Written by Marshall Shumba, Author
Marshall Shumba is the founder of MS Inspiration and author of the book I Came I Saw I Became published in August 2024.
We have lived and interacted with millions of species, evolving alongside them. Our species increased in complexity with the development of a more creative brain, one capable of computing words and concepts, combining ideas across different domains of knowledge, and creating and understanding mental symbols and abstract thought. These key cognitive abilities allowed for gradual cultural changes, which scholars call "the big bang of human consciousness." This shift freed us from the grip of instinct, enabling advanced control over our biological endowments through thought and the internalization of socio-historical forces.
What were the positive outcomes of the big bang of human consciousness?
Dialogue developed through an improved understanding of our impulses.
Intention emerged from instincts.
Culture evolved from animal behavior.
We created history from nature.
Ethics became our smarter form of biological survival and social development.
What drove the development of human consciousness in our earliest ancestors?
The noble quest to comprehend and understand the nature of the universe and to make empowered decisions and adjustments to our livelihoods in tune with the dance of nature fueled our aspirations. As we learned, we experienced nature’s fortune and fate. Gradually, we became resilient and familiar with its behavioral patterns, which manifested through weather, ecosystems, and their influence on plant and animal life, food production patterns, and our health. We used this knowledge to our advantage, working to reduce evolutionary pressures on our lives. This improvement in our understanding enhanced our way of living in multiple contexts, allowing us to coexist with nature, study it alongside ourselves, and experiment with its laws for the betterment of human society as a whole.
How was life in primordial human society?
Folktales, fables, myths, songs, literature, allegories, and religious tales from diverse cultures and traditions across the earth seem to suggest a similar golden age, as described by Seneca in Greek mythology or the Taoist paradise of the Tao Te Ching. These stories depict a community that followed nature unspoiled, living in perfect unity with the whole. Leaders were chosen for their character, and no one could hold more power than another unless they served better. To govern was to serve, not to rule, but to protect the weaker. The more they sought to understand their biology and psychology, the more they understood the universe. There was no occasion to use the knowledge gained from nature to harm others, and it was this collective unity that ensured the survival and success of these filial generations.
What philosophy created meaning in the life of early human societies?
All knowledge of the other was, to a certain degree, knowledge of the self. Care and nurturance were valued above power and self-righteousness. Right was greater than might, and the shades of self were always defined through being a self in relationship.
Examples of this can be found in various teachings of the world’s religions. To name a few, the philosophy of Ubuntu in African traditions, based on the premise that "I am" only because "we are," affirms one’s humanity through the recognition of another. It suggests that humanity is a quality we owe to one another and create in each other.
The Hindu Upanishads state, "He who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, he does not hate anyone." The same text highlights the Sanskrit doctrine of Tat Tvam Asi, which literally means "I am that." This philosophy unites the universal consciousness with the individual expression of the self, asserting that all beings are intimately connected to universal energy and cannot be separated from it. Everything you think you are, and everything you think you perceive, is undivided.
The ethical implications of the Jewish Tikkun Olam also describe us as shards of light from the first universe. Our growth is intricately linked to our collective responsibility to care for others and the world around us.
How did the destructive culture in today’s world emerge?
The empirical knowledge we acquired over generations, in its measurable dimension, grew and worked for us. Life improved, freedom increased, and material differences between the knowledgeable, the knowledge itself, and others began to emerge. The finger that pointed to the moon became more important than the moon itself.
The problem was not the knowledge but that we forgot ourselves in the pursuit of it. We abandoned vital human aspects as excess baggage while ascending the staircase of civilization. The innocence that once kept us united was slowly marginalized in favor of the conscious pursuit of knowledge. As a result, the love that had given birth to this knowledge began to deplete, sacrificed for the intended results of intellectual advancement.
For this pursuit to continue, some form of order, achievable only through authority—had to be established in society. This required roles to be defined according to characteristics that the system deemed necessary within a particular context. Titles and offices were assigned based on that order, and with them came privileges.
The establishment of structures and hierarchies fragmented the unity that had once ensured our success. As we prioritized the external dimensions of intellectual competence and achievement, we lost harmony with the natural flow of life. Ethical responsibilities were gradually trivialized and ignored, and our connection to nature and each other weakened.
Why did we demote ethics over empirical knowledge?
