Man is born as an organic individual. Individual means that who cannot be divided by divisible. Science says man is a colony of 90 trillion cells and each cell engaged in a pre-programmed code embedded and has its life cycle and death. Together these trillions of cells form the human body and it has a singularity-individuality which religions call soul. Religion says that man carries the whole universe inside. Mesmerised by the results of quantum physics, science agrees that it could be one way of looking at it.
Life is not a division but everything in life seems to be divided. Popular belief says that man is body and soul, a combination of the two. Science calls man crafted of matter and that also formed the mind but it rejects the existence of the soul incarnating consciousness in beings. Both religion and science agree that body and consciousness are one and not two because science considers consciousness as part of the mind which is made of body matter. But religion says that the body is a visibly manifested soul and the soul is an invisible un-manifested body. Therefore, the world is the extended body of the visibly manifested That-Which-Is and God is extended consciousness of the invisible un-manifested infinitely extended consciousness in which creation and destruction happen. Science calls it dark matter, Hindus say Shiva is the dark matter. But how’s that even possible, one may argue?
When a chromosome is conceived in the womb, that moment ‘the being’ arrives in the womb and the fetus is formed. How does that happen? The chromosome is matter but ‘the being’ incarnates the matter to shape a form. The matter comes from the body but ‘the being’ comes from nothingness, the emptiness that creates the entire world, creates invisible consciousness. Marriage of matter and being is the most amazing occurrence that forms life. Understand it like this when a light is lit by a matchstick, suddenly the light is lit. From where does it come from, it comes from nothingness. A mystic once saw a small boy carrying a candle in the dark night. Mystic doused the light and asked the boy to tell where did light disappear and into what? It was a dark night. The little boy replied by lighting up the light again and said it goes to the same place from where it comes from. When a child is seeded in the womb it comes from nothingness and when a man dies he goes to nothingness. After conception in the womb, the body of a child is embodied with things of matter. On death, the body is disembodied into the matter and becomes a mystery beyond the comprehension of science.
A child in the womb is simply an embodiment of a mother. When a child is born into this world his lifeline begins by ending his existence on the umbilical cord that embraced him with the mother. That embracing umbilical cord is the love. A child breathes his first only when the umbilical cord is severed. Once removed, a child comes to this life to fend for himself. Doctor pats him a cruel occurrence of violence but that is a trick to begin breathing. To cry, a child has to take the first breath. A child becomes an individual and a part of the human civilisation which will train him to be a civil being.
A child is an individual pulsating being. Science trains his mind by school, behaviour, education, language, and ego. Not that he has to live but he is burdened with an overwhelming sense of learning artificiality of human beings. That takes him away from the reality of his being. In the name of being human, the real being is lost and an artificial civil being is born. Civilisation is training to make you unreal what you are never ought to be.
The human mind has been trained to speak languages. But languages breed thoughts. If one remains silent or speaks as much as is needed to communicate that will also be done by your senses, after all, we the sapiens have survived with it and lived in society being real.
We train the child to be a scholar of languages a master of sciences and mathematics. He is tricked to learn information learnt by comprehension and logic. He learns all that with his intelligence that breeds his intellect to grow and there grows his logical thinking and an ability to communicate in complex languages breeding complexities to make the world a more complex complicated place.
In a bid to understand what remains unknown to humans, humans have bred a complex mind that gives them a false sense of being the centre of the world. This false sense forms ego. The ego is fortified by the civilisation which is the refined model for training the ego. Ego and intellect divide life into body mind and soul. Mind that is part of the body assumes itself to be the soul. The mind creates a wedge between body and soul. In the name of religion, politics, society, civilisation, ethnicity, race, country, castes, city, and class, the mind has wrought mindless divisions on man. That has caused war, devastation, violence and holocaust. This has made humans schizophrenic.
The body that is part of nature and existence is separated from the mind that lives the ego and thoughts. Body senses are natural. Hunger, thirst, sleep, love, and seeking are needed by an individual. But mind that is immersed in the artificiality of humans life abodes at the outer periphery of life and senses remain deeply embedded in the centre where the being resides. That creates division and man is not able to be one with his body and soul. For example, love is non-logical but the mind deals with it with logic and reasoning. Senses keep demanding the basics but the mind keeps controlling them, bipolarity is bred.
Matt Ridley has written a book ‘The Rational Optimist’. He argues that from stone-age to the internet age, life has prospered and prosperity buys survival. A man may be an optimist but not rational. What do all men do is rationalisation. Man rationalises everything that he does to fortify his ego. Whatever right or wrong man only rationalises. Even Hitler rationalises like Gandhi does no matter the consequences, rationalisation should be perfect even to sanctify the most irrational acts the rational way.
Our face becomes distorted. Buddha’s intelligence flowers when you are one with your senses and be there in the being. Buddha the most intelligent disentangled himself from the bane of human artificial life and went in search of life. After six years, That-Which-Is that is the existence that is the one who is the creator of all becomes one with Buddha that endowed on him greatest sense of being and spring of compassion sprouted out of him. A compassion that brings the ability to heal all wounds of the earth.
Buddha’s intelligence springs when you begin understanding the mystic nature of life and when you become sensitive to your senses. If you are walking just become the walk. If you are hearing just become the ears. If you are seeing just become the eyes.
To become one with the oneness of That-Which-Is who resides in your being, begin to feel him not by words but feeling your own presence in the being-ness of the being. To do that inhale your breath right till your navel which is the source of life. Two inches below your navel is the Centre that Zen masters in Japan call Hara. Attain your Hara.
The author is a spiritual teacher and advisor on policy, governance and leadership. He can be contacted at arunavlokitta@gmail.com