New Consciousness for a New World. How do we wake up to this evolutionary potential?
Some go so far as to say that kundalini is an evolutionary impulse that can guide human beings toward greater consciousness and enlightenment, and that it has been referred to directly by many founders of major faiths, including Christ.
The spiritual evolutionary impulse awakens the kundalini “serpent power ” from the base of the spine for its ascent.
To perform surprising feats with invisible psychic or other cosmic forces is descending again to the plane of earth . The aim of the evolutionary impulse , on the other hand , is to bring about a state which is the very antithesis of …
We have to choose to evolve. The code to this evolutionary leap to an evolved form of humanity is already within us. But we must turn it on, so to speak, by consciously choosing to evolve to the unknown. We have the power at this level to genetically turn on the evolutionary impulse held within every cell within us. As Barbara Marx Hubbard said “It is choosing to say yes to that impulse.”
For billions of years, evolution (God’s emergent creativity) has repeatedly produced cooperative, … That same evolutionary impulse also now invites us to discover better ways to speak and listen and cocreate with one another.
We are choosing and accomplishing our supreme and foremost goal of highest Spiritual attainment, working along and close-at-hand with the impulse that is moving you and me, and which is the very force that has brought us all together to have a universal clearing experience. In this way, we bless ourselves with a profound elevating and transforming experience, that is of God, and that is God. And we recognize that and Divine Law is the Evolutionary Principle that is prompting us God propelling us to go further into Heaven’s Mind.
Deepak Chopra: “God is the evolutionary impulse of the universe
The Evolutionary Impulse is the Natural Intelligence within the Universe that
animates every material form along a path of perpetual creative unfoldment. It is the transcendent organizing principle within all of Creation. It can be thought of as the Infinite Creativity within all of existence that intelligently shapes and organizes higher expressions of manifested form such as galaxies, stars, oceans, myriad life forms, and every human being.
The Evolutionary Impulse is (from a religious perspective) the same as the
Universal Force of God that guides development and manifestation within all forms of the natural world. It is the Force that “attracts together” sub-atomic particles, the planets in their solar orbits, all interdependent ecosystems, as well as two lovers who experience romantic passion.
Spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen goes even further, arguing that once you’ve had an experience of awakening, it’s your responsibility to join the evolution of consciousness itself through intention:
To me, the experience itself especially if its a very deep experience, is not a free ride. We taste or experience our own potential, and in that, we awaken to an evolutionary imperative to evolve. And when one awakens to the
evolutionary imperative, one’s spiritual conscience or higher conscience
is awakened. So the higher conscience is what I would interpret now
and understand to be an evolutionary impulse. It’s a call from one’s own authentic self to begin to participate in the evolutionary process for the sake
of the evolution of consciousness itself. One recognizes in this kind of experience that for consciousness to be able to evolve and develop from our stage of development to the next one, we have to begin to consciously engage with this process. You have to consciously participate in this process. In other words, it’s not going to happen by itself For evolutionary development to continue to a higher level, our conscious, intentional, committed engagement is the only way it’s going to happen. (2003)
What is the evolutionary impulse?
In the Evolutionary Age, soul awakening becomes the conscious expression of the process of creation uniquely embodied in each of us.
Our ‘vocation of destiny’ is the impulse of evolution emerging as our passion to be more, love more, create more. This passion to create expresses the genius of evolution animating the very essence of our being. The soul awakening is God’s way of evolving humans now. It is God becoming human so that humans can become like God.
The fulfilment of the soul awakening is our union with the God within. The impulse and the individual become One. A new human is evolving as the impulse of creation incarnates as us.
We become guided from within by the sheer magnitude of the purpose of evolution as it influences one’s own yearning. Our vocation of destiny is the impulse of the creative process focused as our unique passion to evolve. The soul awakening animates the person to become co-creator with the Divine.
Hubbard presents the following explanation of this phenomenon on a spiritual level:
The spiritual aspect of conscious evolution gives us access to that deeper pattern within us. We become conscious of the evolutionary impulse—the deeper pattern of creation through inner guidance, motivation, intuition. It is the feeling within us urging us to be more, to know more, to reach out and touch, to activate our genius, to find our life purpose.
In conscious evolution, our spiritual experience expands to include resonance with the design of evolution. Our spiritual growth awakens our social potential, pressing us deeper inward to pick up that design and outward to express our creativity in the world through vocation. We work from within ourselves toward higher consciousness, greater freedom, and more and more complex order to effect change in the world, first and foremost through our personal evolution.
With conscious evolution we are on the threshold of a co-creative spirituality as we learn to attune to the deeper patterns of creation.
How do we wake up to this evolutionary potential?
Perhaps the simplest and most direct practice (not necessarily the easiest) is that of continuous direct moment-to-moment awareness: being aware and being aware that we are aware. This may be the beginning of the state of awareness Teilhard referred to as hyper-reflection.
