Chapter 1 – Evolution – A New Perspective
What kind of world would it be if everyone believed that there was a greater unexplainable power in the Universe that gave human beings exactly what they need exactly when they need it? The same power that gave all the trees, flowers and wildlife all they need to sustain billions of years on this earth. If we could all commit to a united belief system that flowed with the Universe and believe that everything happens intentionally and for a reason, we would never take it personally when someone disagrees with us and we would have no reason to be jealous, to judge, to take revenge, to steal or especially, to kill another person.
So what if that person has more than you and he hardly had to work for it and you did? You would know the Universe has a plan and needs your soul to work harder towards a greater purpose and that person doesn’t need that life lesson; that person needs to learn a different life lesson.
So what if that person rejected you because he wasn’t attracted to you? You would automatically know that the Universe would only cause two people to attract if there was a greater purpose – no attraction, no purpose.
So what if your co-worker that you trained got the promotion and you didn’t? There is a reason. That doesn’t mean that you have to continue following the same path you have been on. You could choose to quit your ungrateful job instead and pursue your “calling” in life. You could choose to allow the Universe to take you to the next stop in this game called life. You decide – it’s your life. Don’t worry about what other people do. You are you. No one else is you. No one on this entire planet is anything like you. For someone to be exactly like you they would have to look like you from birth, have the same family and friends, bosses and co-workers, watch the same television shows, marry the same spouse and have the same kids. Their lives would have to match yours identically for them to be exactly like you.
What I believe is that the Universe guides us to our soul’s needs at every moment. Sometimes that might mean that you need to release negativity and the only way to get it out is to put yourself in a situation that forces you to make a decision that may seem terrible at first, but ends up being the best move you ever made.
What is evolution?
According to Oxford Concise Science Dictionary evolution is the "gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and animal life arose from the earliest and most primitive organisms, which is believed to have been continuing for the past 3000 million years.”
This definition seems to be missing answers to many of the questions that have baffled scientists. If evolution is a “gradual” process, how do scientists explain the various behavioral changes that took place globally in a seemingly short span of time approximately 50,000 years ago in a period called “The Great Leap Forward”?
Also, according to this definition, humans are either considered “animals” or not included in the process of evolution. If we are considered “animals,” how do the scientists explain our ability to communicate through language, develop opinions, make decisions and everything else “animals” cannot do? And if we are indeed a different species than all other animals (which we are), then where do we fall into this definition? Have humans “evolved”? If so, how?
I am not trying to rip apart all of our scientists’ hard work over the centuries, but I do want to emphasize that science does not have all the answers. Science cannot have all the answers, because if science had all the answers, there would no longer be a question as to whether or not there is a G-d; science would have the answer.
Although science has revealed so much knowledge to us, there are many more mysteries that we are not privy to because we have not “evolved” enough as a species to accept them. This is the concept that I would like to bring forward to everyone who is reading this book. Evolution should not be limited to a biological definition. This is the mistake that creates the vast controversy around this subject. Evolutionary changes, of course, can occur biologically, such as a gene mutation necessary for the species’ long term survival, but I also contend that “evolution” takes place spiritually and morally as well. Spiritual and moral changes that human beings have made and are still on the course of making are the most vital changes necessary to our existence.
If we take a closer look at our growth, we can clearly see that we have collectively shifted our behavior over history from barbaric and savage to a more gracious and socially acceptable way of living. In ancient times, children were sacrificed in the name of adulation of the gods. In medieval times, at least you had to commit a “crime” to be beheaded, but the “crime” could have been witchcraft. And so on through history we have collectively evolved. Therefore, as a species, just like the giraffe’s neck grew so it could eat from the trees, the evolutionary path we need to be on to ensure our survival regards our relationships with other people. In order for our species to survive and prosper, we need to stop fighting with each other and punishing each other for not being a certain way. To live harmoniously on this planet together, our spiritual evolution is not only necessary, but is unavoidable.
