REFLECTIONS ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE SUPERHUMAN By Observers Faster and faster and faster we go, at lightyear speed and the nimiety grows. Faced with the increasing disruption of a mushrooming chaos, our world society is inevitably growing more and more restricted and structured, (such is the inescapable consequence of uncontrolled population growth). But not all are willing to submit. We are experiencing an evolution revolution unlike any other. As with the evolution of all things, not many people are cooperative evolutionaries. Most are disinclined to Change and therefore many just become redundant or simply perish in their own stubbornness. It may be unfortunate, but it is so.In our human experience, being alive, with the ability to be aware, we may discover the profound truth that we have only evolved from the purely biological beings of ancient times to the biological/mental/emotional homo sapiens of today to become the metabiological superhumans of the future. Simply put, we were only made biological to become metabiological. It is the way of human Life. It is the way of all Life. Everything is evolving. Becoming metabiological beings is the next logical step in the process of our evolution. It is our assignment for tomorrow. There might have been another species which evolved to this point as we have, but there wasn't. It was us. (As far as we know there has never been another society as advanced as today’s human race.) So we simply accept our responsibility and move forward. (It is entirely possible that some other lower species may be now where we were at some time in our historic past, and may be evolving just as we have.)At this point, the words of Sharon Faris come to mind when she advises, "In the Life and evolution of human beings, the body, the mind, and the spirit are considered the ingredients of the ' whole person '. The last of these, the spirit, is that ingredient which may be said to motivate the other two. It must be, then, that it is this spirit which has resulted in the condition of individual people and of the world of humans as we know them.Since there is some question about the exact location of the spirit, can we accept ' within ' as a starting point? And is this not where we are told that heaven is? What has humanity, what have we done to this heaven? Where and how is it reflected by us? Is this world that we see and hear about our idea of heaven?" Just listening to today's news broadcasts will no doubt give one an indication of the kind of heaven on Earth the human race is unconsciously creating. Unconsciously, because if we were truly conscious of our true situation, we would have already Changed our course.If we really analyze the evolution of the human up to this point, we will see that the various races that make up our species are both similar and dissimilar. We all evolved from the same source and so we are all the same in enough ways that we consider ourselves to all be 'people'. But in fact, there are a lot of differences in peoples. Just like men and women are both similar and different, so too are the many tribes of humanity. It is true that all humans have one of just a few common types of blood, which we all share. It appears that, up to now, we have evolved along mostly ethnic lines, which is understandable, considering the difficulty we have had in evolving to where we now are.. We have not, therefore, evolved as individual societies to be all just exactly the same. There are many different cultures with many different traditions. Different, albeit amazingly similar, though within the varying races we also experience extremes at both ends of the people spectrum. This just means that, as the human race continues to evolve and we become more and more homogenized, we will retain a lot of our differences. Some will say that we all need toconform to a uniform code, with a common goal and a common purpose. But while some will go one way, some will go another, and some won't figure out which way to go and just won’t go anywhere.Here, Petyr Demianovich Ouspensky has some interesting insight with his words, "The ordinary view of Life either finds no aim in Life or sees the aim is in the evolution of the masses, and the evolution of the masses is as fantastic and illogical an idea as would be, for instance, the idea of the identical evolution of all the cells of a tree, that is, the cells of the roots, the bark, the wood fiber and the leaves, to be transformed into cells of flowers and fruit, that is, expecting the whole tree to be transformed into flowers and fruit.Evolution, which is usually regarded as evolution of the masses, can in reality, never be anything but the evolution of the few. And in mankind, such an evolution can only be conscious. It is only (our) degeneration which can proceed unconsciously in us." And here we recall those words, "Many are called, but few are chosen."When speaking of humanity's intentional, unconscious degeneration, and that of our own individual selves, Sharon Faris paints a clear picture of our situation when she tells us that, "We try to pretend that the world and the men and women and even the children in it are really, underneath, deep-down, {some of them at any rate} decent and honorable and 'good' just because some act that way some of the time. - -We have to pretend that there are some people who are ‘good’ because we can not, we will not accept