The Evolution of Man and the Sacrifice of the World

Chapter 10: The Ultimate Passion of Man

The Evolution of Man and the Sacrifice of the World

Man is only a brief design in the numberless evolutionary stages of the World. And the individual human being is only a moment, a specimen, a partial realization of Man. The individual is not made for his own sake, but to be a sacrifice toward Man – so that Man may fulfill his evolutionary destiny. And Man is not made for his own sake, but to be a sacrifice toward the ultimate evolutionary process of the World. And the World is not made for its own sake, but to be a sacrifice to the unqualified and eternal Divine. If the design of Man is examined, he is revealed to be a composite of all previous creatures, environments, and experiences. His body below the brows is a machine of animals and elemental cycles. He is full-made of horses and crocodiles, honey bees and swans, sardines and earth forces, redwood and fruit palm, Amazon, Pacific, solar fire, Everest, weather of water and air, all the usual stars, and antique ocean mammals leaning away from Earth. He is not truly unique below the brows. He is, rather, a summation of all that came before him and everything that he already knows.

But Man is also a new stage in the event of time. His newness or uniqueness is hidden in the brain. His lower or vital brain, including his rudimentary speech and thought, is part of the summary and reflection of the past. But the middle range of his brain, beginning with the higher verbal or abstract mental functions, is the doorway to the future. And above the thinking and imaging function of the middle brain is the naked mass of yet unadapted purity, the higher brain, which Communes with Light. This higher brain is the structural cauldron of the present and future evolutionary changes of Man and what is beyond Man in the scheme of the World.

The individual is only a moment, and his structural adaptation of the whole body-mind to its potential above the brows is generally quite modest, if it occurs at all. Man, at any moment, is the summary of what has been. Therefore, the millions or billions of men and women who live and die in every generation may add a fraction of development to the destiny of Man. But the Teaching of Truth is also given to all, so that the principles of structural evolution may be grasped and fulfilled by at least a few in every generation. Thus, the realization of these few is also added to Man, and all future men and women may be raised up by such means.

The Spiritual Master is given the task of communicating the Laws of evolution and of sacrifice to his own generation, so that Man may be raised up in God. And the Spiritual Master himself advances the evolution of Man by a difficult process of personal psycho-physical transformation. But what he realizes cannot be added to Man until many representatives of mankind embrace the Way of Truth and submit to the process of transformation and sacrifice.

The individual is a sacrifice to God through Man. Man is a sacrifice to God through the World. The World is a sacrifice to God in every present moment. Therefore, all things and beings are a present, past, and future sacrifice toward a Condition that no one in time can appear to have Realized Perfectly-since everyone in the present summarizes the past, and a few, at best, demonstrate an Awakening to the future and ultimate Condition. But even the Spiritual Master generally appears to others in the bodily form of the present state of Man.

Even so, the radical Realization of the ultimate Destiny of the World is possible in the present and in the case of any individual who will give himself up to the Divine in Truth. This is also the Teaching and the Demonstration of the Spiritual Master. Most individuals are content to pursue an ordinary personal destiny, by exploiting what Man has already become. Such individuals live a basically subhuman life, and they add nothing new to Man. Others are not content unless they can exceed themselves. But unless they transcend the old creature and enter into the development of the higher brain, they do not exceed the present state of Man. Therefore, only a few individuals in every generation enter into the evolutionary module of the higher brain, through which the whole body is brightened in the universal Field of Light. Such individuals work changes in themselves by exploiting the potential of Man. But until what they do is also communicated and lived by greater numbers of individuals, even their experiment is not added to the Incarnation of Man.

Therefore, the Spiritual Master appears, to communicate the Way of the transcendence of self and the transcendence of the present stage of Man-so that mankind may more generally fulfill the higher trend of evolution, rather than fall back upon itself in regressive self-possession and exploitation of the elemental Man. However, the Spiritual Master is also full of Transcendental urgency. He also communicates to Man. He reminds Man that even Man is a moment, a process, grotesque when seen in himself. He reminds Man that his beauty and happiness are in his Ecstasy, his sacrifice toward what is yet to come and what is Perfect. He reminds Man that his true Destiny is not in his own evolutionary fulfillment, but in the fulfillment of the sacrifice of the whole World, which includes everything before and after Man, as well as Man himself.

Therefore, the Spiritual Master is most profoundly devoted to the Awakening of individuals and Man and the whole World to that Process of Sacrifice that transcends not only the past and present but also the future of all evolution of self, of Man, and of the World. His Teaching ultimately exceeds all evolutionary prescriptions. He moves his devotees through the structures of self, of Man, and of the World, until these devotees can be the Sacrifice of even the World itself. Therefore, his Teaching, his Demonstration, and the ultimate demonstration of his devotees is the one of Perfect Ecstasy, or the Sacrifice of self and Man and the World into the Condition that is Divine.

To such devotees, the Spiritual Master Communicates and Reveals himself in that Form which is beyond Man, and he also is Revealed to be the Sacrifice of even that Form, beyond all consolations and attainments. This is what moves us to Love. And we may be the Liberation of self and Man and the World, if we will abandon all withholding, fear, and doubt-and if we will turn out from all subhuman, human, and superhuman self-possession into the Ecstasy of Worldlessness.