Human Intelligence on the Yogic path

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

After a recent thread that led to a discussion about the evolution of the mind, and what role our it plays in our lives, I thought it would be a good idea (unfortunately, I think any idea I have is good), to attempt to address the role of intelligence on the spiritual path.

The human brain has not evolved for over 50,000. The brain is the same today, in every way, as it was over 50,000 years ago. This is clearly due to the role intelligence has since played in our ability to survive. Evolution by natural selection, is survival of that which can reproduce. It’s not about being strong or intelligent, it’s about being able to reproduce. This would suggest that evolution could, and often does, select what we would consider in-competencies. For example, take a large population of humans who use contraceptives to avoid unwanted pregnancies. The more competent portion of the population, are naturally able to make the contraceptives work effectively for them, while the in-competent portion of the population would be less capable of making the contraceptives work for them, and thus, would give birth to offspring carrying the same genetic ‘in-competencies’.
This would also suggest that there would be no reason to believe that we would, in our future, every become a more intelligent species to what we are today. After all, there are plenty of intelligent people not having children, and there are plenty of less intelligent people having children.

This might also suggest why modern humans are prone to adopt primitive, outdated explanations of our universe that were constructed during our species infancy, even though there is significant scientific evidence to suggest contrary and more solid explanations.

I would think that human intelligence, is about as relative to a spiritual path as having good looks. It could be considered irrelevant. I think this view could bring one consolation, as it would suggest that mastery of Yoga is for everyone, and not just for an elite few. I makes Yoga a very universal path.

#2

I doubt that the human brain has not been evolving for 50,000 years. I think it has, but the evolution is subtle. In many respects evolution is continuing through the expansion of human consciousness and intelligence and we can see it in his spiritual, scientific and artistic development. I believe that the next human will be the spiritual human, homospiritus, and will be born with greater spiritual abilities.

This great current Yoga master Yogiraj Siddnath has created a very interesting video on Yoga, astrophysics and brain science and how the brain is evolving by the dint of Yoga:

#3

Adam,

without getting too deep down the rabbit hole…

I believe an answer to your question may depend on whether the brain is servant or master in the being in which it is located. For many in the external world (what I will use for the sake of convenience and discourse here to refer to those not on the path of yoga) the mind is the ruler and controls action. In the yoga of Sri Aurobindo, the mind is transformed into a tool (a servant not forsaken or tossed aside as irrelevant nor allowed to run amok).

gordon

#4

[QUOTE=InnerAthlete;34845]I believe an answer to your question may depend on whether the brain is servant or master in the being in which it is located.[/QUOTE]

I’m grateful for your answer and views, but I’m not sure that I was asking any questions. Thanks all the same though.

#5

The human brain has not evolved for over 50,000. The brain is the same today, in every way, as it was over 50,000 years ago.
This does’nt sound right.

Language, expansion of frontal lobes, the carving of flint-stones,adoption of agriculture,more manipulation of external environment,science & technology and so on.

Is’nt the ability to reproduce at least a sign or kind of intelligence.And intelligence however you define it tends to help ensure continued reproduction, i would have thought.

Spiritual evolution is likely most intelligent,all-encompassing,highest kind etc.

I think it’s quite possible what SD says that there were civilisations just like ours before us but they could have died out.Equally possible there is evolved life on other planets. Are you enquiring whether intelligence is a feature of evolution.The physical brain at least certainly in a yogic context is just a small part and a lower one- one dimension if you like.

#6

Count me in the camp that says the human brain hasn’t evolved much over the last 50 k years.

#7

Maybe ‘intelligence’ has been to judge too much on how we can manpiulate our external invironment rather than effect our internal one. Like we’ve gone into outer space,put men on the moon. But just like in kundalini yoga great discoveries actually literally hang right on tip of our noses.Inner space or spiritual relaities could be the next frontier and we are all just waiting for something to happen.Yoga is quantum science, the observer and the observed.Even those particle accelerators like Cern might throw up somethiing useful, to whowever,yogis out there included,maybe confirm something too.We could be standing on the brink of a new understanding,a new frontier.Open things up a bit, like in a big way. Imagine if everyone practiced yoga and had a guru.Like we all sat back for a sec and reviewed our own evolution.