that we belong to so wretched an assembly. - - But we do belong. We'll try to admit it. We will say "everyone is selfish'" for instance, but let anyone really point a finger at us. Dare to show me or tell me that I am acting or have ever acted selfishly, and I am furious! It has been said that we judge ourselves by our ideals and other by their actions."Now we must pause to reflect upon ourselves, to look at ourselves in the mirror of Life and see what we can really see of our true selves. Is this me? Am I the one of whom Sharon Faris so rightful speaks? Please tell me it isn't so...But yes, it is so....All of my actions DO stem from selfish motives.Again, Sharon Faris tells us true, "Surely, I will tell myself, I have done something, one thing, that proves I am sometimes unselfish...............No, it is true, I have not. If I am human, a part of humanity, I have to accept this truth. Always, I have hoped for repayment, expected it, even demanded it. I have only been trying to put myself above other people by trying to think myself unselfish sometimes.I have needed this feeling of virtue in order to feel superior, but now I know that I am not. How horrible to be like other people! That is the truth, the truth I hate." Every person, myself included, possesses all of the human traits, every one of them. This means that among other things, we are all selfish. We are all, in some degree, liars, and we all cheat at some time or another. What one person is, everyone is. We are all, every one of us, human. This means that the lady next door, the old man who was our teacher, the barber or hairdresser that we have known for years, the policeman, doctor, or lawyer, or even the man of the church can never be considered anything but ‘just human’. This includes our favorite entertainers, our greatest politicians and best sports people, our parents, our spouses, and even our children. We are all cut from the same cloth. None of us could be considered ‘superhuman’.Jesus Christ said that if we could know the truth about everything, then that knowledge in itself would set us free from our self-imposed bondage; "Know The Truth, And The Truth Will Make You Free." Could it really, truly be just that simple. It has taken us way too long to get to this stage of our evolution. We have dillydallied like delinquent children on the way home from school, and playing all the way, with no mind for the future. It is, however, up to us to create our own future. We have the knowledge and the power. But do we have the will to take the next steps on the path of evolution? If we do, we must know that it is the path to the future for those evolutionary pioneers who consciously evolve inwardly toward the superhuman.Here, again, the words of Ouspensky are apropos when he advises us, "Just as a grain of wheat in becoming a plant goes out of the sphere of the life of grains; just as a caterpillar in becoming a chrysalis dies for caterpillars and in becoming a butterfly goes completely out of the sphere of observation of caterpillars, in the same way the superhuman goes out of the sphere of observation of other people . . .An ordinary human cannot see a superhuman or know of their existence, just as a caterpillar cannot know of the existence of a butterfly. This is a fact which we find extremely difficult to admit, but it is natural and psychologically inevitable. The higher type cannot in any way be controlled by the lower type or be the subject of observation by the lower type: but the lower type may be controlled by the higher and may be under the observation of the higher. And from this point of view, the whole of Life and the whole of history can have a meaning and a purpose which we cannot comprehend.This meaning, this purpose, is the superhuman. All the rest exist for this sole purpose that out of the masses of humanity crawling on the Earth, the superhuman should from time to time emerge and rise, and by this very fact, go away from the masses and become inaccessible and invisible to them."Here, the words of Coventry Patmore seem fitting when he says, "The world has always been the dunghill it is now, and it only exists to nourish, here and there, the roots of some rare, unknown and immortal flower of individual humanity."The light waxes brighter and we begin to see those things which had previously been obscured to us and we learn to read the signs of the time, and where there is time, there is eternity, waiting behind the door. Life goes on and we evolve. "The mutation of mankind is bound to come, " exclaims Fritz Kunkel. " - - the beginning of the new eon is real," he proclaims, "indeed more real than anything else. But this reality is visible only to those who can see it. Light does not exist for the blind; space and time do not exist for a stone. The super-space and super-time of the coming world-age are not real for those who remain deaf and blind to eternity. For the others it is there already and has ever been."At this point Rebecca Beard lends us her insight of our growing conscious awareness, explaining, "The expanding consciousness is a growing awareness - -. To be thus consciously aware every moment - is to lose negativeness and fear, bringing instead a sense of one-ness with the Infinite, releasing creative powers hitherto dormant within us, charging us with a smooth and tireless energy, filling us with harmony and peace."This expanded consciousness is the next great step