05.18.09
Confusing ‘evolution’ and ‘sadhana’: a modern distortion
Comment on Conscious Evolution and the Eonic Effect
Jeff Carreira said,
May 18, 2009 at 10:24 am ·
I have devoted the past 16 years to the pursuit of “conscious evolution” and to me that pursuit involves first and foremost the effort to try to figure out what something like “conscious evolution” could possibly mean. Somewhere between strict mechanical Darwinism on one hand and fanciful New Age ideas on the other there is our effort to understand how evolution works and then put that understanding to use. This is a dangerous undertaking for exactly the reasons you bring up. Our understanding of both consciousness and evolution are probably laughably incomplete and we only need look back a few deecades to see ideas of conscious evoluton resulting in a desire to engage in what amounts to human breeding. Still, the promise that awakens when one finally admits that one is part of an evolving process and could through the use of their own intelligence particpate in the future unfolding of that process is too exciting not to try to realize. I have ordered the book “World History and the Eomic Effect” it looks fascinating and I intend to respond more here once I have read it. Thank you for creating this forum to sharpen our throughts and understanding.
The critique here of the phrase ‘conscious evolution’ is of the phrase and concept, not necessarily of what was behind it.
My point is merely that the ancient sutras did not express themselves in terms of the modern concept of evolution. To equate ‘sadhana’ with ‘evolution’ is a modern confusion.
Thanks for getting the book. I hope it does not prove too difficult, and manages to help. Be sure to ask if you find it unclear. Real evolution is complex indeed!
The issue is simple: there is a visible ‘evolution’ on the level of civilization, witness the Axial Age. This is a kind of ‘macro’ evolution. Alongside that we have a ‘micro’ evolution, and that is about individuals. These two levels intersect but are not the same.
In any case, the claim of certain gurus to be promoting evolution and the use of that to gain adherents is a deception and a misuse of the term ‘evolution’.
James said,
May 18, 2009 at 6:21 pm
It is rather odd that they are attempting to graft “evolution” onto the dharmic religions and it probably reveals that these people don’t understand either topic. Since the whole point of Buddhism is to achieve the “state” that isn’t subject to conditions or differentiation, what are these people really talking about? Are we even sure that “real consciousness” has any causal efficacy?