Evolutionary Enlightenment is the New Enlightenment

Evolutionary Enlightenment is the New Enlightenment The next major leap in the evolution of the Dharma came in the modern era when this view of enlightenment as the union of Emptiness and Form coalesced with the modern-day discovery of evolution. As the phenomenon evolution was observed in every di- mension of the cosmos – in the world of matter (physiosphere), the world of life (biosphere), and the world of mind (noosphere) - it became clear that the world of form is not a static never-changing whole. All throughout the cosmos, form is in perpetual evolution, and this has major implications for our understanding of the nature of enlightenment, and for the way we conduct our spiritual lives. So what are these implications? To truly grasp them, let’s slow down for a moment… Step into the cosmological vantage point of deep time and big history - and consider, if you will, the awe-in- spiring majesty of the evolutionary journey that led to you and me: Modern cosmology tells us that before the universe was born there was only nothingness – a timeless, formless, primordial sin- gularity. Then, in a massive explosion, the universe burst into ex- istence about 13.7 billion years ago. With the big bang, the world of form was born and an immense evolutionary process began to unfold. The early universe was made up of nothing but a vast expanse of energy and inanimate matter. This primordial substance slowly organized itself over unimaginable stretches of time into the celestial bodies of our solar systems – including somewhere among them our beautiful Earth, which was formed around 4.5 billion years ago from the remains of extinct stars. A billion years later on Earth, in an astounding new emergence, inanimate matter brought forth life. As the first living, single-cell organisms began to grow in complexity, a dramatic chain of biological evolution was initiated, out of which, around two hundred thousand years ago, we humans eventually emerged. In yet another remarkable creative advance, life had brought forth consciousness and the capacity for self-re- flective awareness. If we stand back for a moment, and contemplate the marvel of our deep-time journey, what else could we feel but awe and won- der? How could something come from nothing? How could dead matter transform into life? And how could life generate something so stunning as our consciousness – a mystery that even to this day our brightest minds cannot adequately explain? How could any of these leaps into novelty actually occur, if there wasn’t a cre- ative-evolutionary principle built into every fiber of the cosmos from day one? From its inception, the universe has demonstrated a mysterious capacity for self-organization - a vibrant, ongoing creativity, that tirelessly drives the evolutionary process forward, organizing its creations into ever-greater levels of complexity and structural order. More keeps emerging from less. Primordial slime has given rise to powerfully enlightened sages like Ramana Ma- harshi. Stardust has transformed into the sonnets of Shakespeare and the sonatas of Bach. The big history of the cosmos is an ex- traordinary evolutionary tale of creative advance into novelty… If we then pick up the thread of our majestic evolutionary jour- ney again, we discover that the emergence of human conscious- ness ushered in a whole new revolution in the further unfolding of the world of form. When the early hominids walked the African savannah, taking their first hesitant bipedal steps, their conscious- ness was still in a state of undifferentiated fusion with the natural world. Today, we humans have walked the surface of the moon and humanity has brought forth deeply realized mystics that have radically transcended the natural world. The long journey of the flowering of our consciousness is an intriguing inner process that we, by now, have researched in great detail. Developmental psychologists have discovered that human beings, in their individual psychology from infancy to adulthood, as well as humanity at large, in its culturally shared values and worldviews, move through a series of concrete observable stag- es of development. With each new stage a person’s self-identity expands, and as it does so, his worldview, values, and perspec- tives become more inclusive, whole, complex, and embracing. As people mature through the stages, their circles of care, compassion, and concern widen: moving, by any other name, from egocentric, including only oneself; to ethnocentric, including also one’s group or community (sometimes called the mythic or traditionalist stage); to worldcentric, including all human beings regardless of race, sex or creed (sometimes called the modern and postmodern stage); to kosmocentric, including all sentient beings. The same evolutionary impulse that created the Great Apes from clay is at work in our own consciousness, advancing and widening it. Since the dawn of humanity, new stages of psychological development and human maturity have continually emerged, and there is no reason to be- lieve that this evolution will ever come to a halt. And so, the evolutionary picture that emerges by looking through the lens of deep time and big history refines our insights into the nature of enlightenment yet again. Especially the recent discoveries about the evolution of human consciousness and cul- ture have deeply enriched our understanding of the meaning of en- lightenment. Nondual realization remains the union of Emptiness and Form, just as Nagarjuna taught. But the reality of evolution adds an important nuance to this wisdom. It is clear that the Emp- tiness-aspect of Reality, once realized, doesn’t evolve, as it is prior to all form and evolution, but its Form-aspect continues to evolve - and thus, the more accurate interpretation of enlightenment is: the union of Emptiness and evolving Form. This is to say that enlightenment itself is evolving! There are always newly emerging stages of consciousness and culture to become one with; always new levels to enclose in your enlightened embrace - and therefore, enlightenment will never be final. The discovery of the evolution of manifest existence turns enlightenment into a moving target – a sliding scale - which prompts the striking conclusion that the New Enlightenment is Evolutionary Enlightenment! God Evolves Through Us After having presented a taste of the philosophy of Evolutionary Enlightenment – or the nondual union of Being and Becoming, as we like to say – the time has come to truly get a felt sense of this newly emerging form of enlightened awareness. To feel its actual energetic reality, we need to turn our attention inward and explore the feeling quality of both of its aspects - Being and Becoming – in our own awareness. So let us pause for a moment, and take a breath… Feel into the depths of your own awareness… and notice… When you are deeply absorbed in Being, the mind is completely still. Every trace of thought and feeling, time and world, self and