THE BRAIN & PERSONAL MEMORIES
The next circle could remind you of animals and their nervous systems, (where the inner circle reminds you of plants) or it could remind you of the personal memories contained in the immune system. But perhaps the most potent meaning is to remind you of your own brain, its subjectivity, and the emergence of consciousness. Indeed, spirituality is very much about how the brain experiences and heals itself.
Chemical elements emerged from hydrogen. And life emerged from non-life. So it’s natural to see consciousness, or the ability to “know thy self”, as emerging from what came before. All organisms know things. But a person knows they know. For instance, in meditation you are aware of your own awareness. Our moral nature makes us aware of doing good and evil. And now, scientifically, an understanding of our own evolutionary heritage is perhaps the most profound form of self-awareness yet.
Our genes give us flexible brains, with lots of options, and yet we also have a tendency to see certain things in certain ways. For instance, we seem to be naturally repelled by gore and viscera. And even worse, we are totally blind to many parts and functions of our own brains. So it should come as no surprise that we would tend to externalize our own consciousness. Just as we externalize the causes and solutions for so many of our problems. Asking for favors from an external God may be thought of I this way.
But prayer is a central part of traditional religion. Even though the object of prayer, that all controlling, wraparound consciousness, could be a projection. This doesn’t mean prayer isn’t effective. It is, because like other “helpful spiritual phenomenon” it’s part of our own process of self-organization. But that doesn’t mean we have to give the credit to a nonexistent being. Rather, it is just another example of how we participate in the self-organization of the universe.
But perhaps denying this wraparound consciousness takes more faith than accepting it. Indeed, some people think the whole universe is a computer. But it’s hard being an atheist. For example, knowing that color is created in the brain, doesn’t mean we see in black and white. But even if you can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching and listening, you would still have to concede that prayer, like consciousness, and the appreciation of beauty, as well as color, owes a lot to the brain.
Therefore, God the father, like ghosts and angles, are a natural, comforting, but perhaps irresponsible, misinterpretation of what we are. And the sun doesn’t set, the earth turns, even if it doesn’t feel that way. And consciousness, especially moral consciousness, emerges, at least in part, from the brain. But loosing our watchful parent in the sky shouldn’t leave us feeling lonely. Indeed, we are still a part of the universe. Only now we have to take a little more responsibility for ourselves.