Elusiveness of World Peace and Harmony

Introduction

World peace and harmony are not the only concepts that can elude us; health, wellness, learning ability, emotional intelligence and executive function are equally elusive. The human condition seems to be marred by a lack of peace, harmony, learning ability, physical and mental disease, emotional disorders, executive disorders, racial and religious bigotry and many other such maladies. The outcome of all such disorders, there is poverty, hunger, suffering and criminality all around. With personal problems galore, there is no sense of the common good.

 This article takes a look at why world peace and harmony et al are proving to be so elusive that we customarily dismiss them as utopian pipe dreams. The fact that we lack them proves that they are not natural. We have to make an effort to cultivate them. We think that they are attainable and we hope that with the knowledge and understanding of why they elude us, it will be easier to chart a route that humanity can travel to attain them.

The problem of peace and harmony is the mother of all other problems. Therefore, in the rest of the article, we will talk about peace and harmony- the solution to the problem of peace and harmony includes the solution for the other problem also. They are all related.

Reasons for the Elusiveness of Peace and Harmony

We can’t have world peace and harmony if …

• We define ourselves with our faith, race, skin colour, nationality, region, language, culture, profession, gender, gender orientation, etc., while we are humans before we are anything else
• We do not think that the planet is like one family
• We are violent
• We do not have a happy family life or a happy community life
• We do not have a strong sense of belonging to family, community, nation, the world and fellow human beings
• We are not physically healthy and suffer from diseases
• We are not mentally healthy
• We are poor and hungry, no food to eat
• We have no water to drink
• We have no home to live
• We do not think we all are equal
• We do not have social justice
• We are not equitable and just
• We are not confident
• We are nervous
• We think some are superior to us
• We think some are inferior to us
• We have no love and compassion
• We do not feel empathetic to others
• We feel no one is empathetic to us and no one cares
• We are incapable of independent thought
• We are not in charge of our lives
• We are not free
• We enslave others
• We have no executive function
• We have no inclusive wisdom
• We do not consume responsibly
• We are greedy
• We are angry and divisive
• We are unable to discern and differentiae
• We discriminate
• We have no spirit of service to others
• We are incapable of seeing common good
• We do not trust anybody
• We are not self-awareness
• We are unhappy about our past
• We are anxious and worried about the future
• We want our human rights without responsibilities
• We have divisive belief systems
• We have no human values
• We are not truthful
• We do not care about the truth
• We do not develop
• We have no education
• We have divisive education
• Our education is not truthful
• We run our lives on blind faith without reason
• We accept the truth on authority rather than explore and find out for ourselves
• We are full of lust and exploitation of others
• We engage in “us” against “them” thinking
• We let our religions and beliefs divide and separate rather than unite
• We are fearful and mistrusting
• Others are mistrusting and fearful of us
• Anybody dehumanizes the other
• We are bigots, prejudicial, hateful, or discriminative on grounds of race, colour, creed, religion etc. consciously or unconsciously
• We think we are supreme
• We are sexists, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-Semitist,

Islam-o-phobic or any-o-phobic

• We use terrorism as a way to get our ways
• We have strong habits and addictions
• We are hateful with strong aversions
• We are fearful
• We or the others are stressed
• …

The list can go on and on endlessly. World peace and harmony will keep eluding us if we keep searching for peace and harmony without a realization of human nature.

Why Elusiveness of Peace?

The primary reason why world peace and harmony elude us is that we do not pay much attention to understanding our human nature, where are we from, what is the source from which we evolve, how our innate nature evolves, how we developed our consciousness, how it relates with the evolution of life on the planet in general, how our individual nature relates with our individual evolutionary paths, how we live and behave if nature takes its course, whether and how we can alter our consciousness to self-manage and change the behaviour of life. In other words, not knowing how we behave; therefore, we cannot improve our behaviour.

Our belief system struggles to survive, lack of curiosity, lack of disposition to know or simple intellectual laziness may prevent us from exploring and discovering answers to such questions. As a result, we do not understand how we function. If we don’t understand how we function, we do not know how we change our functioning.

Origination from the Source

The elusory nature of world peace and harmony is intricately linked in with the origin of the universe and the evolution of life on planet earth. Both science of modernity and spiritual wisdom of eternity point towards an infinitely subtle imperceptible reality as the ultimate cause of the existence of the universe. This is the original source from which the universe evolves and from which we all evolve. In other words, this is the primeval and infinitesimal seed that sprouts and grows into each one of us. Only the terms science and spirituality used to refer to That One are different. While the former call it energy, the latter terms it spirit.

Everyday language loosely classifies existents in the universe as inanimate and animate. While the animate is said to have a mind on the interior of their body making them interact in their environment, the inanimate is said to be without it. If the inanimate were indeed without mind, what drives their interactions in their environment?

Because both the animate and the inanimate interact in their environments, they both can be said to have a mind in the interior and a body on the exterior. In the light of this point of view, there is no body without mind and no mind without body.

