Evolutionary Spirituality: an Emerging Meta-Religio

WFRXXX10.1177/1946756714552134World Future ReviewHubbard research-article5521342014

Evolving Consciousness-Based Views

World Future Review 2014, Vol. 6(3) 336–341 Evolutionary Spirituality: An © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Emerging Meta-religio DOI: 10.1177/1946756714552134 wfr.sagepub.com

Barbara Marx Hubbard1

Abstract Like the great visionaries of the past, many human beings around the globe today are experiencing a spiritual awakening. In response to the unprecedented threats and changes in our environment, an evolutionary spirituality is emerging that offers a new perspective on the nature of the universe and of human life. Instead of accepting a mechanistic and materially limiting definition of existence, growing numbers of individuals are coming to perceive consciousness as the prime moving force throughout the cosmos and to view themselves as active agents in an ongoing process of universal co-creation.

Keywords evolutionary spirituality, conscious evolution, meta-religio, co-creation, religion and science

Evolutionary Spirituality global “communion of pioneering souls,” arising spontaneously among people of every race, The Impulse of Human Evolution is Evolutionary nation, and religion, who, by experiencing Spirituality, which is unfolding now as humani- within themselves the emergence of a more ty’s passionate yearning to create and participate universal, empathetic, spiritually awakened in self and social evolution. This is the soul of human, are becoming the co-creators of new evolution, and it is experienced subjectively as an worlds in our times. unfolding, directional pattern moving toward Evolutionary spirituality seems to attract ever-higher consciousness and greater freedom people. Teilhard de Chardin (1964, 137–38) through more complex and synergistic order. described as “Homo progressivus,” those in Through evolutionary spirituality, we sense that whom a “flame of expectation burns,” those we are evolving as nature is evolving. As crises who sense the future as an organism progress- on Earth multiply and deepen, this “soul” of evo- ing toward the unknown. This is a type of lution is becoming self-aware in many people. human who is sensitive to and attracted by We feel it as a resonance with the deeper patterns what is emerging within themselves and the of evolution, often called Spirit—a resonance world. When I read the brilliant works of sci- with one another and with nature. entists who express their awe and reverence Evolutionary spirituality is neither a new for the laws and splendor of the universe religion nor an organization. It draws upon the objectively, yet do not also feel this universal collective mystical experience of all the great intelligence subjectively within themselves, I traditions of the past combined with the dis-

