The Involution of Consciousness Precedes the Evolution of Consciousness

0:00 We speak about the universal manifestation either as some kind of creation by Fiat of an all powerful God who simply made everything the way it is and said it is good, or else as an evolution of life out of matter and mind out of life in an ascending scale of consciousness and eventually self-awareness. We rarely consider the implications of either of these approaches to the source and origination of our existence. The Creator God, manifesting everything as it is and should be, creates a universe that is unable to grow and evolve as that would imply that the initial creation was neither perfect nor finished. How can a perfect creation be made more perfect? Those who follow this belief system try to deny evolution, the fossil record, and the development that has taken place over time with the belief that accepting the truth of evolution somehow diminishes the power of God. There is a potential solution that implies both divine creation of the universe and an evolutionary development if we look on the initial creation as a seed of what would eventually develop, just as an oak tree can grow out of an acorn in our own experience.

1:29 If we then turn our attention to the people who believe in evolution of forms, they do not quite get to the point of acknowledging that the evolution had to come from somewhere. It may or may not have been the result of an all powerful creator God, which many evolution based views tend to reject. Believing that somehow belief in a creator God will diminish the facts of evolution itself or else they do not get to the first causes or the fact that nothing can evolve that was not previously involved. We come back once again to the material basis holding within itself involved the later development and growth of consciousness through simple life forms, more complex life forms, mental expression, the development of the higher reason, and eventually yet further manifestations of consciousness as the evolution continues.

2:33 Those who believe in evolution out of matter may hold that it occurred purely as a random development of the moving of chemical and physical forces, but this begs the question of how anything can evolve that was not implied, and how that implied development came about in the 1st place. Where did the matter come from that led to these random evolutionary developments? There is no answer from those who believe in random chance creating consciousness out of inconscient matter. Srioro Bindo explains that nothing can evolve that is not previously involved. He references the Veda and Upanishads to show that matter is the condensed form of consciousness and energy that solidifies consciousness into form, and that just as energy can be liberated out of matter, as Einstein so famously pointed out in his equation E equals MC squared, so also consciousness eventually is liberated out of matter in the process of evolution. The first 'cause is the universal consciousness, that itself is the container and the contained, the doer and the deed, the knowledge and the known, the intelligence that descends into the material creation and then develops the play of consciousness that we experience from our own limited perspective.

4:06 Shriorbindo writes in his epic poem Savitri, a legend and a symbol quote. This seed self sown in the indeterminate, forfeits its glory of divinity, concealing the omnipotence of its force, concealing the omniscience of its soul, an agent of its own transcendent will. It merges knowledge in the inconsiant deep, accepting error, sorrow, death and pain. It pays the ransom of the ignorant night, redeeming by its substance Nature's fall.

4:47 End Quote. Book 3 Canto 3 reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the psychic being soul, its nature, mission and evolution. Section 2. Role, function and action of the Psychic. Page 46.