“Evolvement” is not our purpose for coming to this world. It’s not about getting ahead of “others” either, especially not that.
“To evolve,” is a commonly accepted answer to the question of “Why are we here?” Well, I also believed for years in this answer, but now I think it’s insufficient, meager, and even filled with pitfalls. In fact, the source of the confusion going on in the spiritual community may very well be this notion. But why?
First, let’s look at the “system.”
The structure we’re forced to partake in from childhood is one that aims to produce personnel for the big companies. This means you have a supervisor right above you (your teacher) and a department executive above the supervisor (the principal). All the departments (schools) are ruled by people at headquarters (the department of education), and there’s a CEO on the top of the heap (a minister or secretary of education). We’re like employees partaking in this system. Just think of the excitement that newborn babies cause. We embrace them, snuggle them, and love them as much as we can, but when our children are a few years old, we put them on the production line of the system. First comes preschool, then elementary school, then middle school, then high school, and finally college, and then you have brand-new employees for the “company.” They don’t object to it, because they’ve been trained for it from childhood. Even those who come out of the production line as musicians, authors, artists, and such like are a part of the system too. They just involve themselves in an entirely different industry. This is such a powerful system that it even engulfs those who refuse to join it. First, it isolates them thoroughly, so thoroughly that they start to desensitize themselves. If they manage to endure this rocky road, the system applauds them and offers them the opportunity to publish a book about themselves and their ordeals, and there you go, they are now parts of the system too. This system has resulted from the slave-master mentality that we humans held on to for thousands of years…
When individuals in this system start to ask, “Where have I come from. Where do I go?” they are taking the first step toward spiritualism, which is often called “the journey of self-discovery.” Even though this inner journey aims to go beyond the “mundane” and discover the purity we were born with, it’s not a very easy thing to do, especially when the “system” has also discovered this field and its potential. The system tries to lure those who want to escape it by labelling them “monks who sold their Ferraris.” Pulling away from these traps is not easy for people who have been trained to be parts of the system for years.
So, what does this have to do with evolvement?
I think the idea of evolvement actually represents a belief that we humans are an “inferior” race. In effect, that’s pretty normal. We don’t know our inner selves, and moreover, we live in a world where negativity is the norm. Even our belief systems are basically telling us, “You’re insufficient, weak, and powerless. You need a God to survive. The true path is our path, because you’ll fall off the face of the Earth if you’re not one of us.” The ads you see on TV tell you, “You’re nothing, but you want to be something, so you need to buy our product.” Your family warns you, “A straggler is bound to fall prey to the wolves.” In short, we grow up thinking that we’re “nothing.” Then we encounter the spiritual teachings that tell us how we’re “marvelous beings”… These teachings are so compelling that they hit you like a ton of bricks. Our minds shift from nothingness to oneness, and we keep harping on about what marvelous beings we are. However, our souls at this point have fallen behind our minds. Our subconscious minds are now a dumping ground for negative messages. Add this to the spiritual burdens from our past lives and the genetic inheritance from our ancestors, and now we have a huge wall before us. Our souls are unable to pass through this wall and integrate with our bodies, namely our current lifetimes. And so we cannot walk the talk, and the system doesn’t hesitate in filling in the blanks this situation creates.
People that thought themselves “nothing” up to this point start to see they’re capable of doing nice things, and others begin responding to these deeds. As time goes by, these people start feeling like they’re “somebody” now. Their unbalanced egos shift from negative to positive, and they cling to it because they don’t want to lose this feeling. Evolvement turns into a tool for gaining “status.” Their minds fill with thoughts like “Who knows better, you or me?” and “Learn before you talk!” and they hide these thoughts under a smile. On the other hand, the system starts to press you with, “Now you know all this stuff, don’t you think it’s time to make some money from it?” We do need money to do things we desire and move around smoothly, of course, but doing something for money and making money from something you’re good at are completely different things. It’s easily possible to lose your balance when a highly controversial matter like money is the topic in question, especially if you make a great deal of it. The blank space within you echoes with the system’s voice, “That’s my boy. Look at how successful you are! You’re now a great master and making lots of money. You’re so damn successful, but keep going on, keep going…” And so you find yourself sitting on the system’s lap once more…
Why did we come here?
