Will the Real Evolution Please Stand Up?

I see that Susannah left a cryptic comment last night: "How do the New Heaven and New Earth fit in?" (Rev. 21). Heck, I don't know, let me look up Revelation 21.

Ah ha. Lot's of provocative stuff. And one reason it is provocative is that it seems to me that it speaks of a dramatic evolutionary transformation in the future. Of course, no one, not even Petey, knows the day or hour (consult your local listings), but it sounds pretty intense. However, please note for our purposes that it is inconsistent with the traditionalist view of a cyclical universe that is simply winding down. Consider the following passage:

"And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.' Then He who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.

"And He said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

Very interesting. Does this kind of transformation sound crazy? Certainly not any crazier than the instantaneous appearance of an ordered universe, the sudden emergence of life, or the dramatic appearance of truth-bearing primates. Given those extraordinary precedents, you have to be curiously intellectually incurious to insist that this cosmos has no further surprises in store.

First gear, its alright.

But Revelation is written in the language and style of some 2000 years ago, which can obscure some of its meaning. As always, we have to not only translate it to our language, but consider it in the light of our understanding and sensibility. This is not to say that scripture becomes subordinate to man. Nevertheless, in some sense it has to; in other words, even though it can never be "contained," each generation must attempt to do so, on pain of not understanding it at all. I mean, I don't even fully understand my wife. But I never stop trying.

Yesterday I proposed the idea that the cosmos is either evolving, dissipating, or staying the same. But as some sharp-eyed Coon pointed out, there is actually a third possibility, and that is that it is simultaneously winding up and down. In fact, Revelation implies this, what with the idea that the evolutionary stragglers are in for a rude awakening when the transformational deal goes down. But again, I think it's important to try to determine what all of this means to our modern understanding.

Therefore, back to Sri Aurobindo. Again, since God is all, then the realm of becoming is infused with divine Being. However -- and this is in fact consistent with Schuon -- we must imagine a sort of hierarchical cosmic scale, in which things are increasingly distant from God, even though (and this is not really a paradox), in the final analysis, everything is nevertheless God -- or, to be perfectly accurate, let us say "not other than God." You might say that "all things are God. But some things are more Godly than others."

Now, to jump ahead a bit, energy is not merely energy. Rather, it is chit, or consciousness-force. I won't press the point at this juntcure. Just hear me now, believe me later. But as Aurobindo writes,

"Consciousness, as we descend the scale, becomes more and more diminished and diluted -- dense indeed by its coarser crudity, but while that crudity of consistence compacts the stuff of Ignorance, it admits less and less the substance of light; it becomes thin in pure substance of consciousness and reduced in power of consciousness, thin in light..." Conversely, as we ascend the scale, "a finer but far stronger and more truly spiritually concrete substance emerges, a greater luminosity and potent stuff of consciousness, a subtler, sweeter, purer and more powerfully ecstatic energy of delight." Ultimately, the conscious-substance of God is "lighter than a gas, denser than a diamond."

Now, all seekers with even a rudimentary amount of experience will understand that Aurobindo is not being poetical or metaphorical, but quite literal. This is why, for example, with our activated cOOnvision we can discern at a glance a being of light or a being of darkness. With regard to the latter, it matters not one whit how much "human intelligence" they possess. Rather, what will first impress the Raccoon about such a person will be the quality of light. Frankly, intelligence which is not in service to this light becomes luciferic at best, but often frankly demonic.

You will undoubtedly hear many dopey MSM analyses of the appeal of Sarah Palin, but they will all miss the point, because they will all be done by coarse and crude people who live in the dark, attempting to write about a light that excludes them, precisely. Likewise, for us, Obama is -- no offense here, but it's true -- an ontological nothing and a nobody, no matter how much the darklings of the MSM try to convince us otherwise. We know darkness when we see it.

Anyone who cannot immediately discern -- I mean, physically feel, only on the subtle plane -- the darkness and obscurity of a Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Deepak Chopra, Markos Moulitsas or Bill Maher, is simply not a Raccoon. I cite those examples because they are so blindingly obvious. But once you accept the idea that man is capable of making these distinctions in the realm of spirit, then you realize that it is possible to make far more subtle ones -- which is true of expertise in any field, from wine tasting to jazz.

