QA245 QUESTION: [1977] Science claims that the computer is the next stage in evolution. I recently heard a panel of scientists discussing that the growth of the human brain has stopped and is therefore projected outwardly by creating a new kind of genius. The genius, knowledge, learning and experience of several people can be combined into one computer and thereby make the knowledge of the computer infinitely superior to the best brain. The scientists went on to explain that in some strange way the computer becomes eventually endowed with a will of its own. Various ramifications were discussed about this possibility that now seems more than a mere possibility. How does this trend connect with spiritual evolution as you talk about it in your lectures and teachings?
ANSWER: Let us first discuss how this trend came about. For many millennia, the human brain played the smallest role in man’s attempt to survive. He was mainly driven and motivated by instinctual forces. Only fairly recently has the brain been brought into the foreground, and has created the civilizations and cultures that followed primitive man.
In recent times, the over-emphasis on the brain, as if it were the only important and valid organ of man, has created an absurdity, and that is the robot-man. The robot-man is indeed the out-picturing of the intellect brought to an absurdity. This absurdity, which is a sad caricature of man, at best, and a danger at worst, can help man to wake up and take further genuine steps in his evolution – to find and develop his faculties beyond the intellect and also beyond the primitive instinct.
These faculties are now all involuntary, for the most part. They are the divine will, the divine inner voice, the feelings of love, the vision of cosmic truth, the feeling of serving a larger purpose. When man seeks for these new faculties and devotes his efforts to uncovering and contacting these aspects hidden deep within himself, they will become directly accessible to him, and hence voluntary.
Just as in any scientific experiment, he must start with an entirely open mind – a willingness to investigate and spend energy and effort, even if results remain elusive for a long time. Man has this desirable, open and seeking attitude in many respects already, but he still channels his entire effort into the areas of intellect and outer mechanical manifestations.
If man chooses to direct the same open attitude and the same concerted effort to exploring his own inner world, a new man will indeed emerge. This new man does not need a larger cortex. The cortex he has is sufficiently large for harmonious and divine-like existence.
But what is not yet sufficiently developed, and requires all of man’s attention in times to come, is the inner faculties I mentioned before. There exist realms of consciousness that are so far un-recognized by science and the general public. Evolution must continue in that direction.
