The Artificial Human
The destruction of an organism depends upon an element of that organism becoming neurotic to its place within the natural order of organic life. If a species builds their perspective of life only within a linear conception, that very species would naturally have a propensity to fall into an artificial disposition. Could we say that the human race has fallen into this artificial disposition?
Humanity surely must admit that they have lost contact with the nonlinear circuitry of our minds which is the aspect of our mind that connects us to the natural rhythms of the planet. Remarkably, animals never lose contact with the natural order of life, and they all play their part in the constant unfoldment of organic life. Yet contrary to this, the human race has become totally dependent upon external influences which hypnotize the individual into a linear perception of growth through external means and pleasurable experiences. Our dependency upon acquiring a pleasurable experience or stimuli is enhancing a schism within the psyche which expresses itself as a constant pursuit of control that in reality leads to an artificiality within the human-being. Our use of technology is a testament to that fact.
The excessive use of technology depends on the artificial aspect of the psyche. Evidence of this artificiality is rife within the current technological age. The average individual uses technology not in the essence of attempting to grow both naturally and spiritually, but instead majority are only concerned with using technology as a device for entertainment which keeps one in a perpetual state of hypnosis. Most individuals cannot go one day without turning on the television, or checking their emails and social media networks. People are constantly clinging to a smartphone, laptop, tablet, etc., which is detaching one from what really “is.”
The artificial human is always striving for fame and fortune through a glowing monitor which fills that empty void in their lives. Nobody is truly that popular that we need to be checking our smartphone every five seconds. An individual does this because most people long to be accepted by others which proves that the majority of humanity has self-worth issues deep within. Even the spiritual charlatans who appear on numerous television programs are addicted to their smartphone, yet they arrogantly parade around like a guru telling people to go beyond the limitations of the mind but they themselves fail to understand that to be incessantly on a smartphone is over stimulating mental activity and thus is an act of the mind. Our belief that we do not belong to each other and the planet is the very reason we seek acceptance from others. Seeking acceptance from others is again to depend on external influences, as if we were a machine rather than human. The predominant use of technology then is to desensitize and dehumanize the individual into an artificial machine. Machine in this case, is the artificial robotic function of an individual’s psychology and physical welfare.
Our entire world is built on the premise that society and culture is what helps the individual grow rather than the individual growing of their own volition. Culture and society themselves and all of their apparatuses, such as government and politics, are all built on the maintenance of the linear concept of the world. So culture, society and everything that holds them together are artificial because nature’s constituents abide by the nonlinear realm of the cosmos. Culture and society in this sense are what is being mythologized through many artistic outlets, such as film, because culture and society is depicted as the artificial machine which dictates its influence over the natural human.
The external influence of culture and society is what creates an artificial robotic human, as all machines are controlled from the outside. We all feel this either consciously or unconsciously, and this is what drives most into the comforting arms of a cyber-world which is not tangible. The social and cultural machine teaches the individual that they can never be like the celebrities that the culture promotes and so to be “successful” one ought to mimic those celebrities to gain acceptance from others who are under the same hypnosis. This kind of parroting lasts a very short time as most figure out that they will never attain the fame and fortune of those so called celebrities they are mimicking. So one variably retreats into an online world where they can build another artificial persona to hide behind.
The online cyber world that most are drawn into is transforming the way we interact and express ourselves to others. Increasingly, people are finding it hard to communicate to others face to face without the assistance of a social media chat box. This form of cyber communication tends to develop false habits and tendencies on the part of those who are engrossed by that world. People develop habits and tendencies of being rude, arrogant, a sense of always being right, machoism, etc., which are all attributes that most would not express to another face to face. In the field of psychology, this sort of behavior would be deemed schizophrenic, yet humanity parade around as if this sort of behavior is perfectly sane.
No one can be sure where we are heading as a species, but if we lose our sense of communication, we will continue to deteriorate as our faculty to sympathize and understand another will be completely lost to our own individual agenda for the world. The miscommunication has already begun between society and the individual, as for thousands of years we have had a cultural and social machine that only imposes its Will over the individual rather than listening to their needs of the time. In the perpetual tyranny of society and culture over the individual, we discover that humanity is only attracted to the artificiality of the hand that supposedly feeds them. The artificial world imposed on the individual discombobulates them into believing that a plastic world is a natural world. This perception of plasticity is not only bound to the way we abuse our relationship with technology, but it has also infiltrated the way we consume food and beverage.
