Overcoming Human Flaws

It is a worthwhile pursuit to understand and examine humanity, which is becoming more and more possible through the advances in science and the availability of data on a mass scale. It is revealing facts that intuition seems to look over…

While Intuition has a high place as one of the Supreme Faculties, perhaps just like every other tool, it is good for certain things and bad for others. Trying to determine the course of a business on intuition alone, regardless of how developed, is most likely to incur bankruptcy, as most business success lies in very counter-intuitive situations.

More importantly, it is not always an accurate tool for someone who needs its accuracy. Yes, perhaps an Avadhoot can have a fully accurate Intuition, and ironically, the Avadhoot would have no need for intuition!

For most of us who are not there, at least not 100% of the time, data seems to be much more reliable in understanding the world. And this data, which is now for the first time in recorded history ever, is becoming available to ordinary people, mostly free of charge!

Most importantly: contemplation and understanding of counter-intuitive realities, which is where most human flaws lie, can become a very valuable tool to rid the consciousness of some fetters. I think that on our path of yoga, overcoming Karmas, Kleshas and Conditioning still leaves us with a rather human, and ultimately flawed mode of consciousness.

Human consciousness itself is flawed and needs to be transcended!

Let’s use data and examine aspects of human consciousness with a free tool to provide example and make this point.

Let’s take Google Trends for example. This little website reveals what websites are trending across the globe. It shows us what people are collectively paying attention to, by ranking what they are searching for. This is what people are actively, willfully looking for, not just passively consuming as part of their programming. Thus, it is what is top of their mind.

As a tool for comprehending human flaws, and tapping into the collective psyche, it is a phenomenal tool! Intuition would suggest that we would find the most important and most pertinent phenomena showing up on this website’s list, and any deviation from this would highlight a counter-intuitive reality worth digging into…

And what is ranking on trends?

Not news. Not knowledge. Not even money, which is collectively the most bitched about concept. We don’t even see “sex” or “porn”, but that is perhaps being filtered away by Google. Sex and related makes more than half of the Internet, and we can be certain that sex is trumping everything else.

But what is trending other than sex? Mindless entertainment.

Yes, while massive conflicts, strife and suffering rages across the world and inches us daily towards another global war in the latter half of 2017, people all over the world, are collectively and aggressively, seeking mindless entertainment. People are looking for news on the latest sports games and insights into the latest celebrity gossip way more than everything else.

Occasionally a scandal will break into the ranks, some big event charged with tones of social justice will rise, or a kidnapped kid will be talked about. But outside of these incidents, it’s pretty much all fluff.

What is driving people towards these sensations, and encouraging them to waste their potential on the altar of make-believe?  What is the source of their addiction to media? Why is this the way it is?

The answer is quite revealing.

First of all people are not victims. This is what they want.

Second, seeking celebrities makes sense in the framework of tribal living. These are perceived high status individuals, and alignment with them increases one’s access to resources and ability to sire better offspring.

Third, sports are popular because they bring people together. It is an activity of tribe building, which can appeal to everyone regardless of age, sex, or status. And again, in the tribal life, belonging is one of the most important keys to one’s survival and ability to reproduce.

Here’s the main point in all this:

Intuition does not reveal reality unless we feed it a relevant context. To understand human behavior and overcome its flaws, the relevant context is provided by science and data. Everything becomes crystal clear in the light of the knowledge of the evolutionary path of these fleshbags.

Most of the human mental hard-wiring comes from tribal life in hunter-gatherer societies. There is a sprinkling of patriarchal agricultural influence, but that is less than 10% of the journey. Almost every mindset, emotion, impulse and instinct can be broken down and explained away within that framework, which reveals the triad of Sex, Survival and Status as the core motivations for all human behavior.

Everything from religious rituals to art, from social norms to science, all stem from this triad. And the more I meditate on it, the more I think that this triad is another emanation like the Kleshas.

And here’s how you can use this…

Contemplate your, and everyone else’s, “inner chimps” which is constantly seeking sex, survival and status. See that everyone, at all times, is trying to get laid, paid and looking good – even if this looking good is limited to their own imagination. Observe what people cherish most as a simple biological function and part of Nature’s violent game.

First, reduce it all to ashes, gain power over them, so that later through your will, you can elevate these things to divine status.