The Universe needs the earth for many things that the earth has that no other planet in the entire galaxy has, one being organic life. Our planet is the only planet (that we are aware of) that is hospitable to life. Every once in a while I would like to request that after you read certain sentences, you take a moment and digest the implications of that sentence.
Earth is the only planet that we know of that is hospitable to organic life.
Physicists are aware of this, but their perspective is limited to the study of what makes the earth hospitable and how the earth is hospitable, rather than why only the earth is hospitable. Why is earth the only planet that we know of that has trees, plants, vegetation, water, animals and humans? This question cannot be answered by physics, because there would be no way to say for sure that there is one specific answer. Even if physicists would be able to postulate some sort of theory, who is to say that it is exclusively correct. What if there are many reasons why the earth needs organic life while other planets don’t? What if some of the reasons are spiritual reasons and cannot be found through physical measures?
Before I continue, I would like to emphasize that I am not a scientist nor do I have anywhere near enough knowledge of science to state anything as fact. Additionally, I would like to emphasize that nothing in this book is “fact.” A fact is something that is believed to be true based on knowledge or events that took place.
The problem with “facts” is that they are limited to the perspective of those insisting that they are “facts.” In other words, I would like to say for a fact that there is a G-d, because I have experienced events that could not have taken place without some type of intervention from what I call G-d, but, as you well know, saying that it is a “fact” that G-d exists actually offends people. But it is a fact to me. So, in the same way that “facts” that I believe in for various reasons cannot be called “facts” for everyone, I do not accept other people’s facts as my own – until I have done my research.
That is all I am trying to ask of you. Do your own research before accepting anything that you hear or read as “fact.” “Facts” are only facts to the specific person who experienced the events that caused that specific person to acquire knowledge that convinced that specific person to believe something (or someone). If that specific person has enough evidence that something can be accepted as “fact” for others beside himself, than the evidence must be able to exclude all other opposing possibilities. In other words, if you think something is a fact and someone else disagrees with you and has evidence to support his opinion (or theory), then what you thought was a “fact” turns into an opinion (or theory) because someone else has a viable opposing viewpoint. There is no such thing as opposing facts. Take a moment to digest what I am trying to say:
For something to be stated as “fact” there must be no other viable opposing possibilities.
If this is understood, it is easier to digest some of the things I will be discussing throughout this book. It will also be easier to accept that what you may have once thought to be true, or “fact” before, may be implausible if viewed from a different perspective.
With this in mind, I would like to discuss why I think spiritual evolution is in need of further study in order to move us ahead to our next stage of evolution, which, in my opinion, could only be the Era of Peace.
I believe that the only world that has a chance of surviving is the one that relies completely on the Universe. The Universe sustains what needs it. Everything in the Universe continues with its life without “worrying” about how it’s going to live, except for us. We have spent so many centuries studying how to sustain ourselves in the Universe that the thought that perhaps we don’t need to sustain ourselves has never crossed our minds. Why should we human beings, supposedly on a higher spiritual plane of existence than a mere animal, be bothered to waste our time on menial tasks of basic survival when we have much more to offer than animals? Even animals don’t “worry” about their survival. They just survive, or don’t survive. There is no “worrying” about survival. Humans, on the other hand spend so much time worrying about our survival that we don’t have any time left to be concerned with what we came here to learn, such as, why are we here in the first place?
Food for Thought
In order to evolve physically and technologically, we necessarily needed to evolve spiritually as well.
What I am suggesting is that we not only evolved spiritually, but that we can only evolve spiritually. Physical and mental heights can be reached solely as a result of a spiritual change.