which those who can must take. We are now in the throes of a very profound transitional period. "We are," as again Rebecca Beard tells us, "in the midst of a great psychological mutation. We are at this moment in the very process of Change. This is why the world seems to be in such a chaotic state and why the forces of paganism seem to be on the rise.It is difficult for us to Change. We become fearful when we stand on the edge of the forward step." It is indeed frightening, just as frightening as when it was first talked about more than two thousand years ago when we were asked to step out of the little self into the expanded eternal self.Here, the words of Frank Bowman from 'Secret Forces That Move The World' tell us that "Currents working in the Earth are basically responsible for the present worldwide turmoil and upset. They will burn out the old methods and in their place bring forth a new and better world.....Because of the activity of this new force, acting to a limited extent in the spinal cord and nervous system of all of the people, depending upon the state of progress of the individual, there has come into place a new emotional stress which produces a peculiar and identifiable feeling of depression or negation, a feeling of dejection, following certain acts in Life or certain cycles in the Life processes. This identified feeling is slowly waking into the consciousness of the people, and must increase continually as time advances. There are those who seek to offset this inner sense by alcoholic (and drug) excess or by other means obliterate its effects in the feelings by stimulating the sensation of the body, interposing them between the body and the ego. This feeling is basic behind the continual and eternal restlessness that increasingly tends to pervade the Life habits of our modern people. This feeling of dejection and depression, or being 'out of the swim of things', opposes the normal sense and satisfaction of the ego in its desired sense and feeling of continual self-importance.Ultimately, the conflict between these two states intensifies consciousness and produces an attitude of true humility. It is an entirely normal thing at the present time; though it produces some disturbance and has been responsible for much that has been unfortunate in individual cases, still as it becomes stronger and more established, and we become accustomed to its effects, learning to avoid those things which cause its frictional manifestations against our feelings, there must inevitably be produced a Life control based on its reaction. This control will result in the further evolvement of our species; whether we desire it or not; it will continue to get stronger, until ultimately each individual will find himself, through his inner urges, constrained to do one of two things. It will eliminate the unresponsive types from the moral stream of evolving Life, for the process of natural selection operates conjointly with this force, or it will cause them to fall in line with Nature's demand for a spiritual progress and growth. It will produce within the consciousness sensations so miserable in those who are out of line, that they will automatically seek to avoid the acts producing that feeling, especially as they become more intense. This brief glimpse at the inner working of the hidden forces of Nature points the way to the methods being employed to cause humanity as a whole, slowly to be sure, but finally to be certain, to accomplish the great work of satisfying Nature's urge to complete their individual growth and personal unfoldment. This force is working upon you individually in the same fashion as it is working upon every other individual in the human family in physical embodiment. Very few persons have been able to observe what is going on. They have had no instruction, no information upon this interesting and intricate subject. They nevertheless, have felt its effects, suffered its penalties, and felt its impulses."So Life goes on and we rollover with Change into the process of the separation of selves so that we can at last be free, free from ourselves. Here again, from 'The Choice Is Always Ours', E. Stanley Jones tells us that, "No man is free until he is free at the center. When he lets go there, he is free indeed.When the self is renounced, then one stands utterly disillusioned, apart, asking for nothing. He anticipates the sorrows, the buffetings, the slights, the separations, the disappointments of Life by their acceptance in one great renunciation. It is Life's supreme strategic retreat. You can then say to Life, "What can you do to me? I want nothing." You can say to death, "What can you do to me? I have already died." Then is a man truly free. In the bath of renunciation he has washed his soul clean from a thousand clamoring, conflicting desires. Asking for nothing, if anything comes to him, it is all sheer gain. Then Life becomes one constant surprise.Everything belongs to the one who wants nothing.Having nothing, he possesses all things in Life, including Life, Itself. Nothing will be denied the man who denies himself. Having chosen to be utterly solitary, he now comes into possession of the most utterly social fact in the entire Universe - -. He wants nothing of the world of man or of matter. - - Now he is ready to come back into the world. He is washed clean of desires, now he can form new ones, from a new center and with a new motive. This