Back in the early 80s there was a well-known, highly optimistic New Age book titled ‘The Global Brain’ by Peter Russell. In this book Russell presented “a startling vision of the world to come, where humanity is a fully conscious super-organism in an awakening universe.”
He claimed that “the earth itself is a living being and every person upon it a cell in the planetary nervous system, [and] describes how breakthroughs in telecommunications and computer networks are rapidly linking the human species into an embryonic global brain” (according to the description on Amazon.com).
Of course, this book was written in the very early days of the computer and information ‘revolutions,’ and before the Internet was popularized and really took off.
But today, we already have semi-universal cell phone networks and vast, fast-expanding Internet and social media networks. If our technological and spiritual development had followed the model proposed by Russell, our world should now be buzzing with enlightened energy and undergoing constant healing and social reforms that reflect humanity’s entrance into a true ‘New Age’ of human growth and actualization.
The frenetic ‘monkey mind’ reigns supreme — to our great detriment
But as we all know by now, this isn’t what happened. At all. Our unfettered access to lightning-fast communication networks and information/social media networks mainly produced more — much, much more — of the same idiotic nonsense that has always passed for ‘human communication’ and supposedly ‘enlightening’ information.
And today it hit me exactly why it worked out this way: our cell phone, Internet, and social media networks are simply a massive outward reflection of the dominant (awful) inner condition of our minds. Period.
That’s it, in a nutshell. And the inner state of most of our minds is, to be kind … pathetic and barely conscious. It’s disorganized, chaotic, filled with lust and unfulfilled desires, and is often hateful or violence-prone. It’s filled with lies, self-deception, propaganda, manipulations, and illusions of every imaginable kind.
No wonder the Internet and all that it has spawned is primarily a massive collection of absurd, idiotic nonsense and also a dangerous mass nightmare.
According to Buddhism and many other spiritual paths, this precarious, chaotic mental state is actually the product of the habitual functioning of our ‘normal’ everyday minds — what Buddhism refers to as the frenetic ‘monkey mind.’
Most meditative techniques and self-awareness methods revolve around observing and to some degree separating from or stilling the ceaseless activity of our ‘monkey minds,’ and finding a deeper inner center or source to operate from.
‘Monkey mind’ won’t surrender or change without intense resistance
But the ‘monkey mind’ doesn’t like or accept that; it doesn’t want to be quieted, ignored, or replaced. Usually, we identify totally with our inner mental activity, and don’t wish to give up our (illusory) ‘control’. So we hang on to our self-centered ‘monkey mind’ and all its machinations for dear life, and basically give it free reign.
Since it doesn’t want to be changed or quieted, it just keeps running at top speed and creating its endless diversions, reactions, and excitements — for the ‘monkey mind’ lives for all its ceaseless mental activity, which makes it feel so (seemingly) alive and involved in life. Falsely.
What all that endless mental chatter actually does is to provide us with a convincing, ongoing, and intense inner mental experience that substitutes itself for true interaction with life and reality.
This inner mental chaos and constant ‘thinking’ actually becomes a barrier to true experience and real life — which is why we sometimes say that overly mental people are ‘living in their heads.’ On some level, we know that living in our endless thoughts, reactions, and mental projections is NOT really living, and acts to dull us down and separate us from life.
But our ‘monkey minds’ tend to take on an aggressive life of their own, and as noted, they do NOT like to be challenged or controlled — or even worse, ignored or bypassed.
So when we embark on a program of meditation or self-awareness that recognizes and investigates ‘monkey mind’ and is intent on stilling or transcending that mind … well, ‘monkey mind’ inevitably fights back hard, and tries (usually quite successfully) to fill our minds with endless thoughts, fears, memories, reactions, and every sort of distraction.
The Internet IS our ‘monkey mind’ — times ten million
This brings us to … the dire impact of the Internet, which is both a great information source and the most massive, widespread, and addictive jumble of distractions and utter B.S. ever created.
