The Approaching "Evolutionary Split"

The big picture of humanity's future from the spiritual heights of the Supermind

Sometimes, to deeply understand the root causes of world events and what they truly represent—beyond what superficial material circumstances might reveal—it is necessary to look past appearances and adopt a broader perspective and grand vision. Such a perspective cannot be attained by the mind alone without deeper spiritual and intuitive insight and wisdom.

Of course, for any historical event, financial crash, or political upheaval, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, or political commentators will always provide explanations that, in hindsight, seem to clarify the causes and effects leading to current circumstances. However, the human mind and reason, even the much-revered rational sciences that emerged during the so-called “Enlightenment,” are limited in their scope. They lack the vision needed to grasp the bigger picture or the deeper significance and spiritual roots of these world events. They remain surface-level representations of underlying processes whose origins and raison d’être extend far beyond scientific, materialistic, political, financial, or sociological explanations. To truly understand where humanity is heading, one must ascend to higher states of consciousness—toward what Sri Aurobindo called the “Supermind,” which transcends and surpasses ordinary human cognition.

In a previous post, we saw how the spiritual Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee describes what’s at play on the world stage as something that goes beyond politics or typical ideological divides. We are witnessing a clash between one part of humanity envisioning an evolution toward unity and environmental harmony, and another that chooses to remain stagnant, regressing into a disconnected, materialistic existence. Unfortunately, for the time being, the latter seems to have the upper hand. Humanity has made a choice—a rejection of progress toward a higher spiritual destiny. This manifests as a global resurgence of toxic forces, deeply rooted in history, that reject change and spiritual progress and remain blind to factual reality and rational discourse.

Does this mean that everything is lost? No, it is only a cycle—though it is likely a cycle that could persist for generations. Vaughan-Lee concludes by saying that a shift in consciousness to move beyond this regressive cycle and embrace a higher vision for humanity will come with an “evolutionary split between those who are working with the Light and those who will be caught in the density of this world.”

I already pointed out elsewhere what this evolutionary split might entail. Here, I would like to share insights from another spiritual master. The following is a transcript of a couple of conversations from 1958 with Mirra Alfassa—a spiritual teacher, yogini, and the spiritual partner of Sri Aurobindo, affectionately known to her followers as “The Mother.” As you will see, her observations resonate deeply with and align closely with Vaughan-Lee’s insights.

You can read the following text or listen to a voiceover by Andrea van de Loo. Andrea, a friend of mine, met The Mother in the 1970s. I recommend her book entitled “The Pressing Stones” where she describes her journey throughout the globe that led her to Auroville and the spiritual visions of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

The Mother’s Agenda - February 1958

"I came to the conclusion that from a practical standpoint, the solution is that the part of humanity expressing this Error in its life and its consciousness should ... or to put it another way, that part of humanity, of the human consciousness, capable of uniting with the Supermind and of liberating itself, will be completely transformed. This humanity is moving towards a future reality not yet expressed in its outer form. Whereas the part of humanity nearer to the simplicity of the animal or of Nature will be reabsorbed by Nature and entirely re-assimilated. The possibility of a mental consciousness that allows for perversion – that makes mental perversion such an excruciating thing – will be abolished. It will disappear. These things will no longer be."

Mirra Alfassa, also called “The Mother”, on her balcony at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India.

The Mother’s Agenda - June 1958

"One thing seems clear: humanity has reached such a generalized state of tension – tension in effort, tension in action, tension even in daily life – with such an excessive hyperactivity, such an overall restlessness, that the species as a whole seems to have reached a point where it must either burst through the resistance and surge forth into a new consciousness, or else sink back into an abysm of obscurity and inertia.

This tension is so total and so generalized that obviously something must break. It cannot go on like this. Yet all this is a sure sign that a new principle of force, consciousness and power has been infused into matter and by its very pressure has produced this acute state. Outwardly, we might expect to see the old habitual means used by Nature whenever she wants to bring about an upheaval; but here there is a new phenomenon, which is evidently visible only in a select few, although even these few are widespread enough – this phenomenon is not localized in one point or one place in the world, for the signs are to be found in every country all over the earth: the will to find a new, a higher, an ascending solution, an effort to surge forth into a vaster, more encompassing perfection.

Certain ideas of a more general, more extensive, more collective nature, as it were, are being worked out and are at work in the world. And the two go together: a greater and more total possibility of destruction and an inventiveness that unrestrainedly increases the possibility of catastrophe, a catastrophe that would be much more massive than it has ever been; and at the same time, the birth, or rather the manifestation, of much higher and more comprehensive ideas and wills which, when heard, will bring a vaster, more extensive, more complete and more perfect solution than before.

