Today, humanity is suffering from much disease and poverty. Our children suffer from depression and meaninglessness. Healthcare systems are failing. Animal and plant species are going extinct. Weather patterns are shifting. Rising sea levels and dwindling forests are making parts of the planet inhospitable. Armies are amassing weapons of mass destruction. Countries are at war. The rich-poor gap is wider than ever. The greed of a few is pushing many into poverty. How did it come to this? Where did we go wrong? How can we still not see our self created extinction looming on the horizon?
Our ancestors, Homo Sapiens, left Africa some 70,000 years ago when the planet was already well populated by other hominid species. But one possibility is that Homo Sapiens were able to systematically eradicate all of them until by the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, they were the only ones left on the planet. This may have been the first in a long history of genocides committed by humans. What made this invasion so successful? Archeologists say it happened because of the cognitive revolution. 50,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens developed the ability to create fictions which allowed them to reconstitute themselves based not on family ties but through ideology. Previously, the tribe held together by biological ties fell apart as it grew beyond the number 150. Now, humans could gather under the banner of a belief system. These early belief systems were religious in nature. The followers of the same god stayed and fought together, not for survival, but for the supremacy of their god.
FIctions helped provide a basis for complex human societies. Pictured - a text from the Shahnameh
But with the other hominids gone, the enemy had to be found within Homo Sapiens. The rest of human history is the struggle to find and eliminate the “other”. Difference in creed, colour or language was enough for there to be war. Today, religious and ethnic minorities, sexual minorities and women continue to be the “other” and are oppressed as a result.
As humanity progressed, the fictions under the banner of which men gathered became more and more intricate. Fictions that were in place to give collective struggles a meaning became rigid belief systems. These fictions did not give rise to religions only. Modern-day fictions include economy, law, politics, countries, capitalism, Marxism, etc. All these fictions only become real when enough people hold them to be true.
There is a lot of discussion about a future in which humanity will lose control over the planet to artificial intelligence. In truth, humanity has already lost control to hegemonic systems which it itself had created
One can argue that all systems are not oppressive, that some of them are there for the benefit of humanity. Yes, the structure of a system may not be hegemonic and oppressive in itself but it will turn so eventually because of the division it will create between those who would follow it and those who would follow something else. One only has to look at the history of wars waged in the name of religion. All religions advocate peace, and yet, all of them have lent themselves as ideologies legitimizing war at some point or the other.
There is a lot of discussion about a future in which humanity will lose control over the planet to artificial intelligence. In truth, humanity has already lost control to hegemonic systems which it itself had created. Power no longer rests with individuals, it has become invisible. It rests with economic, political and religious systems.
We have been enslaved by the modern “systems machine”. We are all oppressed. It is the division between “us” and “them” that causes suffering. Duality is the root cause of all oppression.
To find a solution one has to turn to the process through which we get enslaved within the systems machine and hope to reverse it somehow. Homo Sapiens as a species rely heavily on verbal transmission of information instead of genetic memory to pass on the skills necessary for survival. This means that conditioning plays a key role in the constitution of a human being. We have turned our education system into an apparatus of mass conditioning. Our minds get conditioned to believe in these systems from infancy. As we grow older, the beliefs grow so rigid that we can only think in certain loops. These rigid thought patterns are the chains that bind us. To free ourselves, we have to dismantle false beliefs upon which stand these oppressive systems.
The conditioned mind is the problem, therefore, the solution cannot arise as a result of mental processes. That is to say, when thought itself is the problem, critical thinking cannot give a solution. The solution has to arise elsewhere. But does a human being have another faculty capable of finding such a solution? To find out, one simply has to ask: “Who am I?”
You know that you are conscious but your true nature is hidden from you. Still you can safely conclude that there is an entity that is having an experience of being alive, i.e. there is consciousness. This means that there is something rather than nothing. You are not sure of the nature of this “something”. But you know that this “something” must have a source, a beginning. That source itself must have a source. This sequence will continue till we reach the primary source. For this source to be primary, it must be infinite in every possible dimension. Every other phenomenon (including you) must be a manifestation of this primary source. This means two things: firstly, you are not real, only the primary source is real; and secondly, all things are one, since they are all manifestations of the same source.
The awareness that all things are one is the beginning of love; a love that is unconditional. Where a belief system embedded in duality had created suffering, the realization of the oneness of all things breeds unconditional love and freedom from suffering. This realization eliminates the fear of the “other” by ending the dichotomous worldview that had created the “other” in the first place. You realize that all is one, and one is all. This is true love.
Julius John Alam is a Lahore-based artist, writer and teacher. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the National College of Art, Lahore and a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from The New School, New York, where he studied on a Fulbright Scholarship. His artwork has been exhibited in galleries around the world including New York, Philadelphia, Zurich, Dubai, Karachi and Lahore. He currently teaches at the Institute for Art and Culture, Lahore as an Assistant Professor