This would mean that science has been studying it backwards all along. Science has assumed that evolution consisted of biological changes. I am saying that evolution can only be stimulated by spiritual changes. Now, all of the sudden, if my logic is correct, we can dispel the idea of defining evolution as occurring only within biological changes as “fact.” This would not be fact, because we have not studied the possibilities that we evolved spiritually first and only then were we able to “evolve” biologically. If we can eliminate this piece of information as being “fact,” we can now dismiss the argument entirely as far as “religionists” vs. “realists” are concerned. Religions tend to dismiss evolution because, according to what religions have chosen to believe as “fact,” if someone believes in evolution, they must also believe that they came from a monkey. So, according to a lot of religious minded people, based on the information provided by their leaders over many generations, evolution is not an acceptable belief. If G-d created us as a spiritually higher species than animals, accordingly we could not possibly share any of the same genetics. On the other hand, “realists,” as they like to call themselves, imply that the religious rite has to be one step short of crazy to actually be able to so flippantly dismiss all of the scientific “facts” that confirm evolution. However, if it were true that we first had to “evolve” spiritually before we could have evolved physically, then each side could define “evolution” however they like but there would be no dispute as to the “fact” that some sort of human “evolution” took place over time.
Recognizable Spiritual Stages of Evolution
According to my theory, human evolution has taken place in every generation since the beginning of time. Furthermore, we each have the possibility to evolve to the highest levels of spirituality, even within our own lifetimes, if we exert some effort. For example, a criminal who has no concept of rules or respect of another human being needs to evolve spiritually in order to change his ways for the better. By a spiritual change, I mean that some introspection into his or her soul has to inspire lasting change. The criminal must agree to abide by a set of social rules so that he or she can successfully live amongst society. If the person is only agreeing to these rules out of fear (i.e. going back to jail, getting caught, etc.), eventually they may forget about their fear and stop following those rules that are necessary for successful human interaction. I don’t have to tell you that repeat offenders are a dime a dozen.
On the other hand, if a “spiritual” or introspective change occurs, coming from a deeper place in the mind, that change will usually stick. That change comes from a deeper understanding of what our purpose truly is, or simply that we have a purpose. Once we are convinced of this, it is hard to be concerned with anything other than trying to figure out what our purpose is and how to fulfill it.
A criminal who can accept that they made a mistake in the past and acknowledge that their actions were wrong and make efforts to improve his or her behavior for the sake of his or her soul, can more easily move ahead with their life, no matter what the situation is. Once a person finally accepts responsibility for their behavior and understands that consequences must be accepted and then deals with them with minimum resistance, guilt and shame, which usually cloud our decision making process, no longer have power over them and the necessary course in life that needs to be taken all of the sudden becomes much clearer. That person who was once considered to be a criminal has the potential to be an asset to society if he or she follows the rules of the system and concentrates on finding his or her purpose in life.
The next stage of evolution is a little more challenging.
The problem with rules is that it’s very hard to create a set of rules to cover every detail of every situation individually. The rules are generally too broad. Even our legal system is flawed because people often have a hard time seeing another side to a story. They have already cast judgment and these people are the ones running our legal system. Unfortunately, due to the imperfections of humans, the best legal system inevitably has cracks in it because people are imperfect. Sometimes there are gaping holes in it. (O.J. Simpson?).
How do we, with our limited experience, judge all of the contradictory evidence with honest evaluation? For instance, how can we know if abortion is right or wrong? There are many situations where having an abortion would be considered wrong by the majority and other situations where it would be considered wrong not to have an abortion by the majority.
Due to the vast number of opinions, we have only one choice but to put a governing body of people who have, hopefully, been chosen by their constituents to make laws, or rules, that will be deemed acceptable to the majority of its citizens. This governing body will also have to create a system of justice to uphold these laws within their country. Unfortunately, not all the laws that governing bodies – even democratic ones – make are acceptable to the majority of people and the justice system definitely cannot always be trusted to be fair and impartial. Just as DNA evidence has been used to convict people of crimes, innocent people wrongly accused have also been freed based on DNA evidence analyzed after the fact. Some people on death row were not as lucky.
So now what do we do? We are smart enough to understand that something is not right here, but what are we going to do about it? What can we do about it? The problem seems too big to even think about – so we don’t. That is the problem. That is why we have not yet evolved into the next phase of our existence – the Era of Peace. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! The times they are a changin’. We need to figure out what we, each and every one of us, can do to usher in the Era of Peace!
