Section Theta  Lesson One: Implications For Evolution  The Pursuit Of Self-Understanding  Throughout human history, the need for meaning imbued within human beings has driven the constant quest for self-understanding. Humanity will feel the existential pull of emotional angst and will suffer the mental, social, and physical symptoms, until it achieves the unifying of self-understandings that are offered within these Lessons. The emotional push and pull, of course, underlies and drives all kinds of purposeful change, developmental progress, and all aspects of evolution itself. This information prepares the mind to open the door to inner channels of information and processes that can allow the many further secrets of life to unfold which can then maximize the evolution of the species along the most fulfilling probable course.  The suggestion made is clear. These "Lessons" are not designed to supply one with metaphysical enlightenment as much as they are to stimulate and motivate a willingness to find spiritual knowledge and wisdom within oneself. There are methods of doing this that are suggested, but the stimulus for doing so must come be as a result of desire and intent.  But at present, a good deal of progressive change has been stymied by the mass misconceptions which have resulted in the disunity of the Trinity Of Self, and an historical dualistic split in human theoretical approach and perspective. Some philosophical "schools" of cultural traditions chose only to believe in or focus upon the body, or the material aspects of the self---an approach which was officially adopted within the realm of science. This line of thought held fast to the idea that all natural phenomena, including human behavior, was driven by natural physical forces, often denying that anything that could not be seen with the naked eye could even exist. And as we will see, there is a large element of truth underlying this assumption, although the answer is far more complex than presently accepted.  The definition of what exists and what doesn't has grown to include that which can be measured by current instruments and made apparent to our five senses. As our instruments improve (as they continuously do) and our senses expand, so will our sense of what is "reality" and how we can manipulate it.  From this first perspective came the ideas that would dominate the evolution of Western scientific thought, A central theme was one of dualism, wherein opposing forces interacted to cause all worldly events. Such concepts include: the energetic and material universe with Newtonian mechanical laws governing predictable and deterministic actions; the Darwinian notion that organisms and environments competitively interact, with nature chaotically selecting and recreating genes which cause human behavior and drive evolution; theCartesian notion that mind and body are separate entities; and the overall rejection of any supernatural or nonphysical forces at work in Earthly events.  Nothing conceived could have resulted in a greater state of unexplained chaos than the concept that life and the universe we know was nothing more than a series of accidental circumstances subject to a lack of a uniform center of intelligence or even guidance. It would be the equivalent of trying the explain the function of a horse while ignoring the obvious fact that it has a head.  The second approach held fast to the intuitive and emotionally appealing idea that something more must be going on than that which meets the objective eye. Those of this leaning gave supremacy to the concept of spirit, and ideas of higher levels of intelligence that had a causal or influential effect upon the physical world. This second approach most heavily influenced the Eastern evolution of thought and action. The great world religions all contain symbolic wisdom gleaned from this approach. But this approach led to black and white ideas about supernatural forces of good and evil ruling the Earth, the need for rigid and punitive external moral controls, and promises of afterlife rewards for enduring a painful, brutish, and disempowered existence, all of which tended to minimize and devalue the entire purpose of human physical experience.  No system of organized religion or philosophy that relies on fear, guilt and control from outside of the individual, whether it give credence to Spirit or not, has merit so long as those who are exposed to its ideas are also expected to comply with its limited dogmas. Free will and a commitment to the guidance of the spirit within, must always be the ultimate bedrock of any spiritual system. All others are subject to the corruption of those who seek power and control.  Unfortunately, both approaches failed to define nature properly (science too narrowly and religion too judgmentally), and neither left any room for the free will of human beings to have any sort of influence upon the events of their life. No matter the doctrine, the conclusions were the same: Either natural or supernatural forces pushing or pulling the hapless, helpless humans hither and yon---which ultimately ruled out effective self-understanding, self-unification and self-control. Also, these initial assumptions have been worked and reworked by subsequent human minds and have left a huge gulf within mass consciousness between the two valued perspectives. This gulf has perpetuated conflicts between science and religion, between impulses and laws, between socio-political objectives, and ultimately between the body and mind of human beings. At present, the most elemental manifestation of this problem is the ongoing causation debate between creationists and the evolutionists.  Those who try to melt the gap between religion and science, as is often the case with religious institutions of higher learning, tend to create more confusion than clarity in the minds of those they wish to mold. The problem in achieving success in such an effort lies within the built-in flaws of each of these fields, as previously described. Once those "flaws" are addressed and the closed-mindedness of science and religion laid aside, the great minds in each field will be able to bridge this "gap" and the mind of mankind will be set upon a path of unlimited enlightenment.  