The more we discovered new technology, innovated, produced, emulated, or accumulated, the better we became materially in society. Craftiness began to replace virtue, and our purity was diluted. The intellect developed and pursued its course, motivated by its measurable successes in making matter work for its gratification and survival. This gave birth to delusional perceptions where ruse was falsely identified as cleverness at the expense of human dignity. Craftiness replaced wisdom, communion became selective, compassion came with manipulation, and because simplicity was lost, the physical comfort, fame, wealth, and power that came with amassing material things became honorable. This resulted in the deification of matter and, ultimately, our enslavement to it.
To be socially recognized and functionally fit, everyone embraced the experiential knowledge of ephemeral and sentient matter, using this artificial knowledge and smartness to be "worthy" in society. In doing so, we lost our naturality.
Wants became needs
Having lost our grip on the rhythm of nature and atrophied originality, the temptation for perpetual control and fleeting luxuries became sweeter, and wants mutated into needs. The moment they became needs, and the joy in them was poisoned by the fear of losing them, selfishness, competition, envy, and other vices took hold. We began using almost anything suitable as a means to an end, developing a "smash and grab" attitude where we destroyed objects, people, and ideas that seemed to block our conquest. This extended to the creation of gods meant to prevent causes from having consequences, allowing vices to fester.
With knowledge of ourselves and the meaning of life incomplete, forgotten, and refracted by myth and magic, the vanity of glory and the impermanence of all things desecrated most of our intrinsic virtues. Our creativity dimmed, reducing human nature to a collection of dysfunctional individuals, internally preoccupied with personal health and security, often resorting to violence to obtain recognition and honor.
From that moment until today, we have sweated and whined about our conditions, becoming dissatisfied and consumed by the mania of ownership. We have reached a point where we kneel before others or force others to kneel before us, leading to frustration with life and the world itself. Unbeknownst to us, our unhappiness stems from distorted perception, skeptical knowledge, and mistaken views of the world. Our mistaken ethics and misguided habits of life have destroyed the natural connection to the energy upon which all happiness—whether of humans or animals—ultimately depends.
The illusion of power and dominion
Captured in the material realm and lost to the reality of the essence of life, we slid off the path of the universe and had nothing else to hold on to except that which, through fear, we falsely believed was created by knowledge: power. A low-order factor, it is so dull in creativity that it cannot go beyond what is finite.
The irony is that, in the privacy of our inner selves, we knew how blind and inferior our admired, fear-based instrument of conquest was. Yet we began lying to ourselves and others, saying that "love is blind" when, in reality, it was power that was blind. We embraced a vehicle with no sight or brakes, a lower-order function that dismally fails to see that its existence depends entirely on an infinitely higher order that is not itself. Clouded by this ignorance, it plunges straight into the pit of self-destruction. Because of its poor vision and wild nature, the eye of power is clouded by fear and suspicion of everything that comes before it. Often deceiving itself, it fears anything new or unfamiliar and is quick to confront and destroy.
That has been the summary of human history up to today. If you doubt this, listen to the news right now.
What lessons did we miss from nature that caused the destructive culture?
Through our obsession with external comforts, sensual gratification, security, predictability, and immortality, we invested time and energy into a "drill, babe, drill" mentality. This mindset focused on producing material and physical benefits, driven by the conviction that our unhappiness stemmed from a deficiency of material possessions and amenities. We believed that, to end suffering, the external world had to be changed, ignorant of the fact that all this could achieve was a distraction from the root cause of our pain, our forgetfulness and separation from our originality.
Beyond that, we failed to see that the very things we sought for happiness were the same things that brought our discontent. The exclusive pursuit of comfort simply created new needs and awkward dependencies.
Our knowledge fell short of integrative and cooperative principles that align with how living systems organize themselves at all levels in nature. Based on these principles, true knowledge must nourish the body, mind, and soul. In doing so, it appeals to the spiritual consciousness of people, just as food becomes part of our bloodstream and sustains life beyond the domain of our physiology.
True knowledge empowers us to learn in communion with organisms lower than us, with the understanding that, if they can physically improve our well-being through food, nutrition, genes, and other resources, it is also possible that they can teach us how to live in harmony with nature. However, over centuries, we became addicted to isolation, control, exploitation, and manipulation, deluded by the belief that we have dominion over nature.
Read more from Marshall Shumba
Marshall Shumba, Author
Marshall Shumba writes self-help fiction inspired by real-life experiences and focused on the evolution of human consciousness and growth beyond human intellect and conventionality. The versatile style of his books displays well-researched scientific facts weaved through philosophical concepts that make his work a marvel to read.
