Our ability to think has been, is, and will be there forever, or at least until we die as individuals. Despite our awareness of mortality, our choices are often influenced by emotions and the politics of a strong sense of belonging. This makes me think that we are not even close to reaching our potential. If the ability to think is an evolutionary process, then the thought process and emotional awareness should be as well. Since there is a chance of being incorrect, our actions should never be influenced by passionate emotions. However, this has been and remains a reality of humanity. When emotionally charged, consequences take a back seat, and we become very dangerous. A knowledgeable and angered creature armed with guns and nuclear bombs can do real harm.
As humanity, we are going through a process of growth. For instance, we must pass the wax paper barrier. As a boy, I used to listen to sermons by Maulana Ajmal, a Muslim preacher in Pakistan. One day he said, “If I give you a paper and ask you to put your finger through it without ripping the paper, how will you do it? If you force your way through, you will rip the paper and miss the real knowledge on the other side. You have to use a pin to make small holes to start the process, which requires patience and persistence.”
Just like the process of learning in school or building muscles, you can’t learn or build muscles instantly by lifting weights heavier than you are ready for. If we keep poking little holes or digging gradually, we follow the path to learn more about ourselves and our potential. We now understand that this process requires constant struggle and drive to learn and adapt to a higher level of evolution. We may have made enough holes to peek through a finger-sized hole, but we still can’t see the whole picture, leading to many assumptions. To know everything, we need to be on the other side in person. Unfortunately, none of us can tell what is on the other side unless we are dead, and when we are dead, communication ceases for ordinary folks like you and me.
So, how can we learn about the other side without assumptions while we are alive? The only way is to pursue it with the patience of generations. If you are too liberal, you may rip the paper in eagerness, or if you are too conservative, you may stop digging out of fear of entering God’s territories, which I believe is against God’s will. Why? Just look at our makeup—every single cell suggests pursuing our potential. Despite conservative efforts, we are constantly evolving. Everything in the human body—physical, emotional, mental, psychological, or spiritual—improves and evolves with use and dies from disuse and stalling.
However, if you push too fast, you potentially rip the paper and understand nothing but your ego. Accepting the status quo without pursuing is also extreme. For an evolving human being, either extreme is wrong. We need constant digging and the drive to dig, but with the patience to grow and reach our potential. God is proud of His creation only if we reach our full potential, and it is our responsibility to pursue this potential to reach the level God intended for us.
The most confusing aspect of all religions is why an entity with the potential to evolve should stay within boundaries. If you look at the rules of any religion, you will understand what I am talking about. Personally, I believe all religious boundaries are either to control the population politically or to slow us down so we can evolve safely without ripping the wax paper. Either way, we are evolving, and political religious people don’t like it because they are losing control. If you follow the text but don’t believe in it, you may create more boundaries for yourself due to insecurity. A religious life should be lived with a spiritual belief system, logically removing fear and insecurities. However, instead of believing in God, people often become so controlling that they cross spiritual boundaries and commit spiritual crimes against innocent individuals in God’s name.
God’s wisdom is amazing. Just look at yourself and your free will closely. We have opposing senses like a sense of belonging and a sense of freedom, yet we also have free will, so the duty falls on the individual. With free will and curiosity in our DNA, we are bound to break boundaries, contributing knowledge from both sides. Followers preach maintaining the status quo, and curious rule-breakers dig deeper for more knowledge. It’s ironic that both contribute in their ways—one to slow down the other, creating a sacred rhythm so we don’t rip the wax paper. Who follows God’s will? This question has existed since the dawn of civilization, causing wars and extreme prejudice. Can one really break the boundaries created by God? I wholeheartedly say no, because God’s will for humanity is to evolve. No bird can fly into space, yet humans are there despite religious orders, because I believe our religions have been tainted with the politics of control benefiting belonging groups.
We will know more by digging into the present rather than assumptions from the past or future. What is on the other side? What is human potential? Where did we come from? What are we? Where does God exist? How does God’s work get done? Where do we stand? Where are we going? Why don’t we know everything? The biggest question is, why do we claim to know everything?
Looking at our history, we always claim to know everything, yet we are repeatedly proven wrong, leading to more learning and evolution. Understanding the evolutionary process will eventually answer every question, but we must dig and pursue our potential to use more of our abilities, installed in us by God. We are not learning new things every day; we are scratching the surface of our brain to dig deeper, as we came with that potential.
Real wisdom is not only in the Holy Scriptures; it comes from all directions, like rivers pouring into oceans as common sense knowledge, contributed by everyday individuals. For instance, I was watching a movie about Buddha. In one scene, Buddha was meditating on the riverbank for days without eating or drinking. A rowboat passed by with two people, one rowing and the other playing a string instrument. The musician said, “If you tighten it too much, it will snap. If you don’t tighten it, it won’t play.” Buddha heard this, stopped meditating, and ate. He learned something wise from an ordinary individual and preached balance from then on. We all have the ability to think and contribute common sense knowledge in everyday life, whether as poets, scientists, medical researchers, or in other educational fields. The purpose is the same: to help humanity.
All creatures follow a certain order of nature. They come to life, eat, sleep, reproduce, and die. This has been happening long before humans became aware of spirituality. I don’t look at time for answers like when we became aware or who started the awareness. What I really want to know is why. This “why” has answers from people with religious and scientific backgrounds, but definitely with assumptions. Assumptions are assumptions. We cannot claim with our limited yet evolving knowledge that we know everything. We have been killing each other over assumptions and continue to do so. For how long? Until the human individual evolves to be a CEO who can say no to the politics of belonging groups or until we all learn to belong to humanity as a whole. Until we overcome our prejudice and learn that every human being is a cell of God, and God lives through living human beings.
