Daily Wisdom Post, Eros of Evolution

The Eros of evolution is love. Seen from the outside, it is what Erich Jantsch refers to as “self-organization through self-transcendence.” The individual “self” of an atom trance-ends itself. The trance of separation is broken, and the individual atom organizes itself as part of a larger molecule. A new identity as a molecule is formed even as the old identity as an atom is not lost. Rather, the core mechanism of self-organization through self-transcendence is “transcend and include.” The atom transcends itself to a higher level of complexity, even as its core identity is not lost, but rather expanded and evolved. It is this internal drive within matter that, according to Jantsch and many other leading-edge theorists, moves evolution to ever-higher unions, through ever-higher levels of complexity. From quarks to atoms to cells to molecules, onward and upward Teilhard de Chardin, Abraham Kook, and many other evolutionary mystics point out that complexity is but the outside view. The interior–not addressed by Jantsch or any of the chaos theorists–reveals that the higher the level of outer physical complexity, the more evolved the inner depth of consciousness. What emerges is that the movement of evolution is the movement to ever-higher levels of complexity and consciousness. At this point, the eye of the mind has reached its limits. Now, a new faculty of perception enters our conversation, what the Christian mystics called the “eye of the spirit,” what the Sufi teacher Rumi called the “eye of the heart,” and what Hebrew mystics called the “hidden eye.” The eye of the spirit, deployed throughout recorded time by the great realizers in all the traditions, in a great double-blind experiment of spirit, always revealed the same inner picture. The eye of the spirit sees clearly that the inner fabric of consciousness is none other than love. It would therefore be entirely accurate to say that the Eros of evolution is none other than the force of love.

Your Unique Self (in press)
Dr. Marc Gafni
Pages 110, 111

For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org