FROM HOMO SAPIENS TO HOMO DIVINICUS

The evolutionary mutation of this moment

Dusan Stankovic

We are living at an extraordinary moment in history, a fundamental phase transition from one era of human evolution to another. The moment is critical and perilous, for like any species we live at the effect of the laws of evolution. If a species reaches a point where its collective behavioral patterns are maladaptive for its survival, then one of two things will happen. Our species will evolve in a more sustainable direction, or we will go extinct.

That inflection point is where are today; humanity’s collective behavioral patterns are literally maladaptive for our survival. The way we treat ourselves, the earth, and each other are so spiritually and morally out of alignment with the ways of our true nature, they represent a threat to our survival. From the systemic abuse of the earth to weapons of mass destruction hanging like a Sword of Damocles above us, our path ahead is increasingly perilous should we not fundamentally change direction. But can we, really? Can we change the suicidal patterns of our collective behavior in time to save ourselves? Can we interrupt our current trajectory and evolve to a higher state of being? Like any species that has strayed from a sustainable path, we face a choice between evolution or extinction.

We all learned as children how evolution works. An evolutionary leap, when it occurs, is accomplished through the introduction of a mutation. That’s when a member of an endangered species demonstrates a more sustainable way forward, creating an opening, a space of possibility for others to do the same. If enough other members of the species mimic the behavior of the mutation, the species can evolve and survive.

In what ways does humanity need to evolve today, and what would signify an evolutionary mutation? Our current evolutionary imperative is not merely physical, but spiritual. It’s not as though we need a sixth finger on each hand, or a set of eyes in the back of our head. The only physical aspect of humanity’s functioning that must change now is our brain. For to survive the next hundred years, we will need to learn to think differently. Collectively, it’s as though humanity has a mental disorder. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “The problem with the world is that humanity is not in its right mind.”

Albert Einstein asserted that we wouldn’t solve the problems of the world from the level of thinking we were at when we created them, and somewhere in our hearts we know that this is true. A mechanistic, rationalistic, soulless mindset we’ve inherited from previous centuries has taken us down a dangerous path. It has left us in a state where we are disconnected from ourselves, from nature, and from each other. It’s time to reclaim ethical and spiritual dimensions of life – not only personally, but collectively - without which human civilization might not survive.

I heard the late neuroscientist Dr. James Doty tell a story about a connecting link between the human brain and heart. He said that while we used to think of the brain as the intelligence center of the body, scientists now recognize a highway, a partnership of sorts, between brain and heart. That partnership - not the brain alone - forms the intelligence center of the body.

A needed partnership between brain and heart applies not only to the body, but to every aspect of our lives. In fact it applies to civilization itself. The brain without the heart can be brilliant, but it can also be brilliantly dangerous. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “Power without love is reckless and abusive, but love without power is sentimental and anemic.” The relationship between brain and heart is a yin and yang relationship between reason and spirituality, a partnership without which we will be incapable of saving ourselves. Spirituality is simply the path of the heart, and the heart, while nonrational, is not irrational. In A Course in Miracles it says, “Love restores reason and not the other way around.”

There is nothing rational about a path of species suicide, yet it can legitimately be argued that that is exactly what we are engaged in. Destroying our habitat, we will in time destroy ourselves. Spending more of our resources on ways to destroy others than on ways to make peace with each other, we are paving the way to our inevitable doom. And it’s not as though people aren’t feeling this. When as many young people as now choose not to have children because they feel it would be irresponsible to bring a younger generation into the world, we are very much in trouble.

But such a devolutionary path is not inevitable. We can still change our ways. We can indeed evolve. The evolutionary leap now needed is a shift to a higher state of love - a love that moves beyond mere personal interaction, becoming a large-scale force that animates our collective as well as individual behavior. It means moving from economic, social, and political systems of abuse and exploitation – whether of other people or of the earth itself – to systems that honor nature and display compassion for all sentient beings. It emerges from an understanding 1) that what we’re doing now is unsustainable, and 2) that another way is possible.

Some mock the idea as naïve, to suggest humanity could make love our new bottom line. I contend that what’s naïve is to assume humanity will even survive another hundred years if we don’t at least try.

There is currently an impulse to do that, and on a global scale. I’ve had many experiences around the world, and one thing that’s clear to me is that the people of the world are not the problem. The problem lies in economic, social, and political systems that too often suppress the angels of our better nature. And unfortunately, things are now getting worse and not better. Our common sense, our decency, and our respect for nature are too often muffled by technological, economic, and authoritarian forces that seek control and domination.

Humanity is at a fork in the road.

The solution is a critical mass of humanity adopting the ways of a spiritual mutation. Such a shift has been demonstrated by great saints, spiritual leaders, and religious figures throughout human history. In all its expressions, it represents a shift to the ways of radical love. Its message is inherent in the universal spiritual themes at the heart of the great religious and spiritual traditions of the world. Its highest expression is that we should love each other as we so love ourselves.

The evolutionary leap from an unsustainable to a sustainable path for humanity is a transition from Homo Sapiens to what I call Homo Divinicus. It means the spiritual awakening, or enlightenment, of the human race. Enough human beings will achieve a state of consciousness in which a thought system of fear and separation – the one now dominating the world - has been replaced by a thought system of unity and love. What’s important to remember is that this is our only survivable option. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “we will learn to live together as brothers or we will die together as fools.”

There is no broad stroke that is going to make this happen, no entity or institution that can declare it for the world. Rather, it is a process of awakening that arises within the individual. In A Course in Miracles, it says “In the Bible, it says that Adam fell asleep. But nowhere does it say that he woke up.” Well, he better wake up now. For in his sleep, he began dreaming. And our dreams have turned into nightmares.

That is the challenge that lies before us, and by accepting it for ourselves we accept it for the world. For every life is part of the whole. According to A Course in Miracles, there are no neutral thoughts; all thought creates form on some level. With every thought we think, we are either part of the devolutionary trend now headed for the abyss, or the evolutionary spiraling upwards into a new way of being on the planet.

Right now, we are at the effect of collective nightmares that an unconscious, soulless aspect of humanity has manifested upon the earth. But as it’s often said in Alcoholics Anonymous, “every problem comes bearing its own solution.” It could be said humanity is bottoming out right now, and most of us are feeling at the effect of the chaos. There is meaning in even this, however. This need not be the end. In fact it can be an era of a great rebirth, a great awakening, and a new evolutionary chapter. The question before each of us is, are we willing to change? The ways of the past are what got us here, they are not the ways that will redeem us.

We can learn to endure these times, to transcend them, and to transform them. A Course in Miracles says our problem is not that we do not believe in love, but that we do not believe in love only. From faith, from atonement, and from forgiveness, we will achieve powers we have not known before. With prayer and meditation we will expand our consciousness. We will use our minds the way they were created to be used: to serve the ways of love, with the purpose of healing the world. That is the evolutionary mutation of this moment. We will learn to think differently. And the world will be reborn.