The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [45]
UNIVERSAL
8. Evolution develops survival traits that perfectly match the environment.
PERSONAL
8. If you open yourself to the force of evolution, it will carry you where you want to go.
Adaptation is a miraculous thing because it proceeds by quantum leaps. When some ancestral dinosaurs developed feathers, they hit upon an adaptation that would be perfect for winged flight. The cells on the outside of their bodies, which were hard and scaly, were useful as armor, but could not contribute to soaring aloft. It’s as if evolution set itself a new problem and then took a creative leap to get there. The old use of scales was abandoned for a new world of winged flight (and those same scales would take a leap in a different direction when they turned into hair, allowing the development of furry mammals). Science and religion both worry about this. Science doesn’t like the notion that evolution knows where it’s going; Darwinian mutations are supposed to be random. Religion doesn’t like the notion that God’s perfect creation changes when something new is needed. Yet this is a case where explanations have taken a backseat. Without a doubt, the physical world adapts itself by creative leaps that take place at a deeper level—call this level genetic or conscious, as you will.
UNIVERSAL
9. Chaos serves evolution.
PERSONAL
9. The fragmented mind cannot get you to unity, but you have to use it along the way.
Swirling chaos is a reality, but so is order and growth. Which is dominant? Science has yet to arrive at a conclusion because more than 90 percent of the physical universe is composed of mysterious dark matter. Since it has yet to be observed, it’s an open question what the fate of the cosmos might be. Religion is firmly on the side of order, for the simple reason that God made the world out of chaos. According to science, there is a delicate balance between creation and destruction, with billions of years having elapsed in the maintenance of that balance. However, since cosmic forces on a huge scale haven’t been able to rip apart the delicate fabric that wove the beginnings of life, a reasonable person might conclude that evolution is using chaos the way a painter uses the jumbled colors in his box. On the personal level, you can’t reach unity while you’re ruled by the whirling of thoughts and impulses in your head, but still you can use your mind to find its own source. Unity is the hidden purpose that evolution is working toward, using the fragmented mind as a tool along the way. Like the cosmos, the surface of the mind looks chaotic, but there is a tidal pool of progress at work beneath.
UNIVERSAL
10. Many invisible levels are enveloped in the physical world.
PERSONAL
10. You are living in many dimensions at once; the appearance of being trapped in time and space is an illusion.
With all their hearts, the early quantum pioneers, including Einstein, did not want to create new dimensions beyond time and space. They wanted to explain the universe as it appeared. Yet the current superstring theories that descended from Einstein use at least eleven dimensions to explain the visible world. Religion has always held that God inhabits a world beyond the five senses; science needs the same transcendent realm to explain how particles separated by billions of light years could act like mirror twins, how light can behave as both particle and wave, and how black holes can transfer matter beyond the clutches of gravity and time. Ultimately, the existence of multidimensions is irrefutable. At the simplest level, there