"The path, in the context of evolutionary enlightenment, is, at least in theory, quite simple," writes spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen in The Huffington Post. "It is a journey from identification with ego to identification with the evolutionary impulse. It is a radical transformation of our relationship to the human experience, from one that is fundamentally negative, narcissistic, compulsive, and rigid to one that is inherently positive, liberated, consciously creative, and perpetually evolving."
"In an evolutionary context," Cohen observes, "the expression of the enlightened or liberated self is perpetual development in time. So if the individual is not developing in a measurable and discernible way, that means that he or she is stagnating in the emotional and psychological prison of unenlightenment that is the individual and collective ego."
It is because of our unquestioned identification with the negative orientation of the ego that most of us find ourselves unable to consistently express the freedom, lightness of being, and ecstatic positivity that is the quality of the evolutionary impulse," he notes, "(a)nd it is because of identification with ego that so few of us are able to spiritually evolve in a truly significant way."
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the attached video, an introduction to his teachings on "Evolutionary Enlightenment," Cohen observes:
"In evolutionary enlightenment, the goal is not to get out of the universe, the goal is not to escape from the universe, the goal is to get into the process."
"The problem for most of us," he notes, "is that we are not in the (evolutionary) process. We are lost in this small-minded, self-centered, hell-life experience, in which our experience of what it means to be alive is so partial, and so small and so minimal, it's almost impossible to imagine how small it is until you wake up."
"So the goal here," Cohen points out, "is to get out of this small-minded, self-centered hell, (this) partial almost non-existent dream, so that we can begin to wholeheartedly, unself-consciously (and) passionately participate - or you could say co-participate - in the creation of the conscious universe with, and as, the very force that created it. Then your own deepest aspiration - your own deepest heartfelt aspiration and desire - becomes one with the creative principle, with the first cause itself."
"It is," Cohen notes, "a big thing. It's a big moment. It's a profound awakening. You awaken literally, to the cosmic and universal significance of your own emergence at this particular time, and to your inherent potential to participate in the process for the development of consciousness itself."
"God evolves as we do," observes enlightened spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen, a proponent of an advanced non-duality that he calls 'evolutionary enlightenment," an approach that places humanity's urgent and energetic drive for meaning and purpose in an evolutionary context that is at least 13.8 billion years old - i.e., at least as old as the universe as we know it, and perhaps co-extensive with the timeless aeons of eternity before that singular event.
In the attached three-part video interview, Cohen outlines his understanding of conscious evolution from a more theological perspective than is his usual wont. With host Iain McNay of Conscious.TV, Cohen explores God as the ultimate Ground of our Being, the 'Big Bang' as the creation event, and the expansion of our consciousness beyond the narrow confines of the ego as our evolutionary destiny.
"When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn't work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual lifeform - or a species - will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap."
At its most basic level, evolution is "the survival of the fittest," a process that has typically taken multitudes of generations to effect the physical changes that distinguish a species. Mankind has always, of course, been a part of this gradual and continual evolutionary process and has arisen from it. Now, however, with the rise and predominance of human culture and technologies, the glacial speed of evolutionary change seems to have turned into a real-time process. Humanity's evolutionary trajectory, as many writers have pointed out, is no longer physiological, but rather technological and psychological.
It is this speeding up of mankind's evolutionary process, and its change from the physical to the psychical (and thereby the technical), which presents us with the stark choices, individually and collectively, which Tolle outlines above: die and become extinct, or rise above the limitations of our narrow self-consciousness through "an evolutionary leap." As Einstein famously observed: "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them."
Thus, humanity, if it is to survive long-term, needs to change at the level of the psyche. It needs to move beyond the narrow, egoic self-consciousness that typifies the ways in which we now interact with each other and the world to a dilated, expansive consciousness that heretofore has been the sole preserve of the mystic, contemplative and self-realized sage. In short, we need a second Enlightenment, but this time an Enlightenment of consciousness rather than the merely intellectual Enlightenment that heralded in our current scientific age. Such an evolutionary leap will affect all of us, so we should (or, perhaps, must) all consciously participate in the pursuit of this next phase in our evolutionary imperative as a species.
"The full realization of Enlightenment," spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen, observes, "is the evolutionary leap to which all spiritual experiences ultimately lead. In deep spiritual experiences a human being realizes that which is impersonal. In that realization a profound trust is found. In the discovery of that trust it is possible for a human being to liberate him or herself from tendencies toward aggression and permanently destroy the illusion of separation that those tendencies arise from."
"The result of this discovery," he notes, "is a level of integrity that is deep and profound and which manifests consistently at all levels of human expression. If the evolutionary leap is to take place then the final outcome of true spiritual experience must result in this kind of purity."