Linguistic tradition calls the imperceptible principle manifesting as mind as consciousness and that as body energy. Because mind and body are inseparable, consciousness and energy are inseparable as well. Spirit is the term used by our language to the inseparable union of mind and matter or consciousness and energy. Just like bodies of different beings are different, minds are different as well.

Thus, we learn that existence is from non-existence, the perceptible universe is from a totally imperceptible reality. What is totally imperceptible is infinitely subtle thus an apophatic no-thing. We can’t say it exists and can’t say it does. It has been called a not-the-non-existent and pointed to namelessly as That One. Existence begins when this infinitely subtle not-the-non-existent begins to concretize. This beginning has been described as a big bang of an expansion from an infinitely dense point of energy with no dimensions. This expansion began about 14 billion years ago and still continuing after reaching a size of 92 billion light years in diameter.

At the beginning of existence, everything was in motion in an extremely hot melting point with no discernible differentiation. Then, differentiation appeared from non-differentiation. The first discernible differentiation was of material particles. Infinitesimal particulate held together by not-the-non-existent coalesced to act like the mind of yet bigger particles acting like the body. Mind on the interior sustains the body and drives its interactions on the exterior. Human linguistic tradition calls this control of the exterior by the interior as consciousness-driven. Body and mind are as inseparable as the interior and exterior of things.

Body and Mind of Matter

Matter exhibits consciousness in an unconscious manner. It can sense the compatibility of attributes without keeping a memory record of differences between otherness and sameness.

The universe originates when the energy-spirit of infinite subtlety and zero concreteness begins to concretize and expand. Anything with no concreteness needs no space. Thus, as spirit-energy begins to concretize, it needs space to occupy and gets created. One can only be at one place and one-time, different locations in space give rise to time. Space and time are twins of each other. Thus, as spirit concretizes, space and time get created.

According to science, this concretization and expansion began to happen from a singularity point at the time of the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present size estimated to be 92 billion light years across, and still expanding. At the Big Bang, both the body and mind of the universe began to exist. The universal mind is what we call the laws of nature that drive the behaviour of the universe.

In the beginning, everything existed in a melting pot of non-differentiation. Nothing was discernible. Then came differentiation. Thus, non-differentiation is at the core of all existence. We call it love, love being defined as interactions with each other with non-differentiation, treating all that exists as we treat ourselves.

The first discernible particulate were miniscule gluons, photons, electrons and bosons, then came protons and neutrons. Protons, electrons and neutrons combined in different configurations held together in atomic integrity with different forms and amounts of energy gave rise to a handful of elements on the periodic table.

Interactions between elements gave rise to an infinite variety of compounds in nature. This is how matter evolved.

The building block of matter is called an atom. Atoms are differentiated by the number of subatomic particles called protons, neutrons and electrons held together in atomic integrity by not-the-non-existent science called energy. Energy not only concretizes as subatomic particles but it also holds them together in individual atoms from within them. Thus, not-the-non-existent energy-spirit pervading all existence is omnipresent in the entirety of the existence of the universe which manifests it. Every atom of existence is spirit-energy, mind and body. Because of it, all existence is spirit, mind and body.

Let us look at the mind of matter. The mind of matter in the interior comprises electrons and protons in perpetual motion unpredictability defying the deterministic laws of motion. One can say that the mind of an atom on the interior becomes the body of it on the exterior. Thus, in fact, mind and body are not two.

The mind of matter can sense the environment surrounding its atomic body. If the attributes of the matter surrounding the atoms are compatible, the atom will interact with surrounding matter or leave it alone. That is how compounds are formed. Compounds are the products of material interaction and procreation. Matter once created conserves itself. Therefore, there is no need for the mind of matter to be self-aware enough to survive and sustain. Material interactions then are based upon non-differentiation rather than “us” and “them”, interact if compatible or let it be.

Material interactions are examples of attributes transacting and interacting with attributes without any involvement of individual egos. Individual egos result from minds being able to sense on one side and self-aware on the other.

Differences in atoms exist only due to the number of subatomic particles and the amount of energy they need to configure them.

Atoms of most elements by themselves are unstable, they need a company of other atoms to survive. Multiple atoms interact with each other when they come in contact with each other and bond together for mutual survival as molecules. If atoms are of the same kind, the matter is called an element and if of different kinds, it is called a compound. There are only a handful of elements. Infinite diversity in the material world is due to the bonding of different elemental elements into compounds.

For bonding, atoms must be able to sense. This sensing possibly is the result of obstructions in the paths of natural motion of the electrons surrounding their nuclei. Atoms interact to bond together if they sense compatibility or sameness, otherwise not. No memory of otherness is retained because matter conserves and there is no need to sustain survival. Consciousness in the mind of matter is capable of sensing compatibility for interaction with automation unconsciously without generating memory.

