Beyond West and East: Co-evolution and the calling of a new enlightenment and non-duality

Evolution was once a dividing mark between the “developed us” and the “underdeveloped or primitive them” but there has been certain foundational transformations in the theory and normative quest of evolution which challenge us to overcome this. Developments in both the discourse and practice of socio-cultural evolution as well as biological and cosmic evolution point to the need for cultivating a new enlightenment and non-duality going beyond the dualism of environment and the organism, ontogenesis and socio-genesis and much more fundamentally, “us” and “them.” The present essay discusses the contours of a new evolutionary theory under the rubric of “co-evolution.” It builds upon the seminal works of both Bergson and Sri Aurobindo and discusses the outline of a new enlightenment and non-duality. It also discusses the evolutionary challenge before self and society in terms of realizing a new enlightenment which just does not valorize rationality and dualism but strives for realization of non-duality in manifold relations of being and becoming in self and society.