The practice is simple because it can be explained in less than five minutes; but it can take a lifetime to master it! It is perhaps the most direct path to awakening because it involves virtually every activity of the mind and body every moment of the day.
Now is when we begin to remember our 13.7-billion-year “birth narrative”. The atoms, molecules, cells, organs and brain of our being were created in the mysterious cauldron of evolution. We are coded to remember the past and also the future. The soul awakening in the period of transition to our birth as a fully awakened species reveals to us that consciousness is omnipresent.
The pre-transition mystical experience is of boundlessness and no Self; the evolutionary post-transition experience is universal personhood, whose self is unique, universal, formless and not bound by ego: rather, it is a consciously manifested expression of Source or Spirit animating each of us.
The soul awakening enlivens a greater dimension of our being. We collectively begin to experience our Universal Self, free of the field of Earth, on the other side of the long transition from Homo sapiens sapiens to Homo universalis: ecstatic, a radiant flash of joy — like the sun breaking through the clouds. We finally come to realize that we are all omnipresent consciousness manifesting in a physical body, like the universe of which we are a part.
We all have continuity of consciousness with the Consciousness that is creating us.
Who awakens our evolutionary impulse?
More and more people seem to sense instinctively that something is wrong with their normal state of being, that it is limited and delusory. They’re aware that they’re asleep, and they want to wake up. As a result, they feel impelled to investigate methods of transcending their normal state such as following spiritual practices and traditions. Again, this suggests that our sleep state is losing its hold over us. It suggests that an evolutionary change is building momentum within our collective psyche.
Our very organism is encoded with the impulse to grow toward light. Yet the urge to move toward light is tempered by the reality of gravity in the physical environment.
Today, scientists are catching up. Realizing that you are both human and divine is the act of Self-remembrance that lays the founding principle for everything you aspire to do and be. This new evolutionary impulse is awakening in our psyches now, demanding to be known. No longer do we see ourselves as mere egos needing to be fixed; we are uncovering a deeper truth of our being, realizing (making real) that we are both human and divine…. Both sides of our nature are to be made legitimate now, or we will never feel whole.
To be truly liberated and to initiate peace both personally and globally, we need to become conscious of our unconsciousness. Only then can existing fears and limitations be undone. Any feeling of gnawing discomfort, any vague sense of urgency, or any unquenched thirst for fulfillment are all signs of a deeper calling from within. The pain born of ignorance, of not knowing that we have long been unconscious, is becoming too much for us to bear. The end of suffering and chaos will become our reality when we relinquish our limited and outdated perception of who we are, what The Source is, and the purpose we were created to fulfill.
The aim of this evolutionary impulse
The aim of this evolutionary impulse is to make man aware of himself, and with this sublime awareness, to make him regulate his life as a rational human being, free from egotism, violence, excessive greed and ambition and immoderate lust and desire, to lead to a state of unbroken peace and happiness on the earth….
Enlightenment, therefore, is a natural process ruled by biological laws as strict in their operation as the laws governing the continuance of the race. The central target of this evolution is self- awareness for the soul….« This is the purpose for which you and I are here—to realize ourselves … to bring the soul to a clear realization of its own divine nature.
In neuro-biological terms human potential is limitless and our subconscious mind knows it. Where does the subconscious mind get its information? From time to time, the kundalini nudges our subconscious. Some of these contents come to us in the form of dreams and inspirations of various sorts. In men of genius, it endows them with extraordinary creative powers. These contents are not mere figments, but the signs of a deeper reality, one constantly beckoning to us to push the boundaries of consciousness, what Gopi Krishna called the Evolutionary Impulse.
The human being is a human becoming, and for a long time we have lived with the ever-present possibility of transcending our present state of consciousness by means of evolutionary processes still at work within the human race.
Our religions have often been a symbolic expression of this evolutionary impulse, and in their essence, they have sought to stimulate its active functioning. At other times, the institutional side of religious power has strived to suppress the knowledge of this inherent potential and to avoid all possible conditions favorable to its activation.
Yet our future state exists as a potentiality, naturally present within each human body. Should a mass activation of humankind’s vital energies occur—or mainstream acceptance of its presence be acknowledged—then this would open up new directions for the focus of human energy and resources.
It could serve to shift our attention from shallow materialism toward goals more attuned to the dignity of humanity. The recognition of this evolutionary impulse as a biological inheritance and process would no doubt drive our societies and cultures to facilitate the process of transformation.
Our own inherent evolutionary force is carrying us collectively toward an already known state of development, of which most of us have little or no knowledge. Gopi Krishna, a person who claims to have personal experiential understanding of this developmental process, has created a revised theory of evolution in which he states:
- Evolution is directed by a super-intelligent force which operates through a biological mechanism in the human body known to yoga theory as “kundalini,” and by many other names in a wide variety of ancient and esoteric texts.
