christian message was all about, so Sufism in Islam became an expression of the same desire for deeper and more intimate realization of God, that was not provided by simply observing religious traditions. If for Muslims there is but ‛one God‛, for Sufis there is only ‛God‛. They see us humans as ‛the rays of the Secret Sun always seeking to know our Source‛. The awareness of God in our deepest Self is central for both Christian mysticism and Sufism. Both have been influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the Neoplatonism that began with Plotinus which inspired to a vision and practice of integral transformation.
The story of search and discovery continues toward the later Renaissance. The West went through the institutionalization of Christianity. Its richness brought forth, no doubt, the glories of Gothic architecture; the luminous wisdom of a Meister Eckhart, and a Moses Mai-monides. It gave us Dante's great poetry; and the gradual establishment of cities, trade, and social order. But it also brought incalculable miseries of war and poverty, the calamities of the Crusades, and the loss of most high culture from Greco-Roman antiquity.
Revival of Greco-Roman culture
The revival of this culture eventually started in Florence and spread in Italy and Europe mostly because of the influence of the ‛de Medici‛ family. Unforgettable and great masters of that time were f.ex. Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci who produced their unsurpassed artwork. There were also other men of genius, as a Cellini and Machiavelli. They introduced a turn toward: worldly realism vs the supernatural, expressing thus a new consciousness, and a new regard for the distinctive form, beauty, and goodness of the human person. It became a cultural breakthrough with an emphasis: that a transcending world that had characterized most religious traditions, was replaced by a celebration of this world's astonishing possibilities for further development.
Said Pico della Mirandola, "God the Father endowed man from birth with the seeds of every possibility and every life."
Enlightenment
This focus on nature and the individual had spread widely by the start of the 18th c. "By speech and pen we can make men more enlightened and better," said Voltaire. It was the beginning of the celebration of reason, and revolt against religious oppression, and - with its rejection of kings - it became the living aspect of the Enlightenment.
The debate between faith and reason gained increasing momentum with the stunning advances of science. In the light of these increasing scientific discovery, supernatural explanations were no longer needed to understand the world and human nature. Enlightenment by definition was a celebration of knowledge. Its literary, scientific, and philosophical movement emerged from the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton; the rationalism of the French philosopher Rene Descartes; the experimental methods of Francis Bacon; the empiricism of the English philosopher John Locke and the skepticism of the Scottish thinker David Hume. Leaders of the Enlightenment, among them the French thinkers Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, rejected traditional wisdom, whether propounded by church or state, that impeded scientific progress and led to political persecution.
The call for intellectual liberty, tolerance, and the dominance of reason found a voice in England in the historian Gibbon, Germany heard Lessing and Goethe, in America our Constitution by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson testify to it, and in Russia it was Peter the Great, who was exhilarated by the spirit of discovery he found on his travels in Europe.
No doubt there were shadow sides to the Enlightenment. Freeing oneself from the dubious beliefs and dogmas of institutional religion, can easily lead also to rejection of the findings of the explorers of the inner life. In its passion to find verifiable data, science increasingly turned away from confirmable facts of the inner life, that reveal much about the human potential, and by doing this gave rise to a strictly materialist view of the world and human nature. It also contributed to the exploitation and destruction of the natural world.
But in spite of its excesses, the Enlightenment brought evolutionary liberations of the human spirit, it led to rejection of intellectual, moral, social, and political oppression, and consequently to the overthrow of despotic regimes. And it also, slowly but surely, helped religion begin to free itself from superstition and dogma.
By way of Newton, Buffon. Lyell, and the German idealists Schelling and Hegel, as well as Bergson, Whitehead, and Teilhard de Chardin, there was an historic shift of perspective from a view that the world as a whole is going nowhere, to a belief that it is giving rise in the course of time, through all its setbacks and catastrophes, to new and higher levels of existence.
Evolution
All this prepared for and made possible the revolutionary statement of the evolution of species. It was primed by the findings of Lyell and Hooker, and found expression in the papers of Wallace and Darwin in 1858, at which they were met with a ‛loud silence‛. Darwins‛ book On the Origin of Species published a year later caused an uproar in the scientific arena, as well as in the religious community, since Darwin did not allow for divine involvement in the unfolding process of living things, although his establishment of evolution as a fact was embraced by many religious thinkers. Like the Enlightenment, the facts of evolution can no doubt reinforce a strict materialism in many scientists and laypeople, but they also can broaden our vision of the divine immanence. And more than that, they must be addressed by anyone who views the world as a whole and cares about humankind's destiny Not only are they in harmony with a vision of personal and social transformation, but they also lend credence and grandness to it.
Evolution's discovery gives new and compelling significance to our emerging capacities for extraordinary life. No other scientific finding is as important in revealing the astonishing story of our universe and humankind's role in its further advance.
The Unconscious
Mesmer (1734-1815) had started a process of research on the unconscious mind, believing in a magnetic ‛fluid‛, or vital force, that flows through all things and can be transmitted directly through physical touch. He conceived the universe to be a living organism unified by a single spiritual presence.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) announced his discovery of the unconscious mind and established the practice of psychoanalysis as a way to uncover hidden dimensions of human nature. And by stating that below or beyond the rational mind there existed an overwhelmingly potent repository of forces which did not readily submit either to rational analysis or to conscious manipulation, he undermined the entire Enlightenment project.
Carl Jung believed that because of the universal forces of the mind, all humans have access to ancestral memories, or "archetypes," that can be understood through the study of myths and close attention to dreams.
In our days it Ken Wilber is proposing a model of human growth that integrates the humanistic and transpersonal perspectives with the findings of many developments in other fields
And so the Story goes on.
Conclusion
Long ago, humans learned to use fire, move in small groups across the continents in search of better living conditions, and while following shamans to the spirit world.
During the past three thousand years, this long journey from the Stone Age has accelerated. In the great awakenings of modern times humankind has quickened its knowledge of the world, the self, and things Transcendent. Different religious traditions have given us visions of moral excellence, an understanding of extraordinary human attributes, and countless practices that can transform us. The Renaissance and Enlightenment gave us new appreciation of the individual and liberated the powers of reason. Modern science has shown that evolution is a fact, and we got a first vision of the evolving universe in relation to the divine.
This general advance has been marked by setbacks and monstrous distortions of the human spirit. Nevertheless, our species is emerging in spite of its regressions and meanderings from much of its ignorance and incapacity.
It is an astonishing story, this advance from Paleolíthic culture to the wonders of modern life in which even women are finding their rightful place.
And it seems more marvelous still when viewed as a further advance of the evolving universe. Like the cosmos itself, humankind will not stay fixed within its apparent limits. With each historic turn we have noted that its possibilities for further development have increased: All of these awakenings, we believe, point the way to another evolutionary leap and have helped prepare us for it. |
