Who Am I
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Feelings are the Foundation of Consciousness
Descartes clearly found thinking more significant than emotions. His iconic philosophical statement, “I think, therefore, I am,” left untouched the essential role that emotions play in the lives of human beings. Because feelings infuse the objective world with values, they are the foundation of consciousness. Without emotions, we would not only be unaware of our existence, we wouldn’t know when to eat, or stop eating, to love or reject, to celebrate a victory, or to mourn the loss of a loved one.
If Descartes were alive, today, an era of robots and AI, he would likely modify his statement from “I think, therefore, I am,” to “I feel, therefore, I am.” He would do this, because he would understand that, yes, robots can think, but, without feelings, they can place no value on their own existence. Consequently, they are unaware that they exist, even if programmed to appear that they know.
Ask yourself this question: How could any being, human or animal, be able to survive, without knowing that it exists? Of even greater significance is the fact that the only way humans are able to serve our purpose, as animate beings, is to be true to how we feel. But civilized life prevents us from being true to the feelings Nature gave us. Thus, as modern humans, we inevitably suffer from the sense that life is meaningless. In essence, this is a message from our souls, warning us that we are not serving our reason for being!
To evaluate what civilized people understand about the significance of feelings, I googled: “Why do emotions exist?” and wasn’t surprised by the paucity and shallowness of the results I received:
“There’s a reason we all have a wide range of emotions: we need them. Emotions help
|us communicate with others, such as when we feel sad and need some help. They also
can help us to act quickly in important situations.”
Though there was more information on feelings, none of it went much deeper than that. Interestingly, Wikipedia had no entry, at all, on the subject. How odd, since one can query Wikipedia regarding almost anything, and get pages of information. Yet, when queried about emotions . . . nothing!! I find it remarkable and revealing that humans have accumulated massive bodies of knowledge on virtually everything, from how the universe began, to the behavior of sub-atomic particles, yet we remain unconcerned about why feelings exist! In the face of such lack of knowledge, on the part of the most intelligent lifeform on earth, it must be stated unequivocally, if only to set the record straight:
Emotions are the very foundation of consciousness; thus,
they determine the direction and quality of human existence.
Self-styled and well-known “philosophical entertainer” Allen Watts speculated in his lecture, “Interview with God,” that, if humans were given the opportunity to ask God a single question, that question would probably be, “Who am I?” To me, God’s answer would be: “You are whoever you feel like you are. If you feel involved, connected, and necessary, then you are involved, connected and necessary. If you feel lonely, left out, and not needed, then, you are lonely, left out, and not needed.”
At another of Watt’s seminars, a man of the cloth approached him, with a Bible in hand, and said: “If one can believe that an intelligent and benevolent God is in charge, don’t you think he would have provided us with an infallible guide for how to live?” Watts answered, “I think nothing of the kind, because, if we had an infallible guide, we would never think for ourselves, and our minds would become atrophied.”
I, myself, believe that Nature, our real creator, does instruct us on how to live, but it communicates through emotions, not words. Unfortunately, civilized humans are ignoring Nature’s guidance, because they are unaware of why feelings exist.
The hallmark of civilization is that it rejects the immense importance of subjective reality to the life of all animate beings. That is the reality defined by our instincts, whose wisdom, revealed exclusively through feelings, informs the conscious mind to make decisions, regarding the situation at hand: Should I rest, now, or can I finish this task? Should I run, hide, or attack, in the face of this danger? Do I want a salad or soup with dinner?
By contrast, human civilization focuses only on the nature of objective reality. In fact, it spares no expense in investigating things factual and measurable, which can be seen, heard, smelled and touched, manufactured, and modified, by human intervention. Our problem is that we are trying to define reality as residing exclusively in the objective domain. We do not recognize that reality cannot be experienced, without the mind-body’s ability to infuse the objective world with emotional values. That is, unless you believe that a rock can celebrate a nice day, or suffer from depression, because it’s ten feet underground.
Why do civilized people try to define reality exclusively in the objective domain? It is because civil rule transformed human life into an objective phenomenon, in which only intellect rules. When the evolution of human language made it possible for humans to share concerns about the unknowable future, it was only a matter of time before we began defining success in terms of realizing a singular objective—the ability to control our own destinies. That led to the invention of monetary and legal systems which enabled people to focus on the accumulation of wealth and privilege, through which we presumed that we were in control of our futures. Conceptually, we have since lived in a universe so defined by the objective of making it on our own, that our minds are blind to the suffering it causes.
Thus, civil rule transformed human life from a subjective experience—in which our emotions ruled, and we lived in the moment—to an objective one in which our intellect rules and we live for the future. As subjects of civil rule, modern humans try to define reality as existing exclusively in the objective domain. As a result, humans now live as though human emotions—the only entities that enable us to experience reality, at all, don’t exist. But the real reason we don’t research the matter is, if we knew why emotions existed, we would realize that we are subjects of the forces of Nature, not their master. This would invalidate the basis for every belief in which civilized humans take comfort—the belief that, through science, technology, education, plans, progress, economics, or religion, we are above it all.
