ON QUALITATIVE EVOLUTION’
Compiled & Re-edited by Wesley Knapp
Teachers like Christ and Buddha lived long ago, and while they can provide great inspiration, there are new questions arising from today’s realizations; questions about space beings, about individual and group consciousness, which need you to seek for answers. There is work for you to do, so stand up for the truth.
There is a time to awaken and a time to sleep; a time to alleviate anxiety and a time not to do so. There is a time when the great fear has to be faced. You should concern yourselves with liberation, not only the alleviation of suffering.
The world today seems very much in need of a restatement of religious principles. In order to undertake such a project we should investigate the inner dynamic, the forces or aspects which need to be balanced one versus the other, in daily life.
All life itself is involved with quality. This is the way of the evolutionary thrust. All of life has a quality control inbuilt for the preservation of life forms – evolutionary selection, refinement, improvement, adaptation and the drive to enlightenment are a manifestation of this principle of preservation. Throughout all of evolution, life is involved in the increasing quality of life. The question isn’t – ‘to be or not to be’ – but, ‘how to be better’?
One of the duties of the teaching is to preserve life by appealing to the intellect. You should understand that the intellect is also an evolutionary adaptation – it has a role to play in life. If you think about it you will see that there cannot be a collective until there are emerged individuals.
If you kill – chaos results; if you take an undue share – chaos again. Over-indulgence, sensual misconduct, gossip, lies and drugs – all of these lead to chaos. When will this end? Not until we have a completely communal society. Relationships between individuals must be based on something real.
It is not enough to merely exist. And the quality of life, which is moving towards a true communal-socialist living style, will correct the imperfect manifestations which presently exist in the ‘socialist’ political forms. Over the generations, this force is sweeping on towards universal consciousness.
What is life on about? The questioning of the depth, in depth, is the answer, and in order to continue questioning, the individual must be preserved.
The individual’s restlessness and search are prodded by the collective drive. Ideas that arise in this or that individual are for the preservation of the species, and the debate comes from the depth of cellular consciousness. The primary drive is for preservation, and after that comes a desire for extension of this preservation.
All forms of life have the innate instinctual knowledge of preservation. The question becomes how to preserve life amidst the ever-growing complexity of daily affairs?
In the welter of probabilities of modern life we have lost our centre of awareness. Ethics demand a constantly evaluative awareness in everything you do, and in a city one is constantly bombarded with anxieties and threats to preservation.
There is a need for the Stoic principle in city life, to be able to meet the real demands of life – the Nirmanakaya. Turning off is really turning away from the principle of ethics.
You all know beings who are vegetating in escapism. If this need is not in balance with the desire to explore, to experience, you run the risk of losing touch with the evolution of your being.
Those who love exploration of life love themselves and others. If you truly love yourself, you will explore – this is a positive affirmation of life. ‘What is this? Why is this?’ – That’s the true search.
What are ethics on about?
And no one will have a true morality until they learn the value of themselves. That is the essence of true ethics. You must value life and you must value the individual.
Morality is involved with harming another being. This is the first step in an attempt to separate out what is concerned with ethical behaviour from what is a reasonable style of conducting a religious life. Ritual codes were and are written on the basis of experience. These have only a transitory relevance, and it is important to distinguish such laws from what we could term an enduring ethic.
All of Buddhist morality is resting on the premise that oneself must be preserved. All the precepts are only one law. In Christianity Jesus added to the strict rabbinical law by stating beings should love God first and then love their neighbours as themselves. This has great merit but unfortunately it is not explained well.
The real meaning of God is a positive exploration of the life in which one is involved. True love of self demands an understanding of one’s direction. You must ask in depth: ‘Who am I? What is going on?’ Then this will lead you naturally to ask: ‘Who are these other beings around me? How do they function? What is the quality of their lives?’
One of the main concerns of any teacher is how to impart to students the need to be aware of having concern for the preservation of the quality of life. You can really only explore if you are deeply rooted in morality, that is, if your prime motivation is not for escapism but for exploration – to raise the question of all of life – ‘Where did that phenomenon come from?’ A being can only answer that if they have become honestly aware that the first law of existence is preservation.
If you are not threatened you don’t turn off. The Buddha once said that we do all things for the sake of self – including loving others. To love others is an act of reaching out, an augmentation of the being. Preservation also includes the idea of augmentation – the more you augment, the more secure you are. It is the augmentation of the being that preserves – exclusion weakens.
Ethics were gradually turned to stone by the dictates of various priests with their ‘Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not’ mentalities and now it is time to bring them to life again. You really must value life; you must know in your depth that the entire of life is motivated to the betterment of humanity. This knowledge will automatically dictate true way of life and relationships.
Ethics involves these two aspects in this order; first to exist, then to exist better. So, if you are a being who is committed to love, you are also committed to a daily life that includes more priorities than just making money. “Give us today our daily bread”. The daily existence is what makes the fabric of your life. “Give us today a foundation for this day.”
It is very difficult (if not impossible) to lay down a code of behaviour suitable for other beings to follow – there are so many variables at work. The subtlety of an ethical code increases as the society grows in complexity. But you should understand that a clear, knowing ethic is essential to life and it must be based on the completely honest admission that each and every being wants most desperately to live – each being is clinging furiously to life; you and everyone that you meet – all are in the grip of Tanha [Pali – craving, thirsting].
The psychological milieu of a being determines to a great extent the quality of the teaching that they come up with, so really everyone must work this whole question of ethics out for themselves. You must know and see for yourself, by direct experience, what to accept and what to reject. The Buddha and all of the gurus that you may wish to collect are really only mythical creatures – the true teacher, the real expert on what you should or shouldn’t do is in your own being.
You need to have both the father principle and the mother principle working within you. Every human being begins life in the womb and then continues for some time as a dependent child, so your first experience is of the mother principle, which keeps you safe; gets you securely on your way. This is the law of life – preservation comes first. Only after that do you increase its quality through exploration.
If you don’t have some anxiety or worry in a relative proportion to your being, if you don’t accept your problems, they become ‘real’ problems. It is important to get all of your anxieties ‘out front’, into some kind of perspective – this is really the path to resolution of difficulties. And if you could totally resolve the ethical question, you would awaken…