WHERE IS EVOLUTION LEADING US?

From 'The Road Less Traveled' by Scott Peck (the Alpha and the Omega):

If we postulate that our capacity to love, this urge to grow and evolve, is somehow "breathed into" us by God, then we must ask to what end? Why does God want us to grow? What are we growing toward? Where is the end point, the goal of evolution? What is it that God wants of us? It is not my intention here to become involved in theological niceties, and I hope the scholarly will forgive me if I cut through all the ifs, ands, and buts of proper speculative theology.

For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it eventually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself, or Itself). We are growing toward godhood. God is the goal of evolution. It is God who is the source of the evolutionary force and God who is the destination.

When I say that this is a terrifying idea I was speaking mildly. It is a very old idea, but, by the millions, we run away from it in sheer panic. For no idea ever came to the mind of man which places upon us such a burden. It is the single most demanding idea in the history of mankind. Not because it is difficult to conceive, to the contrary, it is the essence of simplicity. But because if we believe it, it then demands from us all that we can possibly give, all that we can have.

It is one thing to believe in a nice old God who will take care of us from a lofty position of power which we ourselves could never begin to attain. It is quite another thing to believe in a God who has it in mind for us precisely that we should attain His position, His power, His wisdom, His identity. Were we to believe it was possible for man to become God, this belief by it's very nature would place upon us an obligation to attempt to attain the possible. But we do not want this obligation. We don't want to work that hard. We don't want God's responsibility. We don't want the responsibility of having to think all the time.

As long as we can think that godhead is an impossible attainment for ourselves, we don't have to worry about our spiritual growth, we don't have to push ourselves to higher and higher levels of consciousness and loving activity; we can relax and just be human. If God's in his heaven, and we're down here, and never the twain shall meet, we can let Him have all the responsibility for evolution and the directorship of the universe. We can do our bit toward assuring ourselves of a comfortable old age, hopefully complete with healthy, happy and grateful children and grandchildren; but beyond that we need not bother ourselves. These goals are difficult enough to achieve, and hardly to be disparaged.

Nonetheless, as soon as we believe it is possible for man to become God, we can never really rest for long, never say "OK, my job is finished, my work is done." We must constantly push ourselves to greater and greater wisdom, greater and greater effectiveness. By this belief we will have trapped ourselves, at least until death, on an effortful treadmill of self improvement and spiritual growth. God's responsibility must be our own. It is no wonder that the belief in the possibility of Godhead is repugnant.

The idea that God is actively nurturing us so that we may grow up to be like Him, brings us face to face with our own laziness.

From Man's Eternal Quest by Paramahansa Yogananda:

A form of spiritual cowardice leads many worldly people to believe comfortably that only one man was the Son of God. "Christ was uniquely created" they reason, "so how can I, a mere mortal, emulate Him?" But all men have been divinely created, and must some day obey Christ's command:

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect", (Matt. 5:48).

"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God", (1 John 3:1).