YOU – the master of gods!

How often do you wonder if god exists?
How often do you pray to your gods?
How often do you ask your gods?

With high gratitude, I would like to give you this fourth article of the series by continuing the story of you becoming money through evolution. As mentioned in the article before the last, if you and I are just a game of physics having no control over life, but an observer called consciousness or soul, then I would like to start with the reality of ‘we’. If you don’t believe in science and hold onto your feeling of a separate ego, I suggest you refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and keep going with your flow of life. But if you believe you are an infinite soul magnificent beyond your ego, let’s jump onto the Spiral Dynamics model through the lens of biology first understanding the concept of ‘we’ and gradually stepping into individualistic views.

The advantage of Spiral Dynamics over the Hierarchy of Needs is that it can give you a sense of the individual and also group stages you are in. So let’s get back to the questions of who or what you are, what life is, and where it all started. If you believe life began with the creation of this universe giving you power at various stages of life’s evolution, the feeling of control started with the development of the prefrontal cortex of the human brain when survival was at stake being somewhere in the middle of the ecological pyramid. And over centuries we took control of our originally designed environment making us the most superior species through violence and intellect. We were at war with other species for food and land until we took over. The step was to succeed at surviving the planet. This began around 1 lakh years ago and is still occurring against dogs, cats, elephants, etc. and in some parts of the world for land and food. But as a species, we survived to keep ourselves safe from the external environment or learned to coexist and, support or create ecosystems for other species of this planet while exploring the outer spaces.

As just an observer of these stories, we can claim we succeeded. But from the viewpoint of someone working towards animal welfare and the environment, or someone who wants to work for the causes they feel for, but is unable to break their limitations and constraints to live the life they want, then are we not still at war with the world to be at peace. And some individuals have to struggle for their daily bread with poverty being one of the most wicked problems of all time.
So have we succeeded at surviving?
Well, this depends on the point of view and your definition of success. From an observer’s perspective, we as a species succeeded and thrived in building a sustainable environment. Since this is just from a biological perspective, for any organism to function optimally, its environment should be favourable. As a species which are not born in its originally designed environment, psychologically, everything we do outside our skin is to be at peace inside our skin. But let’s take examples from the past where some organisms changed the course of history trying to build an environment where they wanted to be at peace.

Buddha, Alexander, Jesus, Da Vinci, Gandhi, Hitler, Stalin, Einstein, Mandela, etc. Were they all at peace living the life they wanted? Einstein was among several others who believed this is a deterministic universe and that we have no control. Buddha also defied all the prevailing belief systems of that era and claimed that he conquered his mind by breaking all the conditions. Well, only their share of the soul has the truth of it. Until then all we can do is learn from these stories of the world to do our bit for ourselves and the environment. Everything comes down to you and your belief systems!

In the 19th century, a literary movement called Absurdism emerged which was greatly contributed by the works of a Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard and a French author, Albert Camus in 1942. It states that conflict arrives when we try to look for meaning in life and this existence when everything is just a random absurd reality. But when a human reaches a state of nihilism after going through existentialism, their will to survive starts believing in philosophies to save themselves from physical suicide which is called philosophical suicide. It took me 33 years of this lifetime to reach this information which brought me peace to my stand of not believing in any belief system of my brain.

Now back to the question of success. Do you believe in success? If so, how would you justify the fight that animal and environmental activists live for? If they see us as a failure, are you choosing to contribute to their journey or keeping yourself away from the fight they are fighting or are you happy with your idea of success?
How do you define success?
Thus it comes down to you or your ego’s will to choose. It’s time to look at life from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs perspective where you are on your journey to self-actualization. A major part of human life goes into building and securing basic physiological and psychological needs. But who decides if it is your need or want? Since evolution is all about growth and development, most cultures are driven by greed for success or fear of failure, our behaviours of actions, thoughts, feelings and emotions are out of those insecurities. Hence as we keep passing the levels of need, we tend to hold onto the needs. So Oxford’s definition of success stands true that it is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. As an individual, you might choose to feel successful, but what about the failures as a species? So if you think your choice to hold onto a need is at your will, it has become a want without which your comfortable life becomes a game of survival. And you are indirectly choosing not to feel the pain of the world. Also if it’s a choice, can you choose otherwise? If you are rich, can you choose to be poor? If you are powerful, can you choose to be powerless? The process becomes a journey of curiosity and willpower to reach your definition of success.

For example, to understand if humans are herbivorous or omnivorous, we cannot skip the study of taste and the psychology of taste and needs. You will have to deal with your conditioning of cravings. If we have secured our food and shelter, why do we still have to contribute to the slaughtering of animals for food? If we are taking nutrition into account, why are we depending only on the market to provide us with meat? So if you challenge the world and self, the power of will comes into the picture. Another such example is why we still hold onto institutions like marriage when we have found out that homo sapiens were originally non-monogamous and social monogamy came into existence as part of human survival. If we choose to stand against marriage or romantic relationships, we will have to fight cultural pressure. If we decide to exit a marriage, then we will have to face even the judiciary system. So if we are holding onto our insecure behaviours, how would we ever reach the exploration of self-actualizations? And even if we reach that self-actualization by holding onto human needs as wants, how will we ever know that it is what our destiny is? And if you reach a state of being where you have found your destiny, how will you ever know that is what your destiny is and haven’t you philosophically suicided to the destination? So how will you ever know your destiny or the destiny you created is what you ever wanted? It is a psychological game worth playing to feel the bliss of existence.