Matter discerns differences. It readily accepts diversity. In psychological terms, matter can be thought of as exhibiting or  a shown to live and let live nature. It bonds and interacts if there is compatibility and lets it be if not. Its consciousness is such that it, automatically by nature, accepts the other with no feelings going forward. This is unconditional love.

Our bodies are made of matter too. Why can’t we then accept differences, live and let live?

Matter being the first product of evolution from non-the-non-existent That One, its mind has a sense of its underlying oneness. Must be that the mind of living beings begins to forget the oneness of its source and the source of life. Perhaps it can be made to rediscover it. That is the question we will examine in this article.

Body and Mind of Living Beings

Like an atom is the building block of matter, a cell is the building block of a body of a living being. A cell is composed of a multitude of life-supporting atoms.

Matter conserves while life is mortal. It needs and depends for its origination and sustenance upon a complex environment comprising of the right kinds of solids, liquids, heat, light, gases, and space buzzing with various forms of energy. Life generally needs more than the right environment to sustain itself.

Because life is temporary and mortal, it is programmed by nature to survive until it comes to a natural end.  It does not want to die an unnatural death. For that safety of survival is a big issue for life. In addition, it needs means of survival throughout its existence. It also needs to procreate to continue its species. Thus, for most life forms, life revolves around survival, sustenance and procreation.

The mind of a living being must be able to sense the goings-on in its environment and respond to its sensations. An incidence of sensation is called a stimulus. Mind is meant to respond to each and every stimulus.

With the exception of primitive and vegetative life forms, life is always on the lookout for external dangers to survival and acts immediately to save itself from a painful and premature demise. It is also on the lookout for the means of its sustenance. When safe, secure and satisfied, it may be on the lookout for opportunities and appropriate company for procreation. Thus, the most basic mindset of life, in general, is limited to survival, sustenance and procreation.

Except for the primitive forms of life, all forms of life with this basic survival mindset start to develop emotions of fear, likes and dislike created with endless repetition by the bodily sensations of pain and pleasure, pleasantness and unpleasantness associated with the related activities. The emotional experience is stored in memory for later recall to guide future life. This memory gets embedded in the very genes of our cells and gets transmitted forward in the line of succession.

In addition to the basic needs of survival, sustenance and procreation, evolved animals discover safety in a herd of the same species. They live in herds, start to assert their herd identity and protect it with their lives.

In humans, animalistic herd identity may get refined and called ego identity to include the love of family and community of the same culture, race, language, religion etc. It must be kept in mind that all identities are exclusive. Tending to pit one community against the other, they fragment humanity.

This assumption of herd identity is said to be subconscious while the basic instincts of survival, sustenance and procreation are said to be unconscious. Consciousness of mind typically manifests in three different ways:

1.   Unconscious Manifestation: The Consciousness is manifested unconsciously in an automatic manner without being accompanied by real-time awareness of what we are doing. There may be a memory of the experience of what we did after we have done it. Such is the case of stimuli which are of utmost urgency and cannot wait at all.

Basic instincts of survival, sustenance and procreation are said to be inbuilt instincts defining the mindset of living beings. We automatically act to do their bidding without delay and

preconsideration and come to realize what we did after we have done it. Then we experience the pleasure or pain, pleasantness or unpleasantness of doing what we did and store the experience in memory for future recall.

Unconscious manifestation of consciousness is charged with an onerous task in addition to running the unconscious behaviour in the external environment. This task is related to generating an automatic response to stimuli originating from inner organs of the body seeking remediation of their states to maintain biological homeostasis. For example, when the brain is informed about an excess of carbon dioxide in the blood, it has to send a signal to the lungs to reduce it with an exhale. The brain, as the physical correlate of the mind, needs to make our heart pulse to circulate blood in our body, it has to run our digestive system, it has to run our breathing system, and many other processes of the body to keep it alive uninterruptedly from birth till we die.  This work is urgent. Our survival depends on it. It must go on all the time like an automated machine. This behaviour does not leave any experiential memory for future recall because there never is time for memory recall to consider future action. This single task of the mind is the most voluminous amongst all of its tasks and it keeps the mind busy.

Unconscious and automated manifestation is the only ability of the mind of primitive single-cell life forms and little creatures such as insects and worms.

1.   Subconscious Manifestation: Consciousness is manifested subconsciously in a sort of semi-automatic manner when we have some real time awareness of what we are doing, but often no control over it. We come to realize what we did after doing it. Then we experience pleasure or pain, pleasantness or unpleasantness of doing what we did and store it in memory for future recall.

The mind works subconsciously when life is dealing with issues of identity, mild or moderate fears such as worry and anxiety, mild or moderate likes, and mild or moderate dislikes. Strong fears such as of dying, strong likes such as addictions and strong dislikes such as repulsions are dealt with unconsciously.

Non-mammals exhibit this subconscious ability without the possibility of exercising any control on the response, while mammals, while resting calmly may have an option to exercise some control.

