Transcendence through evolution
This awakening from the dream of existence is a transcendence of the normal consciousness to a supernormal level, which is extremely rare in the world. It is seen as an evolutionary level of the human consciousness. The human consciousness, obviously, must evolve to a higher level some day. The normal human being is not at the highest evolutionary level. This is why there is so much crime, war and mental sickness prevalent in the world today. The Buddhists believe that, individuals do evolve beyond this level from time to time, and it has occurred in the past. Buddhists believe that the teaching of the Buddha is a description of the path of evolution of the human being. They also believe that the Buddha represents that fully evolved state, and his perfected disciples were also fully evolved individuals. They were those who had transcended the normal consciousness.
Buddhists also believe that it is this transcendence that all religions describe as union with God. Buddhists call it “awakening from the dream of existence.” The normal consciousness is aware of a “self existing in the world” while the supernormal consciousness is aware of the mental process that creates this “world” and the “self” in it, through the process of perception. By becoming aware of the process of perception, the reality of the “world” and the “self” is lost. This is the awakening from the dream of existence. Just as a magician looking at a magic show sees no magic in it, the one who has awakened from the dream of existence has seen how the process of perception creates the world and all the objects in it, including oneself, and therefore he sees nothing really existing, either subjective or objective. This is not a fact unknown to modern psychologists and philosophers, but they don’t normally take it seriously into their everyday life, because the normal human being, although quite rational, is dominated by emotions which are blind.
This transcendence of the normal human consciousness can be viewed as the culmination of the evolutionary process, spoken of by Charles Darwin. He pointed out that evolution takes place because of a “struggle for existence.” He spoke of a “survival of the fittest,” but in reality, no individual survived, only the species continued. Every molecule that was formed had to break down, because it was dependent on the necessary conditions. It was the energy released by this breaking down that was used to build a new one. So the struggle continued but no individual survived. This means, only a struggle to exist continues, but no individual continues to exist. In other words this struggle is a failure. The continuity of this futile struggle is only a continuity of suffering? Every atom, every molecule, every thought and every emotion is in a continuous process of coming and going. Existence is a static concept, but life is a dynamic process of change, like the water in a river that is changing all the time. It is not the same river that one sees the next moment. This is why Heraclitus of Ephesus said, “one cannot enter the same river twice.” In a similar way, the baby that is born is not the girl or boy that gets married; similarly the old person that dies is not the girl or boy who got married. A person or individual is not a static entity, but a dynamic process of change like a wave in the ocean. Does a wave really exist? Does a changing process really exist? Is it only when the change is found to be slow that we tend to form the static concept – existence? If so, do we, you and I, really exist? “Existence is an illusion,” or more appropriately a “delusion.” If we can accept this, we will be immortal, because if we do not exist, how can we grow old or die? This immortality is not eternal life. It is freedom from the “delusion of existence.” This is the immortality shown by the Buddha, which can be gained through the evolution of consciousness. When the human consciousness has evolved, to the level where this truth has been fully comprehended, but in the absence of interfering blind emotions, the struggle for existence stops. This is why Buddhist meditation is of two types: first freeing the mind of emotions (samatha), and then only developing the thinking faculty (vipassana).
This process called life, which started as an unusual molecule that was able to absorb atoms from its surroundings and create molecules of its own kind, made a terrible mistake quite unconsciously. When, through the evolutionary process, the human animal became conscious, and able to think rationally, unhindered by emotions, he became aware of the mistake of struggling to exist. He realized that it was only a struggle to become permanent in an impermanent world. It was a futile struggle where only disappointment and frustration persisted. Becoming aware of this fact, the wise human animal stopped the futile struggle, and thereby stopped not only the process of evolution itself, but also all sufferings connected with illusory existence.