- Evolution, including human evolution, is therefore not “random,” but a deliberate act on the part of an invisible cosmic intelligence or organizing power and has a “target.”
- The target of evolution is to produce a virtual superman or woman who will live in a permanent state of bliss, possess a genius level of intelligence, and various other attributes seldom seen in the population at large such as psychic powers.
Such powers and attributes of the new human may signify a leap similar to that which occurred when our Homo sapiens ancestors replaced the Neanderthals, as we undergo another transitional shift in species development.
According to cultural historian Thomas Berry:
“The evolutionary vision provides the most profound mystique of the universe. Our main source of psychic energy in the future will depend on our ability to understand this symbol of evolution in an acceptable context of interpretation. Only in the context of an emergent universe will the human project come to an integral understanding of itself. We must, however, come to experience the universe in its psychic as well as in its physical aspect. . . . As physical resources become less available, psychic energy must support the human project in a special manner. This situation brings us to a new reliance on powers within the universe and also to experience of the deeper self.”
This “new reliance, as Berry suggests, is one that connects the human being within a living and intelligent universe.
Our mythological story is of an evolving species within an evolving universe, each as a part of the other. For too long, we have had the evolutionary process guided through us as we were ignorant to its presence; now, the time has arrived for humanity to help collectively energize the process. Evolution is grand and epic.
It can be a great adventure that is both irreversible and creatively new. Our process is one of communion in which we ourselves are in a magical relationship with Earth. We are entities in growth together, and as such, we need to be in compassionate cooperation and not in aggressive competition.
As intermediaries, we can integrate the material with the spiritual, the physical with the psychic, so that real work can be done that benefits all rather than creating unworkable disparities.
Modern science has confirmed the unity of humans and our natural psychic and energetic bonds. It is important that we allow this to form a new basis on which to work toward a new and revitalized global Earth community. In truth, many of us will already be feeling these similar stirrings deep within our hearts. We sense that change is coming and that the inevitable approaches. Something new is happening: a new vision and a new energy are coming into being. In the end, we win.
Now Kundalini awakening is happening in mass numbers.
The essence of his claims is three-fold: first, he has discovered that the reproductive system is also the mechanism by which evolution proceeds; second, the religious impulse is based on inherent evolutionary impulses in the psyche; and third, there is a predetermined target for human evolution, toward which the entire race is being irresistably drawn. Whether humanity will arrive there or extinguish itself is another matter—one which Gopi Krishna says is the fundamental motive behind his efforts to demonstrate our “divine destiny.”
A NEW SPECIES OF HUMANITY Kundalini is the key term in Gopi Krishna’s theory of evolution. Coming from ancient Sanskrit, it means “coiled up” like a snake or spring, and implies latent energy or potential to expand. Gopi Krishna often translates it as “latent power-reservoir of energy” or “psychosomatic power center.” Kundalini, he claims, is the fundamental bioenergy of life, stored primarily in the sex organs but present throughout the entire body.
A higher state of consciousness. Its potency is our potential. Such a state, if widely attained, would mean a new species of humanity, a higher race. Thus kundalini, the bridge between mind and matter, can be the evolutionary cause of creation as well as procreation.
In a personal correspondence he wrote: “The seventh centre in the brain is not actually designated as a ‘chakra’ but as ‘sahasrara’ in the Tantric books and ‘Usha-Nisha-Kamala’ in the Buddhist texts. It is often shown surrounding the head in the statues of Buddha, more or less like a cap. In this sense ‘Sahasrara’ refers to the cerebral cortex and, in fact, the whole of the brain. This is obvious from the fact that once Kundalini enters into the Brahma-randra . . . the whole of the cranium is illuminated and a new pattern of consciousness is born.”
Apparently this is the same light which is visibly seen by people as the aura or halo around saints and highly-evolved sages. The flow of kundalini into the brain has been described by mystics as “ambrosia” and “nectar.”
New Capacities:
Generation One, the first on this Earth to face evolution or extinction as a species together.
The Third C Our new capacities — powers now available to us, such as bio-technology, nuclear power, nanotechnology, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, artificial life, and space development — are radical evolutionary capacities that are potentially dangerous in our current state of self-centered consciousness. From our present perspective they may seem unnatural, and indeed they are.
Yet, if we consider our needs at the next stage of evolution — as a universal species — these may be precisely the abilities we require to survive and grow in the extended physical environment of outer space, and in the expanded consciousness environment of inner space. In a biological organism, for example, capacities that are lethal in the womb are vital in the world. So our extraordinary new powers, which can be deadly to us in our current stage of self-centeredness and planet-boundedness, may be natural for us at the next stage of cosmic consciousness and universal life.
