There is the way things are (for now) and there is the ideal end-state: the way things would be if we humans filled our potential. That end-state lies in the future (for now). We are currently—and always have been—on the way toward that ideal end-state, and we are now able to move ourselves toward it more rapidly because of our increased understanding (science and spirituality) and technology (communication and computation).
Our movement toward the ideal end-state is an evolutionary process, and it appears to be both the purpose and the thrust of evolution, even from the beginning of the physical universe (apparently about 13.5 billion years ago). It is as if the ideal end-state had been pictured at the very beginning—at Creation, by the Creator—and everything that has happened since then has tended to bring it to pass, little by little. We stand here, now, nearly at the end of this unimaginably long process of change.
The ideal end-state appears to be the reason for physical existence itself—and we’re almost there.
Until now, evolution has been guided by the indwelling, instinctual “reactive” mind, which we associate with physical/chemical laws and plant/animal behavior. This mind operates as a stimulus-response mechanism, “merely” causing matter to react to its environment, at all levels of existence—from particles and waves, to atoms and molecules, to cells and organisms. (This is a huge, nutshell simplification.) This reactive mind still guides the behavior and development of plants and animals, even as their responses to environmental changes become more complex.
With the advent of the human “analytical” mind, however (and humans’ new awareness of their power as they learn to operate from this new mind), for the first time, our own evolution is within our control. This is because, although we still have and operate from the inborn reactive mind, we are uniquely able to overcome it and to choose to operate from our (much more powerful) analytical mind. This changes everything! It makes us, effectively, new creatures.
Notwithstanding our position as newly able determiners of our own development, the purpose of evolution remains the same: the creation of an ideal end-state, in which the qualities and attributes of Life/Mind/Spirit are expressed fully in a physical being.
You could say that, from the very beginning, Spirit has wanted to walk the Earth—free to be Itself, completely Self-determined, and unencumbered by the residue of the animal nature (the reactive mind, negativity, harm, the ego, or the false self) that we are even now working to overcome. This is what spiritual people mean when they say that humans are potentially gods. We are a step on the way to that ideal end-state. That’s one reason why we are here.
Those of us who have awakened to the potential we have as human beings look toward this end-state, even as we struggle to free ourselves completely from the reactive mind’s grasp. We seek to embody spiritual qualities, which we become aware of as a natural consequence of breaking free from the reactive mind and the past pain and failures it contains.
This reactive-mind negativity burdens us unnecessarily, holds us in destructive patterns of thinking and behaving, and keeps us from learning who we really are and what we really can do. But its hold on us ends when we realize our power to drop it—and we drop it. (Knowing, thinking, or believing isn’t enough. You have to act. You have to do. “Faith without works is dead!”)
The way things are is the way they must be, for now, in this time, because evolution (with only the reactive mind to guide it) has brought us to this point. We have no say in the way things have been until now. Yet, obviously, we have not arrived at the ideal end-state. Bringing it to pass will entail understanding, identifying, and correcting the many problems now plaguing humanity and individual humans (you and me).
We are the corrective mechanism whereby humanity’s ills must be eradicated. The keys of our growth have been handed to us. We are now the agents of our own evolution—collectively and individually. That’s why we’re here, in this time and place, with these particular problems to solve: so we don’t pass them on.
It is up to us to clean up the mess we inherited and look forward to a better future. If not us, then who?