Evolution

What if the purpose of life was to evolve, and through that evolution be happy?

Not a physical evolution, but a spiritual evolution — a condition of perpetual learning and discovery of wisdom that comes through life experience.

What if the purpose of life was to celebrate this life experience so as to uncover deeper truths about human nature, its condition, and the universe which surrounds it?

Most people’s lives today are rudderless ships, sailing in circles without any destination and without any able crew to guide it towards any meaningful destination.  Today, there is a deep sense of aimlessness in people’s hearts, a sad recognition that this world provides little meaning other than the experiences provided by consumerism and technology.  Indeed, consumer society has provided a useful way by which some of the pressing issues that most people would grapple with in their lives — why am I here?  what is my purpose? — can be put aside in favor of temporary stimulation.

For many thousands of years, most people could not answer these questions because they were too concerned with basic survival.  Droughts, wars, sickness:  the major scourges of humankind have never been kind nor just in their tithes of human flesh.  In the 21st century, tremendous advances have been made in curing disease, ending hunger, attempting to ease the destructiveness of human conflict.  What a tremendous moment to capture something more meaningful about the human condition; yet it is precisely at this moment when such search for answers to life’s pressing questions go most unanswered.

The long historical arc of human progress is an impressive story.  For many thousands of years, people thought it was fine to own slaves, beat their wives, abuse their children, torture their enemies and conquer less powerful countries.  By and large, all of these ideas have been rejected in just the last 100 years.  This is an an amazing example of the evolution of human kind.

Tremendous progress, yes, but at the same time, evolution continues and demands further efforts.  From the perspective of a deeper wisdom, from the perspective that life is a long journey of discovery and education, it is clear that many people remain attached to social practices that are perplexing.  For example, why the need for jails?  If people have made mistakes, it seems terribly wasteful to have society build a concrete edifice, strip people off their basic needs for many years, confine them away from their loved ones, and then expect these people to either take responsibility or learn from that mistake.  The purpose of jails seems to only be to “punish,” but without an understanding of what that punishment will serve or how it will either aid the offender, the victim, or society at large.

Why the fixation on profit?  Material abundance is a wonderful thing, but as a society it seems clear we are taking the emphasis on profit to bad places.  Currently, scientists are concerned that run away economic growth is leading to global warming and the overuse of essential natural resources.  Would it not make more sense to transition to a model of sustainability in order to preserve the Earth for future generations?

Why the need for power?  In an era when people are educated on the benefits of equality and democracy, they seem surprisingly willing to accept differences in power and the breakdown of society between the “haves” and the “have-nots”.  Indeed, there remains a vast subset of the human community that subscribes to an “authoritarian mindset”:  too afraid to think for themselves, they insist on subscribing to the belief systems fed to them by the mainstream media, political leaders and even religious authorities.

The consciousness that resides in every person is energy; and energy, by its nature, is eternal as the universe.  So it is not hyperbole to simply note that within every person is an eternal spark of the universe, a spark that animates the mind, creates desires, feels emotion and learns from experience.  This energy is what is evolving.  It is consciousness itself that grows and creates ever more intricate designs, ever deeper conclusions about the nature of existence.

And when death comes, this consciousness does not simply evaporate — energy does not simply disappear.  It can only change form.  Evolution is permanent; it alters  consciousness, and because consciousness is part of this grand universe, the universe by definition must be altered as well.

Human beings are very adept at programming machines, but they oftentimes forget how much programming has been instilled in them at a young age — by parents, by elders, by society.  And, everyday, people unthinkingly execute these programs.  But instead of blindly executing, they ought to independently weigh these programs, keep the good ones, and discard the bad ones, or ones that were simply appropriate for another era.

Where does evolution take humanity?  It takes humanity to freedom.  The quest for political freedom and the quest for spiritual freedom are one and the same.  In the West, political philosophy related to freedom has been finely cultivated, while in the East one finds treatise after treatise on the pursuit of spiritual freedom.  But if a society is to be truly free, it must accept both the political and spiritual components of freedom.

Political freedom is the call of the revolutionary.  It is a spirit of energy, of action.  It is complemented by spiritual freedom, which is the call of the mystic, of the ascetic, the hermit.   This is an energy of contemplation, of meditation, and of prayer.  Action without contemplation leads to arrogance and zealotry; but contemplation without action leads to stagnation and indolence.

When humanity reaches that point where it sees life as an evolution, as an an opportunity to experience all aspects of life so as to obtain wisdom — at this moment, human behavior and attitudes will change.

At this moment, humanity will see the emergence of a respect for all things, for all forms of consciousness.  People will understand that because consciousness exists to learn, it is inappropriate to interfere with that development.  A rule of reciprocity will emerge:  in order to be allowed to learn, others must be left to follow their own path.  This requires respect for all things and the affirmation of dignity.

Because respect will be a guiding value, there will be fewer needs for laws, for government, for police.  Who needs such things when people can govern themselves?  So, spiritual evolution begets political evolution and the withering away of the state, as naturally as a snake sheds its skin, or as a flower blossoms from its root.  The law of self-reliance and self-regulation will be the governing principles of life.   This is what freedom means — the ability to live one’s live and accept the consequences of one’s own actions.

Take heart in one’s mistakes, because they are the battle scars of evolution and the only indication of spiritual growth.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Content, Freedom and Spiritualism and tagged with evolution, forgotten wisdom, freedom, growth, happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.