The Evolution of Spirituality

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by ‘Zeno’

First of all, I like to think of Religion as the mimicry spawning from revolutionary, charismatic, spiritual leaders (i.e. Jesus, Mohammad, Moses, Joseph Smith, etc.). The religious institutions are just imitating the teachings of those leaders. So it’s really the evolution of spirituality that we’re talking about here. The religious morals are more like guidelines, similar in the way that courts are institutions acting on the guidelines of law to facilitate the way people interact with each other.

I like to think that all of humanity is trying to reach out to each other through misunderstood, diverse communication. Everyone is the master (God) of their own universe, in that we are all confined to our physical bodies and restricted by our imperfect senses. Everyone has a different interpretation based on their experiences and biology; nature and nurture. With that mindset it becomes just a matter of understanding the underlying message, through symbolism, that is being conveyed through diverse communication (i.e. art, poetry, prose, music, speech). The stories change in style and language and form, but the message remains the same. Another way of looking at it is that all myths are humanities attempt at explaining the unexplainable. Most myths are traditional and ancient symbols used to fill the gap of human knowledge. “God” then is a constantly changing name for the lack of human understanding. Much like evil is the lack of good, like night is the lack of dark. Given that the breadth of human knowledge is always changing with new information (technological and sociological evolution) we need to adapt our myths to the new input. One of the most common stories out there is the Adam and Eve myth. Here is an attempt at symbolic interpretation of the Adam and Eve myth from my perspective.

In the book of Genesis God created Adam from dust and breathed “the breath of life” into his nostrils. From a scientific, Darwinist point of view, this is just a metaphor for natural selection. God created man and woman in his own image; I interpret this as Pantheism, the belief that all is God. God created woman from the rib of Adam; a symbol for human equality and cyclical birth through the male/female dynamic; man gives birth to woman with sperm and woman gives literal birth to man.

God created animals so that man would not be alone. This is where the original sin and loss of innocence starts. One of the animals created is the serpent; a symbol often used for Satan. Satan is the name given to evil in the world, but I believe evil is just a name given to the lack of good. God’s qualities include omnipotence and omniscience, both of which are qualities of omnibenevolence. The loss of innocence through the knowledge is a metaphor for the struggle of humanity in nature. Another way of saying it is that the loss of childhood freedom through fear and anger results from a lack of faith. God created the animals to cope with loneliness; this is just another way of symbolizing how human beings attempt to control and label the outside, and inside, world through the Ego. Notice after the “fall” Adam and Eve start realizing their “nakedness” and developing fears and misconceptions of the true God (Pantheism; all is God, all is omnibenevolent, all is good). This is why Buddhist sacrifices for humanity remind our lost inner child how to free itself from the chains of egoistic control. Lose the notion of Self. This is the path to “heaven” or enlightenment. I think maybe the problem is that people get stuck in the literal meaning of the myth and it prevents them from getting the message. That and there is a lot of noise adding to the confusion in modern times (i.e. movies, games, internet, sex, conflict, etc.). If we are able to come to terms with our lack of self, we can see that it is only the Ego that creates notions of good and evil, God and Satan through judgments of the outside reality. Thus, all is. Faith becomes a flexible form of entertainment and a way of coping with our human condition.

Thus, given new information spirituality is in a constant state of evolution, much like technology and society. Where and what it is evolving toward is yet to be seen. I think the new scientific advances in Artificial Intelligence, Genetics, Space Exploration, and Nanotechnology make for some interesting possibilities. It is through diversity of human experiences that we can synthesize the eastern and western philosophies into a new spiritual compass.

“If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” ~ Isaac Newton