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Peter: The human brain is the most sophisticated development of this extraordinary universe. Not only does it see, hear, smell, taste and touch with its nerve tentacles or sense stalks, but it can think, cognitize, reflect and communicate, and be aware of itself doing all these things. It also comes in a pretty neat body-packaging, able to move freely and easily and perform an amazing amount of dexterous activities. The prime activity of human animals that sets them apart from other animals is their ability to think and reflect.

Unfortunately this same faculty is the source of so much suffering and angst given the insidious influence of animal instinctual passions sourced in the primitive reptilian section of the human brain. Given our genetically inherited instinctual self is overlaid with an instilled social identity, so much of our thinking is self-centred producing a relentless avalanche of neurosis. These thoughts are most often backed up by emotional memories of past hurts, fears, doubts, aggression, etc. which produce chemical responses in the body, giving rise to deep feelings and passions which only further add to our confusion.

This self-centred neurosis is identified in the East as the problem with humans but they attempt to eradicate only half of the problem. Eastern religions aim to eradicate the ego (who we think we are), while ignoring the soul (who we feel we are). The resultant attack on, or repression of, all thoughts and thinking (not just the self-centred neurosis) results in the complete denial of intelligent thought such as can be readily seen by the East’s lack of technological progress, appalling poverty, repression of women, theocratic empires, etc.

This attack on sensible thought is a traditional, ancient, spirit-ridden approach to what is essentially a neuro-biological problem. The spiritual search is a search for one’s roots and one’s original self which involves identifying with one’s primitive ‘self’ sourced in the amygdala – one’s soul or essential on-going instinctual genetic heritage. Having found, and become identified with, this ‘source’, one has found and identified with the ‘source of all’ – or God, by any other name. This backward-looking primitive approach is to favour, enhance and indulge in the instinctual passions, giving full reign to nurture and desire and translating them into the imaginary passions of Divine Love, Divine Compassion and Immortality. One transcends fear and aggression by regarding them as Evil or a ‘necessary’ temporal period of earthly suffering from which one is only ultimately freed after physical death. Having found, and become identified with, this ‘source’, one has found and identified with the ‘source of all’ – or God, by any other name.

This flight into myth and fantasy is but a discovery and cultivating of an ‘inner’ imaginary hiding place as a desperate attempt to escape from being factually aware of earthly human malice and sorrow that arises from the instinctual passions. It equates well with the childhood trick of huddling under the blankets and creating one’s own imaginary world, the only difference being the adult spiritualist’s ‘safe world’ exists solely in their heads and hearts – it has no place in actuality.

We now know that the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire are sourced in the primitive brain and are but the component parts of the single-pointed genetic programming instilled by blind nature purely in order to ensure the survival of the species. To continue to seek solace and succour in the ‘good’ half of the feelings arising from these animal passions while denying and transcending the other ‘bad’ half is to both deny intelligent thinking and modern empirical scientific research.