The human mind is the most complex occurrence on earth. The grey matter. Two questions will always matter. How did this grey matter evolve but the most intriguing is why did this grey matter evolve into the brain, mind and consciousness?
Let’s go back to Adam and Eve. That forbidden apple of the tree of knowledge that Adam and Even ate got them exiled from Eden. That means forbiddance generated greater attraction. If God would not have forbidden them, they would not have been exiled. That means knowledge is the source of the problem. What that we know we are mired into it.
Hindus say that in the beginning, God was alone. God existed like existence. In fact, his aloneness was complete. But He must have felt lonely. So he began creating the creation. The Creator Prajapati was dismembered and creatures and forms were created. Prajapati is known as Brahma. Brahma created the whole creation. In the beginning, Brahma was alone and his presence filled the whole world. But he felt lonely. Brahma was an embodiment of both male and female. So a desire arose in him that separated the female from the male. But then the female who was incarnated by Brahma’s body felt it sinful. And the whole creation began as she kept incarnating as the female creature and Brahma kept incarnating himself in the male form.
In Rig Veda the hymn of creation ‘Nisadya Sukta’ beautifully explains the beginning of creation and how creation began. As the hymn says ‘then even non-existence was not there, nor existence. There was no air then, nor the space beyond it. Then there was neither death nor immortality nor was there then the torch of night and day. There was one then, and there was no other. At first, there was only darkness wrapped in darkness. All this was only unillumined cosmic water. That one which came to be, enclosed in nothing, arose at last, born of the power of heat. In the beginning, desire descended on it — that was the primal seed. That desire generated the heat. That rousing desire stirred the heat. Creation began.’
In the aloneness of existence, a desire arose as a primal seed. ‘What stirred? Where? In whose protection? Was there water, bottomless deeper? Gods came later after the creation and That-Which-Is the One who saw the creation from the beginning knows how it began’. Or as the Nisadya Sukta says, ‘maybe He also does not know.’ For creation to begin a desire arose by itself not as a thought as it happens in the mind but as a non-thought.
One thing we are sure that life begins in a desire. The creation is the desire of That-Which-Is. Brahma desired. Adam and Eve desired. In fact, if we say life is a desire. Life is a desire to fulfil what you desire. And what is that desire? The desire to find God. The desire to find Godhood. That desire to be one with That-Which-Is. That is existence itself. That created the whole world.
The human mind is evolved by desiring. In desiring the mind evolved. If you look at one cell amoeba, Amoeba exists as much as we do. But we think. We evolved a complex mind. Amoeba does have the mind. For a mind to be, information is needed. But thinking is not needed. A code is needed for the mind to store and use it for living. Our whole body is our mind and not just thoughts are our mind. For a mind to be, a brain is needed. For a brain to be, a desire is needed.
To eat, Amoeba forms a finger-like projection and engulfs the food. Amoeba is asexual. But his desire to be two is the code that is embedded in it. That desire to be two is his mind. And his brain is his whole body. So to be two it simply grows bigger and splits into two. Amoeba evolved millions of years before humans evolved on the earth.
We humans die, Amoeba does not die. Amoeba is immortal. Amoeba simply gets split into two. One parent cell becomes two daughter cells. One daughter cell that is a parent cell produces two daughter cells. Amoeba does not die. It becomes two by splitting into two asexually. Amoeba is living in eternity. If we go back billions of years down history, we find it is the same Amoeba today that lived on earth back then.
The desire of Amoeba is the desire of mankind. Amoeba has an embedded mind. A question arises does the mind of Amoeba have consciousness. Yes, of course, Amoeba has consciousness. It is a conscious unicellular being. For being, consciousness is needed. For a mind, a brain is needed. For consciousness, being is needed. Amoeba is as much conscious as we are. Our body is governed by the law of the matter. A brain is part of the body that follows the laws of matter. Our consciousness is governed by the law of existence. That is part of existence. That is existence in fact. Our mind is governed by thoughts and the mind exists in thoughts.
The physical body of the mind is the brain. A brain is like a computer processor. Humans have 2% brain in size but it depletes 20% energy to run it. Brain use up 20% of oxygen supply and gets 20% of your blood flow. The modern human brain can store information for few decades. Humans have 1552 grams brain as compared to chimpanzee has 384 grams. Our greater white matter in the temporal cortex mirrors a greater ability to process more information. A man collects and processes information, solves problems and creates ideas in a split second. Woefully man has mushroomed the whole earth to extinct wildlife from earth.
Science was created by human comprehension. Science is trying to birth lab-grown brains to solve problems of brain diseases. To birth a lab-grown brain, science will have to birth consciousness in the lab. Scientists are also trying to create consciousness in the lab. Science does not know that religion knows. Religion knows that consciousness cannot be created in the lab. A scientist can know consciousness but he cannot define it.
If a lab-grown brain is grown ever it would need a prefrontal cortex to process sensory inputs to interpret them for the sense of being. The lab-grown brain would need sensory organs. Even if science may attach robotic sensory organs, how will it become conscious?
Science works on a definition. Science has no definition of consciousness. Once consciousness goes out of one’s body the person does not blink or does not flinch in pain. Neither does brain return EEG (electroencephalogram) signals. When a person is in a vegetative state his whole body is alive and his mind his memories, his processor his motor functions jumbled up. Most of them live in jumbled memories. In that state, consciousness remains but the brain does not function properly. Medical science says brain dead is dead once consciousness departs the body. In fact, the body departs consciousness. Consciousness remains body disintegrates. But the human mind thinks otherwise. The human mind thinks consciousness like a soul departs the body and goes to a heavenly abode. But, in fact, the body, mind, brain disintegrate. Only the supreme existence remains. Only the consciousness remains. Consciousness is eternal. You are eternal.
The author is a spiritual teacher. He can be contacted at arunavlokitta@gmail.com.