Science and the materialists say we’re apes. Traditional teachings say the same, to a point.

This shouldn’t be an observation that alarms anyone, though of course it’s a common tendency to desire to be special and view oneself as somehow separated from the animal; and we are, ideally.

Part of what sets us apart from our animal selves is our active, rational selves. And yet what heavily dominates this realm are illusory phenomena suspended over underlying sensual, genetic, and economic/political drives.

We’re ruled all the same by the general animal measures of fear, hunger, sex, claiming, defending, sleeping, etc. The problem is that for most of us the existence we live is less than ‘human’, subject to these laws alone at best. Indeed these motivations can occupy most, if not all, of our energies. Fear manifests in our many anxieties in life, hunger ties itself to the work we do to assure our needs and the satisfaction of any number of other desires, sex in its basest, loveless form is a constant concern for many I think most would agree, etc.

“The only business of animals is eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. You may call this the struggle for existence. They are simply trying to live; they have no other ambition. If a man, having attained the human stage, is interested only in these things, he is no better than an animal. Nowadays, these are being taught by modern civilization. They teach you how to live comfortably with a car, a bungalow, a girl friend, and restaurants. All living entities in this material world have the propensity to enjoy. On one platform, the living entity enjoys certain types of pleasure, but he is always wanting more. It is the spirit of material enjoyment that brings about the disease of materialistic life.” ~ Srila Prabhupada, Dialectic Spiritualism.

In one, external, view we’re an incredible result of millions of years of evolution and we rest contented with this. And yet from a spiritual, inner perspective we represent unrealized potential: animals lacking any higher, transcendent qualities. Yet the pursuit of this inner development, the Traditional definition of Intelligence, becomes nearly impossible when dominated by externals – to the point where in a total inversion the one who is the most successful in satisfying the previously mentioned drives is regarded as the most intelligent and self realized: ‘escaping the matrix’ some instances are ironically called.

None of this is to say that the animal part of us and its drives are inherently negative. When directed correctly they can even lead to realizations of higher ideals. Much of ‘public’ religion can be an appropriate means through which to achieve transcendence for such people; a perfectly acceptable path. If everyone ‘escaped the matrix’ in the truer, unironic, sense from the general measures of life the world would end. The ‘mysteries’ and the ‘esoteric’  are only for a few who are called to and have the opportunity for it.

Twice Born

We often hear or read in religious settings talk of second births, or more likely in the west being “born again.” The Traditional view is that this animalistic state dominated by both biology and our physical and mental environments marks our first birth; while initiation into genuine spiritual life marks the second, the event when the animal gives way to the true human being. In Hinduism the nature of the Brahmana, Kshatriya and Vaishya castes make for the possibility to be twice-born, while the Shudra path follows public salvation under correctly guided and believed in teachings, rites and myths.

What this involves is striving to transcend externals, the general law dominated by biology, environment and the like in order to realize one’s True Self. This also doesn’t imply that it’s a process that can automatically happen through material means: it needs to be a deliberate, self-willed choice with conscious effort. The kind of state of being that is absent from those of us who more or less go through life on a kind of autopilot dictated by externals.

To those interested in political and social institutions as being the means for change and the source for the world’s issues: the Traditional view is that the source is rather from within man himself (this also supersedes the biological obsession we see many so-called ‘traditionalists’ have with race), both of evil and true change. Tradition looks to the moral and spiritual regeneration of humanity, and from this comes earthly transformation. Salvation wont come from politics.

The noble among us aren’t dominated from without nor does dominating others make one so, rather they are those who dominate themselves, and from within comes real change to things outside of them and to those around them.