This article was first published in "The Power of How" by Daniel McGowan.
Conscious Evolution
“How is it that the formation of a thought takes place with such unbelievable swiftness? We can only reply that originally it must have been a slow and conscious act which in the course of evolution through countless centuries was imperceptibly transferred by the individual and the race into an instantaneous and unconscious one. Familiar and equally recurring experiences have rendered it easy for the mind to create its images practically instantaneously. The complex and complete act of seeing the object really occupies a number of successive steps, but they flash by with such unimaginable and incredible rapidity as practically to fuse into a single instantaneous operation. This rapid working is partly a result of the existing background of past-sense experience into which new sensations immediately merge, and partly the result of the mind’s innate power.”
Paul Brunton, “The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga,” Rider & Co. 1969 Edition, Page 226.
In this part where the term I is used, it refers to me, Danny, as a person. Where I use the term ‘I’ in parenthesis, it refers to the ego as the ‘I’ of any and every human being.
So, here I am, having been blessed with three score years and ten upon this beautiful planet Earth.
I have been on a spiritual quest searching for the real ME since I was a teenager. I am still searching.
Along the way I have come across pseudo-spiritual teachers who tell me I am not the mind, muddled mystics who tell me the world is an illusion, religious ranters who tell me I am not the body, supercilious scientists who tell me I am nothing more than a mass of electrochemical reactions, and fallacious philosophers who tell me that to find enlightenment I must kill the ego. The spiritual teachers tell me that, if I have cares and troubles in this time-bound world, all I have to do is use the power of Now where pure Being dwells and all will be well. They say it as if it can be done as easily as falling off a log! Well, unless you have experienced the great blessing of Grace descending upon you, you might, like me, spend a lifetime or ten plodding on the Long Path trying to enter the Now without success. Is such a feat not the most difficult task for any human being, and few there be who can do it just like switching on a light?
Those mesmerized mystics who cannot analyse their inner experiences with strict scientific detachment, tell me that the whole world, even the Universe, is an illusion, is not real. What they don’t tell me is that, paradoxically, the Appearance is also the Real. Illusion or not, I have to deal with the world in my everyday interaction with it. At the practical level I must function as a “psycho-physical” being.
Recently on TV, I heard a scientist say that when two physical neurons meet each other they produce a mental thought! One of the greatest mysteries of human existence solved instantly, just like that! What they don’t tell me is, that firstly, the brain itself is a thought-form. Consciousness is the noumenon behind the phenomenon, the brain. In other words, consciousness becomes the brain and is manifested through the workings of the brain.
Those false philosophers can’t tell me what the phrase “kill the ego” really means. Well, I don’t want to kill my ego, because if I was not functioning as ego, as ‘I,’ right now, I would not be writing these words. How could anybody exist in the world without functioning as ego?
I wish to respect and acknowledge the ego in its rightful place in the constitution of the human being, because nowadays it is usually regarded as a part of the individual that is selfish, arrogant, hateful, ignorant, cruel, evil, greedy etc. and has many other undesirable negative characteristics. This is egotism. It has, however, many admirable qualities such as love, virtue, creativity, compassion, courage, kindness, mercy and selfless service to others etc. This is egoism.
A human being, however, can be selfless, egoless, only in the moral sense, not in the “psycho-physical.” Our sense of personal being and individuality starts and ends with the ego. In this book, therefore, I am not dealing with the morality of the ego, but only with its function in the constitution of the human being.
The chapter on “A STEP INTO THE UNKNOWN” is a lighthearted attempt to show that the ego – the ‘I’ – existed before the body. Using the gifts of evolutionary compulsion given to it by the World-Mind, it spent billions of years, and who knows how many lifetimes, creatively spinning the body out of itself: it did not create the body as a sculptor forms a statue. It became the body.
In the beginning arose the ego. This statement could sound contradictory, because the ego must have been born out of something. That something was the Overself. The Overself could not be the first “thing,” because it abides in the Timeless Absolute and is not in time and space. It knows no succession, and simply IS. With the appearance of the ego, space, time, and action were born. When that happens, we have a “beginning” and an “end.” Succession of thoughts and actions occur. The ego then is the root-thought of all other subsequent thoughts. It is also the root of all emotions and actions, and abides in and deals with the world of form.
When the individual mind became one “physical” cell, it had to move and function at its optimal capacity – with incredibly heightened attention – to survive: otherwise it would be eaten by a predator. It had to be, therefore, fully conscious of itself and its immediate environment. If its attention – the first function of the conscious mind – lapsed it was pounced upon and destroyed. The little creature – through countless lifetimes – became more and more complex as it built certain mechanisms in itself to avoid being consumed by some other creature. (See John Hull Grundy’s beautiful drawings of this amazing process). It also had to develop certain mechanisms in itself so that it could eat other creatures. As it developed further, it repeated this conscious building of its “physical” body a staggering number of times. It repeated thoughts and actions so often that it eventually learned how to delegate these thoughts and actions to what we curiously call the subconscious mind. Survival being its primal need, it was always on the alert, and did not have the leisure time to raise its consciousness into ego-consciousness – the sense of ‘I’ – self – knowledge.
The function of the ego, therefore, is to provide itself with the means of experiencing the world around it. This it does by weaving the six senses out of itself and by creating everything in the body from inner heart to outer skin. The individual ego-consciousness is expressed through its own form i.e. the body and the senses. It executes mental and physical maneuvers as in thinking, doing, imagining, ruminating, performing an activity, accomplishing tasks, carrying out plans, implementing creative ideas etc. Its primal activity would be the act of perceiving. As an adult, the individual knows that he is conscious, has the sense of ‘I’, is able to think abstractly, and becomes able to ask the question, “What am I?”. He is also able to deeply ponder, as in metaphysics, as well as undertaking meditation and mystical practices. With these pursuits, he can venture to discover what ultimate reality is.
This article was first published in The Power of How by Daniel McGowan. You can download the PDF of this book for free here: FREE DOWNLOAD