Finger Worship

It is probable that there are many dimensions of human awareness, due to the specific development of the human brain, that reach farther than other species. That has always been a hallmark of human self-concept, as ‘above’ the ‘lesser’ beasts, the ‘dumb’ animals… When we notice one or another of them to be particularly smart, we refer to it as ‘cagey’ and ‘cunning,’ but certainly not intelligent like a human.

Many forms of life have developed an intelligence resting on molecule shape-detectors (sense of smell), photon stimulations (eyes), vibration sensors (ears), and molecular motion detectors (skin sensing heat). On top of this, humans developed an additional survival edge (hence selected by natural environments) with neural complexity, and take their 100 trillion synapses and linked each neuron with 1000 others to create a huge capacity to process primarily physiological information, leaving a small part to attend to something else, all of it far from trivial. Humans: another aspect of a planet that is aware: what a conceptual leap, so long as our human awareness can release the small, ego centered selfhood that it had known and realize our place amidst a planet that is a shimmering globe of awareness…

We have this ability called self-conception with which we can attend to something called a self, vis a vis the ‘other.’ I don’t think this is limited to humans. There are my cats, for instance. I have three of them. Some believe that cats do not reflect on themselves. Others, such as myself, think otherwise and can imagine to one degree or another, that they have a self-concept. I watch them interact with one another, preening, hissing, posturing for first-dibs on the cat dish, batting at each other to be first in line, I can’t help but think I see this. They obviously have an 'other' concept. Why then, would they not have a self concept?

Of course, I could be projecting, another one of the many anthropomorphic projections of a human quality. This would certainly be traditional thinking, the idea of projecting my ‘higher’ human qualities on the ‘dumb animals.’

But, what if I’m not.

If human self-concept is in part defined as different from the other species because of the self-concept ability, what would it mean to our species self-concept if it was granted that we are surrounded by innumerable other life forms that we used to call ‘creatures,’ that also had self-concept? That would certainly help explain, for instance, the gaze of sad incomprehension in the eyes of a deer dying from the hunter’s rifle shot. I know that if it was a human that was shot, that this gaze, mixed possibly with many other emotions and thoughts, might just as easily be looking back at us. In which case, I doubt that many of us would be able to stand up before such a gaze without serious self-doubt, misgivings, compassion, apology and anguish. That would be murder. It would be hard to let it go.

But I guess that’s not what it’s called when it is a deer.

Sometimes I wonder about how the Divine might be projected by one of our deer or even snail friends. I suppose it would be zoomorphic. I can imagine that it is possible that deer, if conceiving the divine, might easily conceive of such as a kind of huge super-deer, appearing at times of need from the depths of the forest.

Humans walk on the interface of being human within the larger whole of life which is humanly conceived, a mind within a world in which one is being human. We can then take such things as the ‘spirit of loving kindness’, the ‘spirit of compassion’, or an idea of wholeness or sacredness or any of the other humanly aware qualities of existence and do something specific with it. We take this spirit and place it in a concrete form and recognize it’s qualities in other elements such as talking stones, spirit-filled trees and sacred birds, wise old gods in the form of omniscient spirit-men or powerful and sacred spirit-women goddesses. This is helpful for comprehension, perhaps, as a tool for approaching the divine, as it gives us something with which the human mind can begin to fathom such things with more depth.

However, this matter of projecting such spirits onto one or another god or goddess figure, is something that - in the face of continuing scientific discovery - is rapidly and uncomfortably looming closer. Soon, this matter will demand our attention. Not to worry, there is still time. As this very awkward encounter remains in front of us, we can still get by ignoring that there is a problem.

But let’s think ahead a little bit: suppose it were true that all of our notions of gods or goddesses were simply concepts and projections? If that were the case, then, what do we do with God, or gods? And what about all those goddesses!

Well, if one was searching for the moon, where do we look? These projections of god or goddess figures, to borrow from an old Zen formula are simply fingers pointing at where the moon may be. If we are looking for gods or goddesses, they are not to be found in our finger.

*****

God is, in a sense, not a god. The gods or goddesses we usually think of, if we think of such things, are most likely concepts. If we were searching for the moon, we wouldn’t stop to gaze rapturously at the finger pointing towards where it might be. Nor, with gods and goddesses, or for that matter, with any conceptualization of the Divine. In short, it doesn't do us much good to worship the finger.