Most of us can look into someone's eyes and roughly determine in an instant how intelligent they are. It's also not too difficult to determine how truly spiritual they are. Give me five minutes with someone, and I can usually tell if I am dealing with a human or an ape, and I'm certainly not claiming any special powers. Remember a few weeks ago, when I mentioned the colleague who was asking for spiritual advice, and I told him to look for the light and barakah? Same thing. A real spiritual text fills you with light, and the light is real. Of course it's real. Just as the light in Van Gogh's paintings is real. The best spiritual texts not only glow in the dark, but also give off warmth.

Second gear, I lean right.

Given what we have outlined above, evolution -- even the watered down, anti-intellectual gruel of Darwinian evolution -- must be the evolution of consciousness. I mean, I don't care what the Darwinists say, man is more conscious than any other being. He is not just different, but more. He has more light, more reality, more divinity, more truth, etc. (but also less, depending on the case).

And please note, I would not waste a moment arguing with someone who believes otherwise, because they cannot help believing otherwise. Again, our scientistic jester is simply making an honest confession when he so openly talks about his spiritual blindness. Instead of arguing with him, why not just believe him? I mean, I'm not telling people what to do, but a prerequisite of spiritual growth is openness to the Real, so it is pointless to discuss these matters with a vertically closed -- and more importantly, self-satisfied -- system.

Now, as Aurobindo writes, "what really happens in the processes and stages of evolution must be something very different from any changes in matter, and much more complex.... Evolution is not only physical, it is first and foremost spiritual." It is "in essence a heightening of the force of consciousness in the manifest being so that it may be raised into the greater intensity of what is still unmanifest, from matter into life, from life into mind, from mind into the spirit."

But again, this hierarchical Adventure of Consciousness could never under any circumstances be built "from the ground up." To think otherwise is metaphysically preposterous, and the height of... of silliness. We have no quarrel whatsoever with what materialistic science is capable of proving in its limited domain. But it is "concerned only with the outward and visible machinery and process," and does "not affect the self-evident fact of a spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness, a progression of the soul's manifestation in material existence." Put it this way: spiritual evolution is an empirical fact. Natural selection is an abstract theory. Frankly, Darwinists have spoiled the word "evolution" in the same way that leftists have spoiled the word "liberal." No wonder they're generally the same population.

Third gear, hang on tight.

True evolution -- not the random, mistake-driven kind -- is inconceivable in the absence of a prior involution of divine consciousness. As a result of this divine descent, there are necessarily going to be different levels of reality. This is precisely why there are easily discernible hierarchical levels in the cosmos, AKA, the vertical. In turn, this nonlocal hierarchy is simultaneously a veil and revelation; or, as I put it in the secret teachings (which non-Raccoons are forbidden to read), God reveils himself in the creation.

Here is how Sri Aurobindo puts it: "This descent of the supreme Reality is in its nature a self-concealing, and in the descent there are successive levels, in the concealing of successive veils. Necessarily, the revelation takes the form of an ascent; and necessarily also the ascent and the revelation are both progressive" -- at least in the long term. But the progress is not inevitable once the ontological fulcrum of conscious man emerges with his freedom, for the very reason that he may abuse his freedom and choose to become a Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Deepak Chopra, Markos Moulitsas or Bill Maher. In short, he may choose darkness, stagnation, stupidity and spiritual regress. No other animal -- in fact, nothing else in creation -- can do this. Once again, proof of God.

Faster, it's alright!

Now, evolutionary time is clearly picking up speed as we approach the singularity, eschaton, or Divine Object. After all, it took some 10 billion years for life to appear, but only another 3.85 billion years or so for primates to arrive. And then just a blink of the eye for humans to make their vertical descent. And then, just a fraction of a second for the humans -- a few of them, anyway -- to reascend to their Divine source. Game over!

But wait. What about the collective? How long will that take, if it happens at all? Are we condemned to just a few gifted pneumanauts completing the evolutionary journey of cosmotheosis before the majority of the human-animal lowbreds spoil it for everyone else? Will the progressives and Islamists prevail in their struggle against spiritual evolution and try to make it impossible for the rest of us?

No, they won't prevail. But they will continue to make it difficult, and you can expect their efforts to reach a kind of fever pitch as the chasm continues to widen between us and them. As deranged as Bush hatred was, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

to be continued....