Evolution Of Our Spiritual Thought Process

If we consider the vastness of natural developmental history, history of the development of human civilization is tiny, it is only for last few thousand years, in this short span we have created several beliefs and religions, some of them are existing today, and some of them have disappeared. In this process, we can easily hypothesize that science may be a future religion since science in its present form appeared on the landscape of human intelligence only a few hundred years back.

Scientifically spirituality and spiritual thinking both are the part of the same process, where several positive or negative thoughts take shape in our brain. Among a broad spectrum of thoughts throughout the day, we have specific thoughts which question the existence of our ‘Self.' We have questions in front of us ‘Who I am?’; ‘What is life?’; ‘What is the purpose of life?’; ‘What happens to us after death?’; ‘What is the universe?’; ‘Who made this?’; ‘When and how it starts?’; ‘What is its future?’; ‘Is there life anywhere else in-universe (imagination of aliens)?’ etc.

Why do we ask these questions? Why is it important? What difference does it make? These three issues may have their answer to our understanding of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid). DNA is made up of two helices like structures, and four nitrogen bases are arranged in a manner of coding in it. This coding is different for different species, a lot of biological evolution created DNA, and finally, a lot of evolution created human DNA. DNA in all living cells including human DNA is made up of the same elements that are Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Oxygen. In that way, it has got the similar elemental composition in all the living animal cells. Here we can say that the DNA has the key of life and codes different forms of life. Here the science has solved the mystery; now we are in a better position to understand the process of life and its development. But still, many questions arise, we need to understand it further that it is the part of that continuous process of Evolution or Natural Development which is continuously going on in nature. Our brain is also the part of nature. It is easy to understand that whatever we have today in the form of scientific, social, cultural, religious and spiritual knowledge it is the product of this ongoing process.

Those new questions are around our ‘Self’ or in a broader context we can say the ‘Life.' How can we define our ‘Self’? How we can define ‘life.' Our scientific knowledge of biology has made it more complex. Scientifically it is proved that for certain time after death many organs of a living body are alive, they are not dead, this knowledge makes the basis of organ transplant. After death, still there is life in its different components, and they can function normally. Though a person may be dead his liver, kidneys and many other organs are alive for a few hours after death, and they will remain alive for further many more years if transplanted to a recipient. All these scientific facts are making the questions around our ‘Self’ and ‘Life’ more complicated.

Most of the time we see these questions beyond the preview of science, in the areas of metaphysical or mystical explanations, these are the areas where our scientific knowledge appeared us as creating conflicting opinion. So, it helps in building many imaginary thought processes. We need to improve our scientific understanding of such areas so that we can prevent many complexities surrounding this vital aspect of human intelligence and human behavior. 

   

We have a parallel thought process to our scientific thought process which is continuously trying to find out the answers to these questions with collective human intelligence. This process is the Spiritual Thought Process or ‘Spirituality.' Spiritual thought process and spirituality is a highly developed thought process in human beings, and it is the result of the continuous process of evolution and development of human brain. Science, religion, and philosophies all are the products of this thought process since it is continuously striving for the answers to complex questions of human existence, life and universe and all the happenings around us including happiness and human crisis in different forms.

Scientifically we can say that all the thought processes including spiritual, religious and scientific are primarily due to several complex biochemical reactions happening in our brain resulting in the release of some neurotransmitters which are responsible for creating our thoughts. All of these processes are influenced by many factors like our culture, beliefs, religion, education, etc.

Dr. Mahesh Bhatt