Evolution: Why The Heck Are We Here?

Editor's Note: This post is longer than others, but you'll have at least a month to read it before the next one.

Photo credit: Ygraph.com

Anyone who pays close attention to their pets:  knows. 
Anyone who looks to truth beyond biblical teachings: knows.
Anyone with an open mind and respect for Science: knows.

Evolution is Real!
Man descended from apes. This is real Science, according to Charles Darwin (1809-1882), and only if we want to complicate things, should we make it a debate as complicated to the unscientific mind as rocket science. Since Darwin laid out this concept of evolution in 1859 ("On The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin), other scientists have found no solid proof to refute him. Then in the early 20th century,  evidence began to emerge to further support Darwin, with the theory that the Universe was formed billions of years ago, specifically ("Big Bang Theory.")  We can try to deny it as much as we want, but there are many  traits and characteristics humans have with lower animals and species. Whether species came into being in a  "big-bang" may be reason for another debate.

What we know is that since mammals inhabited Earth, all species have changed form. So, the resistance to accepting Evolution by some religious leaders only adds to the confusion already in people's minds, as they ask the questions: "Why Am I Here?" "What is my life's purpose?"

I'll tell you why you're here...why we're all here...and if you keep an open mind and you look around you and think about your life, you won't need Science to help you understand.

Evolution Defined

The dictionary definition of Evolution:
 "A gradual process in which something changes into a different, and usually, more complex or better form." 

Photo credit: Linda Adams

The way I define Evolution:
 "Life continuously seeking to improve upon and diversify itself in all forms."

Evolution  is an occurrence in all aspects of our lives and with all living species. (Dolphins Find Ways to Give Each Other Names.)

The reason is simple: God is LIFE, which always seeks to express itself in better ways through all of its manifestations.







There are several aspects to human evolution:

• Personal
• Familial
• Social and Political
• Religious and Spiritual

Since evolution will not be stopped, Life, itself, seeking expression through the billions of people on Earth, always will find a way to go around blocks it finds in its path to move forward. As individuated expressions of LIFE, we can place blocks or cooperate with the spirit within us.

Everywhere we choose to look, we see growth (evolution) forcing its way through.

"Jesus called the fishermen...to become active participants in the creative process, rather than passive expressions of a sense of lack."

 "...we must become conscious of what we are doing and embrace our co-creative

 role in manifesting a more compassionate world."

- Unity, Lent 2013, A Season for Spiritual Growth

Role of Science

Fully utilizing developments in Science, which some religious folks try to refute, is part of the divine plan for understanding and sustaining our human evolution.

I love and respect the bible as much as these "religious"  people. But I keep an eye open to life on a much broader scale than where I'm manifesting in my life; I try to see the bigger picture.

Those paying close attention and utilizing their power of discernment should be able to see the ONE spirit within all things, inspiring us to move a little further than we were the year or decade before..

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." 1 Corinthians 13:11

There's a time and place for everything. When we were children, we thought like children. It's now time for us all to grow up!

The Bible's story telling fit with the people of yesterday. Humans did not have the wherewithal to design sophisticated tools of measurements and deductions, like today's scientists, while struggling to survive. Simple story telling of Creation fit with those times. The creation story served its purpose. 

The advances made by man in the 60,000 years we've inhabited the Earth ( See January 2013 National Geographic) could not have been possible without inspiration, and more importantly, direction, coming from an all-knowing, all-encompassing force. It has been the source, and force, of inspiration and creation from the beginning of time. And ...this same force will continue to lead mankind and the Universe to the end of all times. 

The Big Picture
One hundred years from now: How will everything be? What will the world be and how will people in that world  look? Movies make projections...but no one knows the ways and means of "future man." The only force who knows is the universal energy/force/spirit imbuing us, and it isn't talking. It's just keeps moving  through each and every one of us every day, trying to make a way for us in the world, when we ourselves do not see our way. This is how the tapestry of life on Earth gets woven and interwoven.

