The Unexpected Comeback of the Conscious Universe - Pt. VII

The evolution of the soul

In the previous parts, especially in part V and part VI, a spiritual and emergentist cosmology has been outlined that goes beyond the conventional frameworks of dualism or philosophical idealism. The universe is not just a Mind, we are not simply a body and a mind, and reality is much more than simply ‘mental’. While the universe is ultimately only one and undivided consciousness, true also is that this consciousness can present itself in different ‘modes’ or ‘excitations’ that are not just a variety of mental states, but qualitatively different experiential modes that form the basis of the universe. Matter itself is only one of these modes, with mind, and life, rooted in a submerged subconscious plane of existence. Most importantly, we saw that there must be also a superconscious universal plane, of which we are scarcely aware, but which is of a very different quality and character than that determined by our subconscious. We, as individualized entities, are a ‘projection’ of this universal Consciousness. We manifest and reflect these universal planes with their qualities in our limited forms—namely, as body, life, mind, subconscious, and superconscious individualities, which are exclusive concentrations of the universal physical, life, mental, subconscious, and superconscious planes. This universal vs individual aspect came about because the Spirit plunged itself by an ‘involution’ into other modes of existence of itself and now, by a process of spiritual emergence in and through matter, reemerges with what we call ‘evolution.’ It is when we see this evolutionary, multilayered universal and individual dichotomy at once, that a much more coherent vision emerges and that has much more explanatory power with regards to many of the mysteries that the idealist, let alone the physicalist, still have to deal with.

Now, the question is, what is the nature of this individuality and what is its role in this universal manifestation? Why did a universal Consciousness or universal Being fragment itself into gazillions of tiny and more or less semi-conscious or subconscious entities in the form of living beings like us? Why did this universal vs individual appearance come into being? And, most interestingly, what is our place and destiny as individualized beings in relation to the universal Being?

A good starting point to investigate this aspect is, again, to take the introspective approach seriously. We have already acknowledged something that does not rely on philosophical abstractions but is an experiential fact: The ordinary human mind can distinguish between itself and consciousness—that is, the witness-consciousness, the part in us that seems to be a passive and inactive conscious observer that does not intervene in the manifestation and stands back as an unperturbed testimony of all the phenomena it becomes aware of.¹ This is what we consider the essence of our true being.

But, if we ‘listen’ attentively we know that there is more.

There is in us something that we feel in our heart center (or, at least not in our head), that strangely reflects superconscious intuitions and feelings. That kind of feeling where we say that “the mind tells something, but the heart knows otherwise.'“ There is something in us that knows what is good or bad for us even though our mind, most of the time, thinks otherwise. It is something of our inner nature that sends us silent inner intimations and that knows better, despite the outer circumstances seem to suggest otherwise. It is that makes us feel what our ‘inner call’ is and life mission is. It is the entity in us that possesses an instinct for beauty that tries to express itself in arts and music, or a profound sense of good that survives even in those conditions dominated by the survival of the fittest.

The ordinary human being is only vaguely aware of it (other than being perceived as the popular ‘inner voice’ in our heart dimly whispering to us some barely intelligible communication to our surface mind). This heart center is also described in different forms throughout many traditions, for example in Sufism, which speaks of the ‘five levels of the heart’. The Trappist monk, mystic, and author Thomas Merton called it the ‘point vierge’ —the virgin point— describing it as a "center of our being, a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God... which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will".

It is our true inmost individuality, or ‘divine spark’ whose qualities are primarily of a higher emotional nature, such as love, beauty, a perception of the truth that does not need mental inferences, a sense of good, harmony, emotional equanimity, sweetness, peace, and an intimate relationship with its Source. These qualities are always present in our intimate nature but hidden behind the veil of our untransformed mental, emotional, and physical restless activities. For example, real empathy is not a quality of the mental- or life-plane, but of the soul that feels and realizes, inwardly, an intimate identity and connectedness with other humans and all living creatures beyond our separative surface appearances and personalities.²

If we still can’t fully relate to this, we might follow the instructions of American psychologist Don Salmon who tells us how to get there.