Evolution Vs Creation  Without a more complex and accurate concept of "the self", such debates and conflicts will continue to range---thus the urgency of spiritual reconnection. But without the elementary understandings offered herein (concerning the basic boundaries and functions of body, mind, and spirit and the unifying language of human feeling), the intricate layers of the self that relate to its many gestalts can never even begin to unfold before human consciousness. Indeed, as human beings reattune to the lost connective and evaluative sense of human feeling, the expansion of consciousness will expose the many secrets of the depth, breadth and intimate functions of the human self which explain in full the delicate balance between free will and divine intention.  It can be said that it is the Divine Intention that humans be allowed to exercise their free will in a fashion that allows them to unilaterally create their reality and that such reality serve to reflect the Spirit in all that exists.  But spiritual reconnection is the essential first step. For the present, the evolution versus creation debate illustrates that nature's divine "intention" or "purpose" is not even yet acknowledged within mass consciousness. The turn of the millennium will mark a dramatic shift forward as scientists begin to embrace and carry forth in theory and action the implications of the discoveries of quantum mechanics. Although this information has been available for some time, it so radically challenged the existing dualistic and dogmatic paradigms that supported and even defined the scientific approach, that they were fearsomely resisted and ignored in biology, psychology, medical and political science. Indeed, the rediscovery of the emotional sense will achieve the critical mass necessary to prove that nature not only has intentions, but that humanity has spiritual access to understanding, as well as the responsibility to carry out such intentions. It will become common knowledge that each human body participates unconsciously, and each mind participates consciously in both evolution and creation.  Evolution and creation are processes motivated by an intention that we are still struggling to recognize. But, in fact, the capability to ignore the obvious is quickly disappearing and what will take its place will serve to explain not only our reason for being but the vast potential we represent.  The spiritual reconnection offers final reconciliation with the scientific acceptance of a redefinition of consciousness. At last, nature will be recognized as the manifestation of interacting gestalts of consciousness which constantly exchange energy and information at every level of biological organization. It can no longer be denied that such energy/information that operates so flawlessly below the human level of consciousness, is not highly intelligent and does not come from some non-physical source. This acknowledgment will open the door to reunification between science and religion as the reconnection with spirit meets their long-pursued mutual goal---to discover the natural wisdom, secrets, and desires of "the creator".  To put it in more precise terms: Nature and all that is observable beyond it, serves as unquestionable evidence of a master plan in operation. We, as humans, can elect to either recognize and tap into that ocean of thought, or we can continue to swim against the proverbial tide, wallowing in the shallows of our limiting vision.  The Trinity of Self, the symbolic Trinity of Father, Son & Holy Spirit can be reconciled and understood within the scientific self-regulating paradigm of body, mind, and spirit, providing a backdrop against which both can compare, identify, and purge their respective misassumptions from mass consciousness. With this cohesive approach, both creation and evolution become valid and significant concepts in the ultimate timeless reality of the ongoing expansion of All That Is. For evolution is simply the cumulative changes that result from ongoing purposeful creations that are accomplished by all life forms within the physical system. In short, there need be no tension between the concepts of creation and evolution---both are equally valid. It is only the physical illusion of time that separates them.  Because we judge all processes from our particular perspective of the illusion of time, we are prone to separate evolution and creation, crediting the former with an individual identity and the latter with some undefined mystery when, in fact, they are one and the same and serve to illustrate our own unlimited capabilities. We are both the observer and the creator, the sender and the receiver and, ultimately the subject and the object of our own being.  The self-regulating principles that balance creative change and stability, operate at all levels of physical complexity in accomplishing nature's divine purposes. At varying levels of complexity, each life form---each gestalt of consciousness---each "self" plays its role by following its inner urges. The least complex forms fulfill the most basic stability purpose of self-preservation which gives the continuity necessary for physical form and interactive existence. This is the purpose that scientists already embrace, but they have no idea of how intricate and creative this basic purpose is within the Earthly ecosystem. Indeed, the inner impetus of self-preservation, with each simple life form doing its own particular thing, is what accomplishes a great deal of the ongoing reaction of the physical realm.  It is in observing the "Whole" that we come to understand the sum of the parts. It is in appreciating all that is involved in maintaining a state of balance, that we can come to see a reflection of our own true nature and the creative energy source of inspiration we can draw upon, should we elect to do so. As we add more of the parts to the puzzle, we can begin to see the complete picture. That picture is nothing less than the All That Is.  The Ongoing Evolving Co-Creation  With this new awareness of consciousness expansion, the primitive ideas of one single creator and a long-ago creation will give way to the reality of ongoing co-creation. Indeed, when the full understandings of the quantum implications are embraced, all life forms will be recognized as integral perceptual conduits for converting energy into matter, and quite literately recreating the Earth in each moment. The process of photosynthesis is an excellent example of how the "lowly" plant life forms convert light energy into matter, a single process that provides renewable food resources and makes possible the entire food chain. What is not yet realized from this fact is that all life forms play an equally unique and important role in translating energy from the probable field---the unlimited possibilities with the spacious present self-awareness of All That Is---into matter to form the actual physical realm. It is the arrogant assumption that humans are all knowing, "soldiers of God" with a self-generated Word-Of-Truth" Bible in hand, given dominion and the manifest destiny of conquering nature that has led to ecological disasters that are yet to be recognized.  