Our scientists have spent hundreds of years collecting millions of pages of data on the age of the Universe and explanations of evolution patterns and have proved that, at one point, the Universe was very different than it is now. We have no reason to believe that it can’t change for the sake of its own survival. In fact, why someone would want to believe that the Universe can’t change for the sake of its own survival is incomprehensible to me. What is the proof that the Universe cannot adjust to changes in the system? If living creatures have walked this planet for billions of years, what proof do we have that the Universe does not take care of its inhabitants?
Yes, there are natural disasters that take place that eliminate massive amounts of life, but these are the slaps the Life Force of the Universe is sending us that are supposed to wake us up. They will keep happening more frequently and harder if we don’t wake up and smell the coffee. Our negative actions create hostile weather conditions. You don’t have to believe anything I am saying is fact. All you have to do is say – maybe….
We went from little dagger like spears to man-made bows and arrows to spears to knives to guns to cannons to grenades to bombs to sophisticated bombs to nuclear bombs. What is it going to take for us to realize we have to start somewhere? The place to begin is at home with our family.
Give respect; get respect. Give truth; get truth. Give love; get love. It is only hard to change yourself in the beginning. Once you understand why you are making changes and start feeling happier because you have made these changes, you will not need to put forth much effort to change. Much of the time, change happens all by itself.
It works like this. Giving respect, truth and love is not so easy initially, but once you dedicate yourself to these rules of living, there are rewards. It takes a while to see results, but once you receive the rewards for trying, it is very hard not to keep “trying.” If we could all simply put forth a little effort into our relationships with the people around us for the sake of ourselves and our families, we would forget about leaving things up to our leaders and we, ourselves, could try to build some kind of fortress of peace in our world. Because, it is after all, OUR WORLD!!!
It starts with one small step. Instead of yelling at your waitress for being too slow, take a deep breath and enjoy the opportunity to admire the beautiful tree outside. Patiently wait for your coffee, leave a generous tip and say thank you and see if it doesn’t make the other person smile back. If everyone was on the same page, we could legitimately imagine the kind of world you can only make a movie about nowadays. It would be a world where everyone worked together and it doesn’t matter what another has or doesn’t have. We would be able to enjoy everyone and appreciate our differences. Enlightenment would be our ultimate goal and we would have the power to enlighten others in some small way. In the new world, we would be astute enough to find everyone’s unique beauty and “cash-in” on it.
This might sound like a cliché version of utopia, and I realize I am not introducing something new to you, but why haven’t we gotten there yet? Because we don’t think we can. I implore you to understand that this is not even up to us; we will be forced there by whatever means necessary. There is a difference in understanding that we can improve the quality of our life during the process as opposed to others who insist on believing that there is nothing that can be done on an individual level to improve the situation so why not live life till it hurts.
Every positive effort you make towards your own evolution creates a ripple effect around you that has a much bigger impact on our Universe than you might ever know. Unfortunately, negativity has the same ripple effect. That is why we must voluntarily evolve rather than wait for further negative ripple effects.
I want to bring in a point that I will speak more about later. Our experiences are brought to us through the Life Force of the Universe. They are brought to us because we need to learn something from them. The Universe guides us to our soul’s needs at every moment. Sometimes that might mean that the experience may not be the most comfortable, but it may be poignant. If an experience can move you emotionally, hold on to that experience and analyze those emotions. Emotions are indications that you feel something and your feelings are important. Even if you have “bad” feelings, if you are able to pinpoint the source of all your feelings, you have the power to change the “bad” feelings into “good” feelings. Emotional experiences are a source of learning. If you do not forget this, you will have a real opportunity to wake yourself up which is what evolution ultimately is.
Take a moment to digest what I am trying to say, keeping in mind your own life and all of its pivotal moments that led to a significant change due to a decision you were forced to make (or you thought at the time you were forced to make). How do you feel about that decision today? Can you understand retrospectively why that decision was ultimately necessary to move forward with your life? Would you have done something different if you knew then what you know now? What lessons have you learned from that decision? Are the lessons you learned valuable? These are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself if you want to improve the decisions you make on a regular basis.
