During the journey of the evolution of thoughts in Homo sapiens from the basic animal thoughts to the modern human views of culture, science, and philosophy, Human ideas evolved with all their negativities as well. The capacities of the human brain are due to its effective thought processes. As the Homo sapiens evolved from the animals, it's thought processes also evolved from animal thought processes. So, it is natural to have the reflection of the animal thoughts in human thoughts.
It was about 2.5 million years back when Homo sapiens emerged on the landscape of biology on this planet. Though it was just like an event of the natural evolution, it was going to change the whole arena of future of life on earth in coming years. With the growth of the amazing capacities of the human brain in the form of its Cognitive Thinking, which made the basis of different thought processes, it puts human beings at the apex of the animal kingdom. This process was very fast in the timeline of the whole natural evolutionary process.
Development of cultures and religions were the natural outcome of the 'Agricultural Revolution' around 30,000 years ago. The history took a rapid turn from here onward. Agriculture changed the needs of human beings. It required people to work together, improve their necessary tools, protect crops, etc. Domestication of animals and selecting useful plants was going to change flora and fauna of the earth shortly.
At the level of evolution of thoughts, human beings started exploring nature more curiously, since it was their need in their agriculture work. To find the answers and to know the process behind the natural events, they created the different hypothesis. The concept of God can be considered as one of the early hypothetical thinking of Homo sapiens. Groups at different places started worshiping particular sets of Gods with specific patterns of beliefs, which further transformed into various belief systems and early religions. Later on, religions play an active role in shaping cultures, philosophies, art and science. We can see it by historical data that ancient scientists, physicians, and philosophers were saints or wise men from various religious beliefs.
Every religion was created with a common goal, and that was to help the people who are following it. Human development in all areas of social and cultural thoughts including the health and wellness of their followers. This thought process which was initially local and they took the other believers or worshipers of other gods as alien. We can see the reflections of this thought in our ancient texts available to us.
Gradually with further development of human thought processes interaction between people living in different parts of the world kept on increasing. This was primarily due to growing demand for productive land, so it forced them to cross the geography. It leads to bloody conflicts and killings as well. At the same time, it provided an opportunity to develop new world orders. Creation of empires, religions, cultures, and countries were few critical outcomes.
With all this violent and conflicting crusade of humankind, that part of thinking betterment of own group or follower of a belief became a thread for connecting and communicating. This thought process further evolved into the concept of humanity and human values. Which we can call as 'Humanism.' It also grew in different forms. Throughout the evolution of our biology started taking the thoughts of humanity and human values as positive thoughts. Our biology trained itself to express positivity in the form of releasing hormones and neurotransmitters those have sound effects on the human body by elevating mood and providing the sense of happiness. Since people feel good with thinking and acting on humanity and human values, so people in general attracted to human values. It was necessary for creating the world we have today.
This evolved thought process of humanity and human values created controlling and correcting mechanisms in the ecosystem of all other human thought processes of religions, cultures, philosophy, and science. All these thought processes except humanity, all have their roots in the various animal thoughts. Like, religious thought processes which created religion are the humanized thought of herd formation among mammals. Here one herd take another herd as a potential threat. A flock of monkeys will not tolerate a monkey from another group, they will become violent. Supremacy of herd in the natural habitat generally caused violent conflicts among groups of same species. This animal behavior reflected in human behavior as well, where we see other religion or religious belief as a potential threat. Jingoism, extremism, intolerance are some negative ideas among religious beliefs, which are humanized thoughts of those animal thoughts which we are carrying forward with us from our ancestors in the animal kingdom.
The thought of humanity and human values is not presenting anywhere else in the animal kingdom except human beings. So, it is a highly evolved thought process. It is grown to control the negativities in all thoughts in the ecosystem of human thought processes. It created communication channels among different religions. It makes them tolerant of each other. It created humanism, which makes human values supreme.
This thought of humanity and human values is spiritual thought process and spirituality since it connects human to human irrespective of their beliefs, nationality,, and cast. It created the thoughts of equality. This thought connected human beings to its environment, nature and forced them to think about their fellow human beings. This spiritual thought and spirituality created God, to make a control mechanism for negative ideas. It created philosophies and science, to explore and establish the existence of human 'Self' and it's journey in the universe.
Therefore, when we see the Spirituality with the prism of our belief system or our religion obviously, we try to define it with our religiosity. Knowingly or unknowingly we consider our religiosity as our spirituality. In fact, all the religions have a spiritual base, but more substantial part of them is composed by its rituals, beliefs and worship methods. Though spirituality is necessary for a religion to survive and thrive, it is obstructed and hampered, many times intentionally, in the perimeter of the faiths.
Every human being wants to realize it's spirituality. Spirituality is a superior thought than the religiosity thought on the timeline of evolution. Therefore, if we see Spirituality through the prism of religions, we will be looking it with religiosity which hampers intentionally or unintentionally the real picture of Spirituality. In this process, we think our religiosity as our spirituality, which is not good for society, religions, cultures, countries, and people. This increases the conflicts. While the real meaning of Spirituality will help in decreasing disputes, creating a good understanding of the religions and tolerance among religions. It will finally assist in improvement in the social health of individuals.
The positive biological effects of real spiritual thinking will enhance the physical and mental health of people, which is Spiritual Health. The understanding of Spirituality, Religiosity, and their ambiguities will help in decreasing extremism, violence on the name of religious beliefs, intolerance, and hatred. Spiritual Health can play a significant role in creating world peace, global happiness, and good health.
Dr. Mahesh Bhatt
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