The Wheel of Rebirth and Human Progress

Obviously, a human can only speculate about the realms beyond Humanity, because they are beyond his comprehension. Extending the Buddhist Wheel of Rebirth analogy, three states remain: the Demigod or Titan Realm, the Heaven of the Gods, and Nirvana, or Enlightenment. In a sense, the Demigod and Godly Realms may simply extend the progress begun in the Human Realms; however, it is impossible to imagine the quality of existence once certain aims are achieved.

A reasonable approach to describing future realms might be to view the historical trends of progress in the sciences, social organization, the arts, and ethics, and then to consider the probable implications of a continuation of these trends. Obviously it is impossible for humans to comprehend the magnitude of improvements which will be achieved by our descendants. However, by projecting such trends into the future, we may catch a glimpse of the superhuman future which awaits the collective “us,” while coming to identify our individual selves as true progenitors and citizens of a community which may not exist until centuries after we have died, yet which will redeem and reclaim all from suffering as fulfilment of its raison d’etre.

The most impressive quantum leaps which will transform humanity into something beyond its current state will occur in the fields of medicine and genetics. All diseases and afflictions, including the condition we have become accustomed to calling “old age,” will be cured. Humans will be “re-made” – enhanced so that individuals are stronger, more intelligent, more creative, and more capable of pleasure. Eventually, physical immortality will be an option for those who desire it.

Comparable advances will occur in other fields as well. We will vanquish the scarcity of natural resources and energy, rendering economics virtually irrelevant. Knowledge of the mind, time, and thanatology shall be expanded to a degree which will make our current conceptions regarding psychology, physics, and religion seem like primitive, pseudoscientific forerunners, just as alchemy was to chemistry. Whether the transformation of humans into superior beings- termed “titans,” “superhumans,” or “demigods” - occurs gradually or as the result of a specific advance is unclear and, for the present, unimportant matter of speculation. The advances which breach the divide between the superhuman and Godly realms will be of vastly greater import, though they will be considerably less comprehensible to current humans, and will involve the capacity of individuals to change form and travel between times and dimensions. Separateness, the inability to fully transcend one’s own individuality and sense of self, and to be more than one self at an instant, remains the fulfillment of the final unified state, in which Divinity knows itself, and accepts that which it is not.

(c) Copyright 2009 by A. Rogolsky