It’s mind-boggling that we advance technologically yet can’t figure out how to prioritize humanity over group politics. Looking back from a family pack to community, city, province, nation, race, and religion, growth is there but still tainted with competition and cutthroat group politics. If we take humanity to the level of our technology, we will grow and understand knowledge to help humanity where God exists. Thus, growing to that level, one starts to respect oneself as part of God and respects others as part of God. The very cause of prejudice can be eradicated within the individual by believing in equal human rights to help others and, in turn, helping oneself spiritually.
A dead squirrel on the road is a common sight. If you look for its hole, you will likely find saved nuts, useless to the saver but a treasure to the finder. We humans are supposed to be better than that, but our mortality makes us view life like a squirrel. Our world runs on business promotions and fear-based security. Even belief systems are tainted. If you want a spot in heaven, you must give money to the church or mosque. Security and control are big businesses that individuals are looked down upon if they don’t follow the masses. We are preached to live like squirrels instead of birds. Birds migrate north in the summer with no nest, no one waiting for them, just faith that there will be food. They find food daily, make nests, reproduce, and migrate back in winter. Total faith, opposite to the squirrel, yet both are extreme. Humans are above and beyond these creatures because we know we are mortal yet live in fear like squirrels.
I know I am an idealist, but if we take all resources from immobile securities, we can create a business large enough that the profit alone can feed millions of hungry people and reduce human suffering. Have a poverty tax or groups of people pooling money in an organized way so investments are not lost but profits go toward better humanity. Taxes have a bad rap because of enforcement, but our education system should teach us early that giving is reciprocating. Each of us is alive not because of our efforts but due to a miracle. Look above; the sky isn’t falling. Look inside and see harmony despite trillions of cells and bacteria. If you think you can will it, look around at those trying to survive disease. If you are alive, appreciate the free oxygen you breathe. We should all learn to reciprocate. Helping humanity is helping God because God’s actions are done through living human beings.
I don’t claim to have answers, but I know in my heart that every soul, every individual, is God’s spirit. We can’t see God, but we see each other. We must be careful with each individual we come across because each individual is God. Thus, humanity is one of the most important things we can work toward, no matter who we are, what we are, or what we believe in. This will always help us learn the truth from the other side and help us get closer to the truth. Ultimately, there will be no boundaries between us and God.
Our mortality should actually make us humble and generous, but we are far from it. Let’s look at it this way: we wear expensive jewelry, name-brand clothes, drive nice expensive cars, and what is the driving force behind it? For sure, it’s not our mortality. It is that powerful sense of belonging. Why do we suffer in private life with anorexia or bulimia even when we are aware of our mortality? What compels us to live in self-created extremes? Why does the individual have the need to impress others, fit in, or have a strong desire to be admired? It is that almighty and out-of-control sense of belonging.
God has equally blessed us all with free will; it’s what we do with it that differs. You can use free will to follow trends and reduce yourself to a squirrel, or go to the other extreme and become a reckless spender, or make sense out of it all. Use it to live like a mortal. If you can’t take it along, use it for yourself and remember: real human happiness is not only found in being selfish. If you can end someone’s suffering, you value yourself and become aware of deep and meaningful happiness. This knowledge has been around since the dawn of civilization, but we have always had sufferings to deal with. Each and every one of us has to do some soul-searching. Do we have to live under the powerful sense of belonging or go to the other extreme and become totally selfish? Or become a CEO with personal justice, ethics, and morals?
It’s ironic that we use a strong sense of belonging to become selfish, and a strong sense of freedom to become unselfish. For instance, with a strong sense of belonging, you want to be admired, looked at, and be impressive, so you do things to get everything others want. You strive to acquire gold, diamonds, etc. If you don’t give out, you hoard, and when it’s time to go, you leave it for your family, and that is, if you have any; otherwise, it goes to the government. That means you have lived selfishly but at a substandard life. If you have a strong sense of freedom, you don’t really care if you wear name-brand clothes or not, or if you have a nice car or not; you just live free of hoarding. If you have it, you use it to live larger. What makes one selfish? It is the ignorance of the knowledge of mortality, regardless of its reality.
In the core of human beings, there is humanity, but the insecurities we are wrapped up in, whether installed by parents or society, are not the question; it is the question of mortal living. Then there are social trends and personal responsibilities with loud inner voices. We become so occupied that we can’t hear anything else other than personal needs, sometimes to the point that we don’t care about the inner voices of humanity.
If you don’t see or value yourself, think and feel inadequate, you will let others put their colors or values in you, which makes you lose your identity. You will become a sheep who needs some outer force like the people of your belonging group to move you. God is not going to be out there for you, even if your belonging group believes in God. If you can’t find God inside you, you would be lost as an individual.
Since you are directly connected to the source, meaning God, you can’t be looking for God; just find your personal color and identity, and you will become spiritually aware, thus know God. Reciprocate during your living years instead of trying to secure a spot in heaven, which is after death. Logically, you are really useful to God while you are alive because even God needs to act physically through you to fulfill someone’s prayers.
Life is not just the functioning of the organism; it’s the purpose of it, and you can choose to live a purpose-driven life. The function of humans is to survive, feed the body, and start to look for purpose. Sex is for reproduction, self-sacrifice is to raise offspring so the constant and continuum of humanity and God are stable; after that, start to seek knowledge to better humanity, help mankind, and beyond.
What is that and where is that coming from? The reality is that it’s not what you see in space that matters; it’s your ability to see. If you seek God, don’t dig outside; it’s the inside knowledge you need more. It is not outside knowledge; it’s the ability of your brain to understand. How and what is only solved by curiosity, and where does curiosity come from? It is ingrained in you; you don’t just go to school to become curious. Major problem solvers did not learn from schools; they explored by going inside and digging into the brain to put things together.