coveries of modern science. It appears as 1 Foundation for Conscious Evolution, Santa Barbara, CA, evolving human beings—ones who seek to ful- USA fill the ethical and spiritual insights of the great visionaries of the past who were the co-cre- Corresponding Author: Barbara Marx Hubbard, Foundation for Conscious ators of the world in their times. This same Evolution, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. evolutionary spirit is today giving birth to a Email: [email protected] Hubbard 337 wonder if perhaps they have a slightly different (Hubbard 1998). In retrospect, I believe we will genetic code or a “missing gene”—like being discover that conscious evolution is as important tone deaf or color blind—that leaves them as the invention of language or the decoding of insensitive to transcendent experience. DNA. We will become a self-evolving species facing unknown possibilities. Experiencing Evolutionary No one on Earth has been trained in how to evolve this planet from its current high tech, Spirituality overpopulating, polluting, and warring state to The basis of evolutionary spirituality is an indi- make possible a future equal to our full poten- vidual’s continuing inquiry to understand the tial. None of the existing authorities can lead laws and processes of the physical universe, us through this transition—not heads of nation combined with their growing awareness of states, nor organized religions, nor global cor- unfolding patterns of evolution within them- porations. In our academic institutions, there is selves. Evolutionary spirituality feels like love at not even a subject, field, or department that the core of our being, reaching out to all life. It directly addresses humanity’s need to learn to expands our empathy and broadens comprehen- evolve consciously. Science alone, as science, sive compassion. Our individual passion to cre- cannot guide us, for it often lacks any sense of ate appears to us as part of a larger design of direction, progress, or pattern for the future. creation, and we are propelled forward as vital This vacuum of evolutionary leadership in elements of that design through our own choices the existing system is stimulating a large global and intentions. movement of spiritually based personal We humans stand united with the great self- growth, social change, technological inven- creating events of the past, such as the forma- tions, noetic sciences, health breakthroughs, tion of life, of animal life, of human life. This developing and networking innovations in all is our lineage. Within our genes are all the fields, and fostering new methods of co-intelli- generations. gence, social synergy, sacred activism, and so We are unique aspects of the universe that is on. To date, such changes have usually been itself in the process of evolution toward a more little publicized, taking place underneath the complex order. We are not simply one with an radar of the “news,” outside academic disci- eternal deity or living in a pointless clockwork plines or religions, and ignored by shortsighted universe winding down to an inevitable heat politicians. Yet, considered together, these death. We are bringing “the gods” home as our changes represent what Paul Hawken (2007) own developmental potential to co-create our described in the title of his book as Blessed futures. Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw The New Field of Conscious It Coming. This global movement throughout Evolution civil society is inspired by some form of evolutionary spirituality, by whatever name it may Evolutionary spirituality springs from the radi- be called. cally new conditions that face us on Earth today. Through science and technology, humans have A New Image of “God” gained many powers we used to attribute only to gods. We can destroy our world or create a future Evolutionary spirituality brings forth an evolv- of literally infinite potentialities. This new con- ing image of God from a paternalistic deity dition is acting as an evolutionary driver requir- external to us or an internal field where only ing us to learn how to evolve consciously or what is changeless is real, as in some Eastern render ourselves extinct by the misuse of our traditions, to an image of God as what Sidney powers. I call this new potential the advent of Lanier (unpublished manuscript) described as conscious evolution—the evolution of evolution the “Great Creating Process,” what Sri itself—from unconscious to conscious choice Aurobindo (1972, 735) calls the “Consciousness 338 World Future Review 6(3)