#8

In fact ‘intelligence’ is probably more accurately described along the lines of quantum or spiritual evolution. Rather in the obviously narrow sense of biological creatures that use logic,numbers and reason and learned knowledge, as good as that can be.We’re obviously more than just biology with thinking power.Expansion of Consciousness by definition seems to want to move beyond that,certainly the thinking bit.

Imagine everyone meditated , did yoga.I wonder what kind of effect that would have globally.

#9

I think part of the reason that we assume automatically that humans are an end point of evolution is the same human arrogance which assumes we are the centre of the universe, the only intelligent beings in the universe, and our sciences the final word on the universe. I think to many extents the human should be pitied.

The following study suggests we have been continuously evolving: http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/070326_evolution.htm

So much arrogance from some developing creatures on the third rock from the sun, in a universe so vast, that we are the equivalent of a particle in a vast desert and our existence the equivalent of less than a twinkling of an eye in the universe.

#10

I think it’s quite possible what SD says that there were civilisations just like ours before us but they could have died out.

It is not only possible, it is a fact.

We know the following as facts:

There are submerged cities 11,000 years old which are incredibly well planned and laid out, with drainage systems that existed prior to the end of the ice age.

About 300 surgicial procedures(including brain surgery) are documented in the ancient Hindu medical encyclopedia Sushruta Samhita. 1000+ diseases are described, with their etiology, symptoms, treatments. About 600 plant, mineral and animal based medicines are categorised and 125 surgical instruments are described, including injections.

The ancients had batteries, portable mechanical computers to calculate the position of planets, and most likely had flashlights

The Sanskrit language is the worlds first formal language, it uses the same analysis as modern day computer languages and is still superior. It is currently being studied for its use in developing languages for AI.

The ancient Hindus had a vast maritime empire and spread their culture all around world. The Native Americans for example have a festival which worships Rama and Sita. Indonesia, Bali, Java, Cambodia, Thialand are all previous Hindu colonies. It is also clear the Indo-Europeans, such as the early Greeks and Egyptians are Hindus. This is in fact recorded by Greek historians themselves.

It is also known as fact that the ancient Sanskrit texts describe aeroplanes. There is even a separate class of texts known as “Vimana Vidya” the science of aeuronatics. An ancient Sanskrit text has been found which describes how to make a battery, almost identical to the one found in Baghdad. It has been constructed and tested and its voltage measured.

From descriptions in ancient Sanskrit text Indian scientists have successfully been able to create a new stealth material that absorbs infrared radiation, as well as a new spectrometer. At the end of the 19th century an Indian scientist called Talpade succesfully flew an aircraft constructed after looking at ancient Sanskrit texts, using ionic propulsion engines.

Other than the famous Giza Pyramids we have found several artefacts of megalithic engineering all over the world which are thousands of tons in weight and have perfect cuts impossible to be done without modern technology

10,000 year old teeth have been found in India which have perfectly drilled holes proving that there was dentistry in ancient times.

I mean who are we kidding? All of these are facts. It is blatantly obvious we are not the first technological civilisation. Everything we have found in ancient times
flies in the face of what modern history tells us.

#11

There are submerged cities 11,000 years old which are incredibly well planned and laid out, with drainage systems that existed prior to the end of the ice age.
I’ve heard of Atlantis though i’m not aware of any known archaeology. I’d be curious where the locations are for these.

The flashlight thing sounds interesting;you’re saying they haad battery-power.Which is’nt actuually that complicated.A conductor and ionic solution perhaps?.An old peat-bog and some metal.

But the evidence you’ve shown is pretty compelling.

I do think so called ancient history has been distorted and is always revised.They have doubled the age of the universe i think at least twice in the last 100 years.5 to 10 to 20 billon years which does’nt even sound that much either…Like you say, us,homo-sapiens is just a blink of an eye.(If you look at the size of this dude’s brain homo-erectus, who went extinct apparently, ours looks bigger.)

#12

I think western academics have likely told one side of history that is likely very western-centric.And would prefer to gloss over asiatic & arabic influences and early civlisations outisde of Europe.