The impetus for new stimuli in our world seems to be coming with babies now entering our world. If we closely observe young children today, we'll see that a large number seem to have come through as messengers for us. The level of sophistication, wisdom and knowledge with which some are assuming life often may leave us in awe. That is evolution at work, and indeed it is awesome to see people at younger and younger ages accomplishing more and doing more. 

But let's not miss the inherent message of this.

As younger people come into their own, they are opening up the world more widely to our understanding about spirituality, humanity and decency. They are signaling to us where we've missed and are missing the mark in fulfilling our charter as a nationality and as world occupants while on Earth.

In the last decade, or so it seems to me, the Divine seems to be sending messages with increasing urgency through young people being born and growing up.

The message he seems to be sending is about the truth of our beginning and how we and all things in nature are...RELATED.

Vladimir Gorsky's World Famous "Tapestry of Centuries." http://www.gorskyfineart.com 

The kids' message of Oneness on one end is being reinforced on the other end by older folks on spiritual quests who have seen "the light."  More and more people are emerging from the shadows, and their messages have one common theme: "We are connected. We are ONE!"

Whether some folks want to believe in Evolution or not: it's happening now,  it's always been happening and it always will be happening! Human Evolution is happening  at many levels: personal, familial, social and religious/spiritual.

The reason we don't see it is because we don't stop to see how things are moving together and fitting together and moving in one direction: FORWARD!

Personal Evolution
We were born at a certain time and in a certain generation for a specific purpose that truly only God knows. But we can work with him to co-create our "beingness" and contributions.

We have a set of skills and talents to contribute to the world's overall growth.  It may take time for us  to recognize and develop those unique skills and talents, but we begin to see our orientation around puberty. By then, we know if we are good at Science, Math, Geography or the Liberal Arts, or if we want to pursue making a living in the Creative Arts.

Instead of "chopping wood, carrying water" to survive as generations in the past, we now survive and thrive by nurturing and cultivating these orientations during our working years.

It may take time to find the right job, but "finding  ourselves" becomes easier if we are following our natural leanings and tendencies.

When we resist  what's natural to us, wanting to follow what someone else is doing, our lives become complicated.

Often too, we're misled by our own well-meaning  family members, because they want us to fulfill their own unfilled dreams.

Our Soul always has the final say!

If we are not following our own path, or if we're refusing to do anything with the gifts and talents within us, it'll find a way to go around us.

That's when we see some lives head for trouble, as people begin to struggle against their own Souls.

We can fix this by learning to cultivate a relationship with the Spirit within us and seek its guidance always and in all ways.That void, which you may sometimes feel, is your Soul urging you to stretch out a little more in some area of your life: You're getting stale!

Learn to meditate. Go within. Read the Bible. (Or whatever book of scripture applies to your religion.) Remember, though, not to take it literally, since it was written by humans for a different period in history.  




Learn what those before us were really trying to share vs. what you want to hear. Discern the world around us. Don't just look: observe. Don't get bogged down in the day-to-day challenges of life: Stay positive. There are some things out of our control:

Remember back to being a baby and how you participated in the process to grow into your childhood, then to adolescence, then into adulthood? Remember how much you struggled to make it happen?  

Of course, you don't remember! Why? It was a natural process of Evolution, and one in which all you had to do to participate was to breathe! The spirit within you and within the Universe did the rest!

Relax into life!

 "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us. " Romans 8: 18

"Turn your face to the Sun and the shadows fall behind you," Maori Proverb  

Familial Evolution

Photo credit: My Story

With a little observance, we can see how we've evolved, or were intended to evolve, beyond our parents' accomplishments. Each generation begins where their parents' goals and accomplishments end.

Some people are born into the world, where the expectation is simply to finish High School, as their  their parents stopped at Elementary School. For others, it's completing college. For yet others, it is adding to the family legacy in myriad ways.

Familial evolution does not begin or end with education. Evolution can occur in other ways.
A child, choosing  not to be "educated" in the tradition sense, may go forward to accomplish much greater feats than his parents. He/she may know more about solutions to life and contribute more to society overall, without an education. The key is following the spirit within.

