It is here that we can understand stress at another level. What Darwin saw as ‘survival of the fittest’ and ‘natural selection’ was actually a stress that the lower species faced in trying to go beyond. Also, actually in ‘survival of the fittest’ the less fit do not die out, since the lesser forms do not disappear with the appearance of the higher. Rather they are strangely strengthened. This is so, since in Nature, there is a spontaneous tendency to harmonize and balance. The emergence of a higher form immediately leads to an interdependence of the higher on the lower — chain reaction and link that helps each species in its own way. If anything, it is the more developed and complex forms that face a greater threat of extinction and not necessarily the less developed ones e.g. the primitive fish survive in the deep, the whale is under threat.
The law, we may say therefore, operating in Nature is not, ‘survival of the fittest’ but rather, ‘evolution of the fittest’. In fact the competitive and aggressive type is in the end self-destructive, and one that is plastic, co-operative and integrative survives. Evolution operates through a process of natural selection. A series of hurdles are placed before us to overcome and march forward or, to fall back and persist or perish. And each individual crossing over opens the possibility for all to overcome the bars. These bars are the various forms of crisis, physiological or otherwise, that arise when the consciousness is on the way to further growth.