"Spiritual experiences and their results," he points out, "are not meant for the individual. They are for the evolution of the whole race."
"Being aware of evolution means many, many things," Cohen observes in the video, below. "But ultimately from an evolutionarily enlightened perspective it really boils down to not only awakening to the fact that we are part of a process that is going somewhere, but ultimately to what degree we are contributing to the movement itself. And, so for the evolutionarily enlightened individual that perspective really points us back to ourselves, and it says: "To what degree are we enabling and encouraging this process of evolution to occur within this evolving cosmos as the result of our own heroic efforts?"
"Ultimately," Cohen points out, "at the next stage of human cultural development, the ultimate source of meaning and purpose for the individual is going to be found through how much we are actually contributing to the process of evolution that made it possible for us to be here."
"(O)ur normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness. . . . No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded."
-- William James --
In the "Varieties of Religious Experience," William James, one of the fathers of American psychology, recounts a number of enlightenment experiences, including that undergone by Richard M. Bucke, author of "Cosmic Consciousness,' a work that had a profound and continuing effect not only on James, but on generations of spiritual seekers after its publication in 1901.
"I had spent the evening in a great city, with two friends reading and discussing poetry and philosophy," Bucke recalls. "We parted at midnight. I had a long drive in a hansom to my lodging. My mind, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images and emotions called up by the reading and talk, was calm and peaceful. I was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking, but letting ideas, images and emotions flow, as it were, through my mind."
"All at once, without warning of any kind," he remembers, "I found myself wrapped in a flame-coloured cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagaration somewhere close by in that great city; the next, I knew that the flame was within myself. Directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe."
"Among other things," Bucke notes, "I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then; I saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all; that the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love, and that the happiness of each and all is in the long run absolutely certain."
"The vision lasted a few seconds and was gone," Bucke recalls, "but the memory of it and the sense of the reality of what it taught has remained during the quarter of a century which has since elapsed. I knew that what the vision showed was true. I had attained to a point of view from which I saw that it must be true. That view, that conviction, I must say that consciousness, has never, even during periods of the deepest depression, been lost."
[Wm. James, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 399.]
"Mystical states in general," James observes, "assert a pretty distinct theoretic drift. . . . One of these directions is optimism, and the other is monism."
"We pass," he notes, "into mystical states from out of ordinary consciousness as from a less into a more, as from a smallness into a vastness, and at the same time as from an unrest to a rest. We feel them as reconciling unifying states."
At the point of enlightenment, Cohen points out in the attached video, "that is when the evolving Self can begin to authentically discern the difference between what it means to be a world-centrically aware and awake individual versus one who is cosmically awake and aware, in a way that is not merely cognitive. Then, you begin to experience emotionally, psychologically and existentially, and at every other level of yourself, what you are actually dealing with, what you are faced with, which is the future of this whole (evolutionary) process."
Spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen
Editor-in-chief, EnlightenNext magazine.
For the ‘spiritual but not religious’ man or woman who senses there is more to this world than we are taught, or that we necessarily ‘see’ in our wired-together, scientifically-centered, postmodern world, the “evolutionary enlightenment” teachings of Andrew Cohen build a coherent, intellectually and spiritually satisfying kosmo-centric worldview based on leading edge scientific findings and the deep wisdom of the world’s great religious traditions.
In his most recent posting on the Huffington Post, Cohen explores what the enlightenment experience is like, and how it reaches its highest potential (and effectiveness) when it is a shared experience, when personal liberation is shared in what Cohen has called “autonomy in communion."
“In the new enlightenment,” writes Cohen, “in what I call Evolutionary Enlightenment, the goal is individual and collective conscious evolution in real time. That specifically points to the co-creation of new structures in consciousness, psyche and culture.“
“It's about creating the future from the inside out,” he notes. “And this process always begins with transformation at the very deepest depths of our own selves -- a transformation that shines out and touches the world around us with the immediacy of its own radiance and potency.”
“In the early stages of our own spiritual development,” Cohen observes, “we are dependent upon the experience of euphoric states to be able to see, feel and know that these higher potentials really do exist. The bliss and ecstasy of those states temporarily breaks the deep and often unconscious shackles of postmodernity: nihilism, cynicism, narcissism and materialism. It frees our awareness to expand in all directions, to embrace not only the outer limits but also the innermost core of our larger body, the entire cosmos.”
Yet, there are, as Cohen notes, inherent limitations to the potential that such individual experiences of spiritual bliss have. While very good, in and of themselves, individually they lack the power to force the next stage in man’s evolutionary process, a noetic evolution of humanity’s individual and collective psyche.
“When many individuals simultaneously know and experience the perfection of the possible,” Cohen writes, “Spirit itself calls us all to its own next step. Indeed, we are compelled to be the future that we see. Under the intoxicating influence of spiritual bliss, all of the individual and collective ego's fears and attachments are rendered null and void."
