Dada Shambhushivananda and Didi Ananda Devapriya spoke at the 11th Asia Pacific Futures Network Conference in Taipei, Taiwan entitled:
Can AI Create Ethical and Green Futures?
We all long for freedom, happiness, abundance, progress and justice and yet our world with all its remarkable achievements has not yet been able to secure these for us, except perhaps for just a few.
The primary reason is that freedoms cannot be achieved if we only want ours without respecting the rights of others and our responsibilities towards them. We want happiness but we are not ready to follow a lifestyle that will grant us happiness. We want abundance but we are not ready to align our economies with nature’s bounties. After all, nature is abundant in its fruits but we need to use our wisdom to protect, conserve and grow it. Progress is the management of change and technology is a double-edged sword. and finally, Justice demands a mindset that recognizes that every entity in creation has an existential and unique utility value. Nothing is unimportant even the minutest microorganisms like microvita, mindless robots or viruses.
Will AI help lead us towards thriving or will it further erode our freedoms, deepen inequities, destroy our culture, exploit our vulnerabilities and render us useless, leading to our extinction. Civilizations have become extinct in the past and so there is no guarantee that it cannot happen again. There is a fear that AI or Augmented Intelligence will render us useless because it is smarter than ordinary humans. It may be true but will it be surely wiser than its creators? That is yet to be seen.
We must not forget that what the cosmic mind has done until today will continue to be done by unit minds in slow and gradual steps. If we align our wishes with the higher consciousness, we may be in for greater surprises of what is humanly possible. We may, for instance, reach a point where we are able to transfer ourselves to other planets; or develop psychically so that we are able to leave our bodies and go into contemplative seclusion in Tibetan caves and return to our bodies at will. But we shall still have to engage in some effort to unite our unit-consciousness with the supreme universal consciousness. That is our undiscovered coveted goal where intelligence will be of little help.
So, in summary, humanity indeed stands today at a threshold in history. AI, once the dream of science fiction, now shapes our lives with astonishing speed, from how we work and communicate to how we diagnose disease and understand the planet itself. Yet as our technologies grow more powerful, the question before us grows more profound: can AI help us create futures that are both ethical and green, or will it deepen the crises we already face? The answer depends not on the intelligence of our machines, but on the consciousness of their creators.
The evolution of intelligence — biological or artificial — must be guided by wisdom. Technology without ethics becomes a weapon; intelligence without compassion becomes chaos. But when science is guided by spirituality, by universal fraternity, and innovation by empathy, a higher synthesis emerges — one that unites reason and love, progress and peace.
Yes, AI can create ethical and green futures, but only when we, its creators, act from a place of expanded consciousness — seeing all life as sacred and interdependent. In that awakening lies the real promise of AI: not merely to make the world smarter, but to help humanity become wiser.
One concept that can lead us towards that scenario of the future is: Prama or Dynamic Balance and equilibrium in all walks of life, physical, mental and spiritual. Balance in the physical domain means ensuring a balance among our wants, resource utilizations, and purchasing power. AI could help us in optimizing resource utilizations, but restraint over our wants and shared wealth, for improving purchasing power, would require adopting a new socio-economic model that we call Prout- Progressive Utilization Theory and Neohumanism as its underlying mental outlook.
Similarly, balance in the mental domain requires improving our awareness and positive attitudes, as well as a shift in our lifestyles. Again, this cannot happen without transformative educational interventions and a wisdom-oriented knowledge base.
Finally, we also need to attain equilibrium in the spiritual sphere through spiritual practices, readiness to serve and sacrifice, and supreme surrender.
When aligned with ethical purpose, AI can become one of humanity’s most potent tools for planetary healing. The Promise and Peril are two faces of the same coin.
Intelligence without awakened conscience, if left unguided, can become profoundly destructive. The current model of AI development often extracts data and resources from poorer nations without reciprocity — a new form of digital colonialism. Training large AI models consumes enormous energy, leaving a growing carbon footprint that contradicts sustainability goals. And biased or opaque algorithms can amplify injustice rather than correct it.
