Yet, like all other primitive animals, these builders of the great empires of Assyria, Babylon, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, were still functioning almost completely on an automatic response system that was void of consciousness. They learned to speak and, later, to read and write, and carry out all other necessary activities of daily life, all while remaining blissfully unconscious.

Being unconscious, these ancient people had no internal concept of themselves. They had no definite sense of time or space, and no memory as we know it. They did not experience guilt feelings, or shame, and had no comprehension of morality, deception, evil, good, history, justice, or philosophy. They were, instead, guided by the "voices" of their gods. These hallucinations originated in the creative right hemisphere of the brain and were "heard" by the left hemisphere, in much the same way as someone today suffering from bi-polar schizophrenia.

Except for schizophrenics, people today no longer hallucinate the voices that guided primitive humans. Yet, some ignorant people are influenced and driven by an unconscious need for external "authorities." That is why bizarre cults and religious charlatans attract so many followers. A few poor souls still want to believe that the gods talk through these people and will answer all of their questions. They either do not have the confidence or the knowledge that they can turn their minds inward and find the answers they seek from the omniscient Self.

The development of consciousness began around 2500 B.C., when unconscious reactions began to prove inadequate to the mounting problems of increasingly complex and growing societies. Humans were forced to become conscious as their great civilizations collapsed and crumbled. The hallucinated voices of their gods no longer provided the guidance they needed, but became confused, contradictory, and even destructive. For the first, humans had to make their own conscious choices.

Consciousness is not a product of the evolutionary process, however, but a naturally occurring phenomenon of human existence. Thus, the newly conscious minds of more than 4000 years ago are virtually identical to those of today.

The brain is merely a large, gray mass of nerve-like fiber, however, which operates on electrical impulses. It is not a sentient being by itself. It is only an organic device by which one controls the vehicle of the body. And, the physical body is like a beast, an animal pulling a cart. The Self is the driver and the biochemical and bioelectrical functions of the brain are the reins that connect it to the beast. The Self is able to manipulate the bioelectrical sparks that explode along the neurological pathways of the brain, existing as a bridge between the world of gross physical matter and the no-thing-ness of pure spirit.

Consciousness has no physical location. It is, rather, a particular organization of the mental processes and a specific way of utilizing the brain. It is not even a necessity for thinking, learning, or reasoning. Even the lower species of animal are capable of these functions. The physical body of humankind is even capable of a certain degree of this activity, independent of the conscious mind. Therefore, the body may believe that it is the one in control and deny the very existence of the Self, its driver. It will sometimes rebel against the orders of the Self, so that it can act out its own earthly desires, much to the shame and guilt of the consciousness.

But, the unfolding and advancing morality and spirituality of human consciousness has already increased our control over the physical beast, and made Nature’s own evolutionary process obsolete. Man-made shelter, food, medicine, and technologies have progressed human survival and development more in the last fifty (50) years than a million previous years of evolution did. Human consciousness has discovered and acquired knowledge faster and faster, year after year, until we can accumulate information, today, at nearly the speed of light.

Human consciousness possesses the ability to understand anything and everything in the limitless Universe of Universes. But, it is limited by its finite capacity to store and process such information. Today, however, our conscious minds have even found a way to bypass such natural limitations; we have invented the computer. What technological advances will our expanding conscious minds create in the next few decades? Or, in the next century?