With a little introspection, you might be able to see why you did what you did, why you had to do what you did, why you had to learn the lessons you learned and how your decision has changed your life or your reality to suit your newly learned lessons.
These pivotal moments in one’s life that lead to change are the very moments the Universe uses to alter your reality to suit changes you need to make in order to evolve to the next stage of humanity.
In Summary
According to my own version of reality, humans are on a path of evolution to higher beings. We are all on different planes of an evolutionary path. We have to put together the pieces to our own unique puzzle using the tool called “perspective,” given to us from the Life Force of the Universe. We don’t always know what pieces each of us are missing that would allow us to evolve to higher beings that can live together symbiotically, but our job is to figure it out, preferably in this lifetime.
I know I need to learn patience. All of my life I have lacked this virtue, despite the fact that when I am not patient, the situation usually gets worse. I had experienced so many things that tried my patience until finally I had no choice but to realize that there is nothing I can do about waiting. Time doesn’t move any faster no matter how much I might want it to. When I finally gave in to the idea that I was not in control of what happens to me, I was then able to learn that as long as I am patient, everything I need comes at the right time. I had to strip myself of expectation and wait. That took patience and I had no choice but to have some.
All anyone needs to know or believe is that there really is potential to reach mental and physical heights that cannot be explained but through experience. Once you understand that experience is the only way to evolve, then you very likely will appreciate all of your experiences instead of wishing you didn’t have to have them. If you get nothing else out of this book, I hope that I can give you a good enough reason to allow your mind to open up and accept all of your experiences as positive learning experiences.
In the beginning, you may struggle with always trying to confirm what you already believe to be true through your experiences, but if deep down you don’t really feel confirmed, you can count on the Life Force of the Universe to point out the conflicts within you so that you may make a more honest assessment of the situation. Everything will be made clear the more we search for answers. We must ask the questions to receive the answers. Don’t take for granted everything you see and hear. Use logic to allow yourself to dismiss all the things that you consider “fact” at this point in your life and reevaluate them. Make sure there is no other perspective that may oppose what you think is “fact.” When you finally strip the files in your brain down to what is really fact and what you just don’t know whether it is fact or not, you will have a lot more room up there to work with.
Chapter 1 Lifework
Before going to the next chapter; take a day and practice understanding perspectives. If something happens that annoys you or worse yet causes you to act in an aggressive manner towards another person, make an effort to analyze the situation and see it from the other person’s perspective. Try to find a point that the other person may have that you didn’t see. Think about the fact that if you look at the very same situation from a different angle – as if you were the other person – you may feel differently about the same situation.
Before you can progress spiritually, you must accept that each spirit has something unique to offer this world. You must rid your mind of any barriers that may prevent you from accepting that every person has a purpose and a perspective given to them with which to serve that purpose. Any lingering feelings of superiority or inferiority will hinder your personal development. This sounds easier than it is.
We are all born and bred to believe that we are better than others in one way or another, that our families are better than other families in some way and that our culture or religion is better than other cultures and religions. Unfortunately, we are also convinced along the way that we are not as good as other people, our family isn’t as good as other families or we are not worthy of being a part of a culture or religion or we are too good to be a part of a culture or religion.
It is not a “fact” that there is even one person that is better than another person. It cannot be a “fact” because there would be no way to prove it. We have no basis of comparison because there is no person out there that is better than all the rest, and there is no person out there that is worse than all the rest,. Therefore, based on logic, no one is better than anyone else. There is no scale available to tell us which traits are considered most desirable and which are considered least desirable.
Take today to concentrate on this point and try to erase your mind of all the things you think you are better at than others and all the things that you think you are worse at than others. Stay neutral as if you are just meeting yourself. Once you erase (or, at least, be aware that something needs to be erased) any preconceived notions about anything and start with a clean slate, things will appear a little clearer to you and you will be able to reconsider everything you just read, understanding life in a whole new way. That is how precarious perspectives are. However, every perspective teaches us something new about ourselves and others.