Countercheating the Genes
In order to countercheat the genes we need to understand in what way they have cheated us. As James Burke says, "If you don't know how you got somewhere, you don't know where you are." And if we don't know where we are, how shall we know where to go? We must understand how we've been cheated by the genes.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast. But why? After all your disappointments in love, and your frustrations, after being abandoned by your loved ones and your friends, and after finding that your own love is inconstant, still your intuition knows that love is true. Your intuition knows that freedom is true, although we never reach it here, and your intuition knows that peace is true. That intuition is just the nature of the real peeking through. Peace and freedom and love are just Asti-Bhati-Priya. They are just the nature of the reality seen through space and time. The oneness, which we see in the hydrogen as gravity, we feel in ourselves as love. The infinitude, which we see in the hydrogen as electricity, we feel in ourselves as our yearning for freedom. And the changelessness, which we see in the hydrogen as inertia, we feel in ourselves as our longing for peace. It is the Asti-Bhati-Priya referred to earlier. That is what drives whatever is driven, whether animate or inanimate. And, because there are no other drives to catch hold of, the genes have caught hold of those drives and re-directed them to drive us to the fulfillment of their biological necessities.
A gene pool survives if, and only if, the genetic programming is such that the individual organisms fulfill certain biological necessities. At least the organisms must find and use a source of negative entropy, and must make some arrangement to pass on the genetic code. In our own case the fulfillment of these necessities has become somewhat complicated. Instead of just breathing, which is complicated enough, we make arrangements to breathe under water with scuba gear and submarines, and we have even carried a breathable atmosphere to the moon. Instead of just eating what we find, as a chimpanzee would, we breed edible plants and animals. We have farmers and ranchers and fishermen. And that's not all We have cooks. We have invented such elaborate methods of preparing food that certain restaurants enjoy a world-wide reputation. Instead of just sleeping when tired, as so many animals do, we have beds and blankets, tents and sleeping hags, houses and mansions. And last, though certainly not least, our arrangements for passing on the genetic code have become so elaborate and so varied that whole cultures have grown up around them.
Our search for the changeless has been channelled by the genes to the preservation of our seeming self identities, our egos, and to the enjoyment of rest and recreation. Our search for the infinite has been channelled to the direction of a stream of negative entropy upon our bodies and to the manifestation of power, to the pursuit of freedom for the body and the ego. But the body and the ego constitute the cage, not the lion. There may be such a thing as the freedom of a lion from the cage, but there is no talk of freedom for the cage. Likewise there may be freedom from the ego, but there is no such thing as freedom of the ego. Similarly our search for oneness, our search for love, has been channelled by the genes to drive us to undertake actions which lead, not to the undivided, but to the bearing of genetic offspring. And, because our intuition knows that love is true, we have surrounded this genetic channelling with all sorts of romance and glamour — so much poetry, so many songs' But however complicated our patterns of fulfillment of these necessities have become, they are simply biological necessities which we are genetically programmed to fulfill, and every one of us is descended from a long line of ancestors no one of whom failed to fulfill them. None of us is descended from a line of monks and nuns, and there lies our central problem. Although we are descended from large-brained primates, the manner of our genetic programming that is, the method by which the programming is built in, is such that it has never been required that our genetic understanding of this universe should be correct. It was required only that it should be adequate for staying alive and for bearing viable offspring. It was never required that we see space and time as opposites, or that we understand the origin of what we see as gravity. The equations of relativity theory were required to correct our native understanding of space, time and gravity, which most probably we hold in common with the sea-gulls and the dogs.