Humans are the most evolved mammals. If we humans have a calm demeanour, we have an option of using whatever real-time awareness of what we are going to do to control our response. If the calm demeanour is not natural and in-built, we can make an effort to self-regulate to cultivate it. There also are practices which we can use to cultivate mental calm. Our intellect is then said to exercise its executive function. But life today is characterized by a pandemic of executive disorders. 

1.   Conscious Manifestation: Consciousness of the mind manifests with full awareness of the stimulus mind is receiving and it takes the time needed to look at available options to determine how to respond. This can happen only when the stimulus does not have an urgency to it and can wait.

It is to be noted that while the work of the mind is classified as unconscious, subconscious and conscious, there are no hard and fast lines to demark the classification. Terms such as unconscious and subconscious should be understood as real-time awareness of what is happening without an implication of absence of consciousness which has been shown to pervade all existence.

The human mind has been compared with an iceberg with a tip above the ocean. That tip, about 10% of the volume of the iceberg, represents its conscious manifestation. The other 90% submerged under the surface of the ocean represents the unconscious and its subconscious manifestation. The bulk of the iceberg way below the surface represents the unconscious while the part immediately below the surface represents the subconscious.

The neurological correlate of the mind is the central nervous system consisting of the brain and spinal cord which run both our external behaviour and inner workings. It receives, processes all the input and transmits it to different parts of the brain and transmits their response to glands and muscles as appropriate. There are two significant parts of the brain. The uppermost is called the neocortex which is responsible for responding to the stimuli needing conscious consideration for response, and the other is the lower region of the brain containing the limbic group of neural structures to respond to the subconscious emotional stimuli and the brain stem which is responsible for totally unconscious stimuli originating from the inside the body. The neocortex, the limbic region of the brain and the brain stem are responsible respectively for responding to fully conscious stimuli, the subconscious emotional stimuli and the unconscious stimuli from the body needing attention.

The nervous system correlates with the sensory faculty of the mind. The nervous system is spread all over the body. It is meant to be the system of communication between the brain and the external environment on one hand and between the brain and the internal body on the other. The former is called the somatic nervous system, the purpose of which is to respond to happenings in the external environment of which we are aware to some degree. The latter is called the autonomic nervous system and is meant for responding to the developments in the inner body of which we have no awareness. The former transmits stimuli from the immediate external environment to the brain and its message to the skeletal muscles to respond to it. The latter on the other hand is meant for informing the brain about happenings in the internal body and for transmitting messages from the brain to the glands and core body muscles such as the heart, lungs, and abdomen to respond to them. The former leaves an experiential memory while the latter none at all. Mind manifests its consciousness, in the former case, either unconsciously, subconsciously or consciously while, in the latter, only unconsciously. The former is charged with our external behaviour while the latter is meant for keeping us alive. The former, somatic nervous system, works while we are awake or dreaming while the latter, autonomic nervous system, works all the time.

The somatic and the autonomic are two subsystems of the overall nervous system. They have long been considered as independent of the other with no interactivity. How can be there interactivity between two processes one of which is totally unconscious and the other wholly or partially conscious? It is now beginning to be understood that they in fact do. Our inbuilt instincts influence the way our autonomic nervous system responds to our inner physiological states which in turn affects the way we behave in the world and the way we behave in the world shows the way we perceive the world and relate with it.

Evolution of Life and its consciousness

Life begins from a single cell. It evolves from the primitive single-cell life form to increasingly complex multicellular forms. As the body evolves to become multicellular, the mind evolves to be more conscious. An understanding of the successive evolution of the body and the mind of life guides us to a holistic understanding of the human condition underlying a host of intractable problems that humanity faces today.

Body and Mind of a Primitive Single Cell Life

The primitive single-cell life form is consciousness like that of matter. Its consciousness is practically unconscious working automatically but with some memory of otherness which is perhaps not transmitted forward in the line of evolution through genetic inheritance. Consciousness manifests this way in primitive single cell life forms.

Planet earth was created about 4.5 billion years ago. It cooled for a long time enough to sustain life. First single cell life forms began to exist about 3 – 4 billion years ago. Mind and body of the first life forms were sourced from the mind and body of matter.

The most important responsibility of the unconscious mind of a living being is the running of the autonomic physiological systems of the body to sustain life. This responsibility begins at birth and continues till death without any break. In simple single-cell bodies, the autonomic maintenance of life may be relatively simple, but it gets complicated and voluminous when bodies evolve and grow to become multicellular. The experience of the unconscious mind is perhaps not recorded in memory for future recall.

Let us look at the mind of single cell life forms. Life is characterised by birth and death. The mind of single cell life, like the mind of matter, too is in perpetual motion and able to sense. Because once life dies, the mind of a primitive single-cell is self-aware enough to be conscious of the possibility of demise caused by others. Experience of pain leading to death lies at the root of the emotion called fear. This is the origin of the “us” against “them” mindset.

