Andrew Cohen and His Teachings on Evolutionary Enlightenment

I was thrilled to once again find copies of EnlightenNext on the magazine rack at my corner store. It is a sure sign that the collective journey towards higher consciousness and deeper meaning continues on a rising tide. The self-styled "Magazine for Evolutionaries" is at once an embodiement and extension of the spiritual teachings of Andrew Cohen, EnlightenNext's founder and editor-in-chief.

For those unfamiliar with Cohen, his teachings combine the profound lineages of Ramana Maharshi, Liebnitz, Thaillard de Chardin and many others, bringing the timeless quest for higher consciousness and spiritual meaning to the frontiers of the twenty-first century. Cohen's basic teachings, an approach he calls "evolutionary enlightenment," can  be found online at www.andrewcohen.org, while the importance of "evolutionary enlightenment" is highlighted in the pages of EnlightenNext (and on its website www.EnlightenNext.com).

Andrew Cohen's teachings on evolutionary enlightenment are profound, yet they are firmly and consistently grounded in physics (particularly cosmology and quantum theory), psychology and metaphysics - the three fundamental disciplines of the sciences, social sciences and humanities.

If you are interested, below is a fora.tv discussion between renowned spiritual author and activist, Deepak Chopra and Andrew Cohen, hosted by Arianna Huffington, a spiritual seeker who is the founder and editor-in-chief of top news and political commentary site, The Huffington Post.




Cohen's "Five Tenets to Living an Enlightened Life" are, I think, one of the most helpful paths to understanding the common peril of the human ego and overcoming it. The following, is a short summation of these Five Tenets:

(1) The Clarity of Intention  - At all times, the spiritual aspirant should be sure in what his absolute goal is - i.e., escaping the ego and engaging the world from a position of autonomy where you alone are responsible for your thoughts, words and action.

 (2) The Law of Volitionality - A radical realization that all are actions are acts of volition, or voluntary intent. The choices we face may suck, but the fact remains we make the choices. Every word we say, ever action we take, and even those words left unsaid and actions left undone are all volitional acts. We are not victims, but vital participants in the evolution of consciousness.

(3) Face Everything and Avoid Nothing - An awareness of what is around us, remaining undeceived about the people, places and things in our lives, and not avoiding them because of ego-generated fear, are an essential method to break the ego's bondage.

(4) The Truth of Impersonality - There needs to be a recognition that we are but one of the billions upon billions of living beings on this earth; that our sun is just one of 200 billion stars in our average-sized  Milky Way galaxy; and that there are over 100 billion similar galaxies inn our cosmos. Life itself is not, as the self-conscious ego would have us believed, centered around us. We therefore need to actively particpate in our own evolution from ordinary self-consciousness to cosmic consciousness, or God-consciousness, if you prefer.

(5) For the Sake of the Whole - The driving force for such conscious evolution of our very consciousness cannot succeed if we do it for our own sake alone. We must pursue evolution for the sake of all beings, for the sake of the whole; for the cosmos is the whole, the Ground of Being.

For a more fulsome explanation of Evolutionary Enlightenment visit the "teachings section" on the AndrewCohen.org website; and while there, be sure to check out Andrew's blog on the site, which witnesses to the spiritual unfolding and evolution of our world . . . in our time.