Because we fear the danger of misusing our new technologies in the present, we must not prematurely destroy them. Rather, we should see ahead to their possible use at the next stage of evolution and guide their application toward the emancipation of our evolutionary potential rather than attempting the impossible task of stopping knowledge and preserving the status quo.
We must remember that the nature of nature is to transform — especially when nature hits a crisis of limits. From the perspective of the three Cs, we can see that the new cosmology can be interpreted as the story of the birth of a universal humanity, that our new crises are the results of our natural evolutionary process, and that our new capacities are the growing powers of a young, universal species — all barely one generation old.
Learning Conscious Evolution
How do we become conscious of conscious evolution? How does the new worldview penetrate the essence of our being and animate our actions? The key assumption here is that there is a natural pattern for the development of a planetary system, just as there is for a biological system.
This pattern resides in the integration of the fields of knowing — spiritual, social, and scientific/technological. Something novel is possible when these fields become a new, whole system, different from and greater than the sum of its parts.
1.SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION
The spiritual aspect of conscious evolution gives us access to that deeper pattern within us. We become conscious of the evolutionary impulse — the dynamic process of creation — through inner guidance, motivation, intuition, and revelation. It is the feeling within us urging us to be more, to know more, to love more, to reach out and touch, to activate our genius, to find our life purpose.
It is Spirit in action, God in evolution, the consciousness force, cosmic intelligence, the supramental genius of the universe, or whatever name we choose. (There is currently no agreed-upon word for the evolutionary aspect of God or Spirit.)
In conscious evolution, our spiritual experience expands to include resonance with the design of evolution. We incarnate the impulse of evolution as our own inner motivation to be more of who we truly are. The process of creation itself is incarnating in a new way as we become more creative. In spiritual terms, God is creating “godlings.”
The Creator is creating cocreators. Spirit is creating “conspiritors.” Our spiritual growth awakens our social potential, pressing us deeper inward to pick up that design and outward to express our creativity in the world through our unique vocation. We work from within ourselves toward higher consciousness, greater freedom, and more complex order to effect a change in the world, first and foremost through our personal evolution. With conscious evolution we develop an expanded spirituality — an evolutionary spirituality — as we learn to attune to the inner patterns of creation that are oriented toward higher consciousness, freedom, and more complex order.
The lives of great avatars were transformed by oneness with this deeper reality. Now, because of the rise of consciousness in ourselves, our lives are also lifted up, not as saints or seers, but as humans at the next stage of our natural evolution — cocreative with the processes of evolution. This is not a slight improvement, but rather a species metamorphosis. In Design for Evolution, Erich Jantsch coined a beautiful word to describe this expanding form of spiritual awareness: “syntony.” He compared syntony to a way of knowing through resonance, or harmonizing with that which we seek to know.
Jantsch wrote:
“Syntony, which seems to be due to direct communication of individual human consciousness through some resonance process, seems to exhibit the same characteristics of holographic communication that seem to govern genetic information and brain functions…. As we have learned, though not too well, to design social roles, we shall have to learn now to design systems of syntony; this implies a shift of focus from the rational level through the mythological to the evolutionary level of inquiry.”
In summary, the first way of accessing conscious evolution is to deliberately cultivate the capacity for inner knowing — syntony — spiritual resonance with the patterns of creation. We use our innate abilities to receive intuition, to act upon it, to accept feedback from the outside world, receiving further guidance, reaching out to test the guidance again and again until we learn to act spontaneously and directly from whole-system intelligence.
2. SOCIAL CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION
As we gain deeper alignment with the patterns of creation, we see a suffering world that is out of alignment. We see systems that are breaking down, causing misery, alienation, and violence almost everywhere. This breakdown is natural from the point of view that we are undergoing an evolutionary shift. Crises precede transformation. Through conscious evolution we realize, for the first time
as a species, that it is our responsibility to proactively design social systems that are in alignment with the tendency in nature toward higher consciousness, greater freedom, and more synergistic order. With our increase in freedom because of our new powers comes a commensurate increase in responsibility for the use of those powers. We no longer accept our society and its ills as a given; we become proactive, social cocreators and the social potential movement awakens.
Not only a few outstanding social activists or leaders participate, but millions of so-called ordinary people in myriad organizations, projects, and initiatives undertake the work of healing and evolving our world. For example, we need a sustainable, regenerative economy and monetary system that take into account that we are one planetary system in which we are all vital members, integrated in an environment that is part of our body, in a social system that frees us to express our life purpose in creative work.
We need a new, universally available health care system that reinforces responsibility, self-healing, and, eventually, increased longevity and life-extension. We need mature media that communicate growth potential and the new news of our innovations and successes. We need a new form of self-governance that truly involves all of us in a deeper responsibility for ourselves and others, a genuine “higher-self” governance. It would be a form of governance that cultivates social synergy, supporting us in seeking common goals and matching needs with resources in the light of our full potential.