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AHAM BRAMHASMItc "Aham Bramhasmi"
The Birth of Conscience
C. G. Vishwanath

Man has not appeared on the earth as a special creation of God. He has evolved from the lower beings from amoeba through the various invertebrates to vertebrates-animals with bone (Phyllum Chordata)-the lowest of which is the fish and the highest, the man. Till the arrival of the man on the scene, biological evolution has been going on in morphological, anatomical and physiological plane in all of which man has reached near perfection. Henceforth it will be in spiritual and moral plane. This is the dawn of new phase of evolution and the violent eddies due to this change in the order of things conceal this fact from the eyes of the majority. The transition from our ancestral animals still squirming within us, to man is too recent for us to understand and the ensuing conflicts which often seem disconcerting and incomprehensible.

True human personality surfaced from the moment speech was developed. Animal intelligence and instincts began to give way to a very different and specifically human form of intelligence. Next the most important characteristic of man is memory. Evolution could not have continued without memory. It alone is capable of building up conditional reflexes and instincts. The character which first differentiated animals from plants and gave the animal an immediate superiority might have been ‘memory�. Speech and memory gave birth to tradition.

Man enjoyed a far greater degree of liberty than other animals. This was possible only in him and was sometimes the consequence of anatomical improvements. Development and specialization of the hand helped man to attain an upright position. It might have been only a trial like other trials in evolution but this trial was immediately crowned with such success that two immediate gains followed: tools and fire. Articulatory speech which depends on the structure of the chin, memory and development of hand was a jump in man’s superiority over the animal.

Upto the birth of conscience, the being who was to become the man, differed from his ancestors morphologically. He was subject to the laws of nature, to the laws of evolution. He had no option but to obey these laws. The moment he asked himself the question whether an act was good or whether another was better, he acquired a liberty, denied to animals. This was the birth of conscience. Science has not been able to explain its birth. Anyway that is of least importance. The important thing is that in man and man alone the possibility of this choice has been transformed into moral ideas; a choice that was not available to other species. With this man took another jump and increased the gap which already separated him from other primates. When this occurred, the new orientation of his evolution was clearly indicated. Henceforth he must no longer obey nature. He must criticize and control his desires, which were earlier the only law. Writes the French biologist Le Comte Du Nuoy, “The purely human conflict is born from this permanent, bitter struggle which has lost none of its violence today�.

However, man cannot liberate himself all at once. The weight of heredity, which goes hundreds of millions of years is too heavy. Fluctuations which manifest themselves in individuals or collective regressions bring him to animal.

When considering the majority of men we start doubting the reality of moral ideas. Is the chasm between the man and the animal as wide as we thought? The only answer is that we are still at dawn of human evolution and even if one man out of a million is endowed with a conscience, it will suffice to prove that a new degree of liberty has appeared. Many important steps in the history of evolution started out as a mutation affecting only a very small number of individuals, perhaps only one. Similarly the moral idea must have been sparsely distributed and was in fact so fragile that instead of conferring a physical superiority upon those who harboured it, it contributed a hindrance. At the time of the cave-man, sentimentalism, pity, fairness, charity qualities highly valued today by mankind must have been a serious handicap to those who had to face the unconscious cruelty and brutality of others. Such brutalities have not disappeared in our own times. However, inspite of their weaknesses and subjection to ancestral instincts, the masses are responsive to the great virtues which have enjoyed a surprising prestige even though rarely practiced.

The new liberty given to man was necessary in order that evolution could continue. When physical support to the human body achieved a state of relative perfection, new trials in that direction became useless and evolution had to continue on another plane, the spiritual plane and progress could only take place by struggle, competition and selection. Liberty, therefore, is sine qua non of biological evolution. Liberty gives one freedom to use his faculties. As we rise in the scale of living beings, there is a proportional increase in liberty � development of consciousness, abstract ideas, self awareness and finally the birth of conscience. Liberty of conscience can naturally be bestowed on a living being who is in a position to use this liberty of being physically freer than others. This living being is the man. However, inspite of this liberty of conscience, man remains equally subject to the demands of the body. By fighting against these instincts man humanises himself.

In what does the liberty of animal consist? It consists in very little. The fish is freer than coral or the starfish; the mammal is freer than the reptile. But all animals without exception are slaves of their physiological functions. Man is no exception as far as the animal in him goes. It is like an order from God to use these. They had no choice. What they do, they must do.

Progress in man in qualities, other than those in animals, does not solely depend on God but on the efforts made by each man individually. By giving man liberty of conscience, God has abdicated a portion of his omnipotence in favour of his creation and this represents the spark of God in man. Biologically we can say that God by his trial and error methods has brought evolution to the primitive man stage after ten million years and to expedite it to its optimum efficiency has entered the human body Himself to direct the evolution from inside the body. Thus the first spark of self-awareness and conscience developed in man giving him the liberty to participate in the progress of evolution like workers� participation in management. For the first time this animal- the man- realized that he is the master of  his destiny and his progress depends on his own efforts, ‘Aham Brahmasmi�, and not on any other power’s efforts from outside. The animal struggle against nature, against the elements from which the human form finally emerged after ten million centuries is transferred into the struggle of man against the remains of animal within him. But because of his conscience it is the individual alone who counts now as against the species. He will prove that he is the fore-runner of the future race, the ancestor of this spiritually perfect man. Thus Gandhi can be assimilated to one of the intermediary transitional forms, probably a million of years in advance of evolution. He came to keep us away from despair and prove to us that our efforts can and must succeed. He died for us and had he not been assassinated we would not have been convinced. Consequently, any restriction to the liberty of conscience is contrary to the great law of evolution, that is, contrary to the divine will and is therefore ‘evil�. Like the axioms in geometry any action/event contrary to the law of biological evolution is regressive and is therefore sinful and wrong. No one has the right to substitute his/her own conscience in that of another because progress depends on personal efforts and to suppress this effort is sin. That is what Lord Krishna taught of the theory of �Karma� to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra in the Bhagwat Gita which is based on the same liberty of conscience that man has received and must use it to his best advantage.

What happens in a big organization like a political party? Individual conscience plays its part to a certain stage after which it is the conscience of the party, its collective will takes over. This collective will of the party depends to a large extent on its leader. The human flock obeys an obscure order. It cannot do without a leader. Sometimes it may be mistaken in its choice of the leader. The choice may be wrong. The leader it has chosen may be a rotten person. It is providential that these rotten leaders have been countered by certain rare privileged men, comparable to the transition animals who were far advanced of their times. These men constituted the mutants who were far more evolved than their contemporaries and had a great part to play, a high duty to fulfill, to orient the march of humanity in the path which leads them away from the animal. Inspite of their handicaps, of the fact that the doctrine they taught was not pleasant and demanded sacrifice with doubtful benefits, it is Buddha, Confucius and Gandhi who achieved the highest honour and prestige in history and their doctrine outlasted and outshone all others.