Why do we assume that our experience in consciousness — our desires, fears, hatreds, pleasures, remembrances of the past and hopes for the future — are identical with those of our ancestors who wandered the planet for 200,000 years before settling down to till the earth?
Our modern circumstance is one in which our sense of selfness is acute. Once we settled down and began exploiting the world as “instruments” of our intentions, we made our individual selves into “things” and thereafter became obsessed with our possession of personal awareness and the terrifying prospect of being dispossessed. But what evidence do we have that our awakened mind has always cowered in mortal fear?
There’s no argument that we in our present circumstance, are uniquely and profoundly fearful creatures, but on what basis do we assume that we have always been fearful — that fear of self annihilation has always been part of our nature as mindful creatures? Might it be that our fear is simply the ante we ponied-up to play a game that started just 10,000 years ago — a game of winner-take-all that is nearing its inevitable conclusion?
