The Evolution of Consciousness
The Evolution of Consciousness
Real religion is not about being a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim. It is about loving God and dedicating ones life to be an instrument of Gods compassion, kindness towards other living beings
~Radhanath Swami
The core teachings of Aslan Institute, are teachings about the Evolution of Consciousness.
The evolution of matter, is a mirror image of the Evolution of God, or Consciousness. Many forms of life have gone extinct, not able to fulfill the capacity of conveying the full experience of God, or Consciousness, and not able to evolve further. Humans are surely the pinnacle of evolution in form and yet, we find ourselves, as a species, at a crossroads. Will we be able to live the fullness of God in form, or will we choose to remain in our limited egoic consciousness, concerned only with the lower order needs of creatures to survive and thrive? To live God through our form, requires a radical shift. An awakening of the heart, A dedication to the deep desire of becoming. If we cannot not awaken, this species will be part of the sixth mass extinction on the planet. I believe that unless we are capable of living in a state of unity, love and truth internally, and therefore externally, then we are as irrelevant to the purpose of God as the dinosaurs.
Understanding the stages of development and states of consciousness that humans evolve through is crucial to having the capacity to co-operate with the divine intention and purpose of our lives. To this end, I include what wisdom I have gleaned to share with you, that you may use it to further your own evolution in a way that Consciousness may live through you, in compassion, wisdom and solidarity to all aspects of your own being, and all of sentient life in the universe.
Because my lineage and ancestry is in the Judeo-Christian tradition, I include a section on the reinterpretation of our sacred texts through the lens of an internal frame of reference, that render the teachings more relevant. Through the last two thousand or so years, they have been interpreted through an external lens of dependency and projection. In other words, God is “out there” and “up there.” God is male, hierarchical and judgmental dividing the world into good and bad and right and wrong, leading to a doctrine of “heaven” and “hell.” This represents the internal split we all have between soul and ego. This understanding is a projection of a certain stage of development when we are externally focused on morality. Turning our eye inwards and understanding this split within, adjusts our understanding of scripture in a way that renders it useful to healing, or making whole the splits within ourselves, and therefore the world.
Many have rejected the doctrine of the formal religion of their upbringing and searched for meaning in other places as they have realized that the interpretations they grew up with, make no sense to their lives anymore. However, understood through an internal lens, the scriptures are deep spiritual teachings that guide the path of evolution. To this end I offer a way to read them through an internal lens. This is not The Truth - it is merely indicative of a new way of self-contemplation, self-reflection and self-guidance. Aside from teachings given below, there are also links to specific aspects of Christianity that are re-interpreted through a universal spiritual lens and through the lens of quantum mechanics. We are beginning to understand that there is actually no difference in the conclusions science and the mystics of all time have taught us.
Lesson 1 - Innate Spiritual DNA
BLOOM
Bloom — is Result — to meet a Flower
And casually glance
Would cause one scarcely to suspect
The minor Circumstance
Assisting in the Bright Affair
So intricately done
Then offered as a Butterfly
To the Meridian —
To pack the Bud — oppose the Worm —
Obtain its right of Dew —
Adjust the Heat — elude the Wind —
Escape the prowling Bee
Great Nature not to disappoint
Awaiting Her that Day —
To be a Flower, is profound
Responsibility
~Emily Dickenson
Lesson 2 - Eight Principles of Evolution - From Baby to Buddha
“I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was human,
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die human,
To soar with angels blessed above.
And when I sacrifice my angel soul
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.
As a human, I will die once more,
Reborn, I will with the angels soar.
And when I let my angel body go,
I shall be more than mortal mind can know.”
~Rumi Jalal ad'Din
In speaking of evolution it is necessary to understand from the outset that no mechanical evolution is possible. The evolution of man is the evolution of consciousness and “consciousness” cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will and “will” cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and “doing” cannot be the result of things which “happen.” ~G.J. Gurdjieff
Just as the soul is the life of the body, so God/Consciousness is the life of the soul - St. Augustine
Lesson 3 - Stages and States of Human Development from unaware to Fully Conscious
Diagram 4 - Domains and Stages of Consciousness
“Thus shall the earth open to divinity
And common natures feel the wide uplift,
Illumine common acts with the Spirit’s ray
And meet the deity in common things.