And it brings us to social networks and ‘smartphones,’ which are proving to be some of the most distracting, mind-numbingly deadly creations ever invented, and which are steadily making their addicted users dumber and lonelier — and often more frustrated and downright mean as well.
What I realized is that both of these inventions are, in essence, persistent mass conveyors of ‘monkey mind,’ and as such they encourage even more ‘monkey mind.’ Vastly more.
We could even say that these inventions are a direct manifestation and outpouring of our collective ‘monkey mind.’ Together, they’re creating the greatest surge of primitive ‘monkey mind’ in human history — an overwhelming tsunami that is flooding over our societies and creating havoc and mass chaos.
Witness the endless barrage of lies, partisan deception, overt manipulation, and nasty, abusive crap that’s common now on social media and all over the Internet.
Human transformation is not easy, after all. Cue our burgeoning global nightmare
I admit, the ideas and sentiment behind Russell’s “Global Brain” concept were, and are, very tempting to believe or want to believe. It would be truly wonderful if humanity was rapidly evolving into mass higher consciousness, and if our planet was undergoing a deep, ongoing healing transformation. But I’m a progressive realist, and I’ve got to say: our current reality in no way fits the parameters Russell laid out.
Once again, I’m forced back to the position that human transformation is a highly individual process, and it only takes place when a person willingly commits their inner strength and resources to the awakening process.
It takes a lot of time, effort, and openness, and rarely occurs without long barren stretches of pain, loneliness, fear, and discouragement. It’s tantamount to embarking on a long, perilous journey, with only the vaguest of directions, and no assurance of ever reaching your destination.
In my experience, the vast majority of human beings simply aren’t interested or willing to embark on such a frightening and perilous inner journey. They just … aren’t. Willing. Most people are content to hold onto the inherited cultural ideas of ‘the way things are’ that they learned growing up, and most also hang (tightly) onto the emotions and personality patterns they developed in childhood and adolescence.
So when these semi-conscious, pre-programmed folks are suddenly presented with potent technological means to transmit their personality and ‘monkey mind’ out into the world, and also receive back the ‘monkey mind’ transmissions from millions of other people — why, we’re suddenly faced with the worst of all possible worlds when it comes to growth, maturation, and responsible communication.
Suddenly, the bullies, haters, rabid partisans, psychological abusers, and every sort of judgmental jerk have been given free rein, and they’ve been taking full, despicable advantage of their newfound freedom and world-wide access.
The end result, of course, is exactly the grotesque, distracting chaos and antisocial B.S. we’ve seen unfolding over the Internet and social networks over the past 15 years — since the advent and rapid spread of smartphones, basically, which allowed people everywhere to stay fully tapped into the Internet (and our collective ‘monkey mind’) almost constantly.
It’s truly a social and spiritual nightmare scenario.
We now need to grow and evolve DESPITE the Internet
Given the perverse and unhealthy — yet totally predictable — ways the Internet has developed, my personal recommendation is to have as little to do with it as possible (and yes, I know it’s quite ironic/bizarre that I’m sending this essay out on the Internet!).
I advise a deliberate ‘tactical retreat’ and avoiding most smartphone use — and then spending the time you would have spent uselessly/harmfully ‘surfing the Net’ or caught up in ‘social networks’ in productive pursuits like reading, studying, meditation, real socializing, direct personal communication (like actual phone calls), and/or spending time out in nature.
We may not be able to create a mass consciousness shift in humanity, or engender a tremendous ‘global awakening’ in some sort of vast planetary ‘brain’ — but we can certainly tend to our own minds, hearts, and spirits, and work toward our own awakening and perhaps even help those close to us to do the same.
That’s a powerful, and much better, alternative to constant immersion in the ugly ‘monkey mind’ of the Internet. It’s one of the few ways we can still exert some intelligent control over our increasingly chaotic and crazy world.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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