Tallman: Evolution leads to cosmic consciousness

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Mystics give us a bigger vision of where we are evolving, despite opposition.

Sri Aurobindo, a Hindu mystic, and Teilhard de Chardin, a Christian mystic, never knew of the other’s work but they both came to the same momentous conclusion: that the direction of evolution is toward divinization, that is, God fully alive in every human being.

In books such as The Future Evolution of Man (Aurobindo) and The Phenomenon of Man (Teilhard), they both outlined the earthly process: from rocks and water (matter), to plants (sensitivity) to animals (feelings), to humans (thought), to the spread of the great religions (spirit). The goal of evolution is greater and greater consciousness, from matter to spirit. We are heading toward God (cosmic consciousness) being all in all.

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Of course, since we have free will, if we choose hate and war over love and peace, we could destroy ourselves and the planet with us. Divinization is not a guaranteed process.

In the past 100 or so years, new technologies such as radio, television, Internet, smartphones, and now artificial intelligence have been growing our consciousness at light-speed. These are all new stages of the world-wide evolution of humanity.

Mystics and scientists have come to the same conclusion: everything is interconnected and one. The pandemic also forced unitive thinking on us: we are all in this together. As well the climate crisis forces us to see our interconnectivity: our energy use affects everything else.

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, has written about order, disorder, and re-order. For hundreds of years white males have dominated the planet, making decisions affecting everyone. The modern means of communication, particularly the Internet, have gradually dissolved this domination, allowing suppressed voices to speak: women, Blacks, Indigenous, and LGBTQ people. All these new voices also have expanded our consciousness. Domination by white males is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

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Also expanding our consciousness is our new awareness of stages of faith: the group stage which loves order and simply believing what others tell you; the personal stage, which loves asking questions and deconstructing everything, particularly religion. At this stage people often feel they are losing their religion and leave their church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. This stage however is in danger of getting stuck in disorder. And disorder is the case for many young people today; they have never experienced even the group stage of faith and so have no spiritual foundation on which to build their lives.

The final stage of faith is mysticism where you accept those previous stages had their role to play. As Rohr says, you need somewhere to discover that some things are holy, and church is a good place to start. But the mature person grows their consciousness beyond that and eventually realizes everything is holy, every creature is a face of God. The local church still has a role to play starting people on the road to oneness, holiness, and mysticism.

White male domination now senses all these new voices are creating disorder and is trying to re-establish its authority and order, for example, with Make America Great Again. But history works as a spiral with two steps forward, one back, but ever onward.

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The spirit of God is moving us inexorably toward re-order, toward unity, mysticism, and justice for all voices. This is what people such as Aurobindo, Teilhard, Thomas Merton (a Catholic monk), Rohr, Matthew Fox (an Anglican priest), Brian McLaren (a Protestant minister), and Ilia Delio (a Franciscan sister and expert on Teilhard), advocate in their many books.

Pope Francis also advocates this in his attempt to make the church “synodal,” that is, one where lay Catholics have a voice in church governance, not just priests and bishops. Despite this being opposed as disorder by some bishops, the church likely will continue on its road to inclusion, unity, and mysticism as this seems to be where God is leading it, and all of evolution.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director and author. www.brucetallman.com

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