With the understanding that man and nature are integral parts of a collective whole and that this whole is a perpetual process of converting energy into matter and vice versa, it will become appreciated that each and every form of life is essential to survival and growth of the other, in a physical, mental and spiritual sense. From this realization will come a greater level of respect for life in whatever form and the barriers of prejudicial separation will melt away.  Each level of consciousness plays a purposeful role despite its level of complexity. Without the simple operations of atoms consciously attracting, repelling and exchanging electrons, no physical life would be possible. Indeed, it is at the atomic level that all dimensions and realities connect, exchange energy and interact. Through atomic activity, the energy is converted from the probable to the actual fields as electrons zip into and out of "orbital fields" or alternate dimensions, retrieving and delivering information with each action---information that provides the very elements that organize and comprise all physical matter. If such activity does not provide sufficient evidence of a universal presence of intelligence, it is difficult to imagine what would be necessary to do so. To suggest that this would be the result of some random accident is to decline the validity of any intellectual intent and to put the point of life in the category of a mathematical minus.  Each life form, simply by meeting its basic survival purposes, plays its role in this ongoing manifestation of the physical realm. What will follow from the initial revelations about the role of consciousness, will be that more complex gestalts or "selves", through their actions and sensory perceptions, exert conscious directions to all inner selves comprising that life form (be they organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, molecules, enzymes, substances, elements, atoms, or subatomic particles) that create material changes to both the environment and the organism at all levels of organization. When organisms are sufficiently complex, with brains that allow a unique new form of self-consciousness, they offer forms of experience that include thought and electro-chemical memory patterns that serve as mental blueprints which facilitate the ongoing co-creation of existing life forms of lesser complexity into which consciousness can enter and achieve self-expression.  At the top of the scale is an already recognized human consciousness. What can now be discerned is that the overriding characteristic of this state of consciousness is it's co-creative quality. It will further be discerned that this particular quality is the glue factor that keeps the lesser levels of consciousness in the consistent, dedicated, ubiquitous pattern which permeates all material existence. These blueprints create psychic structures with physical counterparts likened to the enzymes similar to those within photosynthesis, that help recreate the life forms that it experiences. (Simply by being locked in the memory of a predator, the prey's existence is energized.) The physical manifestation of this process can be observed as the replications and mutation genetic DNA. (The mental, self-conscious thought processes have far more effect upon matter than is imagined, which is why the inner guidance system is so essential to ongoing re-creation.) All such thoughts, perceptions, and actions are evaluatively driven by inner electromagnetic emotional guiding principles. The sum result is that the physical realm has a continuity of existing life forms into which consciousness can venture and seek expression. As long as there is sufficient latitude for value fulfillment within a species, it will continue to be chosen and reproduction will continue. On the other hand, if a species loses sufficient opportunity due to imbalances within the ecosystem, extinction will occur.  Herein lies the ultimate value of a balanced state of being, for if humans can achieve a uniform state of balance as a species, that state will reverberate down through the ecosystem and, in doing so, sustain a continuing state of balance and growth throughout the nature of All That Is.  The Power Of Free Will  At higher and higher levels of self-awareness, gestalts of consciousness from mammals, to primates, and finally Homo sapiens, along with more complex brains and thought, there is ever more willful control andconscious creative participation within this process. At this stage of complexity, the crude psychic blueprint can be tremendously affected by the mind itself in ways that can enhance the experience and opportunities of the species. This is the power of creative will energy---the power that can either enhance of destroy---depending upon its level of attunement to inner guidance.  There is a base line quantum here that is key to creative process. It is comprised of a connectedness and appreciation for the body, mind, spirit complex. When the mind is open to a higher level of guidance and ideals are formulated which make for a reality which compliments the role of humans as a whole, the process of creating one's reality is smoothed and enhanced.  Herein enters the secondary purpose of self-development joining the first, wherein the mind can exert its creative control and influence upon the many levels of existing processes. Herein, also, enters the complex feeling tones that offer the mind its highest directional guidance in order to ensure quality control. Self-development allows the mind to collect and utilize ever-increasing levels of understanding concerning the processes of its many levels, so that it can do a high quality job of enhancing the value of experience. Self-development occurs first through conditioned unconscious learning processes until at some point the organism recognizes the meaningful patterns and mindfully adapts with right responses. In either case, the mind will create actions and reactions, which in turn create chemical alterations which change the external environment and, to some degree, affect its own DNA, allowing it to pass along the improvement to its species' gene pool as well as the collective species consciousness.  