We are all programmed to fulfill these biological necessities but fulfilling them does not fulfill our yearnings. The fulfillment of a biological necessity does not confer on the organism the fulfillment of the yearning that drives it. The yearning has been borrowed by the genes. The yearning is our vision of the real. There is Just the changeless, the infinite, the undivided, seen through the screen of time space and causation, which drives both the quick and the dead. So long as the meal is not eaten, the yearning, channelled by the genes to the fulfillment of that necessity, drives the mind. Once the meal is eaten, once the biological necessity has been fulfilled, the mind is dropped like a wasted rag. That is why we meditate before we eat. So long as the actions required for passing the genetic code to a future generation have not been engaged in, the yearning drives the mind. As soon as they are completed, as soon as the biological necessity has been fulfilled, the mind is dropped like a wasted rag. That is why we practice Brahmacharya (monasticism). Unless, by cheating the genes of the biological fulfillment, we can turn the drive back to the real, what hope is there? The genes are the greatest cheaters in the world. They promise, through action, through transformational causation, to give us the changeless, the infinite, the undivided. But they cannot. Monasticism, and all Sadhana, is an effort to countercheat the genes, to correct our genetic misunderstandings, and, by re- directing our primary drives, which have been led astray by the genes, to turn them, once again, toward the unclouded vision of the real.
Our minds are scattered by seeing the one as many. "As rain water, falling on a mountain peak, runs down the rocks in all directions; even so he who sees the Dharmas (the Asti-Bhati-Priya) as separate, runs after them in all directions." Kathopanishad. Whether as father, mother, children, wife or friend, or whether as peace or freedom or whatever, it is the real alone which we have sought, and that alone which we have perceived all along. There is nothing else to perceive. As Swamiji said, we do not go from error to truth but from truth to higher truth. But through genetic manipulation, the desires of the ego have become proliferated, and there lies our problem. But the ego itself is genetic, and there lies our hope. As Sri Ramakrishna said, when the ego dies, all troubles cease.
The ego is simply a genetic invention arising from the necessary discrimination between the organism and its environment entailed in the direction of a stream of negative entropy upon itself. And Sadhana consists, essentially, of countercheating the genes at this point. It consists in re-directing that power of discrimination from fulfillment of the biological necessities to the discrimination between the real and the genetic make-believe.
Probably the sanest approach is that of Buddha, simply to recognize that the ego is an invention and transfer one's concern to the welfare of others — Bahujana hitaya bahujana sukhaya, for the good of the many, for the happiness and the welfare of the many. Swamiji wanted to see the worship of Daridra Narayana, God in the form of the poor. He wanted to see the Ganga running white with the washing of rice for feeding the poor. Worship is serving where service is needed, whether the offering be food or education or spiritual illumination. Let each serve where he can!
The countercheating device most used by the Advaita Vedantins is what they call the discrimination between the perceiver and the perceived. They make the discrimination, not between the organism and its environment as dictated by the genes, but between the perceiver and the perceived, and that discrimination puts the body of the organism in the perceived. It puts death in the perceived. Sri Ramakrishna used to speak of the ripe and the unripe ego. The unripe ego is the genetic ego. The discrimination is made between the organism and its environment, and the ego feels itself to be the doer, the knower, the enjoyer. In point of fact, the ego is not the doer. What we feel as our vital energy is not our own. It arises by apparition as the negative entropy of the primordial hydrogen. We simply direct a stream of that negative entropy upon our bodies from outside, from what we feel to be the external environment. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that only an ignorant person feels that he is the doer. Without that feeling, he becomes liberated in life. Man's sufferings and worries spring only from his persistent thought that he is the doer. What we see as action arises through Asti-Bhati-Priya, through the nature of the real showing through in the apparition. It is what Sri Ramakrishna referred to as Mother, the Divine Mother, the Blissful Mother, whom he used to say is made of consciousness. When he said, "Not I, but Thou," it was to her that he referred. The ripe ego, he said, is one that no longer says "I, I," but "Thou, Thou" He said that if this ego cannot be got rid of then let the rascal remain as the servant or the child. That is, let it assume some interpersonal relationship, some genetic relationship, with the real. To re-direct one's genetic relationships in this way, away from the biological necessities which they were invented to fulfill, is, once again, to countercheat the genes. And the particular vistas which unfold before the eyes of the aspirant, the Sadhaka, are shaped in part, by the particular relationship, or relationships, which he chooses to follow in his approach to the real.
Each life is like a separate piece of music. Each of us has his own past experiences to interpret, to understand and to use in his pursuit of truth. Each has his own favorite relationships which, when turned away from the fulfillment of the genetic necessities, may constitute, for him, his most powerful tool. Each of us has his own trail, and each sees his own vistas.
