We are two beings in one -- biological and conscious. I used to think that our consciousness evolved in order to serve our biological needs, --- since after all we just evolved from amoebas -- and we seem to have quite a lot more consciousness than them. Amoebas and other animals' actions are highly predictable, they just follow what they have learned from their input patterns. They don't appear to think,and decide, and desire. Not that humans's desires, and decisions are not very predictable and are original and are magically appearing, but that the "apparent originality" in human's actions is much higher than the animals. Or so it appears. Maybe animals also think that their actions are so original. Just like we think. But I don't think that they would think that our actions are predictable. So we are in some ways higher than them. But how much higher, who knows. Maybe the difference is not that great as we think, since the appearance of our supreme unpredictability is just because we cannot look at ourselves so easily.
Anyway, whether we are conscious or not is a different issue, but it is universally accepted that we are conscious. So lets discuss assuming that we are actually conscious.
So then I had assumed that our consciousness evolved so that we can fulfill biological needs more easily.
But my friend Aditya, with whom I was talking, told me that THEN WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN OUR CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS WHO MADE THE UNIVERSE.
I believe that the very existence of the universe says that there must be some consciousness or something that might have desired to make the world.
Now he told me that the consciousness who made the world -- how is it different from the consciousness that is within us -- is there some link? Is it that we are part of it, are we similar to it, are we completely independent? The point is that since we exhibit similar behavior -- like having desires, and having desires to create, then that might be something that is common between us and "it". Consciousness cannot be so simple that it just evolves everywhere around -- wherever some molecules gather around.
Now this becomes difficult to envision. Because then if there is a link then how is that link established, how can it be scientifically explained?
Did Gods come down to manufacture us? Did a part of God feel onto Earth?
Or that our consciousness is itself an illusion?
Who we are? Who was he who made the world?
Aditya said that much of Hindu (Indian) philosophy is centered around on explaining this link between us and Him. Some believe that we are part of it, that everything is a single whole (whether the non-living are considered in this whole, also might be a differing factor between different philosophies), or some believe that we are separate, or some believe that we are servants to it, etc etc.
Spirituality, and reason, where do they intersect?
In fact, the existence of so many irrefutable philosophies -- does it mean that the fact is unknowable?
Well, we haven't observed the whole world yet, or understood it yet completely.
Lets use science for now, to explore this world, and then lets get more firmly grounded before we start tackling these unsurmountable questions of spirituality.