There is a recognition and unconscious understanding achieved wherein the evolution of a particular member of a species, upon reaching a higher level of physical, mental and spiritual development, will alter its DNA in a way that aligns with this state of development. That portion of species most responsible for the reproductive act, will seek out a reproductive relationship with that species member in order to participate in the developmental process. In more mundane terms, development along the lines described enhances one's state of sexual attraction.  Both thought and action create evolutionary change. It is through the changes, the creative enhancements affected by the highest life forms that new gestalts of consciousness become possible within the physical realm. Indeed, the human species itself is collectively a "self" as its mass consciousness exerts influence upon the free will and biological predestiny of the humans that comprise it. The more guided purposeful expansion of consciousness, the more complete becomes the creative free will. Thus, the broadest self-actualization of each individual helps enhance the potential fulfillment of the entire whole. (The whole includes all members of the human species despite any sort of racial diversity, for a species is defined by its members' ability to reproduce.)  There is a sort of hundredth monkey theory suggested here. While the conventional process of elevating the general state of the human species is considered the physical reproductive system, the very thoughts of any particular member can cross the imaginary lines of separation in some form of morphic resonance and result in a collective raising of consciousness among those who are open and desirable of such an elevation.  The most dramatic forms of human evolution occur now within the realm of mind. The changes in mass consciousness are trends in human cultural evolution and are driven by the collective changes brought about by all three purposes accomplished by each individual. Following the inner urges to manifest the inner value potentials, humans create ever more complex mental and ethnological tools which drive the expanding mass consciousness. Indeed, the human mass consciousness can rightly be described as a single planet in a still higher universe of planetary consciousness---with its own value to fulfill. Thus, it becomes essential for each portion to offer its highest and best contribution to the whole. This is the most deliberate form of expression, described herein as the purpose of self-actualization.  The initial process of thinking one's self into existence is followed by the creation of the higher levels of mind and the physical and mental tools to expand that expression. On a physical level, the planet is experiencing a global connectedness through a system commonly known as the internet. On a mental level, the opportunity to share information in a quick and inexpensive manner, as provided by this same "internet", enhances the occupants of the planet as a whole.   Humans are indeed the creative custodians over life forms influenced by their culture and technology. Without the inner guidance, there is much corrective work to be done. For example, the treatment of the cattle species for the food source of beef by many Western cultures. Beef production that disallows a natural developmental experience and free range sensory experience, offering instead only a life of limited mobility, manipulated by growth and anti-bacterial chemicals, and ending in a painful and violent death, has negatively affected the mass consciousnesses of the species, resulting in such anomalies as "mad cow disease". On the other hand, cultures that honor the cow as sacred and allow it a more meaningful natural experience, have positively affected the species' consciousness, perhaps forestalling a mass extinction.  The seeds of destruction of a particular animal species are sowed by the attitudes of the higher life forms in its relationship with that species. If the qualities of free will are not honored uniformly, than the general deterioration that follows will serve as an early signal of the adverse consequences to follow. The difference between feeding lots and a free range environment is just beginning to be signaled and appreciated.  Early aboriginal peoples, particularly the native Americans, had a much more highly evolved consciousness in terms of spiritual connection with animals of all kinds. They had quite well-developed intuitive senses and actually practiced telepathic communication with animal totems who offered wisdom and guidance. They asked permission in pre-hunt prayers and post-hunt celebratory feasts, dances, and rituals. This honored the spirit of the animal, creating an emotional connection highly desirable to the species. They participated in the food chain as their needs dictated, but they did so with honor, gratitude, and respect for the life that was taken, and called forth only those that were ready to end their physical journey. They used humane killing techniques and utilized every portion of the animal with minimal waste. Unfortunately, the Western technological dominance disrupted such cooperative practices, arrogantly misunderstood and defiled such "savage" rituals and concepts, and created near extinction of the buffalo species through their own misguided and willfully ignorant approach to hunting.  To this date, a folk hero known as Buffalo Bill is still romanticized for his practice of contributing to the near extinction of the animal he slaughtered with impunity. His activity, and the profit and prestige he gained from such, earned him a special place in the American psyche, much to the detriment of both animal and man.  