"It requires only an open heart, not a fully silent mind or years of philosophic study. One can start simply looking at a flower, or an animal, a baby, or anything that sparks a sense of wonder, beauty, and deep noble goodness. Then take attention away from the object and dive deep into the feeling (not vital, emotional feeling). Then expand attention, allow attention to widen, widen until it embraces all of experience. Then let that inner feeling expand throughout the field of attention. Do this for even 10-15 seconds at a time on and off throughout the day. More and more, recall this sense of beauty and wonder, expanding attention, looking at the sky, recalling the ocean, the infinity of outer space, and allowing that combined sense of deep wondrous beauty with the awesome boundlessness of space. Then allow “something else” to take over. And be patient. It may be days, weeks, months or even years. But there is a call, a yearning deep in everyone’s heart, that we all can contact. It is what Allah in the Koran refers to when he says “I was a hidden treasure and sought to be known.” And what Paul pointed to when he spoke of all of creating a yearning for the return of Christ - that Christ's love is hidden deep in our hearts but which seeps in a mother’s love, or the deep appreciation for the extraordinary violin player. And trust, a non-mental heart-based faith, that this warmth, radiance, light and Presence is here in our hearts, and not only here, but here, there and everywhere (and every-when!)"

It is the more or less conscious perception of this inner individual nature that, after all, impelled most religions to embrace one or the other concept of the soul, as a central entity to understand the human existence and spiritual nature, and that view the soul as a sacred and immortal eternal aspect of human identity, intimately connected to God. According to Christian belief, after death, the soul faces judgment. Depending on one's faith, actions, and relationship with God, the soul will either enter into eternal communion with Him (heaven) or be separated from Him (hell). Some Christian traditions also believe in the concept of purgatory, a temporary state of purification for souls destined for heaven. Yet, individuals can be forgiven and their souls can be saved, according to a notion of salvation seen as necessary for eternal life. Interestingly, within the Christian tradition, but also in every Abrahamic religion, there is also a focus on the spiritual development of the soul during earthly life involving practices such as prayer, worship, sacraments, and acts of charity, all aimed at nurturing and strengthening one's relationship with the Divine and the transformation of the soul.

However, in the general religious, theological, or philosophical context something is missing, still. And this is the evolutionary aspect of the soul.

While, in traditional Indian philosophy, such as Vedanta, one speaks of the ‘Self’ or the ‘Atman’, which is the reflex of the eternal and immutable Brahman itself. In this non-dual philosophy, one rises above the ordinary state of consciousness and awareness through psychological, mental, and eventually also physical practices, such as yoga and meditation. This culminates in the realization of the non-existence of the ego—that is, the awareness that this also is a figment and an unreal entity that is itself part of phenomenality. Eventually, the individualized mind ceases to know itself as an individual and becomes conscious of the universal Mind. One realizes how the ego is a ‘knot’ of the One-Mentality. And our personality, with its traits, tendencies, appetites, habits, and moods is not more than a ‘knot’ in the mental, emotional, and physical planes. A mask with which we identify and are pretty much attached to, but that has nothing to do with what we really are. That’s why non-dual masters refrain from speaking of a ‘soul’ and, if they do, they don’t mean the personality identifying itself with an “I” having a feeling of selfhood with all its mental, emotional, and character traits. The latter are, again, our exterior mental-, living-, and subconscious individualizations, not our inmost nature. Rather, they mean something that transcends it and is always equal to itself, that is an ‘atemporal beingness’ or something that words can’t express other than saying that it is ‘nothing’ or ‘emptiness’, ‘vacuity’, the Buddhist ‘sunya’, and once realized, leads to ‘liberation’, ‘moksha’, or ‘nirvana’, the release from suffering due to the absence of mind’s activities.

Here again, the concept of the soul, if accepted at all, is usually considered a static, passive, and immutable witness representing an immaterial and spiritual individuality in us, and that preserves its existence after death. However, in most Eastern traditions, it then continues its journey in a cycle of reincarnations but is never conceived of as a spiritual individuality able to change and evolve through this process of transmigration. It is a eternal witness (the Purusha) that essentially does not actively influence and determine our life. The notion of an evolutionary soul is absent.