The vedic civilisation is a good example.I’m sure there are others. The Mayans,Babylonians,ancient sumeria,Mesopotamia
the cradle of civilisations.Is this correct?

If you wander down the text on that wiki linkpage,yes you’ll encounter out-of-india theory.This Aryan invasion theory does indeed sound like it is or has been seriously questioned and challenged like you say the evidence may be lacking. My Muz Murray’s’ giude to the ashrams of India’ says in it under ancient history of India chapter refers to the aryan invasion theory.It must have been popularly accpeted back in the 70’s when the book was first written.

I don’t even believe that wiki link as being the total hard truth.Always a bigger more complete picture if one looks for it…

#13

Namaste,

I think what is really sad for humanity is so many of our ancient records have been destroyed. There were vast libraries storing hundreds of thousands of books at the ancient Hindu and Buddhist universities of Taxilla and Nalanda, which were ransacked by the Huns. Then there is the library of Alexandria at Egypt which was also destroyed. Then there are Native Americans libraries which have also been destroyed.

Whatever remains of the past of humanity remains in the records by Sumerians, Hindus and Greeks. Now of these the clearest records belong to the Hindus who record history going back to 10,000 years and prior. They also record the migrations which took place from India from ancient times to various parts of the world, particularly after the Mahabharata war and also the great floods that took place, which had forced the Risis to retreat to the Himalayas. The history that is recorded is so precise in some places, that exact positions of stars and planets are recorded for particular events, and this helps us in modern times to calculate when an event took place.

Now this history until very recently recorded by the Hindus has been ignored by scholars in the West because it contradicts Western history which like to date the origins of civilisation to Sumeria. When they first encountered Indian history they were reluctant to assign any dates older than 1000BCE to it. Part of the reason was because they started history in 4004 BCE at the biblical creation date, and part of it was because of racial arrogance. Then later when the Indus valley cities were discovered they were forced to admit Indian history went back to 3000BCE but would not admit of any earlier date because Sumeria at 4000BCE was still their cradle. Now because they could not reconcile their old dates of 1000BCE for with the new 3000BCE settlements, they simply said they were two different periods, Vedic and Indus, and we know nothing about this Indus valley culture and how it got there. Rather than admitting they were wrong all along and that Indian history was as old as Hindu history said it was.

Another reason they wanted to maintain this was because of another racist theory they called Aryan invasion theory where they wanted to portray the white race as superior and powerful race that went around conquering everybody. The reason this theory was created because after studying the Sanskrit language they realised that all Indo-European culture had a common root culture called the Aryans. But Hindu records they did not support this perverse racist theory of theirs, it said the opposite in fact. That the Aryans have always been native to India and it was from India the culture was spread.

Although there was no evidence to support Aryan invasion theory and even Western intellectuals disapproved of it, the theory stuck and for much of the 20th century was taught as the history of India. Now recently in modern scholarship it has been completely discredited. We now know for a fact that the Vedic people were India as far as back as 6000BCE at the earliest. This means Hindu history was right all along. Now we have even found Indus settlements going back as far as 6000BCE. In other words far older than Sumeria. The icing on the cake has been discovering submerged cities going back 9000 years ago:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1768109.stm

This is going to force us to completely rewrite Indian history. So many dates are going to have to be pushed back. I have already seen Indian scholars doing this and Buddha has been pushed back as far as 1800BCE and this exactly matches the position of the stars given for his birth as well as history as recorded in the Puranas. This means we would have to place the classical period of Indian history between 2000 and 1000BCE and not 1000BCE and 1AD as it currently is shown as.

The new history then clearly paints a very clear picture of the world was colonized by the Hindus some 10,000 years ago, after we were just shortly coming out of an ice age which lead to massive floods worldwide and destroyed the previous civilisations that were established on Earth. Now what we need to find out is how long were these prevous civilisations flourishing and what level of development did they reach. I think from all the evidence I have seen they had reached levels of scientific and technological development well beyond us.

These mysteries will also be solved with discoveries by marine archeologists in the Indian ocean. Where I think the fabled lost city of Atlantis will be found.

#14

Just a note on Atlantis.

