What if Evolution is Still Happening?
In the previous essay, “What if These Are the End Times???” the conversation was about how the unrest, conflict and chaos — everything everywhere all at once — that seem to be showing up daily might be signs of something really important that wants to happen, something that’s actually already in process.
Look at all of the breakdowns, at all the issues that result in polarization and conflict, and all the things in the world that are confusing us or making us unhappy right now. If we’re convinced that they’re wrong, they’re caused by someone else, someone not like us, that they should never have happened, and that they either have to be fixed, legislated away or vanquished, we may be missing the point.
Could it all be a big mistake? Do we just need to turn the clock back?
I don’t think so. To quote songwriter Stephen Stills from Buffalo Springfield’s 1996 recording of “For What It’s Worth,” There’s something happening here/But what it is ain’t exactly clear … There’s battle lines being drawn/Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.
What if Evolution is not just past history, but still alive? What if the human species continues to evolve? And what if this stage of Evolution is focused on human consciousness?
I know there are arguments against evolution, some of them based on Biblical research, but hear me out.
What are some of the signs of evolution of human consciousness?
What about the status of women in developed countries? How long ago were women treated as chattel, as property? How long ago were they denied the right to vote? How long ago were their career possibilities substantially limited to housewife, secretary, nurse or librarian? What about the progress women made in the 20th century, inching toward income equality with men in the same professions and jobs? Why is it that women are now driving race cars, flying airliners and military aircraft, graduating from military academies, sitting on the Supreme Court, serving as political leaders, performing surgery, and offering wisdom and healing as writers and speakers?
Isn’t that evidence of the evolution of consciousness?
And that’s just one population. What about the work-in-progress evolution of the status of African Americans in the U.S.? What about the gains in respect, influence and acceptance of persons who are not heterosexual?
What if Evolution (or Life) has no plans to quit until we’re all “perfect?”
In his book, The Kingdom Within, ordained minister and Jungian analyst John A. Sanford addressed Biblical statements attributed to Jesus, like “The kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21, KJV) and in order to enter the kingdom, “You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) Acknowledging that most humans have difficulty with how high the Biblical bar has been set, he goes back to the language in which the books of the Bible were originally written and asserts that the Greek word usually translated as “perfect” actually means “brought to completion” or “brought to the end state.”
To me that sounds like “having achieved one’s full potential,” much more personal and achievable than “perfect.”
And think about this: two millennia later, Eckhart Tolle wrote in A New World, “Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that.”
What if Evolution is still happening and its purpose is to guide each of us to awaken and to fulfill our individual potential?
And what if the fulfillment of our human potential is intended to manifest in our consciousness, in our (re)discovery and manifestation of the Divine within, the “Kingdom” or however you might imagine that buried potential?
What would the world look like if we collectively made serious and significant strides toward that objective? Might we stop killing each other in wars? Might we find it in our hearts to co-create a New World in which people don’t die from malnutrition, in which everyone has the opportunity to live a life of safety, reasonable comfort and respect?
What if …
What if that’s the intention of Evolution, Life, the Universe, the Soul of the World, the Divine, the God Within or whatever you want to call it? What if that’s why the house of cards that we’ve carefully and collectively assembled is collapsing or being blown over?
What if that’s why everything seems to be going to hell?
And, if so, what are we to do with or about it?
© 2024 Paul Wesley Burke. All rights reserved.