However, the notion of ‘soul’ we are talking about here should not be confused with what we call our ‘character’, ‘personality’, or ‘ego-sense’. While its distinctive trait is of a divine emotional nature, our surface emotions are mostly determined by our outer vital impulses, mechanical habits, physical and emotional preferences, mental tendencies, unaware prejudices, convictions, etc. These are only aspects of our surface untransformed personality that are influenced by the socio-cultural context, our education, the environment, genetic factors, etc. What we call the ‘ego’ is a shadow cast on our superficial being, not something that defines our true inmost nature.

The metaphysical assumption of a changeless soul also conditioned modern forms of Western psychology. Due to the secular approach of most psychological schools, the hypothesis of an immaterial soul-entity is ignored. Even among those few forms of psychological theories and practices that are open to spiritual perspectives (for example, the ‘transpersonal psychology’ of Ken Wilber or the psychosynthesis of Roberto Assagioli), the tendency is to attribute little or no importance to the soul as having any potentiality to influence our psyche and life, let alone ascribe to it an evolutionary nature and purpose. In contemporary psychology, philosophy, and metaphysics there are only a few exceptions I’m aware of³, but in almost all of them this a priori assumption, like so many rationalistic and naturalistic gospels, has severely hampered further progress.

However, suppose we don’t want to fall back into the usual forms of physicalism that ascribe evolution only to the form and not to our inner spiritual dimension. What is the the meaning and purpose of evolution, other than a blind and mechanistic random-walk through one era after another? Here, the Darwinian materialist is, admittedly, in a position of advantage. Evolution has no meaning, no sense, no purpose, and no aim. It is just a succession of coincidental morphological changes driven by natural selection and reproduction. Naturalism doesn’t need to answer questions regarding whatever kind of ‘souls.’ While, those who are willing to look beyond the cage of a quite anthropomorphic materialistic science, and no less anthropomorphic religious doctrines, must, however, come up with a somewhat more convincing answer to the question of what the relationship between this supposedly static and unchanging soul and the perennial evolutionary change of the natural world possibly could be and mean. Is it all exhausted in one lifetime and then we will be judged and go to heaven or hell? Or, as the Eastern philosophies maintain, nothing evolves in the first place, it is all a cosmic illusion, ‘Maya,’ and our only purpose is to escape it once and forever. But, if so, why did this cosmic drama begin in the first place?

Whereas, what if we conceive of an evolutionary spiritual cosmology, where this pure inner entity that transcends our body, mind, and emotions is not just a static and eternal entity; but rather, is the very evolutionary essence of each individual that evolves life after life in the process of transmigration? Not only, but what if the biological Darwinian evolution on the physical plane, is the reflection of the evolution of the souls that embody it?

This viewpoint puts things upside down twice, without returning to the starting condition (a sort of Moebius-strip double turn where walking a 360° path does not lead to the starting position.) First, we introduce the idea of an evolutionary soul, contrary to all conventional metaphysical speculations, let alone secular science or psychology. Secondly, we no longer consider the principal driving force of evolution only physical agents, forces, or physical properties, such as genetics, the environment, or whatever biochemical processes, but even place at the center of the outer material and morphological evolution, the evolution of the soul itself. When we look at life, evolution, our minds, and all our psychological dimensions from the perspective of a soul-centered evolutionary spiritual emergentism, many aspects of reality that previously needed contrived and, ultimately unconvincing, types of complicated (almost pseudo-) scientific theories or, on the other hand, were answered with even less convincing simplistic religious beliefs or dogmas, begin to make much more sense and open us to new vistas and way of seeing the world and ourselves that previously we couldn’t even imagine.

After all, the idea of an evolutionary soul, that grows in us, is in line with our everyday experience. Life experiences play a fundamental role in shaping us as individuals. Every experience, whether positive or negative, offers an opportunity to learn and grow. Through challenges, successes, failures, relationships, and encounters, we acquire new knowledge, skills, and perspectives that contribute to our personal development. Facing adversity builds resilience. Overcoming obstacles teaches us to adapt to new circumstances, develop coping mechanisms, and bounce back stronger. Life experiences help us discover who we are, what we value, and what we want from life. Through exploring different paths, interests, and relationships, we gain insight into our strengths, weaknesses, passions, and purpose. Life experiences shape our character, perspective, and trajectory—that is, they serve as catalysts for what we could call our ‘inner evolution.’

