We must unite ourselves and become as one with the higher truths. We must not only know them, but be able, quite as a matter of course, to manifest and administer them in living actions, even as we ordinarily eat and drink. They must become our practice, our habit, our inclination. There must be no need to keep thinking about them in the ordinary sense; they must come to living expression through man himself; they must flow through him as the functions of life through his organism. Thus doth man ever raise himself, in a spiritual sense, to that same stature to which nature raised him in a physical sense.80
Make no mistake; this call stretches us beyond the commitment to “personal spirituality” that most of us steeped in New Age sensibilities hold sacred. It is a spirituality based not primarily on our own attainment of peace, enlightened states of consciousness, or a happy, harmonious life (although those things may well be its bi-products), but rather on dedication to evolution as something greater than ourselves. As we'll be seeing, this is a path that will often call us to do what we least desire to do or that which is least comfortable to ourselves. Indeed, almost as if to remind me of just how tenaciously we hold to what is personally comfortable, I found myself struggling, plodding, and procrastinating my way through the writing of this section. There was always something more “necessary” to do—hadn't I better organize my house and paperwork first so that I could really concentrate on my writing without the distraction of undone tasks? There was always something more fun to do—surely I would find it easier to get into the flow after I'd relaxed with a cup of coffee and just one chapter of that great novel I was in the middle of. Then one evening I awoke in the middle of the night with a clear sense that this whole section, calling readers to give their all to the evolutionary cause, sounded just plain preachy.
You see, the truth is, I (like so many who will be reading these words) secretly want a spirituality that showers me with its benefits while making relatively few demands on me. To meditate because it makes me feel good means that when I skip it, I hurt no one but myself. Yet the evolutionary view reproaches me that to be faithful in meditation—which means doing it when I don't feel like it or sticking with a meditation session even when my mind is wildly uncooperative—is the very least I can do if I'm serious about this evolution of humanity's consciousness bit. To address my personal failings or areas of blindness because I have a more contented life when I am growing means that when I get lazy or allow myself to be engulfed by unconscious patterns, I am simply delaying the “soul growth” that sooner or later, one day—or one lifetime—or another, I will have to get around to. Yet the evolutionary perspective chides me that it is the epitome of self-centeredness to think that my soul growth is a private affair, only about me.
How many of us are out there, dilly-dallying and thinking we'll get around to it someday while in the meantime that need for awakened, committed evolutionaries becomes more and more apparent with each day's news? If every person who has felt that stir of excitement about the potentials of conscious evolution would truly get on with it, what kind of changes might we see even now in our world? Yet still, is it not the height of egotistical self-importance to think that we hold such responsibility?
Why Me?
If you find yourself less than fully comfortable with the role suggested for you by the evolutionary world view, you are not alone. There is no denying that it can sound rather grandiose to say, “We are the leading edge of evolution in the manifest realm; in us and through us comes the evolutionary advance of all that is.” And grandiose it is, if by that we mean that we are the self-appointed deciders of how the world should go or that we alone are spiritually advanced enough to carry this special responsibility. But taking responsibility for furthering the evolutionary advance becomes far less grandiose and far more a humble duty to perform when we base our commitment on two principles:
1. We are responsible to apply what we know.
2. When we are given much, much is expected of us.
However long you may have been on the spiritual path, stop to consider how much knowledge you have amassed as you've read books or attended workshops or searched the web or joined in discussion groups. How much more do you know than you have so far been willing to actually live in your life? You are a rare individual if you can honestly say that you are regularly applying everything you know about the application of spiritual principles in the affairs of your life. Take just one key concept, “we are all one.” Do you practice oneness every time you jockey for a place in the best line at the bank or the grocery store? Is oneness uppermost in your awareness when someone expresses a bigoted religious belief or a political opinion that you disagree with? Yet if the evolutionary advance would move us toward unity consciousness, how will that happen unless those who intellectually accept the premise of oneness will take responsibility for making oneness real in their own consciousness? We are responsible for the evolutionary advance because we know too much not to be!
We are also responsible for the evolutionary advance because we have the opportunity to do so. If you are reading this book, you are someone who has more opportunities of time and freedom than the great majority of the world's inhabitants. Most likely, you have a computer (or could have one if you wanted one). You have enough education to be able to read and think about complex concepts. You have been exposed to cultural influences that allow you to chart a fairly self-determined course through your life. In a universe that is going somewhere, is it possible that some people would be so highly favored strictly for their own satisfaction? And how satisfied are we anyway, when we are living only for ourselves? We are responsible for the evolutionary advance because we have been blessed with the means to fill that role.
You may still be saying, “Why me?” not because you are unmindful of your knowledge and opportunities, but because you do not feel adequate or worthy to accept the responsibility placed in your hands. But here is the marvelous thing about the evolutionary advance: It takes us where we are, as representatives of an imperfect humanity, and uses us to leverage that humanity beyond its current weaknesses. So you have fears and anxieties despite all you know about spiritual truth. Fine. Great numbers of other human beings also fear. As you surrender yours even just every now and then to the expansiveness of consciousness itself, humanity is that much closer to being freed of its fears and anxieties. So you fail to consistently treat people as spiritual law would have you do. That's no bar to your conscious participation in evolution. Humanity as a whole is still in its infancy of learning to get along with one another according to spiritual law. Each time you do practice spiritual law in your relationships, you move us closer to a new age when spiritual law will govern the affairs of humanity. And meanwhile, the knowledge that you are trying to apply spiritual law in your relationships for the sake of our collective evolution is bound to be a powerful motivator to help you do better!
No matter what weakness or failing may seem to disqualify you from the path of the conscious evolutionary, see yourself as representative of a human race where that weakness or failing is commonplace. The thing about you is that you know something about that weakness or failing from a spiritual perspective and you have opportunity to do something about it. Many others with that same weakness or failing may not have the same knowledge or opportunity that you have. If you don't answer the call to evolutionary action, who will?
In the final analysis, it may be no more and no less than our natural place as human beings to take up the evolutionary agenda as our own. Reminiscent of the Cayce readings’ assertion that we are part of the plan of salvation in the earth and Teilhard de Chardin's vision of a spiritual renovation of the earth, we find this stirring evolutionary call to all humanity from a figure no less illustrious than Jonas Salk:
The most meaningful activity in which a human being can be engaged is one that is directly related to human evolution. This is true because human beings now play an active and critical role not only in the process of their own evolution but in the survival and evolution of all living beings. Awareness of this places upon human