God is simply our highest vision of the real within the magic of Maya, within the clouds of the apparition. Each aspirant sees his own vision colored by his own past, both genetic and personal, and by his own expectations. Much colored by genetic expectations, we may see the real as personal. Colored by some other expectations, we may see it as impersonal. But the real is one. The snow-clad mountain peak is one, seen from whatever point of view, from east or west, whether lit by the rosy hues of dawn or by the blazing midday sun. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that God is both personal and impersonal, both formless and with form, and many are His forms which no one sees. He used to say that God's forms are like the icebergs frozen from the formless ocean by the intense cold of devotion, and subject to being melted away in the warm sun of knowledge. The forms which we see are dictated largely by our own genetic past, but the real which we see in those forms is beyond the reach of Maya. We see God as Mother because primate babies take a long time to grow up and require a great deal of maternal care and affection. We owe the largeness of our brains, and all our Sadhana, to that. But the notion of mother will not so easily arise among the lizards or the fish. The Advaitins speak of four means of attainment which one must have if one is to see beyond the screen of this apparition: The discrimination between the real and the transient. The renunciation of the enjoyment of the fruits of action. The six treasures, calmness and the rest. And the yearning for liberation.
The root cause of our trouble is that we have mistaken the rope for a snake and become snake fanciers. We have mistaken the changeless for the changing and seek our satisfaction in the changes. We have seen the real, which is one, as Asti-Bhati-Priya, which is many, and we run after it in all directions, watching the broken moonlight dance to extinction in the waves. Our problem is to discriminate, not between the organism and the environment, which is a genetic discrimination, but, through an intellectual override, to discriminate between the real and the unreal. That is the root notion of Jnana Yoga, the path of knowledge. On the basis of this discrimination, we must give up the notion that we have anything to gain through action. That is the root idea behind Karma Yoga, the path of action. Action is to be done for others, without any expectation of return. The feeling that through action, through transformational causation within the apparition of space and time, we can attain the fulfillment of our primary yearnings, is at the base of our thralldom to the genes. Actions arise within the apparition by Asti-Bhati-Priya. The hydrogen is driven in contrary ways by inertia, electricity and gravity, and we, by our yearning for peace and love and freedom. This world is made of frustration, and our hope for fulfillment through such actions is no more than a genetic mirage.
Shankara says that this discrimination and renunciation are like the two wings of a bird, in the case of a man. Without both, he cannot reach the creeper of liberation that grows, as it were, on the top of an edifice.
The six treasures, calmness, self-control, the withdrawal of the mind from sense objects, forbearance, the enthusiastic conviction that the goal can be reached, and the resting of the mind on the real — all these six arise from the control of the mind. This control of the mind is the central idea in what is called Raja Yoga, the royal path. The mind is the instrument of our Sadhana, our bus, if you like. Knowledge and discrimination set the direction of our wheels, and renunciation drives the wheels along the road by pushing the road behind us. Progress is as much away from our point of origin as toward our destination. But our knowledge and discrimination as well as our renunciation are in the mind; so the mind must be kept strong if we are to reach the goal. It is through the mind that we feel our genetic programming, and through the mind that we must redirect it. Both bondage and freedom are in the mind.
Our yearning for freedom is said to be the fourth means of attainment. This yearning for freedom from the thralldom of the genes arises through knowledge, through discrimination. This devotion to the real arises through experience and through the conviction that our genetic drives are borrowed, that what we seek as peace and love and freedom exists only in the real. Even what the hydrogen seeks exists there alone. Seen within space and time, whether in us or in the hydrogen, it is a three-way frustration. Falling together by gravity is the opposite of flying apart by electricity, and both are the opposite of quiescence, or remaining inert. This yearning for the real is the basis of Bhakti Yoga, the path of devotion. Its essential practice is countercheating the genes by re-directing the genetic drives. If you must love, love Him! If you must hate, hate Him! Any genetic relationship, whether God is seen as father, mother, child, friend or loved one, may be used as a pole-star to guide the traveler through the tackless jungles of this phenomenal world.
Our problem is somehow to get from where we are to the goal, whether by knowledge or devotion, whether by skill in action or by control of the mind. Knowing the map, our task is to embark on our final pilgrimage.