Nature shall live to manifest secret God,
The Spirit shall take up the human play,
This earthly life become the life divine.
(Savitri, Book 11, Canto 1, pp. 710-711)”
― Sri Aurobindo, Savitri
Lesson 4 - More detail on Stages and States
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
~William Wordsworth
This poem reflects the movement from 1st quadrant to 2nd quadrant. Can you find this experience/state and stage in yourself?
Lesson 5 - Major Western Religions’ Language of Stages and States of Consciousness
Diagram 5 - for those of you interested in the words in the Judeo-Christian language for the map of the Evolution of Consciousness
Very simply - the three domains/realms/states of consciousness were experienced as the sun, the moon and the earth. The Christian myth arises from the understanding of the “Father",” being the Sun, the “Mother/World Soul” as the moon, shining down on the earth (mortals). It was not understood from an internal frame of reference, with an inner understanding of everything without is within and can only be found within. Notice as you study this diagram how you switch from external to internal. Can you work at finding all these states internally? Can you find how you originated from the “Sun,” how you lived in the early stages of the moon with very little light of awareness, but that as you got more awareness and light from the Sun you became a full moon filled with wisdom and compassion? Can you see how you have been in bondage to the confines and constrictions of the Pharaoh who demanded slavery, for wealth and power? Can you see when you decided to leave this state and then found yourself wandering in the desert? Can you feel the temptations of the desert experience to go back to what you know? Study this diagram through the dark lens of what you were taught in the fundamental and rule bound stages of your religious experience.
“Ninety-three million miles the light has to come, and already we’re being warmed up by it. You know, if it weren’t for the sun, the entire Earth would be 400 degrees below zero. It just constantly pours out all of that light, and what’s amazing is to think about the sun being a million times as huge as the Earth. It’s just this vast fire that enables all of life to take place here. And what I really find fascinating is the way in which the sun produces this light. Right at the core it’s transforming hydrogen into helium. And in that transformation it’s converting some of its mass into energy. Every second, four million tons of the sun is being transformed into this light. That’s like a million elephants. So there’s another million elephants, another million elephants, and if it weren’t for that ongoing bestowal of energy, we wouldn’t have any life on earth. So one way to think about the sun, every time you see it at dawn, is to think of it as an act of cosmic generosity. It’s this vast giveaway of energy that enables us to survive, enables all of life to thrive. So we are surfing around the source of ongoing cosmic generosity.
I greet the sun each morning just by reflecting for just a moment on the vastness of the sun, a million times the size of the Earth, in bestowing all this energy. And just in that moment, I remember that we are spinning around the star, and it’s because of the star’s energy that we exist. So that we are this star in a new form. And by doing that I remember my cosmological dimension. And it puts everything in perspective for the whole day. ~Brian Swimme - (Make this your spiritual practice too)
Lesson 6 - Quadrant 1 Stages of Development - 2nd State/Realm of Consciousness - Unaware Soul
Diagram 6 - Study and Question
“Things don't always look as they seem. Some stars, for example, look like bright pinholes, but when you get them pegged under a microscope you find you're looking at a globular cluster—a million stars that, to us, presents as a single entity. On a less dramatic note there are triples, like Alpha Centauri, which up close turns out to be a double star and a red dwarf in close proximity.
There's an indigenous tribe in Africa that tells of life coming from the second star in Alpha Centauri, the one no one can see without a high-powered observatory telescope. come to think of it, the Greeks, the Aboriginals, and the Plains Indians all lived continents apart and all, independently, looked at the same septuplet knot of the Pleiades and believed them to be seven young girls running away from something that threatened to hurt them.
Make of it what you will.” ~Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
What do you make of this having read about this first quadrant state and stages of human development?
Lesson 7 - Quadrant 1 Stages of Development - 2nd State/Realm of Consciousness - Unaware Soul
Basic Needs … read here