detachment is necessary to a new attachment. The fullest and most complete Life comes out of the most completely empty Life.When we begin to deal honestly with our own selves and the matter of our own abilities of renunciation, we mustn't confuse renunciation, the willful suppression of self, with repression. As Lucy Freeman tells us, renunciation, or "Suppression is a conscious process in contrast to repression, which is an unconscious one. When we suppress, we remove certain thoughts deliberately from consciousness after deciding that we wish to do so [we renounce certain thoughts and desires]. We use reason and judgement when we suppress. Therefore, what we suppress will never harm us. It has been allowed to become conscious and we have chosen what to do about it rather than driving it out of mind compulsively and withholding it from our awareness.We do not need to use our valuable psychic energy in erecting defenses to hold back a suppression as we must do in the case of a repression, which is always clamoring to be released. The suppression is content to stay put and will cause us no further trouble, though whenever we will, we may examine it again." Here, the words of Rollo May seem fitting when, in 'Man's Search for Himself', he tells us that, "In conventional circles in our day one is not supposed to admit one's hatred, just as four decades ago sexual impulses were not to be admitted, and two decades ago anger and aggression were considered unseemly in good society. These negative emotions, while they could be overlooked as occasional lapses, did not fit the ideal picture of the benign, self-controlled, ever-poised, well-adjusted bourgeois citizen.As a consequence, hatred and resentment were generally repressed. Now it is a well known psychological tendency that when we repress one attitude or emotion, we often counterbalance it by acting or assuming an attitude on the surface which is just the opposite. You may, for example, often find yourself acting especially politely toward the person you dislike. If you are relatively free from anxiety, you may be saying to yourself in this formal politeness, quoting St. Paul, 'I treat my enemy well in order to heap coals of fire upon his head'. But if you are a less secure person who has had to confront more difficult problems in development, you may try to persuade yourself that you 'love' this very person you hate. It is not unusual that a person who is excessively dependent upon a dominating mother or father or other authority, for example, will act toward the other as though he 'loves' him to cover up his hatred. Like a boxer in a clinch, he clings to the very one who is the enemy. In real Life, one does not get rid of hatred and resentment this way; one generally displaces the emotions on other people, or turns them inward in self hate.It is thus crucial that we be able to confront our hatred openly. And it is even more essential that we face our resentment, since that is the form hatred generally takes in polite and civilized Life. Most people in our society, on looking into themselves, may not be aware of any particular hatred, but they will no doubt find a good deal of resentment. Perhaps the reason that resentment is such a common, chronic and corrosive emotion in this century of individual competition is that hatred has been so generally repressed.Furthermore, if we do not confront our hatred and resentment openly, they will tend sooner or later to turn into one effect which never does anyone any good, namely self-pity. Self-pity is the 'preserved' form of hatred and resentment. One can then 'nurse' his hatred, and retain his psychological balance by means of feeling sorry for himself, comforting himself with the thought of what a tough lot has been his, how much he has had to suffer - and refrain from doing anything about it"So we are forced to confront ourselves openly no matter how hard doing so seems to be. "I know not," proclaims Herrymon Maurer, "why it is so unpleasant and difficult to be oneself. Perhaps the why of it is, paradoxically, that one is always asking why, seldom asking what, always seeking explanations, seldom confronting facts. Thus we save our lives and thus we lose them.The contrary process of losing our lives and saving them - a process known to all the prophets - is described by Jesus in terms of a seed that falls to the ground, dies, and brings forth fruit. This deep and striking simile has often been taken to symbolize the extirpation of self and the introduction of a non-self - -. But the prophetic emphasis is on losing one's self or dying to one's self for the purposes not of self-dessication, but of fruitful Life, of finding one's self and bringing forth that yield by which alone we are told, truth is known. This losing and this dying symbolize a fructification of our relationships one with another, - with creation as it is given us. We are fruitful when we encounter. Then we are our selves but we are not preoccupied with them."As we become less preoccupied with ourselves and the outer world, we come to better understand Marshall McLuhan's contention that we have typically concerned ourselves, "with the ordering of outer space, and with the classification of people and things as they relate to the outer world. 