Evolution of religion.
I saw this wonderful post on evolution of religion over time. I cannot post it as I am not sure about the origin of the post. But the message is clear, and it is as follows.
First, they started to worship rocks
Then they worshipped animals
Next Invisible animals in the sky.
Invisible people in the sky
You get the hang of it right?
Next comes the invisible god.
Next, they worshipped messengers of these invisible gods.
Messengers of Messengers of invisible Gods.
Finally, self-discovery that you are all that.
I could not agree more on this evolution of the religion. And I see lots and lots of our fellow humans are still stuck in the evolutionary loop. And I think the abundance of information on the simple truths about life has converting mass populations into the self-discovery more and more. Hence philosophy matters, as it challenges our ancestors believes, who made these stories gathered around fires during fearful nights. Just like in the sausage party.
More importantly I would like to focus on the last bit of it. Which is self-discovery. How do anyone discover him/herself. What does it mean it is to discover self? Explaining this is just like the Allegory of the cave. Because we all are stuck in our own prisons of mind, truth what is true for me, is not true for you. And there is no way of showing what I experience to anyone. Imagine a simple truth as a taste of salt.
This is salt.
No doubt that you know salt. But can you explain, or let anyone know that what you feel when you, taste it? We can say it 'tastes salty'. Similarly, we cannot exactly know what other person knows when they taste the salt. Although it seems we are living in a one world, it seems it is just a relative truth. As there are in fact infinitely many different worlds out there, as long as individual consciousness is concerned. That is one way to break our common default, thinking pattern. However, I would say we still have to look beyond. We have to look beyond time. Look beyond what we see. And when we look at things in these different angles, the way we see things differs. It seems like it is true that a book read by thousand people is thousand books. The question is if that is true, was there only one book or thousands of them?
The path to self-discovery.
The path to self-discovery is a tedious one. It is not direct dive from here to there. Nobody can give you a set of clear instructions. As you can see, the path seen by thousand individuals is thousand paths, not a single one. But the tool which we use to the self-discovery is clear. That is mindfulness. And you will need some wisdom to accompany mindfulness to kick start. Once this is done, it should be a natural slide. So, awareness is not a choice, it is the lifestyle of the future generation. And it is a replacement for religion, for the intellectual. And definitely it is not about sitting in one place and looking at your breath chanting 'Oooom'. I would say, mindfulness is the new science.
I do not want you to believe me. Hence, I invite you to read, thousands of philosophers who were there, who were able to look inside themselves and glimpse into their so-called soul. What a better place to start, than David foster Wallace and his famous speech 'this is water'
One day two young fish swam, and on the way, they met an older fish who swam the other way. The older fish said.
"Good morning boys. How is the Water?"
Two young fish swam a little more and one of them turn to the other and spoke.
"What the hell is water"
So, if you haven't seen the water, I suggest you be aware until you see this. Like Wallace himself claims, "I do not come here as the old fish to brag about water."
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