There are endless examples of how free will of humanity, when separated from its inner guidance, has diverted the species' evolution from its most directly purposeful and rewarding path. As we have learned, it is the force of human emotion---the unifying voice of Spirit---through which all levels of consciousness are evaluatively informed of the directions of movement and creative thought that will best manifest the highest purposeful opportunities in the physical experience. Human consciousness is guided in both quantity and quality by the feeling sense to avoid the potential pitfalls of free will before the higher understandings emerge. Thus, the basic blueprint for human development compensates for ignorance, but is propelled forward by the spiritual challenges which assist in designing the mindscape and opening the chakra energy centers to full mental efficiency and communication with the higher wisdom from gestalts of consciousness (levels of self) with which it is most intimately affiliated and directly connected.  To try to put this in more colloquial terms, the act of asking for guidance from our higher spiritual nature, when relating to our environment, will bring forth the best of both that same environment and ourselves. To make that connection most effective and enduring, we will need to relearn and re-appreciate the feeling system with which we have been so graciously endowed. It is the fairer gender of our species who can be most helpful in this process.  Of course, the energy information that is constantly infused into the physical realm, springs from these more complex gestalts of consciousness that exist in the nonphysical, spiritual realm. This is the "location" of the spiritual gestalts that are symbolized in the religious ideologies (as angelic hierarchies with a pinnacle Godhead as that most complex, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent gestalt), that recognize the various levels of organized self-consciousness within the total of All That Is. The most appropriate term for the self-aspect just "outside" or psychologically adjacent to the physical realm would be the entity of which each past, present, and future incarnate physical ego personality is a part, just as cells comprise an organ. It is the wisdom of the entity and its own source of higher, more complex and broad wisdom that unifies and guides the thought and action of its personalities through feelings of pleasure and pain. As an aura surrounds the physical body of a species and serves to both reflect and collect information helpful to the physical and mental state, so there exists an aura of wisdom that accumulates around the mental body and connects it to its higher levels of being and maintains that guiding connection with the more spiritually refined portion of one's nature. While this entire complex exists as a singular unit, it is only through conditioning that we have come to maintain a misperceived state of separation.  Thus, creation is ongoing and evolving in far more elegant and purposeful ways than many suppose; for both are ongoing aspects of the ever-expanding consciousness of All That Is. Quite simply, through the active dilemma of desiring to know itself, all actions of consciousness continuously recreate and evolve evermore complex gestalts of consciousness. When the self-aware mind enters the picture---whether the mind is simple or complex---seeing is believing, but remembering enhances the believing that in turn colors the perceptions of seeing, which re-create the mental blueprints into which energy can flow and manifest as matter. So scientific objectivity is joined by the subjectivity on the part of all "observers" within the physical realm. Indeed, thought and feeling create perception which re-create the blueprints which reinforce believing and generate thought---completing the subjective, objective, creative cycle.  Just as we learn about our physical environment and the history of our activities by reviewing material in our institutions of higher learning, so we expand our understanding and individual/collective gestalts of consciousness by the very act of exercising our creative qualities. We evolve ourselves and our environment in an expanding and never-ending spiral of enlightenment. This is nothing more or less than an exercise of free will.  This objective subjectivity of co-creation is why staunchly held beliefs, assumptions, and competing concepts of creation or evolution work in direct opposition to the needed conscious inquiry and can stymie the creative process itself. Mass consciousness must be sufficiently evolved to orient the human away from misusing the free will, or the very mental blueprints of life will be---and have been---altered in destructive ways. All beliefs about anything must be open to momentary re-evaluation and change as part of the evolutionary thrust of life.  As decadent belief systems go unexamined and unchallenged by contemporary minds, the society, as a whole, is prone to slip into a decaying state of existence. Fresh and renewing mental/spiritual activity must be brought to bear on the physical world for the evolutionary process to progress along all lines of development.  Until recently, such assumptions as "natural selection" having no prior plans, intentions, or predestiny; that humans are born sinfully flawed; and that emotional suffering is a necessary cross to bear have clouded the mass mind and quite literally degraded the human experience---and the effect of limited human consciousness has been detrimental to the overall evolution of consciousness.  As the understanding of the spiritual origin of the species is not only appreciated but realized to have been and continues to be a natural state, such realization will expand the boundaries of what the species can achieve as it proceeds with the progression of this alignment.  Evolution Of Consciousness & Information Processing  A crucial stumbling block for scientists has been their stubborn assertion that everything in the physical realm is caused therein, with chaotic natural competitive forces that evolve ever more complex organisms---quite by accident. They witness the incredible amount of intelligent energy exchanges going on within cells and organs and between plants and animals, yet deny the deep wisdom and information that it takes to accomplish interactive life so seamlessly. They wonder when consciousness arose, ignoring the quantum implications that consciousness itself is the very fabric of the universe---for their mathematics predict far more dimensions than their crumbling paradigms can handle. Each and every minute particle of matter is a manifestation of energy imbued with consciousness in some form or another. Where there is matter there is energy, and where there is energy there is information, and where there is information there is consciousness.  