The Development of Religious Consciousness

by Swami Krishnananda

From the material level of the earth plane, in a cosmical sense, the Universal split Itself into individualities, with a topsy-turvy perception, the right looking as the left, and the left looking as the right, just as when you see your face in a mirror, the right looks like the left, and the left looks like the right. And worse still, if you stand on the bank of the river and look at yourself, you will find your head, which is the highest, looks like the lowest in the reflection. This is what has happened to us. Our head is the lowest, actually, though we think it is the highest. Our feet are planted on the earth, yet still, we cannot isolate ourselves from the earth plane. We cannot vertically look at the world. We look in an inverted manner, so that we appear to be the subjective side of perception; and the world, which is actually the Universal Subject, looks like an object.

This is the beginning of the earth potential in our own individuality manifesting itself gradually into self-consciousness, into the living regions of biological existence, plants and trees; then, slowly it rises up to animals, and then we rise above the animal level to the human level. Here we are in agreement with Darwin, and it is not completely opposed to the story of creation, because there is a double-edge of presentation in the scriptures, especially in the Upanishads, as I mentioned. There is descent from divinity and an ascent from the material source. Both take place simul­taneously. First we come down, then we go up. The going up is the process described by Darwin. The coming down is the process described in the scriptures. Both are correct. This goes up gradually, gradually, gradually, until the human nature, in its crude form, manifests itself.

We have the primitive man, as we call it - the crude perception. The primitive man has no tools or implements with him. His perception is intensely selfish. The physical survival is the only instinct that is prevalent there; this physical existence, under any cost, should continue. There is no intellectual activity. It takes ages and ages of development in order that this crude individual self-assertion of a crude nature recognises that there are other such creatures, also. In an intensive form of sel­fishness, that selfish individual would not even be conscious that there are other individuals external to it. So much is the self-centredness. It is not merely holding a blind eye; it is an unconsciousness, totally.

In the Yoga Vasishtha, seven levels of ignorance are described. There is general darkness, worse darkness, greater darkness, greatest darkness, incredible darkness, and hell itself. These are all levels of darkness. But because this hard-boiled individual, crude that he is, comes from the highest divinity, there is a promise of development higher, also. So, we rise to a kind of social consciousness: “There are people like me.” In intensely selfish existence, social consciousness does not exist. Each one is for himself or herself, and devil take the hindmost. Like animals in the forest, they are concerned only with themselves. The stronger eats the weaker. Might is right. It is the law of the jungle, the law of the fish; the larger fish eat the smaller fish, and the lion eats the other animals. This is the law of the jungle that prevails when the development from the earth plane into the selfishness of organic life and animal life develops itself, and no social consciousness arises.

There is a kind of social consciousness even among animals. Cows go with cows; elephants go with elephants; snakes go with snakes; lions live with lions. But still, it is not that they have any kind of compassionate consideration for each other. It is a biological instinct that they manifest even in this group living as animals. It is only in higher life in the human level that social consciousness arises. The social consciousness is a highly developed form of individuality where each individual realises that total selfishness cannot work. An individual personally isolating oneself totally from outside cannot exist. The cooperation of other individuals is necessary in order to survive, also.

This was realised in a greater advancement in social evolution: “I require another in order that I may survive.” Now, requiring another for the purpose of one’s own survival is not any kind of unselfish gesture or a love that is extended. It is again a selfish utilisation of the next one for the sake of one’s own survival. It is impossible for one to exist without the cooperation of the other. This expectation of cooperation from the other, and extending cooperation to the other from one’s own side, is not an unselfish activity, though it looks like that, because it is again a survival instinct that is asserting itself. Selfishness is at the core of even social cooperation.

But then, this will not abide for a long time. Freedom is not possible by this kind of egoistic consideration of social values. Even when hundreds of people are cooperating with you and seeing to it that you survive, you are not a free person, because your survival is dependent upon the cooperation of so many other people. You are dependent, nevertheless. The surviving individual is a servant of hundreds of people who are responsible for the survival of this person. Even a king is a servant; he is a slave, depending totally on his bodyguards, his army, and his police. By himself, he has no strength. The king is as much a slave as anybody else, considering the fact that he is totally dependent on his bodyguards, his army, and slaves, and other people. Independently, intrinsically, he is as good as nothing. So, selfishness, individuality, continues still, even when we are reaching the state of an emperor.

