Strong Natural Forces in the Mental Domain

Ordinarily, the self-preservation forces are strong and those related with self-fulfillment are weak. The former are related with continuity of the individual body and the species. Continuity in eternity is an inherited trait. The entirety of temporary existence inherits it from its source which is eternal.

Ordinarily, the force to protect the individual body from death is the strongest. It also is instantaneous, totally unconscious and automatic. The extent to which a force comes into action instantaneously, unconsciously and automatically defines its strength. Instantaneity and unconscious automation seem to go together. The body must be saved from dying right away. That way nature has created a “dog eat dog” word.

Once the body is safe, it needs to sustain to keep it going and procreate to keep the species going. They can wait. They are weaker than the force of individual survival. These forces are said to operate subconsciously. In other words, they are semi-conscious and semi-automatic.

Identity are the logic gained from long term experience of survival safety in numbers of the same species. In animals, it is called herd identity which is defined solely on the basis of physical form. In humans, it is called ego identity which essentially is a herd identity complicated with the addition of faith, gender, gender orientation, color of the skin, nationality, language etc. This force operates on an individual and also on communities of individuals of the same species.

On an individual level, this force is the weakest of all self-preservation forces. But on the collective level, this is the strongest force. History has seen orgies of identity savagery inflicted by one herd or community on the other. 

The selfishness of the need for self-preservation divides and separates us from each other. Therefore these forces may be referred to as divisive instincts of the mind of living beings.

Mind inherits these mental tendencies or instincts in cyclic evolution from the first ever single cell life form that existed on the planet some four billion years ago. They lodge in our unconscious phylogenetic memory and randomly bubble into our conscious mind without any control.

The four strong mental forces are said to lead to four afflictions of the mind because of the amount of human suffering and conflicts they cause in the universe. They do not spare anyone. They directly underlie destructive survival emotions. They are responsible for ignorant and impulsive profiling and categorizations based upon race, faith, religion, denomination and other differences resulting in discrimination, crime, bigotry, homicides and genocide. They are also responsible for human fragmentation, lack of peace and harmony, stress, stress related internal disease and mental disorders, learning disorders, and random distractions and fluctuations of the mind preventing focus of attention underlying learning and executive disorders.

The most destructive emotion is fear of death born out of the instinct of self-protection. Fear also manifests as worry, anxiety and depression. Born out of sensations of physical pleasure or pain arising from sense experience during sustenance and procreation processes are likes and dislikes.  Our likes strengthen into habits, appetites and addictions and dislikes into aversion, hatred, bias and bigotry.  Likes and dislikes when thwarted lead to anger, aggression and loss of intellect, love and compassion. Categorization of humanity based on herd or ego identity drives us insanity claiming supremacy over others and declaring holy jehads and crusades against them.  

Fear, likes, dislikes and fears work unconsciously, surreptitiously without individual awareness hijacking our conscious mind. Life then is run on autopilot enabled by our survival emotions.

The mental afflictions identified above are all based upon ignorance of reality. Our organs of cognition can perceive diversity. But they cannot perceive our underlying cause that unifies us. If our learning systems facilitate an insight of the shared unseen underlying cause of the entire universe, this ignorance will be removed and replaced by acceptance and inclusion and unification.