Essentially, all people crave pure natural food and clean drinking water, yet astonishingly, most people in the world are attracted to lifeless food, dead water and needless material objects. People absurdly spend most of their money on needless objects such as a car or a mortgage for a home, but they will not part with their money when it comes to organically grown food. The artificial human ignorantly abuses their health so they can appear “successful” to others within the society.
Surely a perfectly sane individual would spend majority of their earnings on the foundation of life which is healthy food and clean drinking water. Yet, the artificial human is only drawn into the growing plasticity of the world and this not only includes wasting our precious time through vain entertainment found on numerous technological devices and needless material objects, but it also includes the way in which we bombard our senses with so called tasty food and beverage that in most cases are devoid of nutrition and vitality. The majority of people on this planet have substituted their health for a corporate health which comes predominately in a plastic covering. Our supermarkets are filled with food, yet 90% of that food is presented in a nicely packaged plastic container of numerous varieties.
In the artificial world an individual salivates when they visualize the shiny plastic covering with the popular brand logo that people have identified with from the countless advertisements which have infiltrated their subconscious mind. One hypnotically believes that this artificial presentation of food is the surefire way to good health and longevity. In the modern trend of plasticity, we would rather buy a box of soft drink and a bag of crisps for the family, which both are devoid of nutrition, instead of a basket full of organic raw fruit and vegetables full of nutrition and vitality.
The question we need to ask ourselves sincerely is, why would we choose the former over the latter? In answering this question we reveal a psychosis that has developed within the mind from the social and cultural indoctrination of artificiality. For example, when most people choose to purchase a delicious lettuce, they invariably have two options, the first option is a bright and super clean bunch of green lettuce leaves sealed in a plastic container with no indication that it came out of soil. The second option is usually a full lettuce with all leaves intact. This lettuce is in most cases not as bright and clean as the first because soil is found still clinging to the plant which validates its short time in being separated from the Earth. Yet, the second option is the healthy and natural option, but remarkably nine out of ten people would choose the first option which points vaguely to our answer. This example answers the question of why humanity would rather a clean and presentable product over a natural and nutritious one. But the answer is not in the physical attraction, as it is a psychological disease that most are infected with.
The reason why most choose the clean artificial product over the natural product is because the physical act symbolizes an outward purity which is demonstrated to veil the psychological impurity gained from external influences. This is a typical psychological reaction. The fashion game expresses this psychological impurity the best, where individuals demean themselves into following group trends which annihilates our unique individuality.
The artificial human believes they need to poison their body with chemical makeup and dress like everybody else to look the part according to what is acceptable to the culture and society. In not understanding that we are innately beautiful, we seek beauty in relation to other people’s opinions. One believes that the artificial or in other words conditioned side of the psyche is pure, yet in deep introspection one will discover that any form of plasticity exists to suppress the real purity which is found beneath those illusionary sheaths. All of this hypnosis is achieved through the pacification of the senses. We seek only pleasure in life according to what over stimulates the senses.
The pacification of the senses suppresses our true nature which is found beyond the senses. A common motif within most mystical traditions is that of the “nine gates,” and how one needs to guard the nine gates. The nine gates are those parts of the human body that are susceptible to excessive stimulation from the external world. The nine gates are made up of two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, mouth, penis/vagina and the anus. The spiritual implications of guarding or being protective of these nine gates is that the more conscious you are of what you take into your physical organism, the more you will become aware of the indwelling spirit or atman in Sanskrit which is your true nature and Being. When the spirit or atman is revealed to your awareness, the creative power of the universe begins to emanate from your entire Being. This creative power can only be found once one has stopped the incessant pursuit of bodily pleasures that continue to exhaust one’s vital energy. Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect and esotericist Rudolf Steiner once stated,
“We see that the moment the senses cease their activity, creative power asserts itself in man. It is the same creative power which is present in absolutely dreamless sleep, and then recuperates man’s exhausted forces.”
