=1 "All our problems are problems of evolution"

All our problems are problems of evolution

by The Editors

All our problems, without exception, are problems of evolution. Some kinds of behaviour, which seemed admirable to our forefathers, appear in our consciousness as ugly or detestable and will eventually disappear by the simple fact of becoming absurd. They become a problem only at that moment when man and the evolutionary force in him decide: “Now it's time for that to go.” Prior to that time they are accepted, but now they loom into our awareness as if they were saying, “Come on, do away with us.”

And this awareness in itself is sufficient. Such problems can't stand the searchlight of our consciousness. We don't have to write a book or found a society or organize a new front. If we get rid of them in ourselves they will disappear automatically in others too.

Up to now evolution has worked quite successfully. It is true that when we become conscious of the procedure there will be less friction, no more wars or revolutions, only smooth evolution. And if evolution seems too slow, perhaps the best way to speed it up is to become conscious of it. But we are impatient, we have to preach cooperation, we have to rub it in, and that only creates resistance in the fellow who is less evolved. Evolution will take care of him too if we let it. A quiet acknowledgment, a tranquil doing of the needful, a natural acquiescence rather than an excited push, and look, the problem is gone!

How often we start a bloody war for something which is already decided and which will come naturally by itself if we give it time. In most cases there is no need to worry or interfere. Evolution has two aspects. Seen from the outside it is an endless series of succeeding forms, one evolving out of another. But, when we meet evolution in our own lives, from inside, we see it differently. There it is as if a burning searchlight were pointing out the weaknesses, the atavism, the heritage which does not fit any more, the things which have to be changed or overcome. When this burning search grows conscious, evolution has become yoga.