Beyond Soul Growth. Lynn Sparrow Christy

      

      Beyond

      Soul Growth

       Awakening to the Call of Cosmic Evolution

       Lynn Sparrow Christy

      A.R.E. Press • Virginia Beach • Virginia

      Copyright © 2013

      by Lynn Sparrow Christy

      1st Printing, December 2013

      Printed in the U.S.A.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      A.R.E. Press

      215 67th Street

      Virginia Beach, VA 23451-2061

      ISBN 13: 978-0-87604-732-3

      Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993-2007

      by the Edgar Cayce Foundation.

      All rights reserved.

      THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®

      Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

      Cover design by Christine Fulcher

       To my dear friend Elaine Lukasik.

       Without her wise, intuitive counsel and steady encouragement I may never have made it through the extended birthing process that brought forth this book.

      Contents

       Acknowledgments

       Prologue

       Introduction

       PART ONE: Embracing Evolutionary Spirituality

       Chapter 1: Why Evolution Matters

       Chapter 2: The Evolution of Evolutionary Awareness

       Chapter 3: Evolution Awakens to Itself

       Chapter 4: The Evolutionary Perspective of the Cayce Readings

       Chapter 5: Responding to the Call

       Chapter 6: Cultivating Evolutionary Consciousness

       PART TWO: The Precious Opportunity of Incarnation

       Chapter 7: Embracing the Incarnation in Reincarnation

       Chapter 8: Unmasking Ego

       Chapter 9: Corpuscles in the Body of God

       Chapter 10: Biology, Spirituality, and Chakras

       PART THREE: Bringing Order Out of Chaos

       Chapter 11: Beyond Darwin: The Science of Evolution Redefines Our Models of Spirituality

       Chapter 12: Our Path up the Spiral of Life

       Chapter 13: Out of Chaos, Something New Arises

       Chapter 14: Love—Evolution's Radiant Core and Will, Evolution's Accelerator

       PART FOUR: Going Out in Service to the World

       Chapter 15: Tending the Garden

       Chapter 16: Keeping the “Co” in “Co-Creator”

       Chapter 17: Living in Times of Uncertainty

       Chapter 18: Agents of Transformation: Being the Change You Seek

       Epilogue

       About the Author

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      No work such as this can take wing in a vacuum. While the core concepts of what has come to be known as evolutionary spirituality arose for me through a process of inner inquiry and from my interpretation of the Edgar Cayce readings, they found a wider context in which to flourish when I was exposed to the work of many others who have plowed this ground before me. Most notably, I am indebted to Ken Wilber for his sweeping integral vision. Undoubtedly, his writings have been my greatest source of spiritual sustenance since I first discovered Edgar Cayce at the age of sixteen. And while the integral-evolutionary community has spawned what I consider to be some of the most thought-provoking and inspiring thinkers of the modern age (many of whom are quoted in this book), I wish to give special thanks to Craig Hamilton, Michael Dowd, and Terry Patten, whose work has inspired me and whose respective Internet interview series with the spiritual giants of our time have enriched my own experience of evolutionary spirituality beyond measure.

      In acknowledging those who have been most helpful to me in expanding my understanding of the profound connection between biological and spiritual evolution, I would be remiss not to mention Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I first heard his work mentioned by a friend back in my college days. It is my loss that it took more than three decades for me to get around to reading him—and that was only after encountering a fictionalized account of his life and work in Morris West's novel The Shoes of the Fisherman. I would urge anyone with a serious interest in the subject matter of this book not to wait as long as I did to read Father Teilhard de Chardin's landmark book The Phenomenon of Man.

      I would also like to thank Kevin Todeschi, Cassie McQuagge, and the publishing committee at A.R.E. Press for the blessing of knowing that I had a publisher even as I was writing this book. The motivational