Energies are flowing all over the planet - physical, emotional and mental energies. Most of these energies come from humanity; yet some come from nature. Humanity is of course also part of nature, but we are dividing nature and humanity in this discourse for reasons that should become apparent. Most of the physical energies come from nature, but most of the other kinds come from humanity. Nature does have emotional and mental energies, and these are more pure than those coming from average man; while people emotional and mental energies tend to be more complex - though often confused. The emotional and mental energies of humanity begin as simple and pure, as we evolutionarily develop from nature; yet over the process of experimental evolution, our emotions and thinking become more complex and sometimes confused.
So, there are all these various energies circulating all over the planet - some pure, some complex, and some confused. Some of the energies harmonize, while others conflict. Some cooperatively harmonize, while others struggle in conflict. And we are all in the midst of all of this, because all of these energies circulate all over the world, and no one is really isolated from it all. People and places from one part of the world are inter-affected by the people and places from across the world.
We are all in one interconnected world with inter-connected effects. This is the unity of circumstance. Unity of circumstance is like a group of strangers sharing a room together; they are in this unity of the room, so they have to deal with the same circumstances together. But there is no guarantee that they will get along harmoniously or work cooperatively. Thus, a unity of circumstance is not the same as a unity of harmony. The world is truly one place, which we are all in, and we all share in much of the same circumstances, energies, and also problems.
But a unity of harmony is quite different. A unity of harmony is like a painting with harmony of elements. It's like a song with harmony, rather than discord. It's like a landscape with harmonious elements -- producing a perceptive and affective experience of beauty.
The point of all this is that there is a greater Purpose of the whole world -- of nature and humanity -- which is to evolve into a unity of harmony. This is the great purpose and aim of evolution. The great Aim is cooperative harmony and aesthetic beauty. This is building True Unity.
Here is a picture, a model of it. Consciousness, emotion, and intelligence begin in each being, and the field of this is at first quite small. In other words, each being of consciousness, emotion, and intelligence begins with a rather small field of knowing -- which is their 'world.' Then, over time and development, the consciousness field of each being expands to include more. And in doing so, each being encounters more of the others - who are also expanding in consciousness. This produces conflict at first, as these diverse beings/minds encounter one another and have to deal with each other's separate interests and unique styles of behavior. Yet the Aim of harmony, which is inherently within each living being as a spiritual urge, brings forth a creative process of developing harmony out from the conflict.
We are like musical instruments, each of us being a unique instrument, and in playing together we each feel an inner artistic urge to create harmony. So this becomes our developmental task -- to create harmony together. But this is no easy task, because we have no definite understanding of how to do this. Each player is an amateur inexperienced in how to harmonize. So, this is all an experimental, learning process. Over time and learning, the orchestra will hopefully develop harmonious unity, but only after the individuals mature enough in their musical abilities to be able to harmonize together. The process of building harmony together is a brand new experiment. There will be principles that we can follow, but there are no definite formulas. We are all together in this creative experimental Aim towards creating harmony and beauty, and we each have to creatively figure out the next steps. This is our creative task.
A second sort of problem in this building of harmony is that individuals tend to want to play their own kind of tune. Each person, or each group, wants to play their own way, rather than attempt to harmonize with others. Many want to play it their way, without any consideration for the whole orchestra. Then there are the extreme fanatics, who not only want to play it all their way, but also demand others to play it this way as well. So there are these possible sidetracks on the process towards overall world harmony.
Nonetheless, in spite of these possible setbacks, sidetracks and slow-downs, the natural evolutionary process towards overall harmony continues on. It continues on, in spite of the factors and accidents against it, because of an innermost driving force in living beings, which is the will to harmony.
Within each living thing is a subtle, but real, inner urge towards developing harmony with others sharing the same environment. We call this the will-to-harmony; though it is realized that many of nature's organisms are not actually cognizant of this, so the term urge is probably more apt than will. The urge towards harmony, inherent in each organism, can simply be unconscious and unintentional; yet nonetheless, it is a force at work, at the very basis or substructure of life. Esoterically, this was believed to be a part of the soul of every living thing. So we can accept the basic idea of Darwinian evolution, but we add in this belief about the inner soul of each organism - which very significantly involves the urge to harmonize with the others in its surrounding environment. This itself could be understood as a Meta- adaptation trait of the surviving.
Each being has an innermost 'urge' or 'will' towards harmony. But this does not guarantee harmony. It is simply an inner force urging the being towards harmony with others. One could even understand this as an evolutionary 'selective' trait or adaptation, in line with Darwinism, since any urge towards harmonization would certainly be adaptational. yet this was not really accidental, but rather it comes from our innermost essence which reflects the greater metaphysical spiritual will.
Nonetheless, this inner spiritual urge/will towards harmony, in the soul essence of every being, does not guarantee harmony, because there are other factors at work as well. First, there are many possible outer world forces that can divert the personality attention or even fixate it away from possible connection. Second, there is no guarantee that the behavior of the individual will be acting towards harmony, or even seeking harmony. This is because the outer-practical mind of the being, which in humans we call the personalty mind, may not be connected and aligned with the inner will. That is, there can be a disconnect and unawareness between the outer mind-behavior and the inner spiritual will. This would be an abnormal phenomena in the natural world, but in humanity this is somewhat common and 'normal'. For in humans the connection and realization of the inner will requires development -- it's not merely instinctual or automatic -- so there has to be some kind of cultural or spiritual teaching encouraging this development.
The Aim of our world is harmony and beauty, though also love and wisdom, and any movements towards such aims can be called spiritual evolution. All of nature is actually heading in this direction, towards these aims, but the process is long and experimental. Humanity is heading towards these aims, but again the process is long and experimental.
Humanity's spiritual evolution towards these aims will have to involve two aspects -- the harmonization of humanity itself and the harmonization between humanity and the rest of nature. Each species of life has to develop its own unique harmonious relationship with the rest of nature, and so humanity is no exception. But with humanity this relationship to the rest of nature is most crucial, since we have the power to really mess things up. Yet power goes both ways. We have the power to make great disharmony on the planet, or else create great harmony.
Humans have the power to build harmony and beauty in the world with conscious decision. In other words, humans can build harmony and move towards the aim of harmony by conscious decision and work. With our developed mind we can intelligently understand the need for harmony, and with our awakened heart we can feel the wish for harmony. So we have these three aspects -- intelligence, heart, and power -- which can all work together towards the Aim of harmony and beauty. And we can work towards this with a sense of purpose.
This is part of what makes us unique in the world and in the process of evolution, this potential, this ability. Even if we simply consider the basic tenets of scientific evolutionary theory, when speaking about man we can no longer think of 'evolution' in just a non-intentional way. That is, the very process of Darwinian evolution, in the context of overall life and biomes on the planet, is now altered at the coming of modern man on the scene, because modern man has the power and intelligence to change life and also the environment on this planet. And thus, there is this little flaw in the simply theory that evolutionary change is just dependent on random mutation and adaptation, because man can and does change things much more quickly by using his powers of intelligence and intentional action, which cannot be reduced so simply to unconscious natural accident. So the idea that evolution is merely unconscious and unintentional is already rebuked by the example of man.
The spiritual idea, as suggested here, is that there is a real Aim involved in the evolutionary process, which is harmony. We will right now just speak about harmony, and then we can relate this to beauty.
There are two possible routes for us to reach the world Aim of harmony. One is unconscious and unintentional, while the other is conscious and intentional. Both can be at work simultaneously, though most often the former is only at work.
The unconscious aspect of evolution produces a very long process of change, based on genetic mutation producing creative variety and structural/ functional/ behavioral adaptations producing survival/continuance. This is the Darwinian model. Simply, the idea is that evolutionary changes in living species and biotic environment occur over a long-time process based on random accident and the survival continuance of whatever happened to work well enough to survive. There is nothing necessarily conscious or intentional about this. It is an unconscious and accidental process, and no super-natural power is assumed to intervene or to encourage it.
Now in these spiritual teachings we accept this unconscious process as part of the whole evolutionary picture. This is all going on. True. This unintentional evolutionary process makes logical sense and also has great evidence from scientific observations, which is why so many intelligent people adhere to it. However, there is more going on as well. A spiritual understanding of evolution does not have to deny the Darwinian logic. We just disagree with its denial of other factors being involved.
The factor specifically suggested here is that each natural being of Earth, including the human being, has a natural inner urge/will towards harmony, towards harmonious adaption with its environment, which is to creatively adapt behavior in a way that works in more harmony with the environment and with other life. This inner will-towards-harmony and adaption has a survival logic which should be obvious to any student of ecology. So the behavioral aim of harmony, inherent in this inner will, will also necessarily involve cooperation and caring about the well-being and success of other members of its working ecology. This inner intelligence happens unconsciously in most lives, but in humans this can be a conscious intelligence.
The alternative route of evolution is the conscious and intentional way. This is the possibility of humanity, man and woman. Most of humanity probably won't take this way, but instead will just let things happen; they will have no consciousness or understanding of the process, nor any consciousness of their potentials for being change-agents. Yet if we do realize what is possible, we can embark on the route of conscious intentional evolution.
In other words, we do not have to just allow life and the world to evolve unconsciously and accidentally, as it is all assumed in Darwinism. We can make conscious and intentional changes -- both in the world and in our selves. So the belief in an unconscious accidental process of evolution, as all there is, has already been refuted by the potentials in man and woman, because we can make conscious and intentional positive changes in our life and in the world.
Now, .. what are the Aims we might hold in a conscious rational approach towards evolution? Most simply, we might consider a choice between aiming towards our own self desires and pleasures, or else aiming towards the harmony and well-being of the Larger world, ecology, and life.
See related chapter, Soul of Earth