Human beings have no idea that leading an idle, frivolous life can actually be very dangerous. All kinds of physical and psychological diseases are just waiting for the right moment to infiltrate and multiply. Cosmic intelligence did not intend humans, who are so marvellously conceived and created, to spend their life dozy and half asleep. On the contrary, humans are destined to make constant progress on the path of evolution until they reach the level of the angels until they reach God himself.

In point of fact, humans are not the only creature to be governed by the law of evolution. Every realm in creation, whether mineral, vegetable, animal or human, tends to evolve in a direction which is a step above its own.

Stones have been on earth longer than any other form of existence. They are inert, without feeling, without means of locomotion or growth. Their ideal, therefore, is to become plants.

The ideal of plants is to become animals. They are tied to the ground by their roots and can neither move nor feel things as animals can, and their ambition is to free themselves from the soil and move about. But there is one way in which their cells can evolve and that is by being assimilated into an animal’s body: plants have no other way of evolving than by sacrificing themselves and allowing themselves to be eaten or burned.

The ideal of animals is to become human beings endowed with reason.

The ideal of human beings is to become angels, and that of angels is to become archangels or divinities. On the ascending scale of evolution, each category of beings possesses qualities which the one below it does not have, and each one endeavours to reach beyond its own level, to approach the level of those above it.

But man can only rise to the level of the angels through fire, the fire of sacrifice.

To be continued…

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Izvor Book 219, Man’s Subtle Bodies and Centres
Chapter 1, Human Evolution