The compulsion to acquire excess through the senses exhausts the creative forces latent within us. The pleasure we tirelessly seek and the pain we try to ignore becomes an endless journey of suffering, like a dog chasing its own tail. Obesity and drug abuse are the result of this endless search for pleasure. Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and many other drug pollutants are what most individuals identify with as a pleasurable experience, but unbeknown to them, these toxins are detrimental to the harmonious function of the heart and mind. And on top of this we have the fast food industry who pretend to be a friend of the consumer with tantalizing commercials that try and showcase their food with a pleasurable experience. But astonishingly the fast food industry offers no help for the victim of their toxic food when one is dying of heart disease.
To be conscious of what one takes in through the senses is for one to begin the process of discarding that artificial aspect of themselves which they have acquired. We are not only speaking about what we take in through our mouth or our animalistic sex life, but we are also referring to what we take in through our eyes and ears. Most forms of entertainment do not enhance your creative potential but instead they distract you from it. A physically and mentally toxic individual is usually attracted to vain entertainment because their thoughts have become impure from what one eats and drinks. Thought itself is the sixth sense which the modern world do not acknowledge. In the ancient Hindu philosophy of Vedanta found in India, thought is the sixth sense of a human-being that corresponds to all other senses and is stimulated by what we consume through the other five sense organs. Encoded within the ancient Egyptian symbolism of the “Eye of Horus” (see Figure 1) we discover the same six sense system as that of the Indian Vedanta.
(Figure 1)
Both ancient systems understand that the vibration of thought can become artificial if the other five senses are poorly treated. This demonstrates one interpretation of the age old saying “you are what you eat.” But it is through the eyes and ears that a large portion of thought vibrations can be distorted. We become so busy within our thoughts that we end up identifying with the thoughts rather than the one who is the witness of the thoughts. We pacify the sense of thought through the artificiality of external influences that hypnotize us with a belief that we are what is coming through the senses.
Most people describe themselves to others from what they like and dislike or what they do as either a hobby or profession, yet these descriptions are only acquired from the sense perceptible world and are in fact an inaccurate assessment of who you truly are. The artificial human is mainly constructed on the premise that what you like and dislike or what you do is actually you. If the sense of thought is not made conscious within oneself, then the sense of thought begins to identify with the artificial illusions of the world which destroys the health of a Being on the physical, mental and spiritual planes of consciousness. Thought begins to terrorize the human body as the sense of thought only identifies with pleasure rather than knowing what the body “needs.” As a result of this both the body and the mind begin to fragment into separate parts and not work in unison. Progressive rock and intelligent metal band Tool refers to this separation within their translucent song Lateralus,
“Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.”
All of this unnecessary thinking is keeping humanity in an artificial state of consciousness. The average individual has a multitude of personalities but no center of gravity. The artificial human has built a rock solid persona on pleasure, but as soon as pain comes, this rock solid persona is blown over like a house of cards. In this sense humanity is still in a state of infancy, as when the natural experience of pain comes, we whine and cry like a baby and hurriedly seek to bypass that pain with an artificial pleasure.
If you are bound to pleasure, then this sense perceptible world will always veil the “real” you which is at your spiritual core. This pursuit of pleasure has infiltrated many ideologies that most people adore, such as religion, but as a result of this our religions like everything else has become artificial because they are built on a linear conception. In this wrong perception, God exists somehow “out there,” which is an illusion built on the identification with the six senses. This is the artificial God that most religions speak of and ignorantly kill each other over in the modern era.
An individual’s God is identified with pleasure, so the individual like the religion give anthropomorphic form to God and anything else that is mysterious to the intellect. The artificial world will always try and steer the individual away from a sincere self-observation of themselves because the illusion of the identity that we have built according to our senses will crumble if the mystical reality of what we interpret as God is known. And that natural essence which we call God is found beyond the senses. The meaning and purpose of life is not in the sense perceptible world, one has to transcend those parameters to bring forth the natural human in a world dying of an identity crisis. In a world that is dying at the hand of an artificial linear system of limitations, we are in dire need of a natural nonlinear spontaneity that will reveal a world beyond the confines of our sense pleasures.
Published by
OM Times Magazine & Website
http://editions.omtimes.com/magazine/2013-07-d/files/85.html