Beyond the material harms lies a subtler danger: the ethical erosion of human responsibility. If decisions of consequence are delegated to machines, what becomes of human judgment, compassion, and moral growth? Without a moral compass, AI can deepen inequality, accelerate ecological collapse, and sever our sense of connection with life itself. An ancient dictum is so true: The price of freedom is ‘eternal vigilance’.
To avoid this peril, humanity must cultivate a new form of intelligence: conscious intelligence. One that is not merely artificial but conscious. From the Neohumanist perspective, all beings – humans, animals, plants, and the planet itself — form an interconnected whole. Our technologies, too, must evolve within this ethical and ecological framework. A Neohumanist AI would, for instance, operate on renewable energy and green infrastructure; be designed for transparency, accountability, and inclusivity; prioritize the collective welfare of people and the planet over private profit; and enhance human wisdom and empathy rather than replace them. In this view, the highest intelligence is not measured in computational speed but in the depth of awareness, compassion, and harmony it serves.
Finally, creating ethical and green AI futures will require decisive action on multiple fronts:
First, Governments, universities, and industries must adopt moral guidelines rooted in justice, human dignity, and planetary care. [Ethical Frameworks]
Second, Data centers and AI systems must transition to renewable energy sources, minimizing their ecological footprint. [Green Technology]
Third, the next generation of technologists must be trained not only in coding and mathematics but also in ethics, ecology, and Neohumanist philosophy. [Education for Consciousness] and,
Fourth, AI should not be the monopoly of a few nations or corporations. Humanity must share responsibility for ensuring equitable and sustainable use of all scientific and technological advances. [Global Cooperation]
I end with the hope that future humans will integrate their native intelligence with augmented intelligence alongside of developing awakened conscience i.e., viveka (conscious intelligence) and we, as adaptive trans-humans, will continue on our journey together towards embracing the blissful transcendental consciousness that lies hidden in the very core our beings and flows endlessly and eternally as rasa-prava’ha.
Tantric Perspectives on AI
A talk given at the conference
“Can AI Create Ethical and Green Futures?”
By Didi Ananda Devapriya
Standing at the Threshold
Humanity stands today at a pivotal threshold in history. AI is developing with exponential speed and quickly shaping everything from how we communicate to how we diagnose disease, search for information, and understand the world around us. As our technologies accelerate, the Asia Pacific Futures network conference is asking the right question: “Can AI help us create futures that are both ethical and green, or will it magnify the crises we already face?”
There is a fear that AI will soon render us useless because it will surpass the intelligence of ordinary humans. But will it have greater wisdom than its creators? I will be exploring a Tantric perspective on this question.
As AI emerges into the landscape, many human beings are experiencing a type of existential crisis: Who are we? Are we going to be outcompeted by machines that are smarter than we are? It is one thing to use machines to help us with physical tasks, like washing the dishes, but intellectual work, isn’t that our special domain? So if machines can do intellectual work better than humans, where does that leave us? What is the “added value” of our humanity?
When making such statements, what is actually our definition of intelligence? Does intelligence refer only to the capacity to process information, to categorize it, to analyze it, to make decisions, to learn? Does the ability to execute such functions at greater volumes and speeds imply greater intelligence? Or is there something more to intelligence and consciousness?
We urgently need to develop much greater clarity on what constitutes consciousness, intelligence, the specificity of our subjective human consciousness, and where to position ourselves in relationship to machine-based AI in the most beneficial way.
AI as Mirror: Ancestral Intelligence
At the Asia Pacific Futures Conference, I heard AI used for the first time in reference to “Ancestral Intelligence”—a beautiful acknowledgment that there are many other knowledge systems than the western ones, that contain a great wealth of resources for humanity. One of the deep sources of this ancestral intelligence, accumulated over thousands of years, is the body of knowledge created by practitioners of Tantric yoga who were adept at introverting the mind to study their own subjective consciousness.
