Our world is a world of spiritual darkness. Why is this? Is there some superpower devil wreaking havoc among us? Or maybe it is God Himself cursing us on account of our wicked deeds. Does God want us to be miserable and unhappy? No, of course not. The truth is that there is no such thing as a great Devil, and the God of our universe is not a personal God of vengeance, but an impersonal God of love. What then? The darkness of our world has its source in the hearts of men. We are our own devil, and we are our own punishing God.
God is a God of pure love. This was Jesus’ revelatory teaching to us. God created the heavens and the earth in the perfection of being. But God did not create the world of men, as we now know it. Who did? We did. We—that is mankind—created our world as a reflection and manifestation of what is in our hearts. In other words, our world is a world of spiritual darkness because the hearts of men have, from the beginning of time until this very day, been filled with darkness. Another way to describe this is in terms of spiritual consciousness. As a species, our collective spiritual consciousness has remained stunted and unevolved. We have always been aware of our potential for spiritual consciousness evolution—an evolution that would reflect light instead of darkness. But we have resisted coming into that light. As a species, we have preferred to remain in darkness. Thus the responsibility for the present condition of our world is upon us. It is ours and ours alone.
And so the questions to be asked are these: Why is there darkness in our hearts? Where does this darkness come from? Why is the evolution of consciousness something that we even need to be concerned about? Is mankind wholly given over to evil? Did God create us with a crucial flaw in our inner makeup?
God created man in Its own image—that is, the perfection of being. But this created mandate was evolutionary in nature. We see this same created mandate in other life forms indigenous to the natural earthly environment. God created redwood trees that could live for a thousand years and grow hundreds of feet tall. But these were not created in their fully evolved form. Rather they were created as seeds—seeds with the biological blueprint hidden within them of a giant redwood tree. These seeds must be planted in the soil of the earth in order to sprout, grow, and eventually manifest the perfect glory for which they were created. This speaks of an evolutionary process.
Man too was created as an evolutionary life form. We too were created to begin life as a seed nature. But for us this evolutionary process is not so much a matter of biological-physical manifestation. Rather it involves the spiritual consciousness that resides within the heart of each and every human being. Our human spiritual consciousness contains within it the seed of the perfection of being. But like the redwood tree, we must go through an evolutionary process in order to realize our full glory as a species. When this evolutionary process takes place in any human vessel, perfection ensues. But this perfection is unique to mankind. We do not grow to the height of a redwood tree. Rather we become beings of pure spiritual light. We do not live for a thousand years. Rather we lay hold of the eternal life of God in which time no longer exists.
Thus every human being has within them this potential for glory—the glory of the full evolution of spiritual consciousness. That is how we were created. But as part of our evolutionary process, mankind has been endowed with yet another unique attribute—the attribute of choice.
Evolution happens. It is a created life-thrust that needs no prodding. But mankind, as part of our evolutionary process, has been given the power of choice. Through our own volition we can allow evolution to flower or we can stop it dead in its tracks. This is how we exercise our independent responsibility. God does not make this choice for us. Rather it is completely up to us.
This choice to allow our evolutionary process to flower unto its perfection or to thwart it has two distinct outworkings in the human sphere—an individual outworking and a collective outworking. Interestingly, this aspect of human existence has never changed. Since the beginning of time mankind, both on an individual and a collective basis, has had the power to choose and exercise this responsibility. And as has been well documented in our history books, many individuals that have been born into our world have made the choice to allow the evolution of spiritual consciousness within them to flower unto the full potential for which man was created. Thus as individuals they have fulfilled their created mandate and realized the glory of eternal life. But sadly, as a collective unit mankind has consistently chosen to resist the evolution of spiritual consciousness for which we were created and have thereby thwarted the evolutionary glory of man. That is why our world has always been one of spiritual darkness.
The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is a parabolic teaching about man’s collective choice to thwart its evolutionary process. In terms of spiritual consciousness, mankind (in the body of Adam) chose the darkness of human prodigality—that is, an independent intellectual orientation to life based on the ability to judge between good and evil—over the light of full spiritual evolution. In other words, as a collective unit we have resisted our evolutionary impulse to the degree that it then becomes hardness of heart or wickedness. This is what the Bible, from cover to cover, aspires to show us. You cannot thwart the evolutionary processes that God created without severe negative repercussions. To choose to do so therefore displays a kind of beguilement or madness. And that has been mankind’s story (history) since the beginning of time.
Our world has been mired in the darkness of resistance to God for so long that many have given up hope that our plight as a collective unit can ever be rectified. But this is not an assessment based on truth or substance. Rather it is one based on emotion and appearance. Just because man’s world has persisted in the darkness of resistance for thousands of years does not mean that the situation is hopeless. On the contrary, to correct the collective error would be as easy as it is for an individual to get things headed in the right direction.
Everything hinges on a simple choice—the choice to allow our evolutionary processes to unfold rather than trying to thwart them. This does not mean that we will realize the fulfillment of our created mandate instantaneously. It does not happen like that for individuals, and it will not happen like that for man’s collective entity. But that first all-important choice gets the ball rolling, after which the created power inherent in evolutionary process keeps it rolling until ultimately it snowballs unto fruition.
The new consciousness of man is a collective movement taking place beneath the surface of all our present-day cultural social programs and politics—one in which more and more individuals are making the choice to embark upon the journey of the evolution of consciousness and say yes to allowing their evolutionary impulses to hold sway in their experience. This wide-scale individual directive is resulting not only in the glorious realization of fulfillment and peace for each one that allows it to take place; it is also, little by little, undermining and weakening the age-old collective pattern of resistance. That is why the new consciousness is a movement expressive of profound hope. As the collective resistance of man loosens and gives way, the age-old holding pattern of Adam’s choice will eventually be broken asunder. And when that happens, the darkness of our world will be banished forever. Man will indeed become the creature of light and glory that he was created to be.