Why?

Eduardo del Buey
La Jornada Maya

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Human beings have spent most of their collective existence trying to understand where they come from.

Religions have had their say, everything from Adam and Eve to Zeus and the Greek gods, not to mention Hindu scriptures, Buddhist ideas and Islamic visions. The concept of a creative deity has been a historical reality for thousands of years.

Scientists have also had their day.

Darwin and his followers have brought to bear a vision of the evolution of life from the dawn of time from simple bacteria to more advanced human beings. Others have gone back to the building blocks of matter – atoms and sub-atomic particles – in an attempt to explain the fundamentals of existence.

Yet others have gone from creationism to the big bang theory to explain the origins of the universe.

All of this seeks to explain how – how the universe came into being, how it has expanded, how life began, and how it has developed throughout the eons of existence.

But the question I have increasingly asked myself is “why”.

Why does the universe exist?

Why do human life and consciousness exist?

Why does each of us exist, each with his or her own story, origin, and destiny?

Where do we come from, and where are we going?

And why, especially, why?

Why does a creative force seek to grow and expand through evolution rather than simply begin at the end result?

Why does a creative force grow and develop within each of us?

Why do we ascribe to this universal creative force human qualities? Why do many of us believe that it has created the universe as a seemingly personal project? Why has it created human life in a seemingly capricious manner?

Does anyone know?

Can any religious, scientific, or spiritual leader or belief respond with any certainty?

Or does the answer lie inside each and every one of us, within our own intuition – that which makes me “me”?

The answer to “why am I”, and “why am I here”, why I am coming from whence I came, and why I am going to whence I go?

The reason for our own existence, and not just the process of existence.

If one is religious, then one has accepted the experiences of others and adopted them as their own.

But if one hasn’t, then one depends upon one’s own experience and intuition to arrive at some conclusion.

Either way, this leads to many questions, some of which we may never answer.

For example, if God is perfect, complete, and good (assuming that God has human attributes, since perfection and goodness are human values), why did he or she need to pursue a creation that is in and of itself imperfect and ever changing? If God is love (another human attribute), why does the world appear to be full of evil and hatred, suffering and loss, as well as goodness and joy?

If one is a scientist, what existed before the “big bang” and why did it occur? Who or what created the components and circumstances that contributed to the “big bang” and why? Who or what lit the spark of creativity and evolution and why?

Indeed, as Charles Darwin once observed, “if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came and how it arose”.

To this I add: why did it occur?

Science teaches us that every effect has a cause, and every cause has an effect.

Everything in the cosmos has a mathematical relationship with its environment. If we come across other intelligent life forms in the universe, we may well find that the language of mathematics may actually be the lingua franca that opens up a dialogue between interstellar species.

But if all is bound by cause and effect, then what of human existence? Why are some born rich, others poor, some healthy and some deformed, some intelligent and creative and others rather dull and plodding?

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Photo: Reuters

Is this the result of a capricious God (again, a human attribute), playing favorites for His or Her amusement, or is there rhyme or reason for discrepancies among human beings and their individual existences?

Indeed, is considering an anthropomorphic God our first mistake in assessing the reality of the universe? Is treating God as an evolved being with human characteristics rather than an eternal unknowable a fair exercise? The Bible says that God created man in His image. Has man returned the compliment, creating a human-like God to prevent him from exploring life further?

Or are those religions that place God beyond human comprehension and identity more in tune with reality?

If so, does the process of life before birth and life after death explain the reasons for the differences in all of our lives that go beyond the need to give a fickle God human attributes?

Is this reality a result of what came before our current existence and what will come after we are gone from this plane?

If so, does this explain the belief of many spiritual movements in the phenomenon of reincarnation and the laws of karma without putting the blame on God for the ills that humanity faces on a daily basis?

Are we, and not God, fundamentally responsible for our actions?

These are difficult questions because the answers lie within each individual.

Someone recently asked me about my beliefs.

I responded: “what does chocolate taste like?”

He looked at me quizzically and said that he couldn’t explain it.

I responded that asking about spiritual beliefs are like asking what chocolate taste like. One can speak about chocolate for hours but, until the other person has actually tasted it and experienced it, the explanation has no place in reality.

The same goes for spiritual awareness.

If one believes in God, or in reincarnation, then spiritual development from one life to the next is understandable. If one’s intuition tells one that this is reality, then life makes infinitely more sense than it does to those who have no intuitive feeling for the reason why existence is.

One of the characteristics that differentiates human life from animal life is consciousness of the self, an awareness of one’s individuality guided by personal intuition rather than the instinct of the herd.

Why did consciousness appear when it did in the process of evolution, and did it appear by accident or by design? If an accident of evolution, can one argue that the most complex machine known to us in the universe just happened?

If I were to tell you that the computer on which I am writing this article “just happened” and came together randomly, you would question my intelligence and, perhaps, sanity. Yet many believe that human beings, the most complex of known entities in the universe -- mind, personality, and matter all rolled into one -- just happened spontaneously.

But, why did it happen?

I have no answer for anyone. I can only plumb the depths of my own existence and come up with the answers that apply to me.

Nor can anyone else tell me the truth.

That is only found through my own inner explorations and communications with my intuition.

And hence the need for all of us to respect the spiritual beliefs of others, as they ask themselves the question “why” and come to their own conclusions. Just like they cannot explain to you what their chocolate tastes like, neither can you force your concept of chocolate on them.

If we all spent more time contemplating the “why” of life, we might come to accept one another as individuals, each engaged in his or her personal exploration of the universe within us to understand better the universe outside.

Living your own spiritual experiences and living your life according to the values that these experiences develop within you is, in my opinion, the best way to live. Trying to impose them on others or allowing others to impose them on you leads to either conflict or submission and, more often than not, violence.

So, perhaps we should all concentrate on exploring the “why” of our existence and quietly come to our own conclusions, and respect the rights of others to do the same.

And, if each of us eventually comes to his or her conclusion as to “why” we exist, and what this awareness means in the overall scheme of life, the world may just be a better place for us all.

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