In primitive life forms, the memory of emotional experiences is perhaps not developed enough to last. The consciousness of the mind of primitive single cell life is said to work unconsciously like that of the mind of matter in an automatic manner without any consideration, volition or will although it is able to learn from lived experience.

Neurologically, a single cell life form has some sensing mechanism with reflex response requiring no nervous system or a brain.

Creaturely Body and Mind

Cells self-replicate and multiply. Soon single cell life evolves to become multicellular. Cells are so small in size that a tiny ant is estimated to have a few million of them. Mind of a multicellular creature must evolve to cater to the needs of its individual cells as well as the organism they comprise. Such minds are capable of memory for future recall by the organism as well as for transmission forward in the line of evolution through genetic inheritance.

While single cell life originated 3 – 4 billion years ago, tiny insects and works with multiple cells began to exist only about 500 million years ago. Thus, it took an estimated 2.5 – 3.5 billion years to become multicellular from its mono-cellular parent. Ants came on the scene around 150 million years ago.

Primitive single cell life evolves to become multicellular the advent of which is the beginning of cellular self-organization into physical systems to survive, sustain and procreate both as individual cells and as the life form which they comprise. Autonomic functions of the body for its sustenance become more complex.

All life is mortal and short lived. Thus, the mind of all life must have the ability to sense sameness or otherness in order to avoid painful death at the hands of the other. It also needs to sustain itself for the period it is alive. In addition, it must procreate for the continuance of its species. This process of life with an evolved mind develops a sense of pleasantness and unpleasantness in addition to of pain and pleasure and memory to store emotional experiences of fear, likes and dislikes for future recall; emotions are sensations that are repeated over and over to become the way of existence, an inbuilt instinct or a mindset.

With the sense of danger to life comes a primitive sense of identity and otherness and an ability to move in order to save one’s life. Life once safe, must sustain and procreate. Thus, the mindset of small creatures is automatically and unconsciously circling around survival, sustenance and procreation. Experience of sustaining life and procreation may create a memory of pleasantness and unpleasantness underlying the emotions of likes and dislikes but perhaps not strong enough to be carried forward through genetic inheritance.

Although there is a sense of identity and otherness without which danger to survival cannot be sensed, it is perhaps not developed enough for assertion and protection of self-identity or disliking that of the other.

The evolution of multicellular life forms needs some sort of cellular organization into specialized organs to cater to the mutual needs of all cells. Each cell is a life with its individual survival needs. If those needs are not being met, cells cannot survive. If individual cells cannot survive, the life form comprising them cannot survive as well. In multicellular life, cells comprising it organize themselves into teams of cooperating cells specializing as organs like skin, blood, brains, nerves, lungs, eyes, ears, hearts etc.

Neurologically, multicellular creatures have a brain and nervous system which responds reflexively with the brain stem acting as the final reflex loop. Reflex responses to sense stimuli being instantaneous and automatic leave little experiential memory for later recall except when gripped by the pain of death which gets embedded in the genes and inherited in the line of evolution.

Animal Body and Mind

Multicellular life evolves from the first single-cell life forms. All life starts with a single cell. This cell divides and becomes two, two becomes four and so on. Soon the single cell in the beginning of all life becomes millions, billions, and trillions. Approximately 37.2 trillion cells comprise an adult human being. In multicellular life forms, cells self-organize to become different organs in the body required to sustain life and procreate it. The first evolved forms of life were in the ocean, then came amphibians around 350 million years ago, mammals entered the scene around 200 million years ago and finally human beings recently around 200,000 years ago.

Creatures evolve to become animals. In addition to the unconscious and automatic sensory capability, the animal mind develops a sense of herd identity when they realize that they are safer amongst others of the same species. This realization develops and works subconsciously, the life form in a way knows what is happening without making it happen. Living together in a herd of the same species for safety is a natural development and not a willed choice made by animals.

The consciousness of the mind in animals is manifested with unconscious sensing and subconscious herd identity. Animals assert their herd identity and protect it. It is a natural development. In animals, life is centred upon survival, sustenance, procreation and herd identity. There is little conscious decision making, choice or will. Decision- making, nurture, will or choice is a development coincident with the evolution of mammals. Human beings are said to be the most evolved forms of mammals.

Such is the animals’ mind capable of sensing and asserting the sameness of species or herd identity and transmitting it along with creaturely sense experience of fear, likes and dislikes through genetic inheritance adding to the three emotions another one of the herd identities. The memory of these four emotions is often replicated and strengthened to last and be inherited by successors in the path of evolution as phylogenetic memory with the transmission of genes to the progeny.

With the appearance of animals, mindset evolved to include subconscious self-identity and to live in communities of the same species for safety. The animal mindset includes subconscious assertion and protection of herd identity in addition to automatic and unconscious creaturely survival, sustenance and procreation.