Force,” David Bohm ([1980] 2000) refers to as universal intelligence at work in the universe, the “Implicate Order,” Ken Wilber ([1996] experienced as our own oneness with it. 2000, 66) calls “Spirit in action,” and Beatrice Bruteau (1997, 174) labels “Cosmogestation . . . animating every atom, molecule and cell from Evolutionary Spirituality within.” and Threefold Evolutionary Evolutionary spirituality arises out of the Consciousness subjective intuition that the fundamental Reality is Consciousness, Creative Intelligence, Evolutionary spirituality looks inward to the Unified Field, or Mind. Consciousness is not Mystery, the Void, the Unified Field, the Mind seen as an epiphenomenon of matter, but as the of the Cosmos out of which everything is con- Creative Intelligence out of which matter, life, tinually arising. It does not see that Mystery as and human life have all evolved. The universe a personal deity or a Being outside the Field, does not appear as mindless, purposeless, or but rather as the ground of being itself which is directionless, as certain materialist thinkers, sensitive to our own intention as we are it in such as Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg human form. It is a nondual, unitive aware- (1977, 154) who said “the more the universe ness, not of the supernatural, but of expanded seems comprehensible, the more it also seems nature, including human nature, which is, at its pointless,” might suggest. Rather, we witness source, a profound mystery. It draws from the the universe to be in a state of continuous new revelations of quantum physics that the transformation toward higher consciousness universe is a unified whole and that it displays and greater freedom through ever more com- nonlocality, entanglement, connectivity, and plex order. coherence throughout that whole. It finds fur- This explanation proposes that, as Gary ther that this Mystery animates the source of Schwartz (2006, 12) put it “what Darwin our own being, the center of supreme reality, termed natural selection is an intelligently within ourselves. guided process that promotes the creative Evolutionary consciousness looks back- expression and evolution of ever more com- ward in time, discovering that cosmogenesis, plex and interconnected systems: the operation the whole story of creation, is alive within us of intelligent evolution.” It respects and deep- now. We are each the universe in ourselves. ens the scientific inquiry into the nature of cre- The intelligence of the life force has broken ative evolution, probing into the anomalies into our consciousness as our own impulse to that reductionist science cannot fully explain, evolve, create, and expand to fulfill life’s such as the perfect fine-tuning of the first three potential. In expanded evolutionary conscious- seconds after the Big Bang or the origin of the ness we can imagine, for ecstatic moments, universe itself (Laszlo 1996). It goes beyond connecting directly with, or “tuning into,” the dogmas of Creationism or Evolutionism to those trillions of cells and the billions of miles open an inquiry into the nature of universal of DNA within ourselves that are encoded with creative intelligence, subjectively, and objec- the universe story. tively at “all levels and all quadrants,” as Ken While experiencing inner oneness with Wilber ([1996] 2000, 70) explained. supreme reality and feeling the active presence Neither the point of view of a random uni- of the evolutionary story alive in our own verse nor an intelligent universe can be proven being when we are in evolutionary conscious- or disproven at this stage of human intelli- ness, we concurrently move forward to express gence. Those experiencing evolutionary spiri- our potential through action and self expres- tuality choose, by deep attraction, metaphysical sion in the world. We find ourselves awakened preference, intuition, and subjective experi- from within by a passionate desire to realize ence, the worldview that Consciousness is our innate creativity, to join with others, to find prime, that there is a fundamental designing our life purpose so that we are not left out of Hubbard 339 the story. We become authors of our own story, through peer validation. In such a meta-religio, co-creators with the process of creation. we move beyond dogma and cultural limitations, allowing that which does not work, that which The Path of the Co-creator imposes on us as “faith” unbelievable and destructive scriptural stories, freeing us to fulfill Co-creation means aligning with the Creative our potential as co-creative, coevolving, univer- Intelligence of the universe and cooperating sal humans (a model that I sense has not yet fully consciously with it in our own lives and in evolved on this Earth). partnership with others doing the same. Our spiritual ancestors paved the way for us Co-creation is a developmental path that fos- not only through direct experience of supreme ters an exploration of the art and practice of reality, but also in their mystical visions of the conscious evolution, inspired by evolutionary future. They foresaw a radical new stage of spirituality. being—a new heaven and a new earth; a New The Path of the Co-creator focuses on the Jerusalem beyond sorrow, beyond death, the interweaving of self with social evolution lead- former things passed away; a paradise beyond ing toward wholeness. In brief, the Self Path this life through surrender to God; nirvana, the works toward an expansion of identity from extinction of the separated self through union the egoic self, to the essential or higher self, to with the Field out of which all is arising. the universal self, the highest frequency of our These visions of the future that attracted being, until finally we expand our identity to prescientific humanity to go beyond the cur- include the Great Creating Process, the prime rent limits of human life are actually becoming agency of evolution as the source and momen- real through our capacity for conscious evolu- tum of our own existence. tion. Through the maturation of evolutionary In the Social Path of the Co-creator we start spirituality we can experience ever more direct with resonant circles of two or more individu- contact with Source, not only as Pure als who affirm the essential self as our true Awareness of the Eternal but also as the evolv- being, cultivating a field of nonjudgment and ing aspect of creation. We can, through the har- love. This field allows the essential self to monious use of our new technological become stabilized as the center of our being. capacities, transcend the limits of the conven- From there, we move toward co-creative cir- tional human condition, extending our lives, cles. These are little “multi-celled organisms,” exploring the universe—becoming a universal clusters of people joining center with center, co-creative species. The mystical visions of the heart with heart, to fulfill their lives’ purpose future can be reached out for, not as life after in a way that models the changes we would death, but as life after this stage of life. like to see in the world (Anderson and Roske Religions are now being “evolutionized” as 2001). Sri Aurobindo evolutionized Hinduism and Teilhard de Chardin evolutionized Catholicism. A Meta-religio? In my work as an evolutionary futurist, for example, I was inspired by a personal experi- I believe that evolutionary spirituality can foster ence to write an evolutionary interpretation of the maturation of the human species. It offers a the New Testament (Hubbard 1993). I discov- context for the unique contribution of every great ered that much of the New Testament is coded faith to the conscious evolution of humanity. It is evolution that could not be decoded until the child of all the traditions, born into the next stage human species could begin to attain actual of human evolution. This convergence into what powers of “gods.” Sidney Lanier (unpublished manuscript) called a For example, where St. Paul wrote “meta-religio” will form a new body of spiritual experience and practices, transcending yet Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all including the best of our traditions, affirming and sleep; but we shall all be changed in a moment, connecting what truly works to mature us in the twinkling of an eye. At the last trumpet, 340 World Future Review 6(3)