Our “real self”—the one made manifest by the feelings evolution embedded within each of us—identifies with the wellbeing of our species. But our “civilized self,” the one manifested by our belief that it’s our responsibility to control our own destiny, identifies only with our success at realizing personal objectives—or lack thereof. Granted, we can feel involved, connected, and necessary, when realizing personal ambitions, but such endeavors typically require struggle, and because they do not serve our species, any sense of meaning derived from them is temporary. Indeed, the worst thing that can happen to anyone who is finding meaning in realizing a personal ambition is to realize it! Once realized, its imagined value evaporates, at which point, the individual must start all over again, by establishing a new goal (the basis for Schopenhauer’s philosophy of pessimism).
On the other hand, if spiritually free, our sense of self would be based on how we feel, instead of what we intend to accomplish. We would take pleasure in the kind of activities and relationships through which we serve our species. Then, the sense that we are involved, connected and necessary would be deep, beyond measure.
Consider these words:
We come into the world needing others.
Then we are told it’s braver to go it alone.
That independence is the way to accomplish.
But there’s another way to live.
A way that sees the only path to fulfillment is through others.
That our time here can be deep beyond measure.
No one who chose interdependence ever found despair.
Because what the world taught as weakness,
Is in fact our greatest virtue.
In my search for the author of those words, all I could find was: “perennial wisdom.” That’s poetic. It implies that every human being values, and has always valued, the sentiments implicit in those words. Yet, by extolling independence, our way of life forces us to ignore their implications, for the sake of our self-respect, if not our survival.
How do we return to living in spiritual freedom, the world where we serve life through our service to others? Unfortunately, there is no way to tell anyone how to regain our trust in the human spirit, nor will there ever be. Only our emotional intelligence knows the way, not our intellect. The first step requires us to recognize that our species may never survive our current lack of awareness of why feelings exist. In one way or another, our unnatural state of suffering, and the problems we’re creating, for this planet, will end—even if it requires the demise of our species.
If our species is to recover, it’s essential that we recognize no one is to blame for what is happening. Whether anyone is right or wrong is beside the point. We are each part of the web of life. Our suffering is not the result of anyone’s ill intent, not even Satan’s. It represents an illness that has developed within the web of life, an illness over which no one has control. Sometimes, but not always, illnesses destroy their host—in this case the human species. We can be grateful that our species still exists. But, until we recognize that we have no control over what ultimately happens, all is lost: Thinking that we are in control is what caused the illness in the first place!
Allan Watts said: “Life is a celebration of itself.” In other words, life does not serve the universe, or the planet. It serves itself—otherwise, life would not exist. When members of a species participate in serving the life of their species, evolution, through feelings, provides each individual with cause to celebrate. I believe whatever illness it is that infects the web of life, it will be healed, only if we humans can resume our celebration of life, by again taking care of one another, through interdependent relationships of mutual trust.
The more you relinquish power in trust of others, the more powerful you become.
—Allan Watts in his lecture, “Just Trust the Universe.”
One of the most prevailing messages among gurus, sages, and spiritual leaders, throughout the ages has been: “Trust what is.” I believe that is what Jesus was telling us when he said: “Take care of one another, now, and let the future take care of itself.” But, as civilized people, we are subjects of money and civil laws, thus have virtually no choice but to trust these artificial systems of accountability—until the day they fail us, completely.
To our civilized minds, monetary and legal systems are “what is.” That’s why we trust our lives to them. But these systems have existed for only milliseconds, in evolutionary time. To the human spirit, whose sensibilities are grounded in the experiences of countless living beings across hundreds of millions of years, these abstract systems of accountability have nothing to do with life. To our spirits, they don’t exist. But as modern people, living in a civilized paradigm, we need money to survive—not sisters and brothers. Without people who are bonded by their need for one another, there is no place for us to participate in life’s eternal celebration.
Trusting one another’s innate sensibilities would be natural, if we were free to trust the human spirit. Indeed, our survival would depend on it. But, if we all remain personally accountable to a monetary system, we have no one to trust—the ultimate example of which is the mistrust that often develops among siblings, when the issue of inheritance rights raises its ugly head.
In the natural world, we celebrate life, by trusting those close to us, and taking care of the habitat that sustains us. But, as civilized people, who can’t trust anyone, we continually destroy our habitats, through the futile process of seeking contentment, by serving ourselves. This state of affairs will continue until modern humans recognize why emotions exist.
When humanity comes to understand that feelings are our only access to the wisdom of our souls, that wisdom, given time, will provide the guidance needed to return to Eden—or to the state of Zen, if one prefers. Zen is defined as a state of attentiveness in which one’s actions are guided by intuition, not conscious effort. In Eden, which I define as any place where people are free to be true to their souls, the state of Zen occurs naturally, thus does not require that we practice special techniques, to experience it.
In Eden, we will know who we really are, because we’ll be guided by our feelings, not schemes through which we intend to realize personal ambitions. It was people innocently playing God who imposed the rules and laws that forced us to deny our inborn wisdom, in the first place. Since then, we have not been free to be ourselves, thus, have no access to Eden.
From our soul’s point of view, it wasn’t “original sin” that banished us from Eden. It was a mistake–the original human error of imposing moral laws, in our unfounded belief that, by doing so, we could control life. When human reason is again based on feelings that arise from our souls, we will recognize that only the forces of Nature that created us can control life, through the wisdom those forces bequeathed to each of us—the very wisdom that we are not now free to honor.