The first mention of Atlantis is by Plato where he was said to have discovered this legend from Egyptian scholars. He give some details on Atlantis. He said it existed 9600BCE and it existed near the pillar of Hercules. There was a war between Athens and Atlantis that took place during the time. After the war Atlantis was punished by the gods because of the degeneration of its people and it sank into the ocean.

Assuming this is not a myth and is factual, lets do the math.

  • 11,600 years ago we were coming out of an ice age. There were indeed massive floods worldwide at the time, the sea level rose dramatically and entire landmasses did indeed sink

  • Greece did not exist then, but the ancient Greeks are mentioned in Hindu records to have been in India at the time as a group caleld the Yavanas. This means the Athens Plato is referring to is in India.

  • As a matter of fact the Ramayana which has recently been dated to 9600BCE years mentions a war between Rama empire of India and the evil king Ravana who had a massive empire in a massive continent called Lanka that existed in the indian ocean(of which modern Sri lanka was a part) After the war the gods punished the Lankans due to the degeneration of its people and Lanka sank into the ocean.

  • It is now known that Hercules refers to the Hindu god Krishna. Thus the pillar of Hercules has to be India.

A lot is suddenly starting to make sense, isn’t it?

#15

The physical size and structure of the human brain may not have changed in 50 millenia, but the neurons and pathways within the brain has evolved greatly. Whenever a new thought or habit takes place, a new electrical bridge is created expanding the ‘mind’. Some bridges eventually collapse, but those that don’t are passed down to the generations. In that sense, hidden physically, our brains have evolved.

I don’t really think civilizations 10,000 years ago were doing laser surgery and somehow all that info keeps getting lost.

#16

[QUOTE=FlexPenguin;34963]I don’t really think civilizations 10,000 years ago were doing laser surgery and somehow all that info keeps getting lost.[/QUOTE]

This is a bit like saying a human from 200 years ago would not have been capable of driving a car if they had been given the chance. The answer is because the technology was nowhere near evolved enough to even have laser surgery. It has nothing to do with the intelligence of humans 10,000 years ago, it’s got to do with the accumulative advances in science, which have stacked up over many many years. Bring a human from 50,000 years ago into our present day, and they’d be doing laser surgery.

#17

[QUOTE=YogiAdam;34966]Bring a human from 50,000 years ago into our present day, and they’d be doing laser surgery.[/QUOTE]

That human would have to be incredibly adaptive in order to learn and retain all the intricacies involved, even picking up and holding the laser tip, notwithstanding the countless communication signals involved. His brain, although physically identical to ours and holds the capacity to do laser surgery, would not have neural pathways evolved enough to negotiate the task and would still take several lifetimes of instuction, but not necessarily 50,000 years.

#18

Yes indeed you are on point. It was a statement not a question. My error.

[QUOTE=YogiAdam;34846]I’m grateful for your answer and views, but I’m not sure that I was asking any questions. Thanks all the same though.[/QUOTE]

#19

[QUOTE=FlexPenguin;34967]That human would have to be incredibly adaptive in order to learn and retain all the intricacies involved, even picking up and holding the laser tip, notwithstanding the countless communication signals involved. His brain, although physically identical to ours and holds the capacity to do laser surgery, would not have neural pathways evolved enough to negotiate the task and would still take several lifetimes of instuction, but not necessarily 50,000 years.[/QUOTE]

Sorry, I should have specified that my example was bringing a new born baby from 50,000 years ago, into the present day, and instructed by modern humans. From what I understand, this could easily be done as I’ve have mentioned. However, I would be happy to compromise, and agree that maybe it could take a few generations :smiley:

#20

I don’t really think civilizations 10,000 years ago were doing laser surgery and somehow all that info keeps getting lost.

If we were, were not going to find out, because any remains of lasers or records of them are long lost.

If it is true that entire continents sank as we came out of the ice age then nothing would remain other than the the survivors and the tales they have to tell.
If a similar fate befell us today, while we would have memories of our technology and science, the fact that the majority of people in the world do not know
how to make a laser would mean that such knowledge could be lost forever. If such a fate did befall us then the main focus would be on survival and rebuilding
civilisation, not science and technology. We would be forced to resort to primitive tech. Over generations this could mean the loss of all modern science and tech.