This isn’t neither abstract metaphysical speculation nor rocket science. Right? We already know that but resist the idea of seeing it from a universal perspective that unfolds in front of us in all life, and conceive of evolution as something limited exclusively to the superficial morphological appearances of an organism and its biology. And then we wonder why and how we got here.

Our individual and evolutionary self naturally reflects qualities of love, beauty, truth, peace, etc. because it is an ‘emanation’ of the universal impersonal superconscious plane where all these are contained. One might even say that the true qualities and powers of the universal Consciousness are not just the ability to perceive and have subjective experiences but are much more than that. these are love, bliss, superconscious knowledge, will, power, force, and much more, and that on the life- and mind- plane, are reflected in their shadow-forms as human love, egoistic desires, more or less ignorant knowing or, at its highest, what we call ‘reason,’ while still driven by animal- or human-type feelings. However, these are not distinctive of our true nature, these are an expression of our emotional and mental inclinations and are strongly intertwined with the bodily necessities and its nervous and subconscious identity. Rather, what we truly are is an individuality that knows us better than we know ourselves through our outer personality. During its life experiences and its evolutionary journey of transmigrations, it is this soul-entity that grows during its embodied life, and from one lifetime to another.

From the perspective of this integral evolutionary cosmology, death is not a malady or an inevitable accident. Death is part of the evolutionary process that allows an evolutionary soul to undergo different experiences in different forms and lives. Death is not an annihilation as the materialist believes, or a final judgment like certain religious belief implies, and even not a reset button that throws us back to the beginning to do the same all over again like in a Sisyphus cycle until we find the way out, like some mystics claim, but a transition that allows for a further transformation—that is, further evolution.

Thus, evolution, also biological evolution, seen as the evolution of the soul, leads us to a completely new perspective. In this sense, strictly speaking, it would be incorrect to speak of an ‘evolution of consciousness’, as the ultimate universal Consciousness simply is, is complete, and does not need to evolve, while being already immanent and active on all the planes of its own creation. However, what evolves is the individual soul, the ‘inner flame,’ the individualized aspect of the superconscious and universal Godhead in the manifestation, which, by a process of rebirth, grows in consciousness from life to life. It is this individualized ‘soul-evolution’ that expresses itself in the physical plane as a metamorphosis of the species from inert matter to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the animal to the human, and now from the human to the superconscious being. It is the emergence of the Spirit in matter by the ever-increasing complexity of the organic form, which becomes progressively self-aware and capable of containing and manifesting these powers. But the Consciousness (with capital letter C) which is superconscious, and already contains infinite wisdom, qualities, and varieties of attributes.

It is reasonable, almost inevitable, to suppose that humanity is, most subliminally, conquering this higher status step by step and is raising its existence slowly but definitively to a new form of knowledge that will change our way of looking at the world. It is perfectly in line with the logic of the present naturalistic conception of evolution, life, and the cosmos. Unless humanity terminates its existence by self-destruction or some natural catastrophic event such as a giant asteroid hitting the Earth and annihilating all life on it, inevitably, the homo sapiens and its way of cognizing the world will be exceeded. It is not a question of whether this is the case but, rather, a question of when and especially how we are supposed to do that.

However it is, as long as science continues to ban the soul and other more subtle domains of existence, as anathema, positing it a priori as inexistent, not because of a scientific rationale but because of an axiomatic and almost unquestioned dogma, it will hardly be able to go beyond a superficial understanding of life, reality and the universe. It will forever only be able to answer the questions of how things work, but never why they are, let alone what they are.

In the next part, we will see some examples of how this cosmology has more explanatory power than the conventional forms of idealism or reductionist naturalism and how it is something that goes way beyond a metaphysical theory but can have very concrete applications.

Thank you for reading my work!

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Go to Part VIII

1. If you are careful enough in observing yourself you might also realize that the mind and our emotional part can be calmed down to a point where they also become calm and unperturbed observers. But I won’t digress into this aspect here.

2. That’s also why some show a high degree of empathy for members of their own ethnic group, or nation, but none for others, or feel an intimate connection with animals and none for humans, or vice versa. It is an emotional ‘life-empathy’, not a ‘soul-empathy’.

3. For an interesting review of this aspect, see the research of E. M. Teklinski.