This struggle, this conflict between the constructive forces of an ascending evolution, of an increasingly perfect and divine realization, and the more and more destructive forces – powerfully destructive, forces of an uncontrollable madness – is becoming more obvious, unmistakably visible, and it is a kind of race or battle as to which will be first to reach its goal. All the hostile, anti-divine forces, these forces of the vital world, seem to have descended upon earth and are using it as their field of action; and at the same time, a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended upon earth to bring a new life to it. This renders the battle more bitter, violent and visible, but apparently more decisive, too, which is why we may hope to arrive at an early solution.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when man’s spiritual aspiration was turned towards a silent, inactive peace, detached from all the things of this world, an evasion of life to avoid the struggle, precisely, to rise above the battle, to be liberated from effort. It was a spiritual peace where, along with the cessation of tension, struggle and effort, suffering in all its forms also ceased, and this was considered the true and unique expression of the spiritual and divine life. This is what was considered divine grace, divine succor, divine intervention. And even now, in this age of anguish, tension and hypertension, this sovereign peace is of all help the best received, the most welcome, the relief asked and hoped for. For many, it is still the true sign of divine intervention, of divine grace.

In fact, no matter what you wish to realize, you must begin by establishing this perfect and immutable peace – it is the necessary basis for any work; but unless you are thinking of an exclusive or personal and egoistic liberation, you cannot stop there. There is yet another aspect to the divine grace, the aspect of progress that will be victorious over all obstacles, the aspect that will propel humanity into a new realization, open the doors unto a new world, enable not only a select few to benefit from the divine realization, but through their influence, their example and their power, bring a new and better condition to the rest of humanity.

It opens vistas of realization into the future and already foreseen possibilities through which an entire section of humanity, which is consciously or unconsciously open to the new forces, will be lifted up, as it were, towards a higher, more harmonious, more perfect life ... and even if individual transformations are not permissible nor possible in all cases, at least there will be a kind of uplifting of the whole, a harmonization of everything, enabling a new order, a new harmony to be established and the anguish of disorder and the present strife to disappear and be replaced by an order that will allow for the harmonious working of the whole.

There will be other consequences that by opposite means will tend to eradicate the perversion and ugliness created in life due to the intervention of the mind, a whole range of deformations that have aggravated suffering, misery, moral poverty, a whole zone of sordid and repugnant miseries that makes an entire portion of human life so hideous. That must disappear. That is what in many respects makes humanity infinitely inferior to animal life, with its simplicity and its natural spontaneity, and which in spite of everything is harmonious. Suffering among animals is never as miserable and sordid as it is in a whole section of humanity perverted by a mentality exclusively turned towards egoistic needs.

One must rise above, surge forth into the Light and the Harmony, or sink back down into the simplicity of a wholesome, unperverted animal life.

(After a moment of silence, Mother adds)

But those who cannot be lifted up, who refuse to progress, will automatically lose the use of the mental consciousness and fall back into an infrahuman stage.

I’ll tell you of an experience I had which will help you better understand. It was a short while after the supramental experience of February 3, and I was still in that state where things of the physical world seemed so remote, so absurd. A group of visitors asked permission to greet me, and they came one evening to the playground. They were rich people – that is, they had more money than they needed to live. Among them was a woman in a saree. She was very fat, and her saree was so arranged as to hide her body. When she bent over to receive my blessings, a corner of her saree fell open, uncovering part of her body, a bare belly. An enormous belly. It came as a shock to me ... There are obese people who are not at all repugnant, but there I suddenly saw the perversion, the rottenness that this abdomen concealed. It was like an enormous abscess expressing greed, vice, depravity of taste, sordid desire that seeks satisfaction as no animal would, grossly, and above all, perversely. I saw the perversion of a depraved mind placed at the service of the basest appetites. Then, in a flash, something leapt forth from me, a prayer, like a Veda: ‘O Lord, it is this that must vanish!’

One can well understand that physical misery or the unequal distribution of the world’s wealth could be remedied. One can think of economic and social solutions that could remedy all that, but this particular misery, this mental misery, this vital perversion – it is this that cannot change, that does NOT WANT to change. And those who belong to this kind of humanity are condemned in advance to disintegration.

The meaning of original sin is precisely this: the perversion that began with the mind.

That part of humanity, of the human consciousness, which is able to unite with the Supermind and liberate itself will be completely transformed. It is moving towards its future reality as yet unexpressed in the outer form; the part very close to the simplicity of the animal, close to Nature, will be reabsorbed by Nature and thoroughly reassimilated. But that corrupted part of the human consciousness, which through its wrong use of the mind allows this perversion, will be abolished.

That kind of humanity belongs to an unfruitful attempt – and will be eliminated, like so many other abortive species which have vanished in the course of universal history.

Certain prophets in the past had this apocalyptic vision, but as usual things became mixed, and along with their vision of the apocalypse they did not have the vision of the supramental world that will come to uplift the consenting part of humanity and transform this physical world. However, to give hope to those born into this perverted part of the human consciousness, redemption through faith was taught: those who have faith in the sacrifice of the Divine in Matter will automatically be saved, in another world – faith alone, without understanding, without intelligence. They never saw the supramental world, nor did they see that the great Sacrifice of the Divine in Matter is that of an involution which will lead to the total revelation of the Divine in Matter itself.”

The subscription to Letters for a Post-Material Future is free. However, if you find value in this message and wish to support it, you can make a small financial contribution by buying me one or more coffees!