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Our personal beliefs affect our personal reality. But there is something more profound to learn—humanity’s collective beliefs of a culture or society also affect our personal biology and behavior.
Some humans are beginning to recognize that our current collective beliefs are detrimental, as our world is in a very precarious position; such as belief in excess, in progress, in economic growth, in nationalism/factionalism, etc. Greater Awareness What can lead us to greater awareness? One path is through developing and realizing connections with Nature. Being open to questioning these dominant beliefs can lead us to learn from natural processes why our behaviors towards the natural world and its resources have caused changes in our climate, clean water and air, and even humanity itself. Understanding the harm much of humanity has caused begins to give us the wisdom to seek a way forward out of these harmful beliefs and actions. It offers us a path to transforming humanity’s relationship to the environment and to all earth beings for a gentler, more mutually supportive future. Let’s look for a moment at a telling of our life’s history on Earth as a love story from Spontaneous Evolution, a book by Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman: “This is a love story for the entire Universe—for you, me and every living organism. Act 1 opened billions of years ago when a wave of light from the sun collided with a particle of matter. That spark of love between Father Sun and Mother Earth gave birth to a child on this blue-green spheroid. That precious child called life has made Earth its playground ever since, multiplying into an endless array of magnificent forms. Some of those forms are with us today, but many more have become extinct and will never be known. The curtain rose on Act 2 of this love story some 700 million years ago when certain single-celled organisms decided they’d had it with single life. Realizing they couldn’t live alone they turned to one another and said (in whatever primal language single cells speaks) “Baby, I need your lovin’.” And thus, the multicellular organism was created. Act 3 began over a million years ago when the multicellular organisms evolved into the first consciously aware humans to arrive on the scene. With consciousness, life was able to observe itself, reflect, and create its own future. Life could experience and appreciate love and joy. Life could even laugh at itself and, eventually, come to write books like the one you hold in your hands. Act 4 traces the evolution of human clans who joined forces and carved the globe into nation-states. At the present time, we find ourselves near the closing moments of this act, wondering if the play ends here, like a Greek tragedy that always ends badly. Looking at our chaotic world of human dysfunction and environmental crisis, we seem to be headed for an incredible train wreck. Fortunately for us, the Greeks also had five-act plays—these were comedies filled with laughter, joy, happiness, and love. 
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Our book, Spontaneous Evolution, is a story about how we can safely navigate from Act 4 to Act 5. The good news is that biology and evolution are on our side.
Inherent within all living organisms is an innate drive to survive, known by science as the biological imperative. Contrary to what conventional science and religion have been telling us, evolution is neither random nor predetermined but rather an intelligent dance between organism and environment. When conditions are ripe—either through crisis or opportunity—something unpredictable happens to bring the biosphere into a new balance at a higher level of coherence [with or without us]… …At the current time, many people find themselves transfixed by disturbing symptoms that seem to mark civilization’s devolution. However, this myopic focus distracts us from seeing the Light in the darkness. Whether you call the Light love or knowledge, its flame grows brighter each day. The Light reveals that civilization is in a birthing process as the old way of life falls away and a new one emerges… …If you find it hard to imagine that we can ever get from the crises that we are facing now to be a more loving and functional world, consider the tale of a caterpillar’s world in transition. Imagine you are a single cell among millions that comprise a growing caterpillar. The structure around you has been operating like a well-oiled machine, and the larva world has been creeping along predictably. Then one day, the machine begins to shudder and shake. The system begins to fail. Cells begin to commit suicide. There is a sense of darkness and impending doom. From within the dying population, a new breed of cells begins to emerge, called imaginal cells. Clustering in community, they devise a plan to create something entirely new from the wreckage. Out of the decay arises a great flying machine—a butterfly—that enables the surviving cells to escape from the ashes and experience a beautiful world, far beyond imagination. Here is the amazing thing: the caterpillar and the butterfly have the exact same DNA. They are the same organism but are receiving and responding to a different organizing signal. That is where we are today. When we read the newspaper and watch the evening news, we see the media reporting a caterpillar world. And yet everywhere, human imaginal cells are awakening to a new possibility. They are clustering, communicating, and turning into a new, coherent signal of love… …Chances are you are among the evolutionary imaginal cells who are contributing to the birth of this new version of humanity. Although it may not seem evident now, the future is in our hands. To secure that future, we must empower ourselves with the knowledge of who we truly are. With a firm understanding of how our programming shapes our lives and the knowledge necessary to change that programming, we can rewrite our destiny. Spontaneous Evolution introduces the notion that a miraculous healing awaits this planet once we accept our new responsibility to collectively tend the Garden rather than fight over the turf. When a critical mass of people truly own this belief in their hearts and minds and actually begin living from this truth, our world will emerge from the darkness in what will amount to a spontaneous evolution. By the time you finish Spontaneous Evolution, we hope you will have a better understanding of past programming, current knowledge, and future possibilities. Most importantly, you will see how all of us can change our programming, our own and civilization’s, to create the world we’ve always dreamed is possible.” —from Spontaneous Evolution by Bruce Lipton & Steve Bhaerman |