'To lose touch with reality' even now implies that a person has gone on some sort of inner quest which has divorced him from the outer world. We still tend to think of space as a visual thing that is outside of us, regarding it as some sort of a container.This concept will not bear up under electronic conditions, and the ancient quest for visual orientation in the outer world increasingly yields to the trip through the looking glass into the multitudinous inner spaces and experiences generated by our race. With the electric circuit we leave the age of the wheel which carried us forward, and begin that trip back into ourselves so strongly indicated by the feedback loop of the electric circuit. Communication studies are still divided between those who think of this process as the transporting of data from place to place in the outer world, and those who think of it as a process of discovery by interrelationship and inner dialogue. The outer quest for the conquest of space and the visual tidying up of the environment, having begun with the Greeks, now needs some reexamination if we are to be able to diagnose our present condition. The journey into the interior of ourselves promises to be much more arduous and demanding than anything undertaken by Columbus or the astronauts of today. Is not the present crisis in morality the uncertainty resulting from the divergent claims of the inner and outer quests? The old markers and behavioral blueprints seem to belong to the earlier visual culture with its detachment rather than the new electric world with its involvement."We are right now facing the human race's greatest challenge to date. It is the same challenge we were confronted with two thousand years ago - and one of the few real major challenges we will likely have for several generations to come. We have been called upon to evolve, yet we have turned our backs on Life and said, "To hell with you." Our only evolvement up to this point has been in our conquest of the outer world, where one might contend that we have made mighty advancements. In just the last century alone, the human race has outwardly advanced more than all the rest of civilized advancement put together. Our works are wondrous, as we are now able to physically transform the shape of the surface of the Earth well beyond what was formerly imaginable. We can transplant many of our various body parts and organs, even bone marrow and face transplants, and we are making giant strides in genetic engineering, prenatal education and geriatric sciences. We can even electronically transmit both sight and sound - no big deal - even from outer Space. But these are all things of the outer experience, and have little to do with the great 'challenge of the looking glass', that interior reflection that leads to deeper understanding and the evolution of the superhuman.Other than the ominous challenge to save an ailing Earth from man’s unintentional destruction, the only real challenge before us is the immediate expedient resolution of our own inner conflict. No matter how great our accomplishments or how distant our advances in the outer world are, they will be utterly, totally meaningless if we continue to refuse to do battle with our own inner conflict. Only upon this battleground will we begin to experience meaningful human evolvement.At this point the words of John Middleton Murry are apropos when he tells us that, 'There is a conflict between the organic responses in the individual, and the individual is conscious of the nature of the conflict and of himself as the destined battle ground; he is the nucleus of a potential new emergence.The more we are bludgeoned, the more we cry for a meaning. -Plainly, there can be no rules. His task is now his own pure self creation, and that is not his own at all. The worst of his crisis is over. He has attained a fundamental certainty that can never leave him. In his depths he is himself; therefore not himself. But depths are depths.If he looks to find the surface undisturbed, he has not learned his lesson. Life will teach him that crisis is continual. Crisis and the resolution of crisis are the very condition of metabiological Life. He must learn that the most blessed gift of all - - is patience. The man who would learn to be an organism must learn to wait; more, he must learn to surrender. He must learn to surrender himself, when the moment comes, to the unknown self within him. The moment declares itself. He alone is wise who can recognize it."So we 'hurry up and wait', as 'patience must have her perfect work'. "This is," we have been told, "of highest importance, for any striving for particular results blocks progression and causes needless discouragement. Many factors enter in to determine the particular emphasis which the transformation will take in each person. Biological endowment, temperamental equipment, and the degree of early psychic conditioning influence the rate of progress and determine the particular characteristics manifest for each person as he progresses.The only tenable hope, therefore, one who has started on the way can have concerning outcomes, is a sure faith that with an increase of devotion, a gradual release from unconscious hamperings, and a persistence in training, there will come a reorientation around the new center - a reorientation that assures a gradual discovery of the new, the maturing, the 'real' self, and a gradual leave-taking of the old, the immature, the 'false' self.Every step of the way to fulfillment offers its own highest reward - that of a deepening sense of coming ever closer to the