Evolution's New Meme: Survival of the Nicest!

Last week I got this month's copy of YES magazine and on the cover was an article with this title, New Theory of Evolution, Survival of the Nicest. I immediately smiled and although I haven't read the article yet I know very well what they are talking about. I will read it soon, but I am drawn to write out my own understanding of what this is about, informed by the Evolutionary studies I have been doing since late 2011.

The wonderful news is that for evolution to go forward we really will need to start living by new ethics, new memes. Memes are deep-seated beliefs within an individual and then within a group of individuals which then create culture. Memes are often not even questioned by those in the society, but rather are accepted as "the way things are", or as "the way things should be, for everyone." Many of the memes of our current understanding of evolution include that only the fit survive, only the strongest, toughest or most competitive live on. Other memes around evolution are that evolution happened long ago, when apes became people at some distant time millions of years ago. Or that evolution isn't really happening any more, rather it is humanity that is now driving the course of the planet's future. Still other, more prevalent memes today include the idea that America is the world's greatest nation, and it is dedicated to the freedom of other nations, (no matter how we accomplish that)! Or the idea that our behavior in the global scene is always benevolent.

Well it's time for some new memes to start growing in the collective psyche of humanity, memes that will help us create a more environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling way of being for us and for the next many generations. The Pachamama Alliance has coined these core values and I am happy to share their exact wording because they sum it up beautifully; an environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling way of being for all people, creatures and life in the biosphere of Earth. Wonderful, I can live for that!

Enter New Meme - Survival of the Nicest. Until we are willing to start re-defining how we want our culture and global relationships to look, we won't be able to co-create, together, a new ethic amongst ourselves. Evolution has shown us that actually it is not the most competitive societies that have survived, it is those groups of people who were the most cooperative that survived. This new meme is about creating more community with one another, pooling our genius and talents for the benefit of the Greater Good, and celebrating kindness, compassion, generosity and open-hearted service. The meme is about gathering our different strengths and using them in complimentary ways so that we spiral upward toward new possibilities, new solutions and a higher state of consciousness. And this new meme is showing up all over the planet, in wonderful and amazing organizations, projects, communities and businesses already! And it only takes our willingness to define culture by those values! Yes there is personal work involved in identifying and then letting go of old beliefs, but that is the journey of conscious evolution and that is our gift to each other and to future generations! And it is a blessing to participate in life where we uplift each other and bring our love and kindness as gifts to one another.

The surprising thing is that these "values", these more loving ethics, have been around for thousands of years. "Survival of the Nicest" actually has gotten us here today. Religions over the past 5,000 years have encouraged people to live with more kindness, love, compassion and generosity. So how is this new meme different now? Well it is not any different than what has been taught and encouraged by all of the great world religions, and countless spiritually enlightened people. But now, theses values are evolving away from being connected to some religious teaching, which often has other, even negative, consequences if those values are not lived. As things have been evolving, including religions, so has the spiritual nature of humanity that transcends those religions. The spiritual nature of each of us comes with the original hardware, so to speak. The spiritual nature of each of us knows that love is the truest and most fulfilling way to be, love in all of its many colors and forms. But we are still evolving our willingness and our conscious choice to live from that understanding. And heavens knows there have been, and still are, many detour options on the path of life that detract us from remaining steadfast to those higher vibrations of human expression, detour options like judgement, prejudice, selfishness, greed and ignorance in general.

So, we're upgrading the software of humanity, like never before! We're upgrading to "Windows Nicest", or to "Mac OS C (for Consciousness)". We've never before had instant communication, world travel, or global friends like we do today. We've also never had a more evolved group of spiritual, but often not religious, people on the planet either, who share a common and broad understanding of these values of Survival of the Nicest, and who are beyond arguing about which exact teacher or prophet, or which exact name for God, or nation even, is the "right" one. The new program doesn't even recognize those differences. The coding has changed so that the user doesn't even have the option of those arguments! Thank God. Time to upgrade not only the software, but the hardware too!

Enter Universal Humanity...


Written by Sharon Gonzalez-Alei