for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be settlement, overcoming aging, and many other raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 such radical breakthroughs. The spiritual texts Corinthians 15:51–55); of the past have prepared us, but we now must update the covenants. I wrote, New sacred scriptures will emerge from the experience of being co-creators as we learn to Behold, the mystery will soon be revealed. The restore this Earth, free ourselves from poverty time of transformation is at hand. The twinkling and disease, codesign new synergistic systems, of an eye, the trumpet’s last blare, comes for the transform “a terrible love of war” (Hillman 2004) person when the planet has reached its limits and to the passionate love of evolving ourselves, and is ready like an egg to give birth to its child. We explore the vast untapped domains of inner and humans, bodily children of Earth, will become outer space. These new writings will be the universal as we carry Earth’s body into the universe. In that environment, mammalian sacred scriptures of the early phases of universal bodies will soon perish. The new bodies will be conscious evolution. They are being written now formed by the intention to survive and grow in as the new covenants, coming through higher the new environments of a universe of infinite guidance and through discoveries at the forefront variety, magnificence and surprises. (p. 69) of the new physics, biology, psychology, and social innovations at the growing edge of human I see the life of Jesus as that of a future endeavor. human, a quantum jump toward what I am call- From the perspective of evolutionary spiri- ing a universal human. We can do the works that tuality, we are at the threshold of the emer- he did, and far greater works, when we learn gence of a universal humanity. We can become ethical conscious evolution. We can produce in capable of conscious ethical evolution, first on abundance; we can heal; we can resurrect sim- this planet, then in the solar system, and finally ple organisms from the “dead,” that is, from throughout the universe. We can reach ever- DNA; we can perform virgin births; we can cre- deeper understanding of and participation in ate holograms that appear real; we are studying the processes of creation until we become co- the possibility of teleportation; we can leave this creators on a universal scale. This is the prom- Earth and return alive, and so on. Our technolo- ise of evolutionary spirituality. gies are actually inventing real capacities to do what appeared to a prescientific age as “mira- Author’s Note cles.” Because the whole process of the rise of This article contains ideas updated and expanded the physical universe out of No Thing at All is a from material that first appeared as a chapter in the mystery, a “miracle,” is it possible that the book Evolutionary Epic: Science’s Story and apparently mythical stories are evolutionary Humanity’s Response, edited by Cheryl Genet, et forecasts and visions of what is actually to hap- al., Collins Foundation Press, 2009, 125–31. pen when we combine heart, mind, and spirit with radical evolutionary technologies that Declaration of Conflicting Interests transform the physical world? As we once The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of believed, so it can in fact become! interest with respect to the research, authorship, Revelation unfolds as evolution, not as and/or publication of this article. some future heaven or Utopia but as breakthroughs toward genuine newness, as once life Funding was new, or humans were new. The author(s) received no financial support for the All our religions were born before the threat research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. of environmental collapse or nuclear holo- caust. They all emerged before humanity References gained its unprecedented powers. None of Anderson, C., and K. Roske. 2001. The Co-creator’s them can tell us what to do about cloning, stem Handbook: An Experiential Guide for cell research, nonhuman intelligence, space Discovering Your Life Purpose and Building a Hubbard 341

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