Experience of herd identity and tension between different herds leaves a memory expressed as an emotion in addition to fear likes and dislikes. The emotion of fear of death is almost automatic or unconscious although other emotions subconsciously overcome the mind leaving their experiential memory with every repetition making them stronger and stronger.

There is an experiential memory stored after the response to creaturely unconscious emotions has been implemented. Further evolution calls for a limbic structure of the brain beyond the brain stem to respond to subconscious emotional stimuli. The response to subconscious emotional stimuli is called reactive which, being a bit slower than the instantaneously reflexive response to the unconscious stimuli, may yield to the insertion of consciousness to mediate. 

Conscious consideration of stimuli to generate a willed response evolved only with the evolution of mammals. Human beings are considered to be the most evolved mammals. The mammalian brain began evolving a neocortex beyond the autonomic brain stem and the subconscious limbic group of neural structures.

Life eats life to sustain. Multicellular life forms develop a consciousness with appreciable memory of otherness required for survival. Life once born must survive and it eats life in doing so. Thus, fear is an existential need. Fear, thus is a necessary evil which enables survival on one side and divides life with “us” against “them” identities on the other.

Human Body and Mind

Human life too, as with creaturely and animal life, begins with one cell and grows to an estimated 37.2 trillion cells of an adult. We need to understand the characteristics which make us human.

Human minds have the ability of conscious consideration and action which is missing in creatures and animals. Unconscious survival, sustenance and procreation mindset of creaturely life forms of over 500 million years is transmitted to us in phylogenetic memory because of the continuity of genes from then to now. In addition, likewise, we inherit from our animal predecessors their herd identity. This built-in mindset is relived as we grow from 1 cell to 37.2 trillion. What is different with humans is that we also begin developing an ability of conscious consideration and action. Without the evolution of the mind to behave consciously, we would be no different from creatures and animals that precede us. This ability starts developing as we develop in our childhood and is fully developed only when we reach our adulthood. It is not only the last to evolve in the world, it also is the last to fully evolve in an individual human being.

Neurologically, humans, in addition to a brain with a brain stem to unconsciously operate our physiological automation with reflex response and a limbic region of the brain to subconsciously respond reactively to our instinctive emotional stimuli, have a neocortex to respond wilfully to our conscious stimuli. The reflexive response is the fastest and the wilful conscious response is the slowest while the reactive is more like reflexive than wilful.

Our inbuilt mindset of survival, sustenance and procreation working automatically and unconsciously, being the oldest, is the most dominant mindset. It is essentially the experience life collects using its sensory ability using physical sense perception. Then comes the subconscious sense of identity of form as life evolves. This is a direct result of sense perception. With further evolution and growth, mammals in general and humans in particular, develop a conscious capability to consider and decide their will to respond with consideration of appropriateness.

The unconscious capability of the mind is the primary function of the nervous system and the brain stem. Sensing is unconscious when the responses to the sensory stimuli are instantaneous and reflexive.  The survival functions of the body and fear of survival are primarily dealt with this way. Fear of survival may be occasional but keeping the body ticking is an around- the- clock responsibility and it constitutes the most important and voluminous work of the mind, neurologically the brainstem and the nervous system. It keeps them working at a breakneck speed without requiring any time- consuming conscious control.

Sustenance and procreation of the creaturely instincts that constantly enslave our mind, although not as persistent as physical survival, are dealt with by the mind mostly unconsciously and automatically or at best subconsciously and semi-automatically. Ordinarily, the brainstem and the nervous system respond to the stimuli by the bodily urges with surrender and indulgence in an automatic fashion. Thus, sense gratification becomes the primary driver of life.

The memory of events related to survival threats, sustenance and procreation are either painful or pleasurable, unpleasant or pleasant. They underlie emotions of fear, likes and dislikes. Fear relates with the memory of physical pain, pleasure with likes, habits, compulsion and addiction while unpleasantness relates with dislikes, hatred and aversions. Because this memory is the creation of unconscious and automated behaviour, we ordinarily have no control over it.

We begin to identify with our fears, likes and dislikes generated by the sensory faculty of our minds. Herd identity in animals is fear driven. In humans, it becomes more complicated with the addition of likes and dislikes, habits and addictions, and our hatreds and aversions. To make matters worse, all that happens primarily in a natural, automatic and unconscious manner without any awareness or control on our part.

Neurologically, the brain stem is merely a reflex loop or an automation controller running our physical machinery in accordance with prevailing homeostatic settings, almost like a thermostat keeping the climate in our home comfortable depending upon its settings. Memory storage of the experience of emotions like fear, likes and dislikes generates a logic used by our subconscious limbic structures of the brain in general and two amygdales in particular, to run our natural life including continuous readjustment of our biological homeostatic settings.