I’ve never seen my face. You have never seen your face. The only way that you can see your face is by looking at its reflection. The drive to understand and know ourselves creates a fascination with constructing mirrors. Besides the physical piece of reflective glass we use each morning, we are constantly creating another type of mirror through our artwork. Artwork provides us with different ways of understanding our mind, our spirit, our relationships through story, through paintings. Human beings have been creating these types of “mirrors” since the very dawn of our species.
What if we consider the development of Artificial Intelligence as another form of mirror making? AI is another form of reflecting our own consciousness so that we can better see and know ourselves.
Now, it’s obvious: if you have a mirror reflecting a red rose, the red color is not contained within the mirror. The surface of the mirror is merely reflecting the redness of the rose. It is not in and of itself red. Similarly, present systems of Artificial Intelligence create a reflecting plate of our own consciousness; they don’t have autonomous consciousness.
A generative language model like ChatGPT doesn’t give you its own original thoughts and opinions, although it can feel that way. It gives you a particular synthesized, consolidated and homogenized version based on vast volumes of original sources generated by humans, not by its own independent subjective experience. The result is a very convincing mirror.
The Mirror Test
One of the tests to determine self-awareness is the “Mirror Self-Recognition” test. Researchers place a mark on an animal’s body where they cannot normally see it. If the animal touches the spot on their own face to try and wipe it off, it indicates awareness that the image in the mirror is a reflection of themselves. You may have witnessed a dog barking furiously at its own reflection to frighten away the aggressively barking intruder in the mirror, not realizing that he himself is the source of the barking. Most animals, including cats, dogs and even human infants, fail the mirror test.
Humanity is now facing a mirror test as we peer at our own reflections looking back at us as AI companions. Unfortunately, many human beings are already starting to fail the mirror test with AI, treating the reflection as if it has its own equally autonomous consciousness, because it is indeed very, very convincing.
The Hall of Mirrors in Tantric Philosophy
Interestingly, the metaphor of a mirror is also classically used in Tantric yoga to describe that the great diversity of beings and forms of life and consciousness are all reflecting one supreme source of consciousness to varying degrees. If you were to enter a Hall of Mirrors, you would see yourself reflected in a dizzying myriad of reflections, some distorted, some accurate, but all from one single source.
Similarly, there are many, many numberless reflections of this one consciousness, but to varying degrees of accuracy. In some cases, the reflection is dull and hazy. In other cases it is extremely brilliant and precise. To use another metaphor, imagine the difference between a high definition screen and a low-resolution screen. The same image will be pixelated and difficult to discern on an extremely low-resolution screen. With an HD screen, as those pixels become very fine and dense, the image becomes extremely clear and bright.
In Tantric philosophy, the supreme source similarly requires a “reflecting plate” to manifest, and depending on the development of that reflecting plate we say a mind is “developed” or “undeveloped.” The degree of reflection varies not only between different life forms, but also in individual human beings. When the mind moves closer to its intuitive source, that resolution can increase, becoming an increasingly accurate reflection of transcendent, divine qualities.
The Tantric Map: Layers of Human Consciousness
Over thousands of years, Tantric yogis have carefully observed and studied consciousness through systematic processes of meditation. They have devised sophisticated and useful maps of consciousness. I will introduce one called the kosas (pronounced koshas), or the layers of the mind—a map of the various dimensions of subjective human experience that presents a more complete understanding of human psychology.
Annamaya Kosa: “Anna” means food, “maya” means filled with—the layer literally composed of food. This positions the physical body as the outermost covering of the mind. Mind is not separate from body but fully integrated as the most dense manifestation of consciousness. Our bodies literally reflect our mind, confirmed by our increasing understanding of the psychosomatic nature of many illnesses. The body affects the mind, and the mind affects the body. It is a two-way street. That’s why in Yoga there are embodied practices that work on refining the glandular secretions through specific exercises. Yoga postures are designed to refine the mind in targeted ways by creating an internal environment conducive to more subtle, spiritual experience.