But this inverted consciousness of human egoism, human individuality, goes further still and realises that there is an expectation on the part of other people of a similar nature as the expectation present in one’s own self. This is a more altruistic attitude of human nature. Here it is not a question of utilising others for one’s own benefit, but a larger charitable feeling that what I expect for myself, the others also expect. Here, the principle of loving the neighbour as one’s own self arises. You can love the neighbour, so that the neighbour may take care of you and protect you. That is not unselfish activity. But “as myself” is the word. Why should you love the neighbour? There are two ways of loving the neighbour. One is because the neighbour is a useful person for your comforts; that is not unselfishness. But another way of loving the neighbour is because he is exactly like you. There is no difference in substance and emotion and needs of any kind between you and another - I am just like that person, and that person is just like me. Here, unselfish­ness arises. So, there is something like me, and I am not the only one that has to exist.

The conceding of the value of the existence of other people, other things, is a higher form of unselfishness arising from the lower levels where others are just tools or means to an end. To utilise the world as a means to our own individual purposes would be to convert the world into an instrument of action. But to accept that the worth of existence in one’s own self is inseparable from the worth of existence of other living creatures, other human beings, everything else, would be to manifest gradually the universal potential, from which we have descended gradually. Then, an unselfish society-consciousness arises in the person. Usually, society-consciousness is selfish, because no two people will cooperate with each other unless there is an ulterior motive behind it. But to realise that ulterior motive is not the reason for the cooperative activity of people, rather the reason is a universal principle operating among all individuals, is a higher development of consciousness.

Here, organic life, biological existence, exceeds its own limits and enters into a higher level of psychological existence. We are not brute animals, not plants and trees; we are not animals; we are not cave men; we are not selfish individuals. We are society-conscious, and are capable of recognising in the individuals of society the very same element that is present in everyone else. So, every human being becomes an end rather than a means. No human being can be utilised as a means to somebody else. You are as important as I am, and I am as important as you are. Neither of us is an instrument for another. Cooperative activity does not mean utilisation of one by the other. That is a poor concept of cooperation. It is the recognition of the end principle present in all beings. We are living in a kingdom of ends, not means.

Everything regards itself as very important. Nobody regards oneself as inferior. The idea of inferior is abhorrent. Nobody likes to hear such a word. I am as important as anybody else. Especially in a democratic society, a tea-shop owner will consider himself as a very important person, as important as someone with a doctorate of literature, though there is a difference between their perceptions. The doctor of literature gives one vote; the shopkeeper also gives one vote. This is democracy of a peculiar type: “I am as valuable as anybody else.” Well, however we may interpret this equality of people, the consciousness of equality is a very great advancement in the development of human psychology. It is not animal psychology, not plant psychology; it is human psychology, which is a highly compli­cated and very deep subject. So, this is a result of the rise of human nature from lower levels, consequent upon the descent from God Himself. So the deductive process of the coming down of particular individualities from the Universal is not in any way contradictory to the inductive level of the rise of the particular to the Universal by gradual evolution.

So, the scriptures are right, and Darwin also is right. Both are correct, because they are speaking from two different points of view. Evolution and involution take place in a multitudinous variety of ways, with upward and downward currents. The movement of nature in the process of evolution is not a straight-line movement, as on a beaten track or a tarred road. It is a circular movement, where each one is everything, at some particular time. Each one is everything at some particular context. The Yoga Vasishtha tells us we were Brahmas, Vishnus, Rudras, Shivas, once upon a time, and we can be Brahmas, Vishnus, Rudras once again. We can be anything. There is nothing that prevents us from being anything, at any time, in any form whatsoever, because we have descended from That which is anything, everything, and all things. Though we have inverted ourselves in the process of topsy-turvy creation, it does not prevent us from being conscious of That from where we have come.

