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Involution, Evolution and the Pressure from Domains of Life and Mind · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We tend to take the development of life and mind for granted.
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  We do not actually reflect on what it takes for them to emerge
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  from matter. Many believe that somehow
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  various chemical elements in the material world are impacted by
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  the radiation from the sun and through the heat of the core of
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  the planet. To modify material substance,
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  recombine chemicals and voila, life and then mind will emerge.
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  Scientists are now finding various essential elements found
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  in biological entities on meteorites, and they have
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  discovered the presence of water on Mars, both of which
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  indicating that there are other potential causes to the
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  emergence of life here. Possibly it was brought here
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  from elsewhere, just as seeds of various plants are carried
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  across vast expanses of oceans to bring about trees and other
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  plant life on remote islands in our world.
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  However far we try to stretch the influence of matter as the
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  cause of life and mind, however, we always run up against the
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  issue of causality and the need for a force other than material
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  force to create life and mental activity.
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  It is telling that no one who has asserted that given enough
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  time, random mixing of the chemical elements of the world
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  will develop. Shakespeare, in fact, has
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  succeeded in creating life out of bare matter.
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  When we look at every living form, we see that the
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  information required to build it and energize it is contained in
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  seed form, an encoded data set if you will.
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  We can now map and analyze the entire genome of certain
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  species, but have still been unable to find a way to turn
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  matter into life even with this understanding.
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  Charles Darwin, in describing the evolution of species, skips
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  over this initial issue and starts with life forms and how
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  they develop and are modified, mutated, and adjusted over time
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  due to the principle of survival of the fittest.
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  Essentially that those that are better adjusted to their
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  circumstances tend to survive and thrive, and those that are
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  not tend to die off and not be perpetuated.
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  The definition of the fittest is thus directly tied to
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  circumstances. In today's world, that
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  definition would be vastly different than in the world of
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  the Neanderthal, for instance. The qualities are transmitted
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  through the genetic code. Researchers in genetics have
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  found that certain characteristics perpetuate as
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  dominant and others as recessive.
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  Over time. Both.
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  Natural selection takes place which combines genetic material
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  from the parents into a new variation, and which tends to
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  favor those that are the fittest in that environment to
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  reproduce, and mutation play a role in bringing about change.
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  Mutation can be caused by external factors such as
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  radiation, as well as other causes.
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  Mutation can be beneficial to the survival of the species, or
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  detrimental depending on what it takes for its actual form.
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  The question still arises as to how this all occurs.
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  Shriorobindo has noted that nothing can evolve that has not
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  been previously involved in matter.
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  This is akin to the encoding of a data set within certain forms
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  of matter such that it can express life and under the right
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  circumstances, in the correct developed forms.
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  The powers of mine. In order to be involved,
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  however, they must come from elsewhere, and for this we then
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  have to appreciate the existence of independent worlds or domains
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  of life and mind that act within their own sphere and which then
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  imprint impacts into the material world.
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  There then comes about both the possibility and the necessity of
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  a dual action. In order to create the world as
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  we know it, there needs to be the internal pressure from
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  within to manifest the encoded data, and there must be a
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  pressure from the native planes, which are the source of that
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  encoding, to support and further that action when the time and
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  circumstances are favourable, Shuyorobindo writes.
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  Quote. Our material world is the result
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  of all the others, for the other principles have all descended
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  into matter to create the physical universe, and every
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  particle of what we call matter contains all of them implicit in
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  itself. Their secret action is involved
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  in every moment of its existence and every movement of its
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  activity. And as matter is the last word
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  of the descent, so it is also the first word of the ascent.
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  As the powers of all these planes, worlds, grades, degrees
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  are involved in the material existence, so are they all
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  capable of evolution out of it. It is for this reason that
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  material being does not begin and end with gases and chemical
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  compounds and physical forces and movements with nebulae and
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  Suns and earths, but evolves. Life evolves, mind must evolve
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  eventually. Supermind and the higher degrees
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  of the spiritual existence. Evolution comes by the unceasing
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  pressure of the supra material planes on the material,
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  compelling it to deliver out of itself their principles and
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  powers, which might conceivably otherwise have slept imprisoned
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  in the rigidity of the material formula.
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  This would Even so have been improbable, since their presence
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  there implies a purpose of deliverance, but still this
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  necessity from below is actually very much aided by a kindred
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  superior pressure. End Quote.
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  Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of
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  Life, Chapter 6. Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary
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  Forces, pages 146 to 147.