“Evolvement” is not our purpose for coming to this world. It’s not about getting ahead of “others” either, especially not that. Unfortunately, because the system engraves in our subconscious minds that “we’ll be annihilated if we fall behind, so we have to be in the front rank,” evolvement and self-discovery turn into a tool to gain status. The hierarchy then changes in our spiritual environment. The CEO is now “God” or “the source,” the supervisors are “your spiritual guides,” the department is “the divine order,” and the corporation is “the process of creation.” The shapes of the notions are always changing, but how we perceive them is always the same, because no one ever taught us any other way to live. Thus, we keep competing with each other. That’s why we continuously occupy ourselves with lessons, workshops, practices, rituals, and so on. We also expect to see approval from others, so we can be sure we’re doing well. We accept any kind of “positive” feedback from friends or spiritual channels, and we humbly tell them, “Oh really? I’m not that good,” but meanwhile, the actress says exactly the same thing to the bishop. When the opposite happens, we get annoyed, angry, and upset, and we even start dropping innuendos. The mere reason for this behavior is that we still live in a world of illusion. Jed McKenna gives an example in his book Enlightenment: To jump off a cliff is not about approaching the edge and giving speeches about jumping off, meditating, praying, and so on—it’s only about jumping off. Unfortunately, we’re still on the edge of the cliff. We can’t let ourselves go, even though we’ve talked about jumping for years…
Well, then there’s no evolvement?
Of course there is, but not in the way that we want it to be. Life wasn’t made to make individuals evolve. We’re already the embodiment of “the source.” Everything that exists is the embodiment of “the source.” We’ve forgotten what we are and become inferior beings, and so we created the illusion that we need to “evolve” in order to become higher beings like before. You cannot arrive somewhere where you already are. We are the embodiment of “the source,” and there’s no other place to go. There are no lower or higher levels. Everything that exists is a part of the source. We are fragments of “the source” who are on a journey to experience existence, and one day we’ll realize that we are “the source.” But this time, we will be carrying a book of experiences named “life” under one arm. Inside the book, we’ll be welcomed by this sentence on the first page: “Now I know, because I’ve been there…” This will be a cognitive state a million times greater than that of the man who jumped off the cliff, because we jumped off “the source” just to experience what is called “life.” It breathed us into this world, and it will suck us back in. This will be repeated countless times through eternity, because the source has come to “life” with this very breath. Just like newborn babies… That’s why we exist: to live “life.” All other things, as illusionary as they are, are also a part of the source and the “life” scenario. Actually, the word “illusion” is a little risky to use, because we automatically shun whatever it is and try to protect ourselves, just like protecting a little child from touching the fire. However, the child cannot know how it feels to burn without touching the fire. We cannot know what illusion is without experiencing it. Then we can “realize” the truth and start living our scenarios with awareness from that point on. Just like an actor taking part in a movie. He knows the movie is just made up and not real, an “illusion” if you will, but he tries his best to make the movie a good one.
By the way, this “life” scenario includes the evolvement thing as well. How come? It’s just like levels in a PC game. For example, you can be a level-80 character in World of Warcraft, but you don’t play it just to go up levels. It’s a game, and you just want to enjoy it. Meanwhile, your character levels up and up. It’s the same with our life adventures. We, too, level up in our lives, evolving as we accept and embrace the less pleasant parts of our beings. The more we embrace, the more our souls grow… We become ONE… This is a part of the game called “life,” and this doesn’t make us something greater or “higher” than anything or anyone else. We already are the embodiment of that highness. We struggle to arrive at somewhere where we already are, but what we actually do is not to jump off that cliff…
The bottom of the cliff…
If evolvement is not our “purpose,” God is not our CEO, people are not our rivals, and life is not a competition, then how else can we live? I’ll stop short right here, because it’s a brand-new area for me. No one has ever taught me about it. I have a lot of information in my bag to use in case of emergency, and I’ll just try to explore these new lands. I’m sure there will be lots of others there too, and together we’ll share our experiences with each other and learn how to live here. This is the process where we will realize that we always had what we desperately sought after. But we don’t really know what to do in such cases. Let’s see, we’ll live, learn and share…
Let’s hope for the best in this new phase of our lives…
