Page 108 - Spirit and Mind. Vol 1

Nicolai Levashov. Spirit and mind. Vol.1

natural or premature, leave the spirit stranded in the astral jungle, unable to find a safe
haven.

Thus, our emotions may either save us when danger threatens or doom us to the
tortures of "hell." So far we have looked only at the basic instincts of self-
preservation and the phenomenology of the predator. But — over and beyond these
— man possesses higher spiritual qualities which manifest in a whole spectrum of
lofty emotions — and therein lies our hope for mankind's ultimate evolution as a

truly intelligent and moral race.

Chapter 4. The nature of the emotions: the higher emotions in man

Man enters this world through the travail and anguish of his mother, who, for
nine long months has nurtured him in her womb. As soon as he gains self -awareness
and curiosity about his origin, he is regaled with all kinds of tales about the stork who

brought him home as a gift to his parents.
Eventually — either crudely or delicately — he learns about the sexual coupling of
his parents— an act which led to his conception. Union of sperm and ovum, carrying
the parents' genetic coding, always marks the developmental starting-point of a new
life (see Ch. 7, op. cit., for further de-tails).

Perpetuation of the species is one of nature's prime functions for any living
creature — humans included. Of course, Mother Nature created the stimulus of
sexual gratification to accomplish this. But is it only physiology that rivets male and

female to the close bonding that gives rise to life?
And, is it only sexual gratification that impels man and woman to forever bind
their destinies together? Of course, sexual intimacy plays a pivotal role in human life,

but it cannot explain the depth and spiritual richness of the love that binds — not just
any man and woman together, but a specific man to a specific woman.
From the standpoint of physiology, any man and woman are compatible and
theoretically capable of producing a new life. But why, from a score of acquaintances
or myriad strangers, can a man choose his "one and only," to whom he dedicates
songs and poems, and for whom his heart throbs and his soul sings? It is impossible
to explain this on the basis of sexual instinct alone. Love between a man and a
woman is immeasurably deeper than physical attraction, just as an ocean is

immeasurably greater than a single drop of water.
What, then, is love?!
Along with emotions related to survival of the individual, nature endowed living
creatures with emotions and feelings for perpetuation of the species, without which
life as a whole could not survive. Such emotions and feelings are selective, not only
for humans, but for all multicellular organisms. What is the nature of this selectivity?

Everything is, at once, very simple and very complicated...
In the course of evolution on our planet, only those species survived that were
able to adapt to environmental change and transmit positive mutations to their future
generations. The positive mutations ensured their perpetuation; their maximal

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