The rule to reach your destination is simple – ‘be here now’!
And these three words hold an incredible universe in themselves.
Be: as explained in previous articles, you are majorly a collective of three sciences – physics, biology and sociology. From the physical point of view, you are just an observer and from a biological point of view, you are an animal with a hunger to keep growing, from a sociological point of view, your belief systems define your state of being.
Here: if you are struggling to be where you are, then first you need to reach the state of being in control which means either understanding what’s in your control and what is not, or securing yourself to survive freely.
Now: this is a result of all the past events that occurred in your life and even before your birth.
So when it comes to applying ‘be here now’, you end up with two options:

1. Take responsibility for understanding the self objectively which is a result of your past experiences and memorise the knowledge from science that defines your present and focus where you want to focus in the present.
2. Understand the only thing you can control is your response to the present and that you need not take any responsibility.

Everything has its cost in this material world, especially in this postmodernism where money and power are the driving force of everything. From the perspective of Spiral Dynamics, a social change occurs over centuries with almost all the stages overlapping and only recently finishing the first stage of animalism. By the 13th to 15th centuries, humanism started to emerge with a philosophical stance that emphasises the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. As physics and spiritualism gathered more power, the egocentric view is now evolving into a nation and world-centric view of life. Thus as we move to a world-centric approach, it is important to have data of what we believe in. So in this era of dataism, it is important to know yourself. There are over 234 isms in the English language, each being a vast pool of knowledge. So by understanding what epistemology and ontology teach us, we come to a belief in ourselves. But in this game of gathering knowledge, it is vital to feel yourself and not be egoistically attached to these ideas. If we are attached, then we are not in control of our ego, but our ego is in control of us which is just a result of evolution, nature, culture and the market. So having a separation from oneself is a major step in solving the problem of life.

But how do we go about life where we need to put our energy into the market for money and decide what to do with life? Most individuals get stagnant climbing the hierarchy of needs due to insecurity of meaninglessness as explained through absurdism. Hence life is basically how you want to define it. This starts with an understanding that we as humans live in two different realities – physical and conceptual. The power of concepts in the human brain has created their physical reality, especially with the invention of money and economies. Thus it is important to know what concepts you believe in this reality which is a physical construct to experience.

So let’s deconstruct the reality scientifically again:
Life or in this context you started the journey from the beginning of time or the universe which is explained through physics and chemistry. Then at one point here on earth, you evolved as organic compounds called organisms. And as you kept growing, you diversified into a huge animal kingdom. But you started gaining this intellectual ability to understand self and the environment only when your survival was at stake being somewhere in the middle of the ecological pyramid. So you started collaborating in large numbers for survival and evolution. By the time you had survived the jungle reaching the top of the pyramid, you had conquered the planet to distribute it as continents, nations, states, municipalities, etc. forming administrative bodies. In other words, you started governing this entire planet of dominant apes. Since the barter system you created failed back then, you invented the money and banking systems for better collaboration to keep growing. To live life as free as animals as you are, you invest your time and energy into the market that converts into money to buy your freedom. Since the idea of individual freedom did not align with the laws controlled by the government, the power of currency took over along with globalisation. You, the energy or this collective consciousness or the soul that existed before this reality are now currencies that define life. Therefore as mentioned before, you exist in two different realities where consciousness can be viewed as just a concept with reality being only your physical body that you have, the money you make to maintain the physical body and your government that controls the law to protect you. As you understand the human body, neuroscience discovered the phenomenon of neuroplasticity where you can control the neurons and neural pathways in your brain just like you controlled this monkey species through the government and market. So what is controlling these neural pathways in your brain? If it’s not you, the energy, then is something outside this reality? Hence what you believe in and where you invest your energy defines your journey and position in the pyramid. Now the irony is that whether you believe or not, the flow of this universe and reality will continue to grow. All this information matters only if you want to get out of the illusion of your feeling of control to find your purpose and become highly functional for efficiency.

Currently, this distribution of power is varied across states and countries making life or career paths distantly siloed and one can only have limited control of power. But if you sincerely take this path to find your purpose or destiny and reach the awareness to serve evolution, it comes down to what you are doing with the physical life you have as a citizen of this universe. Now if you understand and perceive reality as it is, you will again have a choice to either give selflessly or take selfishly from the world. And whatever it may be you feel you need and want, your plan of action with a rulebook will define your reality. With the advent of AI and space technologies, we are all setting up our first step to conquer the universe and reach immortality for eternal growth.

Just like a game of chess, you need to be calculative of what the game is, its rules, opponents, and their probable moves, and even question your own which means even the self is an opponent. As a species, we are playing through markets, government, civil society organisations like the UN, and philanthropy with a long way ahead. If you as an individual want to experience this immense you, mastery over knowledge, awareness of self and using everything to your advantage is vital to feel the selfless creation and contribute with the best of your awareness.