Instincts Vs Consciousness— A Tale of Distortion and Identity Crisis !
From the beginning of time, Humans have one distinct key differentiator than other lower beings — Consciousness, Humans can use there Evolutionary intelligence to question its existence, reason & purpose of being & understand the why part !
However Nature dominates every living beings by its sheer force — Instincts, the life force to survive anyhow and procreate for species continuity.
Till the point Humans follows instincts to survive, to hunt, to procreate they are rewarded by nature, but when they start using that evolutionary intelligence to become more conscious and aware..questioning the why part, it becomes a nightmare, a philosophy which is like snake that eats its own tail, sometimes path to self annihilation !
You can infer Nature does not like those beings who questions back - Why ?
However there is deep rooted question - Why would Nature allow something to evolve and have its own Will and Conscious ?
This question has baffled all through ages & across civilizations, there are no clear answers in religion, science & philosophy — and the question remains mostly unanswered !
Why would a System create something which questions backs its inner working & creator ?
In Eastern Philosophy, Particularly Hinduism — Vedanta Philosophy says all existence is just a dream , a delusion or Maya as they say & there is as such no reality, it is manifestation of one universal form (Brahman) into reality we see, using our Mind and Consciousness(Turyam), that an Individual creates this entire world by that interaction of Consciousness and one’s Mind & that there is no concept of an Individual, its just manifestation of one identity into many things and every one is God himself (Brahman) !
Here Mind does not means organ (Brain), Mind is your thought process, your intelligence, Your Conscious, your Understanding.
When this Mind & One’s external Identity ie.. Ego interacts with Maya, there comes the reality what we see !
The Quantum Physics, reality is defined in same way — the Probability Wave Function collapses when you make an observation ie..before observation it was just an probability of thing existing in that space and time, out of many probabilities.
That Famous schrodinger’s cat experiment is notorious to explain in very subtle way — is Cat dead or Alive ? You wont know until you make an observation, before that it has probability of being both dead and Alive.
It is discussed in detail about definition of reality in Vedanta which showcases same concept of person building its own reality using consciousness and mind, however the crux is again — The why part of existence ?
Why Nature want us to become in some form , experiences something & then return back to that Brahman or Absolute state ? And then there are other super theories around it in many religion but you wont find clear answers till you pursue yourself — Self realization ! That which cannot be explained by anyone but realized by oneself !
As Zen philosophers used to say — As soon as you say something, You would miss the Point !
However here you see the Point — when you start questioning your real self, there are no clear answer, just directions and indications & the way to find your own path — the path of Self realization !
The Aware ones takes that path — Buddha, Mahavira, Sankara, Osho, Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, Thich Nhat Hanh, Lao Tzu.. as we know many others.
However we circle back to same point, what Nature has expected from the aware ones and what those life accomplished ?
A Weird argument may be- Nature as any system is prone to error and accidents, corner cases & it may be intentionally designed/created/formed or you can say architected in that way.
As Perfect State Kills Anything, No information is exchanged & therefore for Nature to Progress & thrive, it has to has some system Anomaly to keep itself away from reaching to any perfection !
That anomaly(Aware & Enlightened lives) challenges the system itself, forces itself to Evolve further and thus a perfect balance is created between sustenance and progress, an overall Evolution of system.
Anything to Progress must face resistance, that is Nature Eternal Law, unless there is no friction — there can be no liner Motion (Laws of Motion).
Therefore when Nature plays us all with instincts, it also feedback's itself for course correction to Evolve !
Therefore when every Species Evolve , Virus Evolve, Plant Evolves, Human Evolves with that Nature also Evolves.
That is what i understand looking at grand design patterns and reading Eastern/western philosophies, may be some day i will also evolve with a new understanding, but at this point this answer seems to be reasonable.
In West there is clarity of following Instincts, when famous British Economist wrote first about Animal Instincts in Markets, he advocated to use Natural life forces to be injected in Economic Principles.
Markets should be free from governments & governments should be only enabler, supply & demand must dictate world trade & there should be no regulation of production and consumption by governments, government should be only enabler.
I.e..Let the Market loose & be driven by People Instincts of greed, let them have it what they what & how much they want.