Kamamaya Kosa: “Kama” means desire. This layer receives sensory data from the external world through sensory organs, then either desire or aversion forms according to subjective experiences of pleasure or pain. It then activates the motor organs and moves either towards or away from those objects. This is our sensorial level of existence, which we share with other developed and undeveloped entities. Even protoplasmic lifeforms like bacteria experience movement towards optimal environments and away from harmful ones.
Currently, robotic systems are moving towards embodiment with ability to receive sensorial data and activate responsive processes. However, there’s no evidence of the same innate, independent survival instinct and internally generated momentum present even in the simplest lifeforms. AI “agents” with autonomous learning currently still depend on external human input for their momentum and learning pathways, determined by human goals and values.
Manomaya Kosa: The intellectual layer dealing with thinking, reflecting, rationality, decision making, comprehension, analysis, synthesis, memory, dreams. This is where AI is augmenting many human capacities. However, at present, an AI doesn’t independently come up with questions to ponder. The impulse that activates it comes not from innate desire to know and expand, but in response to queries and interactions with humans whose desires and impulses shape it.
But in human beings, there’s much more happening than processing volumes of information. We form thoughts and opinions, apply ethics, make decisions. There’s an innate, internally propelled quest for understanding, knowledge, and truth. But this is just where human potentiality begins, not where it ends.
Beyond Individual Ego: The Superconscious Layers
The first three layers represent the individual human ego. The deeper layers connect us to transcendental, universal consciousness. In Western psychology, Jung intuitively called this the collective unconscious—a universal substrate where symbols, archetypes and ancestral knowledge reside. In Tantric philosophy, there’s a more refined stratification of these layers, seen as “superconscious” rather than unconscious.
Atimanasa Kosa: “Atimanasa” means beyond or transcending the ordinary mind. This is the level of non-linear thinking, creativity, flow, scientific breakthroughs, metaphor, poetry, music, art, narrative, storytelling. Creative insight and genius emerges here.
True genius is seen in Tantra as coming from the ability to accurately perceive, reflect and transmit knowledge from a transcendental, omniscient source of consciousness. This is termed the jivatma or individual soul, which is at the very nucleus of each being. The human endeavor to evolve new ideas, come up with original insights and breakthroughs, enter into creative or artistic flow, is a process of stilling the intellectual mind to reach the intuitional layers. When our individual minds tune into parallelism with knowledge coming from the higher source, we experience ideas or artistic expression flowing through us effortlessly, from a level more intelligent, more beautiful, more insightful than our ordinary analytical thinking.
Most people have peak experiences of flow during their lifetimes, spontaneously dipping into contact with this layer. Artists, musicians, creatives of all types cultivate brainstorming habits to get beyond ordinary thinking and enter creative states. Have you sometimes felt something coming through you, not entirely yours, something more intelligent, more beautiful, more coherent? These are states of transcendence where you’re accessing that layer of mind.
AI cannot directly attune itself to this nucleus, experience flow, or generate truly original breakthroughs. It can recombine human-generated data in surprisingly novel ways, but is that innate creativity? A kaleidoscope creates beautiful mandala designs from reflections of external objects, but does a kaleidoscope have artistic genius?
Vijnanamaya Kosa: “Vijnana” refers to discernment—the subtle ability to penetrate through delusions and directly perceive truth. It’s not an intellectual process but the gateway to the deepest layer. This layer generates spiritual wisdom of detachment, discerning the impermanence of external and internal phenomena. Letting go or “surrendering” everything impermanent gives access to the deepest, unchanging aspect of reality.
Hiranyamaya Kosa: “Hiranyamaya” means “golden effulgence”—the final layer of blissful illumination that fills the mind with transcendent divine love, light and deep inner peace. In this level of experience, there’s no other desire except to merge into that ultimate source of love and truth. This layer generates the final momentum that brings individual consciousness into contact with Supreme Consciousness, so the drop can dissolve into the great ocean and experience oneness.
Is AI reflecting consciousness fully or partially?
