THE EVOLUTION OF MORALITY

All created beings face a fundamentally untenable situation. They arrive, more or less helpless, in a hostile world, teeming with creatures – plants, animals, bacterial and viral microorganisms – struggling to survive, at times symbiotically, but more often at each others’ expense. Somehow, through a series of harrowing and precarcious experiences, they gradually improve the skills they need to survive, until at last they arrive at maturity. Then, regardless of how skillful they have become at survival, they reach the predefined terminus of their existence, at which point they die (often after a debilitating final illness).

I would emphasize that this is the fate of ALL created beings, not just humans. But humans have the additional characteristic that they are able to perceive, ponder and fret about their existential situation. This ability allows them to anticipate and alter to some extent the natural course of events, thereby averting an occasional disaster, but it also adds a serious potential for anxiety and frustration. After all, if the human condition is fundamentally untenable, we cannot expect the human reaction to it to be altogether positive.

In fact, given the appearance of the human situation, it’s surprising that mankind as a whole has not embraced a philosophy of egotism, conflict, sensory indulgence, abject despair, or some combination of the foregoing. But while there have been periodic forays in these directions, the overwhelming philosophical response has been quite the reverse. Whether it is the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant, the Four Noble States of the Buddha, or “Love thy neighbor as thyself” as taught by Jesus Christ, the dominant morality of mankind has always been one of unselfishness. Against the apparent odds, mankind has embraced, almost without exception, a morality of love, compassion and self-sacrifice, even though a majority has rarely been able to turn this philosophy into action.

Of course, there is a reason for all this, as readers of this blog will already surmise. Neither mankind’s untenable situation nor the content of his morality is a result of chance, nor is either a product of the human mind. Rather, both are parts of the drama through which consciousness evolves from identification with the particular (i.e., each of the various particles of creation) to the universal (i.e., the universe, creation as a whole). Egotism, conflict, selfishness and despair all express the viewpoint of the particular which is born, grows, changes and dies. Unselfishness, love, compassion, and patience express the viewpoint of the universal, which is changeless and eternal. That these find themselves in conflict is no accident, as the struggle of consciousness to lift itself from the individual to the universal is the fundamental drama of creation.

Another of creation’s dramas is, of course, the cycles by which mental capacity is elevated and debased as the planets revolve around their stars, stars revolve around each other, and their galaxies revolve around the grand center of the universe (known in Sanskrit as vishnunabhi – the energetic source of the created worlds). In ascending ages (like the present one) as our earth approaches the grand center, the mental power of man gradually increases. He discovers new materials, new sources of energy, new technologies. Of course, none of these is really new. The materials and energies and ideas have been there all along. The only thing that has changed is man’s ability to cognize and utilize them.

As the mental capacity increases, the power to effect change increases along with it – and this can be good or bad. You can make a heart valve or a Big Gulp out of plastic. An internal combustion engine can run a battle tank or an irrigation pump. You can use atomic energy to light a city or to blow it up. It is only the evolution of morality that can keep the abuse of mental capacity in check. If morality does not keep pace with mental power, what results is rampant selfishness, sexual indulgence, drug abuse, disintegration of the family, political and social conflict, war, environmental degradation, increasing disparity of wealth, decreasing quality of life. In other words … the world we see today.

But once again, this is the drama. Man has free choice. He can control himself or not; he can compete, he can cheat, he can fight, or he can cooperate for the common good.

And on the brighter side, everything in the universe is ultimately self-regulating. If man does not choose to control himself, he will kill himself – or at least, kill a sufficient number of his species that its effects on the system will be reduced to manageable proportions. It’s important to note that it is not the universal intelligence that will destroy mankind. It is mankind that will do it. The universal intelligence is infinitely patient, kind, compassionate and loving. These are the qualities that uphold the universe. But it is the universe they uphold. They do not uphold any species that chooses to ignore them.

THE REAL YOU

You were alone. You had been alone. You would be alone always.

Because there was no one else, nothing else. You were all that existed, all that would ever exist.

And you knew it.

There was no time. No change by which to measure it. Nothing to change, no past or future within which change could happen. Only the present.

And there was no space. No separation between and no things to be separated.

And there was no motion. Nothing to move, no dimensions, no acceleration, no velocity.

There was nothing but — you.

You alone. Formless. Complete. Eternal.

Beyond words or thoughts. Beyond concepts, beyond qualities, beyond everything except

Consciousness.

You were conscious. Aware of your existence and your consciousness.

Aware of your immeasurable, unassailable, immaculate, immortal existence. And in that awareness – that perfect clarity, purity, transparency and completeness – you were at peace, utterly content and secure . . . and alone.

It was indescribable, this state of yours. Perfection. It went on forever, and you knew it. Unlimited, unconditioned existence.

For you, no desire, no grasping, no striving. Nothing to attain, or avoid, nothing to want or need or fear. There was only satisfaction, a contentment, a causeless, wholesome, happiness.

You experienced an eternal fulfillment that within the contemplation of itself became a self-renewing, ever-expanding joy ….

And from that joy, something emerged – and eternally emerges – a desireless desire, a selfless urge to share your bounty, your beauty, your limitless, expanding joy. A desire to create a multiplicity of beings to enjoy what you enjoyed.

And so it was that Creation emerged – and emerges forever – from what Hindus call Parambrahma, Christians call Eternal Spirit, and Buddhists call, the Void. And so it is that this little life you think you are living emerges from the vastness, the causeless, featureless essence, that you will eventually discover.

That is the real you.