Capitalism drove out of this founding principle & as we see know now — Nature rewards anything done following evolutionary principle and Instincts, it was instant hit in all nations as it started creating wealthy nations (You can say Wealthy Rulers) and most of nation accepted this approach for overall power balance (Famous Trickle down economic theory came from here).
You are rewarded by Nature to follow instincts, rewards in form of survival and breeding, you elongate your life by other means ie.. By procreating, you inject your gene pool into nature to carry forward and that way you ensure your Immortality which is super goal of evolution — Survival of Strongest & Superior Race.
Now we have come to point of question of Identity crisis, when someone uses its intelligence to question back, there comes a state of disharmony and identity crisis.
When you have experienced some suffering, rejection, failures, unfulfilled desires at that time you question yourself, You start denying your instincts as it failed You & then all crisis starts leading to existential questions.
You go back to that why part ? This is system anomaly, the intelligence is now questioning instincts & is now trying to override, being more conscious, being more aware.
In East — Most philosophy tries to override that instincts part, they try for Human Awareness and Consciousness, that a person should know what they are doing and why they are doing, they should clearly understand all actions, they should observe things without carrying any judgement as it is impossible to know the causation(Cause and Effect) of why that thing occurred - leading to that event, there can be no good or bad things only a reality as we make our observation.
The Instincts part is only for lower beings — Animals, to hunt & eat, to breed & to survive anyhow, humans are higher beings who are rewarded by nature to have an awareness, a consciousness, to question back & understand the reasons and purpose of life itself.
Buddha, Mahavira they were able to control there instincts and questioned the reason of there existence, gave a way of realization, to follow a path told by them to understand reason and purpose of life in there own way, not to take an instinctual decisions but more aware decisions, to question back mind and body why it wants to elongate life, why it want to fulfill desires, why it does wants to question back itself ?
What was meaning of ones life & how to reach a Blissful state where all such answers are finally Answered, the final Enlightenment !
Sometimes taking this path leads to self Annihilation, an unprepared mind going in rejection questioning its own instincts and denying everything against it, punishing it and thereby failing its own self, biologically and ending oneself, such cases have been seen in extreme depressive states.
However a prepared Mind , an aware mind maintains an harmony between instincts and conscious, Instincts to survive and conscious to know the reasons of survival and life !
That is why there is old saying- To reach Heavens one must be prepared to Die !
Now we have enough understanding of Nature way of life, its anomalies & related Human Conditions & on that basis we can say we have four States of Human Lives :
- State 1: Live purely by Instincts(Animals or lower beings)
- State 2: Live by Consciousness(The Enlightened Ones)
- State 3: Live with Harmony between Instincts and Conscious (The Aware Ones — Philosopher & Spiritual Guides).
- State 4: Live without Harmony between Instincts and Conscious (Majority of Human Civilization - unaware & lost souls)
The fourth way to live causes utter confusion and failed lives- this is where max of human population lives — Living with both instincts and conscious but with no harmony, applying instincts where conscious is required or applying conscious where instincts was required, a classic case may be going in tiger cage who is hungry and then praying inside cage, that tiger wont eat you !
The tiger will tear you down and eat you, your conscious to pray will not work in field of instincts & vice versa, a tiger cannot attain enlightenment because that lower life is not meant for anything like that, it just wants to eat, sleep survive and breed ! That is Purest of Instincts.
When you read some philosophy try to embody and live it, realize it, understand it in your own ways, you cannot understand anything just by reading it, you have to apply it in yourself and then you will have your own self realizations which is the way to wisdom & highest Intelligence.
Thus we reach to End point of all this narrative, the Juice part —
Majority of Humanity lives in - State 4 (Disharmony between instincts and Conscious) & that is a — a Mediocre life, or an ordinary life which accumulates anxiety, fear and frustrations & leaves behind no legacy or learning for new generations to improve or evolve which is most saddest part.
Now go back and access yourself — which life state you are living & how can you Improve ?
State 1: Are you Instinctual ?
State 2: Are you Conscious ?
State 3: Are you in Harmony ?
State 4: or Are you a confused life ?
