On the one hand “blind natural selection”.
On the other “life governs itself”
How do we derive the first from the second?
That is to say “If it is correct that life governs itself, what is necessary for part of life to declare that rest of life ‘blind’ and in dire need of the vision of the elect?”
Of course, in the present modern Western life-formation, the first statement appears to be self-evident while the second is viewed as virtually heretical.
There are fantastic pyramid schemes involving all manner of symbolic life-investments constructed around beliefs that some special people are required to make good the apparent ‘inability’ of life to govern itself.
The long practice of horticulture, agriculture, animal husbandry and the more recent ‘advances’ in micro-management of life provide clear evidence of the plasticity of life, and of the ability of some of our species (and some others) to manipulate it.
Darwin borrowed his ‘natural selection’ from the world in which artificial selection made perfect sense.
But that world is but one of many – not something preordained to reside at the cutting edge of creation.
It is/was a highly transformed world – and categories such as ‘animal’ and ‘human’ took their place in a highly elaborated cluster – an arrangement by life’s temporary ‘victors’ which resulted from many past struggles.
It may be possible to understand a large part of known human history as an attempt by one part of life to convince other parts that life requires a special human agency to realise itself and be subject to ‘proper’ forms of regulation and control.
Alternative perspectives are also possible.
In a well-tempered cosmos, in which life governs itself, life may be seen as a form of endlessly recycled living-soul energy.
There is neither a future salvation nor escape from ‘suffering’.
Life is a process of transformation within a context of eternal cycles.
It is not ‘natural selection’ which fashions unending creation. What is inscribed upon life as it re-enters can be described as the sum total of existential factors. The Big-Everything is relevant to how new forms of life are formed. (How do we regard ‘mutations’ within such a framework – as every bit as necessary as that which is not a mutation?)
There is far more to it than competition between individuals of the same species.
Life is a text generated by a cosmic context.
Our higher duties are to direct our surplus energy towards the care for our eternal soul – not as a drudge, but as a celebration.
The emphasis , therefore, is not on governing but on maintaining relationships in good repair: in keeping – as far as is possible and using an ‘object’ language – ‘things’ in their ‘proper’ place.
And in not engaging in reckless experiments requiring our world – and all forms of life within it – to be treated without respect.
To retain the gifts of life (in this life) we must take care of our eternal soul. For life is endlessly transformed – there is no stopping or arresting that.
Just as surely as planet earth rolls along its time-space valley, life is endlessly spun out (as Darwin said at the conclusion of the Origin of Species)
What new patterns it forms is not to be taken for granted.
The question is “How will life be transformed?”
At the present time, and looking at the evidence from the attempts of some part of life to substitute their own narrowly conceived interests in the name of governing, those experiments can be recognised as costly failures.
An emerging form of life – which insists that human attempts to govern are disguised control trips which cost us our true inheritance – is not a matter of natural selection based on competition between individuals. Far from it.
What is inscribed into our freshly recreated Being is not something which can be located on genes, patented and bundled up as the private property of corporations.
And here we are – not buying the previous control trip – and coming, ready or not.
(Read attached comment for a question regarding ‘nirvana’ and a condition of Being which is part of the Ways of Australia’s First Peoples.)
Acknowledging the place of First Peoples 
The relationship between the condition of nirvana and the condition of Being for First Peoples (which result from orthodox practices) is a big one and i may be treating it far too lightly. There is a host of good and useful questions which can be asked about the state of Enlightenment and the end of suffering resulting from \’the extinction of the self\’ and the head space of First Peoples. I may take this up again – but basically the sense of self for those Australian First Peoples whose identity was based on features of cosmos (land, other life forms) as signified in "Dreaming" terms is different from modern notions of self, and probably from those of farming (and etc) communities in India and elsewhere in Asia,Their \’unconscious-in-culture\’ was/is constituted in terms which relate them intimately with country in ways which may have been very different to the social formation in which \’nirvana\’ is sensible. More thought required to tease this out. I remember well the anguish of an elderly Kaytej man when a bull-dozer was put through a Dreaming site of great significance (Tennant Creek, NT 1980s)He said that it was like God had gone from that place now (and wanted compensation for the damage done to him as a result.) I have absolutely no doubt he was sincere. How does this form of suffering relate to the Buddhist notion of a "state of blessedness achieved by the extinction of the self" (Collins Pocket dictionary definition of \’nirvana\’)?