All things in this relative world change. Some things come and go, while others perpetuate a cycle of evolution that spans billions of years. Evolution is the process by which things become more and more complex and therefore become a vessel for greater and greater meaning to be expressed. Everything, from physical matter to life on earth to humans to a person's life time are informed by an evolutionary chain of events.
Matter is the result of an evolutionary process that started with the big bang. Once the big bang occurred the energy from that moment began to cool and condense into subatomic particles and then atomic particles and then as stars exploded they produced denser and denser elements. Those denser elements came together on our planet to create molecules that would come together to be the vessel for the spirit of life on earth.
Life evolved becoming more and more sentient, more and more complex with every new phase of the evolutionary timeline, differentiating as well as gaining new abilities. Finally these life forms evolved to become humans.
Humans over time have progressed in their ability to create, to think deeply, and put things in the world to their own purposes. From fire to agriculture to cities to steam engines to the modern technological age, evolution has been not just driven by survival but innovation for its own sake.
As our world has become more and more complex it has added a lot of convenience and ease while simultaneously adding a lot more stress to our lives. If we lose sight of our being amidst the world of doing and consumption we will lose our balance and suffer. Spiritual development is an evolutionary process, one which creates new insight and depth, which learns with greater and greater comprehension and opens our hearts to greater wisdom and love. When we start to see with an understanding of the transcendent within us we begin to see the fact that all things evolve, every moment is an ornament to the previous moment, in an un-ending radiance of existence like a flower ever-blooming.
As I have written before, the transcendent can be seen to have two fundamental aspects, one of radiance and one of cognizance or receptivity. The radiance is the expression of the relative world, all its ups and downs, highs and lows, oceans and mountains and stars and galaxies. The receptivity has more to do with the transcendent's being, the knowing of all of it in one identity. This identity is not a thing, since it is that which informs all things. It is transcendent, and for that reason in this context it does not evolve. It is utterly complete beyond all forms, and yet through the radiance it evolves forever in an infinite array of forms like an infinite ocean, sparkling in the sun.
Meditation is a catalyst for our evolution. It is a way for us to tap into that cosmic ocean of bliss that we can experience if we listen to the deepest places in ourselves. And beyond all forms, to feel the whisper of the transcendent's true nature. This is the purpose of meditation, and it is our way of choosing to evolve consciously, that we are no longer merely swept along, but evolve to grow wings from the inside out, wings that make our spirits fly.