end for which one was created. Having left behind his strangulated self, man achieves the kind of awareness wherein he finds himself at one with all mankind - -It is hoped that those who have in varying degree gone this way before will serve as an irresistibly compelling factor to the reader to make 'the choice that is always ours' if he has not already done so; and to follow through as fast and as far as endowment, effort, and grace will permit, so that he, to, will eventually find the full treasure before him."If we of the human race are to ever find the immortal treasure awaiting those who evolve to become 'whole people', then we will have to become conscious of our conscience. We know that to be conscious is to be aware, to 'perceive with a degree of controlled thought or observation' and that while our conscience is sometimes portrayed as a little angel hovering nearby, whispering what we should do or avoid, in reality, our conscience is actually our personal inner sense of the true moral goodness or blameworthiness of our own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good. My conscience is myself, as I have the ability do discern right or wrong and the personal responsibility to choose what is right. This means that I have to be conscious of a force working within me that I must not try to block out with a thousand outward things or run away from with a thousand outward trivial escapes. Rather, I must actively participate with this teacher within me. This means that in all my actions, in all that I say and all that I do, I must allow myself to be governed by and conform to the dictates of my conscience. This is the meaning of the word conscientious, which I am more able to become as my consciousness increases and I am lifted into the upper level of mental Life in which I am more aware, as contrasted with my previous level of unconscious processes."Not until one determines to restrict his task to the elimination of his egocentricity, and no longer tries to force an increase of courage and vitality, does the process of self-education get started," advises Fritz Kunkel. "The distribution of the parts in the task is something like this; the light is obscured, it is not my problem to light the light, (for it is already burning), but my problem is to clear away the obstacles that are obstructing the light. I cannot create light, but I can remove the shade. If a man wished to light the light himself, he would be more vain than ever. If he would wait until the light penetrated the shade by itself, he would be more timid than ever; he would be trying to escape his responsibilities. The objective is the untiring work at the removal of the shade and the unerring confidence in the presence of the light..."So then, the secret is to confidently work toward maturity. Here, the words of Evelyn Underhill seem fitting when she tells us that, "For the most part, - the presence and action of the great spiritual Universe surrounding us is no more noticed by us than the pressure of air on our bodies, or the action of light. Our field of attention is not wide enough for that; our spiritual senses are not sufficiently alert. Most people work so hard developing their correspondence with the visible world, that their power of corresponding with the invisible is left in a rudimentary state.The moment in which, in one way or another, we become aware of this creative action - and are therefore able to respond (to it) or resist (it), is the moment in which our conscious spiritual Life begins. In all the talk of human progress, it is strange how very seldom we hear anything about this, the most momentous step forward that a human being can make; for it is the step that takes us beyond self interest.There are many different ways in which the step can be taken. It may be - - almost imperceptible - - . but sometimes the step is a distance and vivid experience. - - A reality always there discloses itself in its awe-inspiring majesty and intimate nearness, and becomes the ruling fact of existence; continually presenting its standards, and demanding a costly response. - - And we realize with amazement what a human creature really is - a finite center of consciousness, which is able to long for, and apprehend, Infinity."When the individual perceives the relation between himself and the infinite spirit of the Universe, he finds that he has been raised from a position of slavery to one of reciprocity. The Universe cannot do without him any more than he can do without the spirit. "- - the two are as necessary to each other as the two poles of an electric battery," advises Thomas Troward.When and if we find ourselves in this position, we must then begin to acknowledge that we are now more interdependent than we have ever been before, for to be really, truly alive, to actually, intentionally, and deliberately evolve ourselves in the direction of the superhuman, we must consciously reflect the infinite spirit of the Universe in every action of our human Life. To be a 'whole person', to become superhuman, one must be possessed by an absolute good. How could it be otherwise?"The good man," declares Emerson, "has absolute good, which like fire turns everything to its own nature, so that you cannot do him any harm, but as the royal armies sent against Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies became friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offense, poverty, prove benefactors.The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the thicket, his horns destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults. As no man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or talents of men until he has suffered from the one and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same. Has he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in society? Thereby he is driven to entertain himself alone and acquire habits of self-help; and thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl.Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo; he has passed on ahead invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise....In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we resist...."As the human race begins to embark upon the journey into the third millennium, our advances in the outer world are mind-boggling, especially in the medical science areas where we are experimenting with genetic engineering. The medical-science industry spokespersons tell us that we will soon (already) be able to manipulate human genes in test tubes so that we can produce human beings to order. This, of course, applies only to the outward development of the species and while such advances may eventually improve the physical capabilities, condition of physical health, and the longevity of individual human beings, the superness of these humans will be of an outward nature only. The individual will still have to expend a great deal of intentionally directed energy, if there is to be any inward development so that one might truly feel the different sides of the soul and evolve toward the superhuman."The more we develop inwardly, the more strongly we begin to feel the different sides of our soul simultaneously," observes Ouspensky. "We spend our whole Life in collecting pitiful crumbs of knowledge, and then we are told that all our knowledge is illusion, that in the soul of the superhumans a light will spring forth in which they will see in a flash all that we have so eagerly sought, aspired to and could never find. - - In relation to the idea of the superhuman, only that understanding is true which includes both views, the outer and the inner. - Nothing leads to the superhuman except the understanding of the idea of the superhuman, and it is precisely this understanding that is becoming even rarer and rarer. - -Having once come into contact with certain ideas we are unable to live as we lived before. We must either go farther or perish under a burden too heavy for us. - - Now if we imagine people approaching the new type, we must understand that they will live a certain peculiar Life of their own, which will be very little like the lives of ordinary people and difficult for us to conceive. There will be very much suffering in their lives - there will be sufferings which as yet affect us but very little and there will be joys of which ordinary people have no idea, and even a feeble reflection of which reaches us only very rarely. - - if we do not understand the absence of unity in our inner world, we do not understand the necessity of such a unity in the superhuman, just as we do not understand many of the superhumans other features.Thus the superhuman appears to us a dried-up being, rational and deprived of emotions, whereas in reality the emotionality of the superhuman, that is, the ability to feel, must far exceed ordinary human emotionality. - - It will become clear to us that the development of the human toward the superhuman cannot consist in the growth of the intellect alone. Emotional Life must also evolve, in certain not easily comprehensible forms. And the chief Change in us must come precisely from the evolution of emotional Life.. - - We cannot be promoted to the superhuman as a reward, either for a long term of service as a person, or for irreproachable conduct, or for our sufferings, whether accidental or created by our self unintentionally by our own stupidity or unadaptability of Life, or even intentionally for the sake of the reward which we hope to obtain. - - If Infinity lives within our soul and if we are able to come in contact with it by penetrating within our self, this means that the 'future' and the 'superhuman' are in our soul, and that we can find them within ourselves if we seek them in the right way.."If we seek, we may find, but we first have to expend the energy and 'we have been having such a snug time in the granary; then we are brought out and put under the millstones and the first thing that happens is the grinding separation. Crushed forever is any resemblance to the other crowd'. Our very Life must be held not as a selfish possession, but as a sacred trust. 