“But until the individual or individuals have actually taken that next step, until those higher potentials have become a permanent attainment, our ability to see the future that we want to create will always depend upon the experience of spiritual intoxication,” Cohen notes. (See attached video on "Conscious Evolution," below.)
“However, when we do the unthinkable,” Cohen concludes, “when we actually and demonstrably evolve to a higher stage beyond the veiling influence of postmodern existential confusion, we will be able to see that future as easily as we see our own face when we look in the mirror. Seeing that glory will no longer be dependent upon the presence of a higher state because we will already be there. From that point on, we will always only be creating the world that we have already become.”
For those not acquainted with the teachings of Andrew Cohen, of the teaching he has dubbed "Evolutionary Enlightenment" - an enlightenment methodology discussed here in a previous post - Cohen discusses his approach to spiritual awakening in an article on the highly visible and influential Huffington Post. The piece is undoubtedly a follow-up to his recent panel with Deepak Chopra at the Urban Zen Institute, which was moderated by Arianna Huffington (and is available on Fora.tv).
In describing his personal spiritual awakening, Cohen attributes credit to the non-dualist Advaida Vedanta lineage of his teacher (H.W.L. Poonja), which stretches back to the great self-realized Hindu sage, Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950). While his personal enlightenment experience is the continuance of an unbroken line of liberation (or moksha) that stretches back to the mists of time in the Indian subcontinent, Cohen has taken his own experience and teaches a variant of cutting edge spiritual awakening that is at once urgent, universal and immediately relevant to our times, and which embraces rather than challenges the scientific understandings that have revolutionized our modern and wired-in world. (Cohen lists Liebniz, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenauer, Emerson and the Jesuit paleontologist, Teilhard de Chardin, amongst the list of forerunners to this emerging transcendental epiphenomena.)
Ramana Maharshi
"Traditional enlightenment is what I learned from my teacher," Cohen explains, "but Evolutionary Enlightenment is what I have discovered and created in my own work over the last almost quarter of a century." Cohen and his co-creators explore the depths of the world's varied wisdom traditions and the potential of humankind's ongoing and transformative noetic evolution in the pages and on the website of EnlightenNext.
"It was only after many years of deep introspection, dialogue with masters and thinkers from all traditions and committed work with thousands of spiritual seekers throughout the world," Cohen writes, "that I began to understand what this new enlightenment is all about, why it is so different from what has come before, and why, as I believe, it holds the key not only to our personal development but to our cultural evolution."
In his latest article on the Huffington Post (his other posts are here, here and here) he differentiates traditional notions of enightenment - that the world is an illurory realm, or maya, and that is sufficient to overcome the world by the self-realization of transcendental liberation, or moksha - with a perspective informed by a scientific and evolutionary world view. "(E)nlightenment is evolving," Cohen notes. "It is no longer found only in the bliss of timeless Being; it is found also in the ecstatic urgency of evolutionary Becoming."
Cohen stresses that in this age, where we may have reached the edge of our physical evolution, there is an urgent imperative for humanity to further the limits of its consciousness in order for the evolutionary impulse to continue its 14 billion-odd years of unfolding. In a cry from the metaphysical barricades, he writes:
"Traditional enlightenment points us beyond the world, beyond time and space, toward what has been, at least until now, the perennial source of spiritual freedom and mystical liberation: the Ground of Being. But those of us in the 21st century who are looking toward the future urgently need a mystical spirituality and source of soul liberation that points us not away from the world but to that big next step we need to take in our world. That next step will not emerge by itself -- it must be consciously created by human beings who have awakened to the same impulse that is driving the process. As we awaken to this vast perspective, an overwhelming and profound truth becomes clear: At this point in evolution, the process is dependent upon us. The evolutionary process desperately needs our conscious and committed participation."
This is heady stuff. There is a real moral imperative, largely unstressed in traditional enlightenment, for individuals to commit themselves to their own personal transcendence "for the sake of the Whole." His message is that, if we wish to continue to live and evolve on our increasingly interconnected planet, we must become the equivalent of 21st-century bodhisattvas, and his experience is that this is possible.
"This liberating spiritual perspective on the human experience is contemporary and inherently creative," he stresses. "It's a spiritual teaching for our own time because its central tenet is that a more enlightened future for our world depends on one thing and one thing alone -- our higher development."
"The world around us changes for the better as much as we are willing to change ourselves, he concludes. "The world we occupy and cocreate begins to transform as we do. The old model of enlightenment was one in which the individual was liberated but the world remained the same. In the new enlightenment, the point is no longer merely the liberation of the individual; it's the evolution of self, culture and cosmos through the individual. That's 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.
