Religious leaders often tell us that we don't need to look
any farther than our own hearts to find God.
But, I've never
heard any of them recommend a good place to look for Satan.
I mean if you want to avoid him you should know where he
hangs out, right?
Unfortunately our spiritual shepherds have been reluctant to hand over
the GPS.
Luckily, science has stepped into the breach.
My friends, it turns out that the Prince of Darkness lives
in a place that you can't avoid, i.e.,
your brain.
Creepy.
If he had
built a little homestead in your mind it would be easy to avoid him.
But no, His Evil Majesty, had the chutzpah to stake a claim deep
in your grey matter.
According to conservation biologist, Michael Soule, in a
conversation with journalist Michelle
Nijhuis, (see link below), humans are hard wired to sin.
The proof?
Magnetic resonance and electroencephalography techniques have been
used in the last twenty years to locate the places in our brains that are
activated when we 'sin'.
Mr. Soule says that five of the deadly sins, (greed, anger, gluttony, lust, sloth)
were all necessary for the early survival of our species.
It was only with the veneer of civilization, when the survival of
the group became important, that our selfish behaviours had to be reined
in.
BUT,
he warns us that the five, plus the newer sins of envy and pride, are still very much a part of our physiology and it is a
constant battle for most of us to manage them.
In fact our self-interest, once necessary for our survival
is now destroying the world because it makes us incapable of dealing with big issues like
climate change.
Michael Soule is a conservation biologist and a Buddhist.
He feels that people on a spiritual journey are better able
to 'moderate' their sinfulness and 'focus on what is needed in the world'.
In other words finding God in our hearts can help us tame the Devil in
our brains and maybe save the planet.