'Neither count I my Life dear unto myself' is the true spirit of consecration; but that I may finish my course with joy -.' This is the meaning of Life and the only object for which it should be cherished.If we know the meaning of our Life and know also why we should cherish it, then why do we not live accordingly? Why do we pretend that the inner world is nonexistent and unreal? What is it that draws us to the quickly perishable delights of the outer world, with all its trappings, to the nearly complete exclusion of any degree of inner knowledge? Is it possible that we do not really want to know the truth, so we just simply refuse to open our minds so that we can begin to comprehend what it means to be part of the all-pervading Unity of the Universe?To begin to comprehend the concept of the all-pervading Unity of the Universe of which we are a part is a difficult endeavor indeed. A simple analogy might help us to better understand.We know that the observation of Nature answers any and all questions of the conscious observer, so let us use one of natures’ most precious commodities as an example. Here, we might envision the hypothetical possibility of constructing a huge de-humidifier with an enclosed storage reservoir attached. When turned on, this machine had the capability of sucking up all the moisture from the Earth. This would include every drop of water in the Earth, upon the Earth, within the various forms of matter present and within the Earth's atmosphere. When the earth was sucked completely, totally dry, we would have then captured all the water of the Earth. This captured volume would represent all the water there is. The release and subsequent redistribution of the 'all' would not in any way diminish the 'all' of it. It would still be 'all', whether together in one place or separated and in many places and in various forms.Now, a single molecule of this 'all' might evaporate from an ocean in one hemisphere of the Earth, travel as a vapor half way around the world in a cloud, fall as snow in some high mountains somewhere, stay frozen and buried there for years, maybe decades, maybe even centuries or more, before melting and running off into a creek, then into a stream, then to a river and then back to, ironically, an ocean. This process has been going on since time began and applies to all things, as in 'ashes back to ashes, dust back to dust'.The all-pervading Unity of the Universe of which we are a part is very similar to the above water example. The Universe, Itself, represents the 'All'. Our individual Unity with the all is imparted to us upon our birth and departs from us physically upon our mortal death, though we may live on metaphysically. In the interim, we are intimately connected with all that ever was or ever will be. This profound truth explains the unexplainable. No longer will we use the word 'supernatural' to describe experiences such as ESP, deja vu, precognition, reincarnation, or any of the other psychic experiences that confound us.They are as natural as the crescent moon in the daytime sky. Even though we may never experience any of these phenomena the day will come when we will truly understand that, in truth, there is really only the natural we know about and the natural that we don’t yet understand, or the ‘natural known’ and the ‘natural unknown’.Until then, we must know that it is our individual (mine and yours) responsibility to live every moment with the knowledge that whatever else we do with our lives here on Earth, our presence here really is solely for the purpose of the evolution of Life in the Universe.Remember that we were only made biological to become metabiological. So when my Earthly Life is over and my physical body dies, that part of the Universe that was imparted to me upon my birth, will return, as did that earlier molecule of water, to its place of origin, the 'all' which in this case is the Universe, Itself. I may live on as the metaphysical echo (or ghost) of who I was while I was here, in things that I did, or things that I made or that I said or wrote. Could we not say that the metabiological ghost of Shakespeare will live on probably for centuries to come?My sole mission, then, is to use my time wisely and do what I can to mature, to the very best that I am able, the inner Life which has been entrusted to me. The single purpose for my very existence has been for the advancement of the evolution of the human race (this is not an egotistical statement, but simply a matter of fact). It has also been the sole purpose for the lives of many others whose footsteps I am attempting to follow. These are the footsteps that lead to a living Unity at peace with the all-pervading Unity of the Universe.In the search for the purpose of our existence, we may find that the purpose of our existence, is our existence, itself. And so we remember that ‘ wherever we go, that is where we are’. FINAL TRANSITION When my Life upon this Earth goes bust, and my physical body returns to dust,The thought my spirit would like to convey, is a little ditty that goes this way;'Do not remember me and weep, I did not die, I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamonds glints on snow, I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn’s rain.When you awaken in the mornings hush, I am the swift uplifting rush,Of quiet birds in circled flight, I am the soft stars that shine at night.Do not remember me and cry, I am not dead, I did not die.’I shall be me through all eternity, from alpha to omega. (Unknown Author) AFTERGLOW I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one. I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when my Life is done. I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down in ways; of happy times and laughing times and bright and sunny days. I’d like the tears of those who grieve, to dry before the sun; of happy memories that I leave, when my Life is done. (Unknown Author) Next; Forward to Reflections From Interlude #1 at http://www.mysticwizardmusings7.blogspot.com/ or Back to Reflections On The Osmosis Of Human Life & The Process Of Absorption at http://www.mysticwizardmusings5.blogspot.com/