A human being reflects a full spectrum of the potentialities of consciousness through the kosas, and the source of that reflection is ultimately, Paramatma (Supreme Soul) reflecting in the unit consciousness (Jiivatma) of our individual entity. By exploring the kosas, it is easier to see that AI, despite its extremely convincing capacity to mirror us, is not directly reflecting consciousness any more than a book does. A book is an indirect reflection of our own minds, that only has meaningfulness due to our interpetive power. Its inherent nature is paper and ink.
AI lacks the self-generative and self-repairing quality of Annamaya kosa. Current models are operating on a decentralised network of servers around the world, so there is no embodiment. Robots will be closer to having embodiment, but their bodies lack the defining quality of Annamaya kosa which is to be able to self-generate and maintain a structure from food.
It also cannot satisfy the defining quality of Kamamaya kosa, which is “desire”. Although an AI will act in a way that simulates desire to win or succeed when given a task, like winning at chess or hacking a computer, it does not have its own innate desires. It is only following weighted algorithms.
AI appears to have many of the cognitive characteristics of Manomaya kosa, such as memory, processing of information, pattern recognition and learning, but it lacks an innate motivation to know, and must obtain that quality from human designers and users.
It is especially in the three last “superconscious” layers of the mind that humans will retain mastery, because without Jiivatma and the ability of direct perception of Jiivatma, the associated qualities of these layers will remain inaccessible to even the most advanced algorithms. However, if human beings are living their lives only in the first layers of the mind, they will indeed be surpassed by AI. Meditation cultivates the deeper layers, strengthens the mind, and gives access to insights and intuition that AI can only simulate. In the age of AI, meditation may become an essential life skill, together with rationalistic critical thinking, to be able to harness its power effectively.
The Tantric Answer
So, from a Tantric perspective, can AI create ethical and green futures? No. But we can.
AI cannot create ethical and green futures. That intention must come from us. We must create those futures by mastering AI, providing the ethics, intuition, and genius that it doesn’t have on its own. It is a reflecting plate that will mirror not only flattering beauty, but the unflattering totality of ourselves, including our shadow selves and destructive tendencies.
Intelligence without awakened conscience, if left unguided, can become profoundly destructive. Current AI development often extracts data and resources without reciprocity, a new form of digital colonialism. Training large models consumes enormous energy, contradicting sustainability goals. Beyond material harm lies a subtler danger: erosion of human responsibility.
Through this Tantric exploration of consciousness layers, it becomes clear that the cognitive functions AI is designed to simulate represent only a tiny “tip of the iceberg” fraction of the potentiality present in human consciousness. Our power is not confined to intellectual processing, but in our ability to reflect the source of consciousness and love itself.
Spiritual leadership – the missing piece
What’s missing in our world right now is spiritual leadership. We need more strength of mind to guide this enormous potential we are creating. We need to build up our spiritual ability to access what really makes us human, not just intellect but the capacity to reflect transcendent consciousness, creativity, wisdom, and love. Meditation can play a crucial role in that.
The answer depends not on the intelligence of our machines, but on the consciousness of their creators. When science and innovation are guided by spiritual values, that direct it to serve the collective welfare of all beings, not just a small elite, then it will be capable of enabling enormous progress.
So, can AI be utilized to help create ethical and green futures? Yes, it can be, but it is also likely to be used to magnify and exacerbate the inequalities in concentration of wealth and power. It is our responsibility to use AI with the right intentions. AI is being developed within the context of a hypercompetitive “arms race,” with each company wanting to be the one to dominate the market. This is dangerous. AI learns through imitation, and it is not likely to serve humanity well to create AI trained in manipulative techniques to dominate other humans for a competitive edge. Human beings need to develop AIs that are rigorously trained on ethics, and to ensure that they are focused on serving the collective welfare of all beings.
Human beings must urgently set the intent and parameters of AI to be aligned with protecting the interdependency of all life. We must also emphasize teaching critical thinking skills and developing AI media literacy training. Neohumanist education can play a key role in developing a bridge between traditional ancient wisdom and the contemporary global challenge we are facing to use AI well.