Sadhguru looks at how evolution can only be conscious once we take on the human form, and that if we want to know liberation in this lifetime, we shouldn’t just evolve, we need to mutate!

Sadhguru: The word “evolution” means something slowly transforming itself into a higher possibility. Charles Darwin told you that you were all monkeys, and then your tail fell away and you became human – you know the story. When you were a monkey, you did not choose to become a man. Nature just pushed you on. When you are in animal nature, evolution anyway happens – you don't really have to participate in it. But once you become human, once a certain level of consciousness has come, there is no more unconscious evolution for you. Only if you consciously seek, it will happen.

The Human Predicament


 

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If you look at it with the necessary awareness, you will see the very process of life – whatever we refer to as the process of living – is a certain seeking, a certain urge to include, evolve and grow into our ultimate nature. The very nature of the being is such that it wants to go to the ultimate dimension – whatever that is. This dimension is about this and that. The next one is just this and this. Sounds uninteresting? “This and that” and “that and that” is interesting right now in your present state of mind. “This, this and only this” doesn’t seem to be interesting because you are looking at it from your present context. But that’s not how it is. You can never look at it from the other context because you can only think, feel, understand and project from the dimension in which you exist. Do what you want, you cannot taste the other dimension. The harder you try and the more you cannot taste it, the stronger your longing becomes. You want to break this and go. That’s how it is.

Darwin tried to explain it in his own way, which became the theory of evolution, but essentially what he is telling you is if you look at the whole thing – from a single-celled animal to yourself – as one large life process, it is longing to get somewhere.

This is a human predicament. This is not my invention. Nature is catering for a chimpanzee to become a human being. I am just catering to the human longing to evolve into something else. It is life’s idea that everything should evolve. We are just trying to serve that idea because if you don’t serve the life process, you will only be crushed by it. Nothing else will happen because it is too big a juggernaut. It is not something that you fight with, it is something that you go with. You don’t know where it begins or where it ends, but it’s on. It is constantly longing to be something more than what it is right now.

It is the pulse of this juggernaut that Darwin felt – that everything is longing to go ahead. In many ways this longing ended up as you. From a baboon to you is a big change, isn’t it? Darwin tried to explain it in his own way, which became the theory of evolution, but essentially what he is telling you is if you look at the whole thing – from a single-celled animal to yourself – as one large life process, it is longing to get somewhere. It has constantly been striving for millions of years. It has reached a point where you are floating on the surface. The longing has still not gone but enough awareness has come within you that if you want, you can turn it back. You can act like a monkey! A monkey cannot be like you but you can be like a monkey if you want.


 

If you are capable of turning it back, you are also capable of accelerating it. Now that you have reached such a point, if you have a working intelligence, I think you will use this capability to hasten this process – you don’t want to go at the speed of evolution that is happening in nature. A spiritual process is only talking about accelerating life’s desire. We are gassing up life’s desire to move on into a different possibility.

Evolution on Fast-Forward

Evolution can only be conscious once you have become human. Once it is conscious, why would you choose to evolve – you would rather choose to mutate. Evolution, as the word implies, is a slow process, as opposed to revolution, which is a sudden change. So, to use a more biological term, you want to mutate. If you want to know liberation in this lifetime, you definitely need to mutate because evolution is a long process.

When you sit in a certain space or in the presence of a certain energy that seems to be a bigger possibility than what you are, that is the time to simply sit. That is not the time to ask for something. If you simply sit, you will get the necessary nutrient to evolve very fast, to mutate from one dimension to another. Once you grow into a certain possibility, everything that is possible in that dimension will anyway happen to you. Meditating, going to the temple or sitting with a guru is not a time to ask, it is a time to imbibe and allow yourself to move into a higher possibility.

Editor’s Note: Sadhguru delves deeper into the spiritual process and the role of a Guru in the ebook “A Guru Always Takes You For A Ride”, available at Isha Downloads. Pay what you wish and download it. Enter “0” or click “Claim for free” for a free download.