Begin to look around and see where in your family, you have a role to play: to go a step or steps beyond your parents as they did by going beyond their parents in some way.

Find your way through to leave your mark. 





Social and Political Evolution

Gloria Steinem 

Gloria Steinem, journalist and founder of Ms. magazine, is credited with the women liberation's movement forward in the 1960s and 1970s.  On a recent appearance on the daily television talk show, The View, she discredits her leadership role and gives some perspective on this: "When disparate people are having the same experience, you then realize that something needs to be done."  Steinem further added that people want to be seen as co-existing in a "Circle,"  not in a hierarchy, "linked, not ranked."

          This is Truth. 




We may start out our journey as singular beings. But somewhere along the way, we begin to pick up companions.

The first of these obviously are members of our families. This is the first "bonding" together that we understand.

Next, we bond together with our friends, our classmates, our  lovers and our communities. These relationships also provide "mirroring images" for us to reject or emulate attitudes, habits and behaviors we want to hold for ourselves.

After the first levels of bonding, we then stretch to other types: those sharing similar political and social interests, sometimes to change the world.

Change is happening daily
Every time a new rule is implemented, or we begin to do things in a different way as a society, this sets the path for future generations. They begin from this point, not where we started.

For this reason, we should be fully engaged in the rules that affect our lives. We must begin to see that politicians have a huge impact on our lives and those of future generations by the "rules" they set.  Regulations set in place affect the quality of foods we eat to the quality of care we can provide for our bodies.  Pay attention!

Look back, too, to see how some of today's rules were established in the past and how we evolved over  generations and centuries. Gone, though, are the days when elected officials have free reign. 


In the United States and  around the world, grassroots actions increasingly are dictating how cities, states and countries are being run. People are taking matters into their own hands, speaking out and taking action, no longer trusting political leaders to do what's right and fair. The expanding world of social media  will ensure the continued evolution of this form of participatory government. 

Whether we struggled against changes as they were happening and unfolding is not the point. Life did not stand still waiting for any of  us to catch up; it moved forward anyway. Some people are still sulking about changes that were made decades ago, even though new and more changes are
occurring today.
They're wasting valuable time stuck in misery, moaning about the past. There's one way you can try to ensure your voice is heard as changes are made: educate yourself about your local politicians and what they really represent, learn about the issues,  keep an open mind to those you may oppose, then VOTE! 

Religious/Spiritual Evolution

Religions were started as a way to do good to help people navigate and chart their way through the world. Perhaps not all the intentions were pure, as some religions were used to keep people in place and control them. Whatever the motivation, religion still plays a large role in our lives today, but we should keep the right perspective about them as well.

At earlier times in human history, there also were conflicts between Religion and Science. According to Huffington Post, Science:

"February 25 is the anniversary of a dark day in science history. In 1616, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), Italian mathematician and astronomer, was ordered by the Catholic Church to recant his statements that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not vice versa. He gave in to the demands the following day. In 1633, he was tried again for heresy, this time being sentenced to house arrest, where he lived out the remainder of his life. "

Today, some Christian groups, wanting to use Creation Science as a substitute for Evolution, are doing their followers a huge disservice and further confusing our understanding of why we're here.  They also are trying to take mankind backward in our understanding of life on earth, when they teach that the Earth was formed a mere 6,000 years ago. (See "Creation Science.")

We must Wake Up to Truth!

Again, the Universe will have the final say with those religions trying to lead people astray or becoming increasingly dictatorial. Indeed, even religions have a way of evolving.

With about 1.2 billion followers and being the second largest religion on Earth, we're seeing major shifts in the Catholic Church. Even more shifts may occur soon. ( Is there more to Pope Benedict  XVI's  resignation?)


Human Evolution: Accept Inevitability of Change

Those fighting inevitable changes are wasting their time. The cultural, political and social revolutions we've witnessed have all come about to the benefit of all mankind!