The mind of mammals, in addition to the unconscious and subconscious capabilities, evolve a conscious capability. Humans, as the most evolved species of mammals, have the most evolved faculty of conscious consideration of stimulus and response. Neurologically this capability if the responsibility of a part of the brain called the neocortex which develops only in mammals. Because mammals are the last of all life forms to evolve, the prefix neo in neocortex indicates that it is a new development. Humans as the most evolved mammals have the most evolved neocortex.

Because humans, like other life forms, start as a single cell life form and gradually grow to have 37.2 trillion cells in adulthood, they pass through different creaturely and animal stages with brain developing successively from primitive sensing ability to a complete nervous system, a brain stem, neural structures comprising the limbic region of the brain and then finally a neocortex. This is another reason for the prefix neo in the neocortex. Human beings are human beings only because they have a neocortex. Human life thus is no different from that of creatures and animals if we do use the capability of conscious consideration available to us via the neocortex in our brain.

The basic cause of family life in humans is our conscious consideration of stimulus and response, neurologically the function of our neocortex. Mammals are characterised by live births and mammary glands producing milk in the breast of the mother to suckle the now born. Thus, humans are naturally programmed for family love. It being a natural development, it also is subconscious.

All-natural programming is either unconscious or subconscious. Thus, family love is a subconscious feature of human life. It is conditional. So is ego identity. As long as you have the same identity, we are a community, otherwise, we are not.

As long as you are family, we love you. Family love then starts as a subconscious emotion. We can spend all life living a life of subconscious family love. In fact, many of us do just that. Those who do that must consider themselves fortunate. There are many with family lives that fall apart because of individual emphasis on sense gratification.

Conscious Mind with Constrained Will

The consciousness of the human mind as the most evolved form of mammalian mind is capable of all three faculties of mental faculties. It inherits from its predecessors in evolutionary lineage an unconscious creaturely mindset of survival, sustenance and procreation and a subconscious mindset of herd identity. In addition to inheritance, our unconscious and subconscious mindset also develops in our personal lived experience in lives of a variety of creaturely and animal stages through which we pass as we grow from one cell at conception to an adult 37.2 trillion living cells in adulthood.

It helps to note that the number 37.2 trillion is around 5,000 times the human population of the planet. Thus, our body in itself  is a universe of living cells with almost 5,000 times the population of the world. Imagine the complexity of their system of self-organization, cooperation and coherence to keep them alive as they keep us alive as well.

Each of the 37.2 trillion cells needs to sustain their lives with energy produced by the food eaten and oxygen breathed in by the human. And this process has to go on automatically and unconsciously without interruption from birth to death without any awareness on the part of the human being. For it to happen, there has to be a digestive system, there has to be a heart- pumping blood, there has to be blood, there has to be a system of arteries and veins for the circulation of blood, there have to be lungs to breathe, there has to be a system of airways from the nostrils to the lungs, there has to be a nervous system to sense the state of the body throughout the body and to respond to the sensory input, there has to be a system to sense what is happening in the environment of the person and a system to respond in the environment; the list goes on , and so on. And all that must go on automatically without us doing it. Our inner bodily system is extremely complex and a lot of work is being done on a continuous basis in the background by our minds, or brains just to keep breath and body together. In addition, there is a host of survival- related emotions, fears, habits, addictions, compulsions, hatred, aversions, and form identity issues to which our nerves must cater. No wonder it is tensed up and overwhelmed as a result of the immediacy of the autonomic and unconscious needs of physical survival.  Next in magnitude and urgency are the subconscious needs of identity, family and community.

Many autonomic functions of the body keep the body ticking. There is the breath; it must go on without awareness automatically on 24/7 basis. Our hearts must keep beating all the time. Blood must circulate in our blood vessels at all times without a break. Such functions are cyclical. Our creaturely instincts of survival and sustenance and procreation established over millions of years and refreshed in every evolutionary life cycle keep the pressure on such autonomic functions of the body to cycle at frequencies higher than those helpful for health and wellness on one side and mental calm, clarity, deep consideration, exploration and discovery on the other. The speed of the autonomic physiological cycles keeps the conscious mind immobilised; it keeps on going in circles around memory of the unconscious and subconscious sense experiences of the past instead of flying free to explore and discover subtle truths of life hitherto unexplored and inexperienced.

Sense gratification is selfish and it is rational, rationality being defined as reasoning based upon sense experience. Sense experience is particular, definite and exclusive. It divides. It cannot explore to discover hidden truths of the universe. We need to free our consciousness from the confines of memory storing prior sense experience in order to discover truths inaccessible to the senses otherwise you keep on rediscovering what you experienced in your earlier incarnations, the memory of which is lying dormant and unconscious in the genes inherited from your ancestors.

Thus, our conscious mind is constrained to move in the realm of rationality defined by the prior sense experience of our unconscious and subconscious mind, millions of years old and stored in our genetic memory. Thus, our conscious mind is involved in consciously considering primarily the unconscious and subconscious in its decision making. It is like freeing a bird, capable of flying high in the endless sky, from a small cage placed in a bigger one.

Superconscious Mind with Free Will

Sense stimuli are sent to the thalamus in the brain to be shunted to the concerned parts of the brain. The unconscious mind represented by the brain stem deals with the stimuli related to physiological survival, pain and fear with utmost urgency. The subconscious represented by the limbic neural structures of the brain deals with the stimuli related with our emotions. The neural pathways connecting the thalamus with the brain stem and the limbic brain are designed for their kind of immediacy whereas those connecting the thalamus to the neocortex, the seat of the intellect, is much slower.

If there are any stimuli yet to respond, they are not related to immediate needs of survival, sustenance, procreation and ego identity. They wait for the intellect to take its time considering the response. For most of us with lives centred on survival, sustenance, procreation and ego identity, there is almost nothing left for the intellect and it just sits there doing nothing. We can say that it is hijacked by the needs of the body and emotions.

Even when some stimuli are referred to the intellect for a considered response, the intellect uses the past experience stored in the memory as a guide. The bulk of our memory being our evolutionary inheritance is related with survival, sustenance, procreation and form identity. Most of the memory of our lived experience too is related with the early creaturely and animalistic stages through which we pass during our development. Thus, ordinarily our conscious faculty

of the intellect too is constrained in its freedom by the past experiences of the unconscious and subconscious mind related with sense perception and gratification.

How do we free our conscious consideration and will from being hijacked by the survival functions of the body and emotions? Is there a systematic way of doing so that anybody can use with measurable success? The answer to these questions is an emphatic yes. Ordinarily all automatic functions of the body run at high frequencies overwhelming the nervous system leading to nervous tension and draining of energy. We can volitionally free our conscious consideration and will by choosing to reduce these frequencies. Our physiology is structured to permit us to do so.

We ordinarily are unaware of all autonomic cycles except the breathing cycles of which we can become aware if we apply our attention to the breath. That is our way out to free our conscious mind from the slavery of our unconscious and subconscious mindsets. Conscious regulation of breath then is the strategy to slow the nervous traffic and raise our consciousness above survival, sustenance, procreation and identity concerns enabling a life of higher purpose.

Let us briefly consider the neurology underlying this strategy. There are two divisions of the autonomic nervous system which we discussed earlier as responsible for innervating the core body organs and smooth muscles running the survival functions of the body. One

is identified as the sympathetic division and the other as parasympathetic. The sympathetic division is activated when we are in a state of emotional excitement and its counterpart, the parasympathetic division is activated when we are in a state of emotional calm. Sympathetic activation, with the exception of the digestive system with contrary effects, increases the frequencies of our autonomic cycle while parasympathetic activation decreases them.

Ordinarily, sympathetic activation dominates keeping our lungs breathing and hearts beating at high frequencies most of the time. We cannot regulate the beating of our hearts at our volition but we can regulate the breathing of our lungs. When we down-regulate our breathing frequency, we also down-regulate the frequency of our heart beats. With down regulation of breath frequency, we up-regulate parasympathetic activation and down-regulate sympathetic activation and establish a harmony between them. For an exuberant life of purpose, we need them both. 

Ordinary our will is constrained within the bounds of memory related rationality. Paying attention to breath turns our conscious mind to a superconscious mind with a will which is totally free.

It is conscious consideration out of the range of influence of sense perception and its rational logic that can prevent sense-based selfish rationality break families apart. Flights of consciousness freed from sense-based rationality frees our will from natural boundaries with unselfish love which can keep families together, whether families are atomic, extended or universal. Free will and love that transcends all bounds are necessary and sufficient to establish world-peace and harmony.

Humans can systematically enable our consciousness to gain freedom from our ever present and divisive survival, sustenance, procreation and identity mindset by down regulating the frequency of our ordinarily unconscious and automatic breath using our conscious attention. No other autonomic function lends itself to conscious control. Doing that our consciousness and will become free from the slavery of the unconscious and the subconscious rational mindset. With its consciousness so freed, the mind becomes superconscious.

With our superconscious mind, we can discover all the secrets of the existence of the universe which are inaccessible to our organs of perception. We discover that the world is one family born of a single unseen and unnamed parent. We then start relating with the world as one.

Superconscious Contemplation

Having freed the will from the slavery of the rational intellect resulting from the unconscious and the subconscious memory with the practice of conscious regulation of breath, our superconscious mind, without unconscious and subconscious distraction, is ready to focus on decoding the secrets of the universe hitherto hidden. In academia, this is called research or knowledge creation. It may also be used for deep learning, insight or inner experience of what was only known superficially. What is known and understood superficially, we are unable to practice in real life. Superconscious contemplation is the tool for thinking out of the box of previous experience and embarking on a journey of systematic exploration, discovery and creativity. It is also the road to world peace, health, harmony, poverty, criminality and other intractable issues facing humanity today.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. Carl Gustav Jung

Rocks and waters, etc., are words of God, and so are men. We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. John Muir