Written by Allan Beveridge |

Our Evolution

As I sit at my desk and write this the predominant thoughts I have are around ideas related to our evolution and in some respects what people "should or shouldn't" be doing in this regard. We have all encountered situations where it might be suggested that what someone is doing is harmful and not helping them, or that someone is missing their calling or that someone could do be or that someone should grow and work on their personal development in some fashion be it their work, personal life or even spiritually. I have spoken about judgments before and that is what these are.

These thoughts come with the notion that there is some "best way" to go about things, that people are causing harm to themselves or others. In the greater scheme of things I view both of these as irrelevant. Why? They are irrelevant because everyone is doing exactly what they need to do at any particular moment in time.

You may ask "how can causing themselves or others harm be what they need to do?" as this statement appears to condone what are viewed as negative or harmful acts. Do not confuse condoning with accepting the reality, at least in my opinion, that we attract what we need to experience to grow. Sometimes those acts are viewed as harmful, though this is a very limited and personality based view. This occurs when one sees only this life and views all things as personal relative to this one lifetime. Of course because of the nature of our existence here, of a given incarnation, this is to be expected.

When you consider a given lifetime, we are born into certain circumstances and come in with inherent qualities as determined by what our "higher self" needs to learn. To us this lifetime is all we have so it is natural to view everything from this perspective; however, it is a myopic view and one that makes it harder or more challenging to view the world objectively and to find balance in it. It is hard to elevate your awareness when you are seeing good and bad in things as these are judgments and judgments are, in part, what create the illusion we struggle to see through and past.

In my June 10th TOD titled A Consideration of Opposites I looked at opposites such as "good and bad". In that piece I suggested that:

I saw that what is built is manifested from both good and evil (or as some would view it - bad). For me personally, it meant that while there is good and bad as "distinct things" in life and we can view them this way when we experience them, however, we are able to grow when we integrate them. We need both to come to a higher level of knowing about them, one that includes not just them as separate aspects but also as a combined whole. Once we do this we lose the good and bad and are left with the deeper understanding that is neither good nor bad, yet one that contains a true understanding of both.

Our reality is defined by our experiences and our reaction to them and the awareness that comes out of them. However, this awareness is also limited because we are limited to being one person at a time and we can only view things based on set of action-reactions we have as this one person. To see past this we must elevate our view to look at our relationship with the greater whole or the Cosmos or to the GOD.

When we see someone who is harming themselves or others, or who is struggling with something or who is not growing as we believe they should we are judging them based on our limited perspective. The Cosmos has no concept of good or bad as we know it at all. There are actions and reactions which are added to the consciousness of the Cosmos. They are necessary as this is how evolution occurs.

If everything were the same there would be no manifestation as differences are essential to create anything. As I mentioned in the same piece:

Now, consider that in order for there to be anything, be it a thought, an emotion or a physically manifested object there must have been opposition. That is if everything is the same nothing is created. There are no interactions between things that are they same, they are in harmony, not conflict.

Even saying this there are those that will state that somethings are still bad relative to something else. But this runs contrary to the notion that there must be differences to have manifestation of any kind. To see things in a higher way I will use an analogy. Consider a beaker of water, pristene and pure. Now, in this state there is stasis, there is no growth or development. In order to have development one must introduce something "not water" into the beaker. If I toss a piece of sodium into the water it reacts violently and continues to do so until the reaction has run it's course and again the water in the beaker comes to a point of stasis or stillness.

What is in the beaker is not the same as before as a new factor was introduced, it has "evolved"; however, as before it is no longer active and "evolution" ceases. New chemicals were created and reacted until they react no more. Now, if we add something else into the beaker the stasis is overturned, reactions ensue and the process is repeated with the introduction of each new "chemical" into the beaker.

Of course this is an oversimplification, but what applies at the micro level also applies at the macro level. Each one of us is like that beaker, and are part of a bigger beaker one could refer to as our higher or true self which in turn is part of an even bigger beaker some refer to as the Logos or even GOD. Fundamentally, in each lifetime or beaker, new factors are introduced, and they play out in the action-reactions we experience.

This is examined or rather brought forward and explained in a way in The Cosmic Doctrine, by Dion Fortune. I will share this passage from the book:

The formation, development and devolution of a universe corresponds to the evolutionary cycle of the Logos, so that the Logos develops by means of a series of incarnating impulses which are evolutionary live waves or swarms. Each succeeding evolution penetrates deeper into the 'form' aspect of the universe; renders it more complex in its organization; brings it to a stage further in the development of that perfect balance of forces which it is enabled to reach as a whole. When the entire manifested universe acts as a whole it is fully self-conscious. As soon as self-consciousness is established, objective consciousness becomes possible. The universe then becomes aware of the Cosmos. Reciprocal consciousness between Logos and universe is then possible.

The goal of objective consciousness can only be achieved through this process. We observe someone doing something we feel is harmful or holding them back, yet it is essential for them to go through, it is their reaction to the added complexity and is needed to bring them to a further stage of development. I touched on this in the aforementioned TOD when I stated:

Good and evil or good and bad, peace and strife, wealth and poverty are necessary aspects of life, not because we prefer them or want them, rather simply because there is nothing at all without them.

There is a reason people manifest what they do and if we are to be of any help or assistance to them we must raise our awareness beyond the consequences we see to the source of their misunderstanding. I cannot help a person to cease harmful activities if my focus is on the harm they do. Going back to the earlier analogy, if I focus on the reaction to introducing a new element into the beaker I miss the point that the reaction, however violent, is necessary in order for the reaction to come to stasis or balance.

How I do this is I ask myself "what is this person not seeing that they "need" to see in order to not repeat the violent reaction?" This is why locking up people for doing "wrong" does not lead to the person figuring it out (though this does happen for some people) and why when we judge another for their actions what we are actually doing is adding even more "chemicals to their mix" and essentially forcing more complexity and yet more reactions that they must deal with. It is hard to do because this life appears to be all we have regardless of whether we believe in an afterlife or a heaven after this life is over because our belief in these ideas is not as strong as our subjective awareness of the impacts of life experiences on us.

The experiences that people have are exactly what they need to bring "stasis" or balance to their beaker. Stasis is not generally achieved in one lifetime because the complexity of our consciousness results in so many action-reaction sets that few are ever balanced out in one life. If you consider many lifetimes of being different people you will realize just how complex our action reaction sets are. Aspects of these are brought into a lifetime, this allows us to work on particular influences within our beaker, but it is far from all the influences that are part of our "higher self's beaker".

The Masters and adepts of this world spread great wisdom, though few can take advantage of it because they do not yet see that what people are experiencing is necessary. It is necessary in order for them to work through what they have manifested as a result of how they "integrated" what they have experienced. We do not bring with us the knowledge of what is right and wrong as these are constructs we have created and are not aspects of the Cosmos. This is why the idea of sin is such a misnomer. Sin is merely ignorance that leads to particular outcomes we then judge as "sinful".

So, the next time you observe someone, including yourself, and you begin to judge actions remember this. When you choose to try to help or assist them elevate your thoughts above the consequences of their actions, hard as this may be, and try to see the element that has been added to their beaker. We must not add our judgments into the mix, which is why the great spiritual teaches focus on the mechanisms, the thoughts and ideas that lead to certain conditions and not on the outcomes themselves. If we can do this, if we you can then step beyond our judgments even at times, we can help the person to see the source or "cause" of what led them to do whatever it is they did. They must recognize it and then understand it to move past it. We can not make them or force them to do so. If we can see how their experiences are important to their evolution, even if we view them as harmful then we can better aid them on their path.