Where the presence of information exchanged is perpetually present wherever one looks in nature, it would be a tremendous stretch to presume that such a state would be reflective of accidental activity. Intelligence is hardly possible without information and its expansion through an interchange system. Nor could such a system exist for long without the element of intent. Chaos is in and of itself the formula for destruction, even when it is organized. Survival demands supportive forces to come into play in order to support such a goal. Finally, energy and matter are ubiquitous and even science proposes they are interchangeable. Thus, how could they be sustainable as uncomplimentary forces when they are more likely to be simply different forms of the same essence.  The information processing concepts will help scientists overcome the dogmatic fiction that consciousness is a result of life. They will find that it is its ultimate cause and destiny as thought is allowed its rightful place in the creative cycle. For indeed, without consciousness coming first, there would be no chicken or egg, or any cause and effect relationship of one begetting the other. But all ignorance and arrogance aside, they are correct in recognizing the power and dominion gained by the emergence of the human mind. This will be the key to recognizing the evaluative guidance that came along with the emergence of mind.  To place thought in the position of being the consequence of material evolution is to not only place the proverbial cart before the horse but to suggest that the cart causes the horse to move in a random direction when everything suggests that the horse is motivated by a more sophisticated form of guidance. Man.  Humanity will recognize from their own technological accomplishments of the information age that the Trinity of Self operates like a computer. The body will be likened to the hardware, with its preset parameters, brain processing and memory, and protective systems designed with the highest non-negotiable laws and values which are to be honored, respected and preserved. The body's emotional communication network will be recognized as the language of the human operating system, when found in electric brain pathways, in chemical production and receptor centers throughout the body, and computer chip-like properties and operations of the very cell membrane. It can then no longer be denied that the human self is an information processor, cycling information within and between all spiritual, mental and physical realms. It will be clear that emotion mediates the evolving consciousness at physical levels through subconscious, instinctive and impulsive actions.  It should also become clear that even if some type of extraordinary force of circumstance was responsible for bringing the portions of the computer together, it would still take a source to throw the switch, a source to provide the power and a source to utilize it in a creative fashion. When the evidence of such a source becomes so overwhelming as to defy misinterpretation, a new paradigm will be in place.  The mind will be recognized as the metaphoric software for the computer system. The focal point of human mind, which begins at birth of any given personality, collects self-experiences and makes patterned sense of them. It takes the sensory processed outputs of the hardware and consciously alters and adapts them creatively---becoming the full designer and conscious controller at the keyboard. Beliefs, habits, attitudes, and strategies will be recognized as the macros which are used as creative shortcuts by the mind. Herein comes wonder and power of free will to not only be aware of existing and ongoing bodily processes, but to actively and creatively participate in ways that enhance the life experience---and allow the unfolding of the highest destiny path. Emotion will be recognized as the evaluative guide of mindful thought, which aligns itself with the patterns of impulsive action and creates long-range strategies for ongoing pleasure.  The described "will to survive" is exceptionally short sighted for, again, nature suggests so much more, especially in the case of higher consciousness where creativity is evident. When one observes the strides in music, art, prose, etc., one sees expressions of spirit being the primary purpose of life and the survival skills simply relegated to a secondary role.  The spirit is the timeless energy source and grand designer of the entire hardware/software system. Without the spiritual force, the system would be unplugged---dead. It is indeed the breath of life that connects the most minute and least complex levels with the ultimate complexities of All That Is. It is the inhaling of all energetic sensory wisdom and exhaling the mental and emotional self-created expressions that manifest the lyrical artwork of human culture. Upon attunement to the spiritual guidance available in feeling language and attainment of conscious unity in each breath, the human awareness can expand in both quantitative and qualitative ways to its full cosmic proportion.  Just as the computer can not activate without the operator throwing the switch, so life forms, at whatever point in physical reality, can not exist in a dynamic state without an energy source. Each new computer model plays a role in the design of a more complex and efficient one to follow and that process is dependent upon free will and the universal creative force.  In humans, and many animals, the safety features of the hardware parameters of the body are designed to accommodate varying levels of mindful consciousness, depending upon the quality of the willful use of mind. As humans learn and grow through the individual evolutionary process we have described as purposeful self-development, the mind collects more and more quantitative information about what is going on in the information/energy exchange process. (This energy flow has been described as the infinite cyclic exchange of energy information which is allowed admittance and exit through the chakra centers of mind as the spiritual challenges are met.)  There is an efficiency in nature that encourages all systems to enhance themselves with use. This is especially true of those systems that acquire and perpetuate information. Knowledge begets knowledge as intelligence begets intelligence and spirituality begets spirituality.  