Evolution and the Religious Fanatics
There are three types of evolution happening all at once in this creation but the fundamental religions are mostly of the favor of denouncing at least the evolution which was described by Darwin which he tried to explain based on observations.
Here the three types in order of their level:
Evolution of Material/Subtle Bodies
Evolution of Transit of Subtle Bodies through Material Species Bodies
Evolution of the Spiritual Forms of the Formless Spirits
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Students of inSelf Yoga™ should get some insight into these three types of evolution. If they are afraid of being called monkeys or afraid of the notion of having taken the form of monkeys, they should abandon the fear.
When a spirit uses a monkey form, that spirit does not become a monkey. When a spirit using a human form, that spirit does not become a human being. The spirit remains as a spiritual entity regardless of the form which it uses. Hence pride in the form is a mistaken notion. The spirit is forced to act in a way which the specific species form operates but that does not mean that the spirit is actually the human or other form which it uses.
If the fundamentalists are afraid of discrediting God through recognizing that there was and is an evolution of material/subtle bodies as Darwin described, then they should realize that God does not need to be shielded from that process. God is God regardless of if Darwin is proven to be mostly true in his analysis of species progression within species.
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Bhagavad Gita comments on the second feature listed above which is:
Evolution of transit of subtle bodies through material species bodies
Arjuna did not get that in the Gita and he told Krishna flatly that he just could not see the comparative similarity of the various species. What Arjuna could not see outright was how the operator of the various species bodies is similar despite the vast differences in some species of life. Arjuna shouted objections to that idea like this:
अर्जुन उवाच
योऽयं योगस्त्वया प्रोक्तः
साम्येन मधुसूदन ।
एतस्याहं न पश्यामि
चञ्चलत्वात्स्थितिं स्थिराम् ॥६.३३॥
arjuna uvāca
yo'yaṁ yogastvayā proktaḥ
sāmyena madhusūdana
etasyāhaṁ na paśyāmi
cañcalatvātsthitiṁ sthirām (6.33)
Arjuna — Arjuna; uvāca — said; yo = yah — who; 'yaṁ = ayaṁ — this; yogas — yoga practices; tvayā — by you; proktaḥ — explained; sāmyena — by comparative similarity; madhusūdana — O slayer of Madhu; etasyāhaṁ = etasyā — of this + aham — I; na — not; paśyāmi — see; cañcalatvāt — due to shiftiness; sthitiṁ — position; sthirām — standard
Arjuna said: O slayer of Madhu, due to a shifty vision, I do not see this standard position of a comparatively similar view which is yielded by this yoga practice, declared by You. (6.33)
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Let me explain the various evolutions in brief:
Evolution of Material/Subtle Bodies
The evolution of material bodies takes place gradually for the most part over a period of millions, if not billions of years. It is based on urges within the various life forms to better play themselves in the various environments on whatever planet they happen to find themselves on in whatever form. According to the environmental allowance, a form can mutate or change as per urges within in so that it can better exploit whatever it feels it needs to have in the environment.
Human beings cannot really have any sensible grip against Darwin’s idea because if they do then they are being very pompous and just have forgotten their progression from being an aquatic creature in the father’s reproductive fluids, to one in the mother’s uterus which changed gradually within nine months to being an air breathing mammal which abandoned its aquatic habitat in the womb of the mother.
Any human being, who denies that he went through changes from being a spec of a cell to being a live-birth, which switched from being aquatic to being an air breather, is simply not reflecting on his past. Therefore we cannot take these people seriously.
However just as in the womb environment that change was made from being aquatic to being a land mammal, so when the earth was in a different environmental situation, some species mutated outside of a womb and changes occurred. Changes also take place incrementally over thousands of years on the basis of need pressures from the environment. These cannot be seen within the life of a human beings or even within say the last 200 years since human beings have developed scientist approaches to their analysis of the world they live in.
Evolution of Transit of Subtle Bodies through Material Species Bodies
There is an evolution of the spirit, the individual persons using subtle bodies, through the material species, whereby they begin as mere unicellular organisms like amoeba and then gradually over millions of years, they transit to higher and higher life forms and eventually reach the level of becoming mammals which are the top predator species on earth. These predator species include the docile animals like the cows and deer. They too are predator species, as they are predators of the plant kingdom. The conventional predators are animal eaters. These are termed as being carnivorous. However the docile species are also predators because they rule over the plant species. They have special teeth to mow down the vegetation. They have no mercy on the plants and in that sense are vicious predators just the same.
In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna commented on the similarity between the individual spirits who use the various types of bodies in the creation, but Arjuna did not get the point when Krishna initially mentioned it to him.
As soon as one can see that one could be in a lower species, one’s egotistic pride which was based on being a human being goes away. One becomes free to understand what reincarnation is all about.
Evolution of the Spiritual Forms of the Formless Spirits
The last and most difficult type of evolution to understand and adopt, the one which rarely happens, the most abstract and inconceivable is the one of the spiritual form. Initially most of the spirit transmigrating in the cosmos are of a spherical composition without any distinct form. This is sometimes described as being formless for the lack of a better term. Actually these spirits do have a form. If seen visually it would like a spherical miniature light shining in all directions from a spec position, from a dot location.
Spiritual evolution means that somehow or the other this spherical shape changes into a shape with limbs and senses. For this evolution a spiritual requires special association with a divine being, a God-person. Due to the unavailability of these God-persons, it is near impossible to develop such a form.
Material nature gives the spirits the idea of adaptation of material and subtle body-forms but its information and process does nothing to help with the spiritual evolution. Still without material nature’s suggestion about limbs, specialized senses and serviceability, it would not be possible for any limited spirits to understand how it would be possible to be anything but a spherical spiritual form or a formless form. Hence the help of material nature should not be understated. It is vital. It is necessary.
This video deals with the first evolution, the one which Darwin described:
