Can I Evolve?

Can I Evolve?

On the surface of a pond, I noticed a large insect exoskeleton lying on a waterlily pad. I picked it up and looked more closely and realized it was the discarded casing of a now adult dragonfly, which had recently emerged from the depths. Many forms of life go through a series of amazing stages of development in which one type transforms into another completely different being. Examples include a butterfly from a cocoon, a soaring bird from a helpless egg, and the noisy, flying cicada from a subterranean, 17-year-old grub. Nature is full of such miracles of transformation.

This made me ask myself, “Do I also evolve or develop like these other life forms into something else? Can I too emerge as a different being like the butterfly or dragonfly?” P.D. Ouspensky titled his most cogent and coherent book, The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution. (A must-read!) Ouspensky knew it was possible to evolve.

In the Fourth Way, we view man as an incomplete being because his lower self clouds out or veils his higher possibilities from himself. Whether or not Higher Centers are completely available or developed in man is a question for another post, but the immediate question is whether a real or conscious Man can evolve from a mechanical machine or lower form. Is something higher not only possible but attainable for me?

In brief, the obstacles to awakening revolve around my flawed sense of identity and attachment to things. In my least aware state of consciousness, I believe my many ‘I’s, I believe my negative emotions, I believe my identifications, and I believe my moment-to-moment imagination. My natural inertia is that I want to keep these self-limiting habits, and if I cling to these exoskeleton forms of mechanicality, any further development or opportunity to evolve is thwarted.

The many barriers to my evolution relate exclusively to my relationship and understanding of my current lower life-form situation (the human larvae). The idea we work with in this School is that if I am more aware of myself (self-remembering), if I can observe myself (divided attention), and if I am better able to control myself (not express negative emotions), then I have higher possibilities and a chance to reach my true capacity.

If I work diligently and am lucky, I will see that these obstacles are in my path, and I can hurdle them. If I don’t see the hurdle, I run into it. If I don’t work hard enough to clear the hurdle, I trip on it. If I don’t truly and sincerely want to clear the hurdle, I run around and avoid it. Everything hinges on seeing, working hard, and valuing higher states of consciousness. I stand in my way: I am these hurdles, but I am also much more. I am a human butterfly.

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Blue Morpho Butterfly, Martin Johnson Heade