This return process is called vama marga in Tantric language, though people condemn that word, thinking it is the left-hand path. Vama does not necessarily mean ‘left-hand’. It also means ‘return process’. The Tantric doctrine of the development of consciousness from the lowest level to the higher is a highly advanced technique which modern, impure minds cannot understand. There are some philosophers of modern times like Sri Aurobindo who consider Tantra as superior to the Vedas, and even to the Bhagavadgita, if properly understood. But it is the worst of things, if we do not understand it, because Tantra does not recognise impurity anywhere. There is no dirt or ugliness in any object. There are no ugly things, no dirty things, no impure things. They look like that because we have put them in the wrong context.

As I have mentioned again and again, cow dung is a beautiful thing as manure in a field which grows rice and wheat, but cow dung is a very impure thing if it is thrown on our dining table. A rose plant in a field of rice plants is a weed - we want to pluck it out. But a rice plant in a garden of rose plants is a weed - we will pluck it out. So, which is the weed, and which is the worthwhile thing? Which is beautiful? The beautiful and the ugly, pain and joy, all these are conditioned by certain reactions set up by the relationship of the individual to universal processes of evolution taking place. There are no pains and no joys, nothing beautiful and nothing ugly; nothing of the kind is there, but they exist when the individual is unable to properly align itself to a particular level of evolution.

We are expected to participate in the process of evolution, not oppose it, or assert our own selves. This is what Bhagavan Sri Krishna is telling in the Bhagavadgita - Karma Yoga is participation in the work of nature, and not doing something independently. We are not asked to do anything except participate. So, when we parti­cipate in the work of nature in the process of evolution, every experience becomes a happy experience. All things look beautiful. But if we do not cooperate, and assert our independence, then the compulsion inflicted upon us by the laws of upward evolu­tion will cause the experience of the necessary or the unnecessary, the joyful and the sorrowful, the beautiful and the ugly, etc. The consequences that follow from our non-cooperation with the universal expectation of the process of evolution cause these phenomena known as beauty, ugliness, pain, happiness, etc. They do not exist by themselves - they are just reactions. Beauty is a reaction; ugliness is a reaction; joy is a reaction; pain is a reaction. By themselves, they do not exist.

Everything is pleasure, everything is beautiful, everything is wonderful, provided that with each level of the evolutionary process of nature, we are able to participate in it consciously. This is actually the principle of Yoga - unity. It is union with Reality, and union with every step of the evolutionary process. Then, the world takes care of us. This is perhaps one of the meanings that we can attribute to a great verse of the Bhagavadgita. The universe says, “I shall take care of you. Do not worry, but cooperate with me, and think of me. Be one with me.” It may be Lord Krishna speaking, or God speaking, or nature speaking; it does not matter who speaks. The idea is, “Be one with me; I shall protect you, take care of you, provide you with everything.” But you say, “No. I am independent. I do not care.” Then, a kick comes and you see everything as ugly, everything becomes topsy-turvy, and rebirth takes place.

These are some of the phenomena of observation that arise out of our deep consideration of the historical process of the development of religious consciousness, to be considered in various ways. If we are honest and sincere and catholic in our perceptions and acceptance, we will find that all religions tell the truth. There is no fundamentalist attitude in any religion. All religions are telling some truth, in some way, in some degree, in some aspect, in some facet, but only we should have the charitable nature to accept what aspect it is that is presented.

A child’s blabbering also has some meaning. It is not something idiotic that he is speaking; the blabbering arises on account of one stage in the evolutionary process. Everything is to be appreciated. A sage is able to appreciate everything at its own level, not in another level. You should not compare a baby with an adult, and say it is idiotic. In its own level, it is as great as an emperor; there is nothing wrong with it. But we have got an idiocy in our mind that we always compare and contrast: “In comparison with this, it is no good.” Why do you compare? Take everything in its own context, in its own level, as it stands, and be one with it. Then, you will find the kingdom of ends manifests itself, or we may say the kingdom of God manifests itself.