There are two kinds of evolution. One kind of evolution is unconscious, and we know nothing about it whatsoever. We neither know what is happening nor why it is happening. Do you really know what you are doing, why you are doing it, what prompts you to act? You cannot even stop doing! You do not even know why you are doing what you are doing; some force, some destiny compels you.
Nature is unconscious evolution and God is conscious evolution. Man is the link between the two; man is how God is linked with nature.
Man is a creature of great dignity. Don’t toss this dignity off casually. You are the point where nature becomes divine, where nature is transformed into Godhood, where matter is transformed into consciousness, where form becomes formlessness, where shape becomes shapelessness. You are that link; your dignity is without limit.
At present your dignity is hidden in the womb of the future. You are a seed; you do not know your flowers yet. Nature is simply unconscious. It is a blind race, a blind journey. With man a new link begins, but you do not automatically become that link just because you have been born as a man. To become that link, to attain to that status, you will have to exert yourself consciously. The way in which you make that effort is through yoga, through tantra, through religion.
What is the meaning of yoga, of tantra, of religion? They mean only one thing. They mean that from now on you will no longer continue your journey blindfolded, that you will now move ahead with your eyes wide open, that you will now be aware of all your conscious activities, of where you are going, of why you are going somewhere. You will breathe consciously; when you walk you will even raise your legs consciously. You are now taking a jump beyond the blind race of nature. All that blind race does is bring you back to the point from whence you began your journey.
First the seed becomes the tree and then the tree becomes the seed. You are born, then you die, and then you are born again. It is a circle. The world is a wheel; it keeps on revolving and revolving. But you never seem to arrive anywhere.
Man must awaken; he must make this journey with full awareness. Nature brings you to the human state and now you will have to continue on your own. This is a tremendous responsibility and it worries you. This is why man is always so worried – in nature, nothing is worried. The animals and the birds and the trees and the stones and the streams are not worried. They have no cause for anxiety; they are unconscious of what is happening. Man is anxious because he sees clearly that, no matter what happens, it is inadequate. You feel that whatsoever you are it is not enough, that something is lacking. This feeling disturbs you, stabs at you like a thorn, and unless you become conscious, unless you become aware, it will harass you your whole life long.