An "evolved" consciousness does a high quality job of adding enhancements rather than disrupting the process by dishonoring, suppressing, ignoring, judging or attempting to overrule the hardware parameters of body---particularly the suppression of feeling signals. If the mind has not sufficiently expanded to successfully handle a given situation, this is when the body will take over with its unconscious control and instinctive actions. These are the impulsive aspects within the feeling system that work behind the scenes with which the mind must align. In short, if the mind is not yet capable of doing the multi-purpose job, the body will default back into pre-set, unconscious, single purpose, safety-net control. If emotion cannot guide thought and action it will always settle for protective action alone.  When the mind places the body in a position where circumstances pose a fatal risk to it, the body will do whatever is necessary, even a temporary shutdown of all system in order to preserve itself. This is a part of the self-learning process. Of course, if this becomes a pattern of behavior that is repeated to the point of being insulting to higher intelligence, a permanent termination of activity results. To put it less subtly, we die.  This process is mediated by the degree of fear or joy that the incoming perceptual information contains. If the thought processes are sufficiently evolved through willful guided learning, feelings of confidence will allow acceptance of the information into mindful consciousness. Fear affects the perceptions, and any information likely to overwhelm the mind is filtered or denied entirely. The ego identity of the mind responds to these feelings unless they are decoded, serving as a gate that can swing closed in order to protect the stability of the mind and the subjective reality it experiences. When this happens, the information is rerouted back through the body for unconscious processing and corrective, active responses are carried out through impulse. This is how a person can have instinct take over before the mind has even comprehended what has happened. Although a wonderful safeguard, the ego gate is intended to evolve away from this function (as soon as we understand the messages within feelings), for it stymies the potential expansion of consciousness. (This ego resistance is also how chakras can become under or over energized.) If we are unaware of how feelings grease or freeze the ego doors, our defaulting to the autopilot mode to control sacrifices the higher potentials and relegates us to a lower level of mere survival.  Anyone who has spent time around the higher animal forms, i.e. those most popular of the "pet" type, will see clear evidence that our dog or cat will learn to carry out certain activities through reward or punishment. More accurately, it is the motivating factor of joy or fear that will act as the near exclusive motivator of behavior. Because these species are hardly capable to getting beyond these limited processes, they can not reach a point of emotional maturity or intellectual equality with their masters. Oftentimes, portions of the human species can become entrapped in the same limiting mindset and kept there for the duration of a particular physical existence.  The physical system is quite elegant in its flexibility and ingenious in its balancing of spiritual predestiny with mental free will, and the clues to this type of biological evolutionary flexibility are readily available to the scientists. From the lowest and least complex organisms, all the way up the purported phylogenic evolutionary ladder to humans, along with the increase in the complexity of form, there is also an observable increase in behavioral flexibility, brain capacity, and emotional processes that all support varying degrees of conscious willful control over the life experience. At any stage, there will be successful bodily regulation either through unconscious instinctive processes or conscious willful processes, or a combination of both---mediated by the emotional information flow and experienced as a unique spirit-in-flesh kind of experience.  Just as we can know and appreciate this variance, we can also come to understand that there is a point and purpose behind the existence of such a system. As simple math can evolve into a form of near abstract calculus, a seven note musical scale can be manipulated to produce the complex gestalt of a classical symphony, or a brush stroke of paint upon a canvas can initiate the production of a captivating work of art, so the spirit which exists in All That Is can continue to evolve into a state of perpetual growth.  As we have learned, emotion is a sense that is the closest approximation to the non-physical informational vibrations of All That Is---the language of spirit linking physical and non-physical portions of any gestalt of self. Without casting judgment upon any particular form of life, humanity can observe a myriad of available experiences and adventures in consciousness, each expressing value and experiencing emotional reward while dovetailing together in the physical realm and co-creating the Earthly ecosystem.  The evidence of this uniform state of being is virtually impossible to ignore. What is apparently possible to ignore, is the evidence that there is an interconnecting theme woven through a physical reality that is composed of those same qualities (to a greater or lesser degree) that we recognize in each other.  As humans become more and more consciously adept at recognizing the patterns within their own physical history, they will surely detect this evolving nature of consciousness and cast a new light on evolution both at individual and species levels. As this awareness unfolds, the gulf between hard-nosed scientists and those of enduring religious faith will come together. There shall be a reconciliation as the light dawns upon them both that the never-ending questioning of science is coming up with many of the answers that the faithful have long held. They will both recognize the inner compass and the true north of Divine Joy. They will achieve Divine Acceptance of the mutual connection, and interface and exchange more information allowing dogmatic rigidity within both camps to relax and a far more cooperative venture shall drive a cultural evolution which is long overdue.  