We all know the evolution of life form from Darwin. It is focused on material outside body, how animal forms evolve from primitive form to complex human form that we are today. The evolution of soul is very much follows the same principle but from holistic point of view. There are seven stages of soul.
Plane 1: Survival - The basic instinct that all life form has is to survive - simply to exist. in this stage, the only important thing is body, eating something to grow itself and not shrink to die. Soul at this stage, simply cannot accept death of the body, It can do any thing and everything to make sure it does not die (as it hopes), here the soul is simply me and me only and others. there is no concept of children, community, life other forms. pure basic survival. Primitive animals such as worms insects spends their energy predominantly in this plane, evolved human also have to spend energy on survival but they spend more energy on higher planes.
Plane 2: Progeny - In this stage the soul accepts the truth/reality that the body that it identifies with it, no matter what is going to age and die, so it wants to clone its body aka reproduce so that it can continue to live as its children. Here the soul realizes it is not just itself, it needs opposite sex also needed to create something, so it gives something to opposite sex of its own species to reproduce. soul has evolved at this stage to accept there is some thing beyond itself and it needs to give and take. little advanced animal forms such as birds and animals, spends more energy on progeny than survival. fish, birds, pigs and all can be visualized.
Plane 3: Comfort - In this stage the soul has realized that it is easy to survive and reproduce by simply living social, give and take. soul starts using many other animals of its clan and other forms to create complex tools and social structure in order to be more comfortable and pleasurable. so it is not just surviving and reproduce, but enjoy pleasures by leveraging others. monkeys and human predominantly use this energy. this is why we have house, nice bed, friends, relatives. Majority of Human form spends their energy predominantly at this level. the social structure, rules, laws are all how to make people survive, reproduce and have comfort. the balancing act.
Above all three levels are still about bodily identification of soul - it acknowledges others but still exists for its own needs only. Mind has not fully developed, emotions are not acknowledged, intelligence seems alien at this stage of evolution.
Plane 4: Love - This is most misunderstood by most people because most are not at this plane. Love simply means longing to give, this is the turning point the happiness of the soul depends on the happiness of the other. The Logic gets blurred because logic so far means how to survive , reproduce and live in comfort. The soul is not satisfied with these three, at this stage it wants to create something and give the other, it likes to merge with the other. there is no logic, but it simply wants to merge with other. the other become more important. it derives pleasure by making the other pleasurable. this point it gets connected to soul by heart. Who ever is the artist , loves art, romantic, emotional are at this plane. It is illogical why some one needs to sing, needs to dance, needs to paint, need to simply Love. It is illogical to see Romeo & Juliet love story, it is illogical to see the Titanic movie Jack giving his life for Rose from survival lens, It will be logical once you understand Jack and Rose are two only in outside, but in their mind they are one. The mind lives beyond the body. So far the soul has been strong bodily, Now the soul has become a beautiful mind and happiness much beyond the comfort level. Very small percentage of human form spends more energy at this level.
Plane 5: Intelligence - After a soul have become beautiful by accepting the other as itself, It realizes most people are suffering because of their ignorance of identifying with body. since it identifies the other is part of itself, their suffering becomes its suffering, their happiness becomes its happiness. It wants to communicate and make other life form happy who ever it identifies with, it creates intelligence to communicate effectively to other half to lift them to higher stage to live in harmony with universe. people with leadership live at this plane. They put the other more important themselves and also knows and want to elevate the other to their level.
Plane 6: Wisdom - So far the soul has identified and emotionally connected itself with one or few lives. it has intelligence to make it happy and others too. After the soul masters the intelligence to lift others, it is able to see every thing crystal clear the bigger picture of all life on earth, as the way it is, it is able to understand why something is happening, it knows what are the consequences of what actions. it is not biased . it able to see all life forms equally as itself. it is able to clearly see what is best for what for a given situation. very tiny fraction of human are in the plane. Few Judges, Law makers and Advanced Monks tends to be here but most hides in plain sight because the problem of making every life is super complex as most souls are in the first three level of plane - the one they want to help itself does not want that help.
Level 7 - Universe - Here the soul has evolved fully and has nothing to do any more, it simply merges back from where it came from - Universe.
This is what Rishis have told as seven births & seven chakras. These levels are not to be imagined as hierarchical ladder going from one stage to other, rather as petals of flowers how it grows which layer and blossoms. Every soul has all those 6 planes of existence but the most primitive will spend most of their energy on lower plane and highly advanced soul spends most energy on higher plane. The point is without survival nothing is possible - so one is not better than the other. It is just that the more soul evolves, it derives exponential happiness / bliss on higher planes than on lower planes, on the contrary lower level plane suffers more than those soul on higher plane. It is also dynamic and not fixed, the soul which has evolved wisdom also can choose to ground and spend some time in primitive stage.
The Latter three planes Love/Intelligence/Wisdom, those souls cannot be understood by majority. Rules/Laws cannot be made for them as they are tiny minority. They can be easily felt though. love/peace radiates from there. with out reason other life forms flocks towards them. What they do/act will be very different as they are evolved. This is the reason Indian laws until British - does not apply to Sanyasi (even now by practice law and enforcement does not touch any Naga Sadhus what ever they do ). The laws were different for Brahmins than general public. Here Brahmin I am using the term as Krishna defined based on "Guna" not Birth. There is great wisdom in India to acknowledge them as it knows they change things better for every one else even though majority cannot understand them.
