I will totally understand if this post seems way too much for consumption, which is why I chose a completely unrelated photo of the 2026 Chanel runway show that was, in essence, simply breathtaking and beautiful not because I didn’t think the actual content would draw many, but I felt it important, nonetheless, to create a foundation to accentuate how important “choice” is to the ability to live on a higher plane. It is rooted in the very fabric of evolution itself, God’s amazing blueprint (which in my mind is as ethereal and beautiful as what was shown on the runway) for the culmination of our efforts moving toward the Kingdom of Heaven.

Teilhard taught that once humanity evolved into a being capable of reflective thought, and because of the limitation of our small planet and their close proximity to each other, the result was the establishment of the noosphere: a geological layer of consciousness and information that enveloped the Earth (the without). Humankind succeeded in stretching a single organized membrane of reflective thought, a new binding force (see prior post) And yet, since everything that evolves has the “without” as well as a “within” we must also understand what the “within” of the noosphere looks like. The world’s future now rests in humanities hands toward an unlimited future or its annihilation, a feat in which they must not falter, and there are, according to Teilhard only two ways to go: isolation and uniformity, or a coalescence of all human elements and the coming together of the branches of humankind where we all contribute to the unification of our world. Humanities first reflex, though, as they increased in number in a limited space, often lead them to seek fulfillment in isolationism and uniformity because of some inherent survival instinct that inclined humanity to think that to “increase one’s personal being” they must remove themselves as far as possible from the crowd of “others”. Survival of the fittest may be imbedded into life forms that don’t have the gift of reflective thought, but for humans…well Teilhard puts it this way:

Unique in this respect among all the energies of the universe, consciousness is a dimension to which it is inconceivable, and even contradictory, to ascribe a ceiling or suppose it can double back upon itself. There are innumerable critical points on the way, but a halt or reversion is impossible, and for the simple reason that every increase of internal vision is essentially the germ of a further vision which includes all the others and carries still farther on. Hence this remarkable situation…that our mind, by the very fact of being able to discern infinite horizons ahead, is only able to move by the hope of achieving, through something of itself, a supreme consummation- without which it would rightly feel itself to be stunted, frustrated, and cheated. After the long series of transformations leading to humanity, has the world stopped? Or, if we are still moving, is it not going in a circle? Either nature is closed to our demands for futurity, in which case thought, the fruit of millions of years of effort, is stifled, stillborn in a self-abortive and absurd universe…or else an opening exists-that of the “super-soul” above our souls: but in that case, the way out-if we are to agree to embark upon it-must open out freely onto limitless spiritual spaces in a universe to which we can entrust ourselves without hesitation. First: that there is for us, in the future, under some form of another (at least collectively) not only survival, but a superior form of existence. Secondly: to imagine, discover, and reach this “super life”, we have only to walk in the direction in which the lines passed by evolution take on their maximum coherence. (In other words, where consciousness is at its greatest.) Between nature being closed (pessimism) and the super-soul (optimism), there is no middle way because, by its very nature, progress is all or nothing. We are confronted accordingly, with two directions, and only two: one downwards, and the other upwards, and there is no possibility of finding a halfway house.

I know the above quote is pretty heavy, so let me try and break it up a bit. For humans, while all three rules of evolution still apply: unity, plurality and energy, there is something operating at a different level that has not happened before in the levels of evolution below humans. So while individual humans are identical in that they are “thinking” units, it is important to remember that they are also highly individual, i.e. different parts of a body. And like parts of the body, their individuality means nothing in isolation or uniformity because we are all connected, related to each other, but each performing a different function. Perhaps if humanity evolved in an unlimited space, humans never would have reached the necessary saturated state to burst forth into something new. But because they evolved in a limited space, human elements had to infiltrate more and more into each other, their minds mutually stimulated by close proximity. Each person, then, extends, their influence upon the earth and the earth in effect shrinks steadily. The pressure of proximity combined with the nature of our thinking souls to coalesce causes the radial energy (which is directional) of consciousness to concentrate toward a “super consciousness”, or what we come to understand as the “within” of the noosphere.

An extreme example of the lower polarity that has occurred throughout history is the doctrine that seeks to elevate one group or race to a position of superiority…and we all know how this system turned out. So why did Teilhard believe that isolation is a blind alley to be avoided? He believed this because, like evolution prior to reflective thought, where each molecule behaved in an almost uniform way, to animals who behave in a way to instinctively survive, humanity being capable of reflective thought, was therefore capable of not only planning their own actions, but planning the future as well. Humans cannot blindly react to the kind of animal behaviors such as birth, death and reproductive function that ruled their primitive selves, but instead must assimilate those basic functions and transform them with intelligent meaning and moral value.

All in all, ultimately the choice about “what” we do in the real world, is rooted in “how” we do it in the real world…and that is where, for me anyway, the power of love comes in and what moves us to living on a higher plane. As much as I’ve spoken about what “love” is and how it defines us, instead of the other way around…the choice for how to move ahead will always be rooted in the information that is disseminated to every individual in the noosphere, (the physical envelope of conscious thought) and how to check the veracity of that plethora of information to achieve the true essence of building the super consciousness (the Omega Point) that will move us forward. Because to root a choice in something, while proclaimed to be a truth, but is in reality is something less, will ultimately inhibit the body to move functionally forward, regardless of the desire to do so. All this I will delve into further at a later date…but for Teilhard, Jesus and a host of others, what drives the choices we make must be rooted in accurate and factual information, and the understanding that none of us are separate entities and it is only collectively using all our gifts, that any evolution can happen. The power of that choice is everything.