This anticipated state of blending of tolerance for each other's position, followed by a new paradigm of understanding of what each contributes to the whole will bring about a more complete understanding and adoption of the so often suggested Heaven on Earth.  Darwin & Lamarck Revisited  No scientist will dispute that it is indeed the individual within each species that is the unit of evolutionary change---that it is the genetic contributions of each organism that influence the species as a whole. But this is only a part of the story. The moral to this incomplete story is that the only purpose of any life form is to reproduce---to perpetuate his/her genes within the pool. It is assumed that genes are unchanging, predetermined codes (unchangeable hardware parameters) that constantly reproduce themselves. It is only when some error in the copying of genetic information that mutations occur which offer any form of adaptation which may enhance the genetic information. But it is well known that mutations can also degrade genetic information, and thus all enhancements or anomalies are accidental whims or mistakes of nature.  Why should it be presumed that something so basic to life itself, i.e. the genetic code, be excused from the evolutionary process? Surely there has to be something more to such a complex system than mere "unchanging" perpetuation.  But the DNA is far more complex and attuned to human experience than is now suspected. Fortunately, the information processing model will offer the uniting paradigm that will make it plain that both genes and the environment create changes in one another that call for and depend upon the higher purposes of self-development and self-expression. Not only does the physical environment effect inner changes, but the entire realm of mental thought is also a profoundly influential addition to the environment. Likewise, the coded instructions of the genes create chemical expressions and secretions that contribute to the ecosystem. The ongoing energy conversion/information processing cycle will leave no doubt that the effects of the environment which are largely controlled---and indeed created---by the human mind, have a profound effect upon the activity and replication of DNA itself. This fact will bring about a revolution in the realm of evolutionary thought, but it will also hearken back into human history where this possible path of inquiry once diverged.  The concept that our destiny is locked into whatever DNA qualities are discovered to exist in our physical history will now be subject to a widened interpretation of the what this system is and how it relates to our own creative capabilities. It should become clear to scientists and religious alike that the quality of free will and the capability to create our own reality out weighs any pre-ordained presumption that we are stuck with predetermined probabilities unless this is accepted as an unwavering belief system which we have chosen to adopt.  Long ago, before Darwin became canonized and causality was decided to be in the genes alone, there was an alternate evolutionary theory set forth by Jean Baptiste de Lamarck. Lamarkian thought was that there was some cooperative force at work within evolution that worked toward the benefit of the entire species, not simply the genes alone. He intuitively understood that the experiences of any given life form must have some way of affecting their offspring or all learning and creative expression would be meaningless. His concept of "felt needs" which inspired certain changes was far ahead of its time. For indeed, it is the mental and behavioral adaptations that create emotional conditions which alter the chemical reproduction and coding within the genes themselves.  Again, the genetic code is not likely to be so permanent as to be impossible to alter if one so wishes. The process of changing one's DNA is no more complex than affecting one's immune system by visualizing a strengthening process which the mind can than convert into physical alternations. All past, present and future conditions are subject to our creative free will. Having said that, one need now only to believe it, a process directly connected to our needs.  It is also the ongoing developmental and expressive exchanges between parent and child which alter, switch on or off the genetic potentials with which either are born. Indeed, it is the constant replication of DNA, that very re-creation of any given bodily form that can be profoundly influenced in each moment by the consciousness that creates it. The mind can dramatically enhance the rapid, creative "adaptive mutations" thought to be accidents of nature by simply creating mental and physical experiences of long-term pleasure.  The DNA are the tools of the mind and can successfully alter our own developmental potential, not just that of our children. This is just another form of information locked deeply within our cellular make-up. Once activated, it has massive and nearly unlimited power to formulate whatever state of being we can imagine.  The concept of ongoing, evolving co-creation would have arisen long ago had both parts of this picture been recognized as valid contributions instead of opposing approaches. With the information processing model and emotional self-regulation uniting the two, it will be plain that evolution is driven by both internal environments (spiritual, mental, electrical, chemical, genetic, and atomic processes) and external environments (sociocultural landscapes, opportunities for purposeful development and expression, and basic survival conditions). It will be clear that a constant give and take mediation is occurring wherein adaptive mutations are created by thoughts and actions---ever guided by the balancing, safeguarding, and enticing emotional messages of spirit.  More progress is stifled by the artificial establishment of opposing concepts than can ever be found justified in our current state of mind. All competition must include the trust in spirit which guides the human being toward the greatest possible potential.  The turning of the millennium marks the potential of critical mass as the revelations of the inner unifying mechanisms sweep through mass consciousness, accomplishing another dramatic shift which will propel humanity up to a higher "being state" of consciousness. With the understandings of how evolution is accomplished, we can now take a closer look at the trends within human cultural evolution.  Table of Contents