Evolution at each level  is occurring simultaneously and so subtly, we often don't see how our way of being fits into the overall scheme of things. But were we to look back, we would see how we've moved to "higher level of beings" in the cities, towns and communities where we live every year, every decade. We do this simply by participating in life itself: showing up every day for our families and friends and in workplaces;  staying active in what's occurring around us,  in our communities and in our world, and remaining engaged in life as much as possible.

Credit: "Happy & Free To Be ME"

The fastest and surest way for any of us to slow down our own evolution  is to stop participating in life. Whether we do this at age 30 or at 80 years old, the effect on us is the same: things slow down for us, and we begin to "age." 


Science is helping us to stay healthier and live longer. The ways we now manage illnesses and diseases have dramatically improved. We're also living much longer than previous generations, and we're finding cures much more rapidly than in the past. These improvements all can be attributed to developments in Science and Technology, and we'll continue to keep moving forward. (Mapping The Human Brain.)

Technological changes also are affecting the way we communicate with each other both nationally and internationally today, and these evolutionary changes are happening right before our eyes. We've got to keep our eyes open to see this ever-expanding, ever-widening picture.

We hear so many spiritual experts talk about how important each of us is to life. So the question becomes: What happens if one of us fails to do our part with our lives? Will evolution stop?

Of course not.  While we play a critical role to life, our presence here on Earth is a gift to us. We were sent an invitation to become an individuation of Divine Consciousness, and we accepted it. Plain and simple.

What we do with this invitation and the gifts we were given is up to us while we remain on Earth.  

The world's population is well over seven billion people, who in some way responded to that invitation to participate in life in some way. If we want to be a part of the unfolding landscape, we must become engaged.  Despite the tragedy inherent in this story, when our time is up,  whether at 30, 60 or 90,  we should all aspire to have this said about us: "My Dad Was Not Ready To Die" by Cristina Nehring, 

Whether a tree, an animal, a human being: We've all been given an invitation to the table of Life. Our role is to play our part; we were created for that.

Live it!
We become engaged in life by being our authentic self and living our lives in the best way we know  how with the skills and talents we were given. We can learn from others, but don't try to walk their walk: It's already taken!

Don't focus on the other guy by becoming too competitive; we may wind up running a race that was not  ours to run in the first place.

Without running our own race, we are not being authentic. When we're not authentic, we truly are not living our lives on purpose. We start running around trying to find our way, often getting confused and more lost. That's when our lives begin to fall apart and even to retrogress.




                                Cooperation: Lessons humans can learn  from lower species

As humans, we can learn much by observing birds and animals about how to co-exist with each other, even with our many differences. When these lower species sense danger,  they move solidly  forward as ONE.  We see demonstrations of this many times  in nature: different species overlooking their individual needs and working together as cooperative groups so that all the species survive.

Photo credit: Christian Swann, Biosphoto. 
This school of blue jack mackerel swells to more than 30 feet.

According to National Geographic (January 2013),  the school of blue jack mackerel, above, formed to protect the individual fish from predators, such as dolphins, birds and sharks. The fish break away from the pack,  when the danger becomes less.

[Look closely at the octopus photo below. Yes. We can see the images outlined of developing fetuses. This photo was impressive to me, not because we can see within the egg, as X-Rays do that with human fetuses all the time, but because as humans we were able to get close enough to capture the images with such clarity underground and in water.]

Octopus eggs. Credit: "My Story" 

Evolution is a natural process of human development. When we're not evolving, we're standing still, not creating, and obviously still feeding on the spoils of yesterday.
A stagnant life is a boring life. A stagnant world is to betray all the work of previous generations  before us.

Let us walk together into the future, not by resisting our own personal evolution, or fighting and obstructing societal changes, but by  making sure we run our own race to the best of our abilities.

Happy Easter! 
Let the Spirit of the Resurrected Christ be with you as  your guidance, peace and truth.

Namaste',
Che'

FOR MORE ON THE SUBJECT OF EVOLUTION: Recommended book "The Coming InterSpiritual Age" by  Dr. Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord