August, 2024
by Qapel Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat Sensei
Edited by Duncan Cryle, Maureen Smith, and Erika Rasmussen
In this great journey of evolution, what is coming next? Many of us sense we are on the edge of something totally new. On the one hand, it seems society and consciousness are fracturing. Many people feel the angst of it. The Earth’s health is on a dire trajectory. We focus on what’s going wrong and many young people feel there’s no hope. But on the other hand, we are witnessing new buds of a more global and planetary consciousness. We don’t know what it looks like yet, or what it is. We can’t see it at this time because it’s still forming, though we see early buds of developing conscious communities.
But understanding that we are evolving into something unified gives us a vision of a future worth living.
Where is Evolution going?
Let’s consider the arc of evolution as we know it. We can see evolution as a journey of ever more complexity and collaboration. Our “Last Universal Common Ancestor” (LUCA) led to bacteria and archaea some 3.9 billion years ago. Single-celled organisms like bacteria — and that infamous eukaryote — complexified; later we got algae, sponges, plants, and so on, all the way down to us. Cells joined together to form more complex organs — livers, kidneys, lungs. Eventually, after a long process, you have a chimpanzee. Then, a human being.
It takes many cells working together to create a being. Each little cell isn’t fighting against another to have its piece of turf or to tell other cells what to do. They aren’t concerned about how they compare to each other. They work together. All cells and the organs and formations they create serve the bigger organism: the body. The liver is not in service of the liver, the liver is in service of the whole body.
What we are beginning to see now is human beings who work together in the way cells work together to form something totally new and more complex. Collectively we are creating a new “body” — the body of whatever we are when we all come together. The idea is that we will be conscious, aware “bacteria.” We will be the conscious, aware “cells” in the organism of a bigger body of Mind. That will be the future of humanity.
Becoming an Integrated Whole
Don’t like the idea of being like bacteria? There’s a key difference: humans can be highly conscious. The complexity of human consciousness and self-awareness can recognize not only that we exist as individuals, but that we are also part of a wider whole. Unlike a cell in a liver, we can sense and understand that we are not just an individual human ego, but part of something greater.
However, like for that cell in the liver, the shape and function of that “something greater” is not readily apparent to us. We know we are part of something bigger, something emerging. But we don’t know what that “something bigger” is because it’s still forming. And we don’t know where we are in the process. In the meantime, many of us call it “God.”
This process of growth is necessarily messy and confusing. If we think of it like a wave, some people and beings are the leading drops of the waves. Others are far behind in the wave. They may be moving in a similar general direction, but at different rates, perhaps varied trajectories, and so on. There are many contradictory and competing views. And, we don’t need to consider this good or bad. Everything has its place and role; we are all part of the ocean and the movement of the water. The ego sees itself as separate and forgets the connection — forgets we are all the ocean. But that “something greater” that we sense, it knows that it is all part of one thing.
“We will be the conscious, aware “cells” in the organism of a bigger body of Mind.”
Facing the Challenges Together
As they say in Integral Spirituality, the process is to include and transcend. Nature always includes and transcends what has gone before, building on previous systems and incorporating them into new, more complex ones. Our job now is to include all our humanity, even as we transcend humanity, which will probably incorporate AI and other technology.
We have to go step by step. We can’t read Dostoyevsky before we learn the alphabet. This emergent process will take hundreds of years. Our teacher, Namgyal Rinpoche, sometimes said that when we trip, we fall forward. If we are not tripping, we’re not growing.
It may seem like a wild tumultuous wave, but nevertheless the momentum is forward. This unifying emergence is what’s happening, whether we like it or not, or choose it or not. It is consciousness growing and evolving to a new form.
Our Duty and Responsibility
The fourth great extinction wiped out 80% of living creatures, and while we may fear the sixth extinction, nevertheless: Here we are. The sixth extinction may wipe out all sorts of stuff. But if history is any evidence, evolution is saying the process of this planetary consciousness is inevitable.
We don’t have to worry about losing individuality. Just as a liver cell does not stop being an individual cell, we’ll still be our unique individual selves at the same time as being part of something more. We’ll be conscious, aware cells in the organism of a bigger body of Mind, the future of humanity. We will learn to work in the same way that cells and organs work together. Our egos will learn to collaborate to hold together the “body” of this new thing that’s emerging as we speak. And conflict will be a necessary part of the process, because conflict is how we grow.
Each of us has a part to play. We each have our responsibility. Our primary responsibility is to make sure we’re contributing to and supporting this emergence. We can either fight it, trying to keep the illusory sense of our independence. Or we can join and say, Okay, how can I be responsible to help this emerging unity? You still get to be you. Nothing’s lost there except you’re now in a cooperative relationship with the emergent greater form, rather than in some sort of competition or rebellion. And that makes our duty compassion and understanding.
We’ll find freedom in this bigger view. Consciously understanding that something greater is growing, we won’t get so bent out of shape that we don’t get to control the whole show. The great orchestra of consciousness is playing, and we get to play our part. While we may be violins or flutes, nature is the conductor. The real challenge is, we don’t know which song is playing. And the conductor doesn’t know either. When we’re truly present in the moment, we don’t ever know the song. We just know the present note, we just know we’re playing music, based on billions of years of mystery’s evolution.
And don’t worry; don’t carry the responsibility too much. Because you don’t have a choice, and you’re not in control. This life is evolving.
Awakening today.
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