This past weekend I conducted a seminar in Copenhagen with 42 people. The weekend was largely devoted to a mutual inquiry through discussion, or what Andrew Cohen has called enlightened communication. Because the weekend is dictated by the participation and contribution of the people present, every event of this type is different and what is miraculously revealing itself is how make up a single investigation….even though the people in them are different each time. This is the third seminar of this type that I have led (or been led by :)) and the forth will be this coming weekend in Sydney, Australia. It see a tremendous potential to create a global collective inquiry through this medium.

In New York last spring I led a weekend with Katherine Miller during which a dynamic investigation into the collective nature of the authentic self led to everyone involved working together to create a comprehensive visual map of both individual and collective consciousness. I will post the model that we came up with after I return to the United States.

Two weeks ago during a one day seminar we explored the conditioning of the postmodern mind. Since we were all products of postmodern culture it became a simple mater of looking into our own experience as it emerged in conversation between us. What we uncovered between us were the elements of extreme materialism and humanism that Andrew Cohen had referred to at a talk earlier in the week as the limitations of post-modern culture.

In Copenhagen last weekend we looked into what the values of a kosmocentric stage of development would be and what values that we currently hold would have to be let go of (at least somewhat) in order for the new value to immerge.
Since doing the Copenhagen weekend an idea was brought to me by a few people which was to connect the 40 people in Copenhagen with the 40 or so in New York into a combine dialog. Now that I am in Australia I realize that I will need to include them as well. So I am thinking about when we could have a conference call together so that we can all talk about what we are discovering.

What makes this so exciting to me is that I can see that it is not just separate people in separate places coming up with slightly different things. Each of the seminars goes in a direction which is unplanned by me. (I often feel that the hardest part of my job is letting the conversation that wants to happen take the forefront.) And when looked at successively, each seminar does seem to be creating another piece in a single investigation. Especially in the case of the recent day in New York and the weekend in Copenhagen it appears in hindsight that the discussion of what values would be in past post-modernism was a perfect follow up to the conversation about what post-modern values were that we had in New York.

You might thing that I was unconsciously directing the second seminar to follow on from the earlier one except that I never intended to bring up values at all. The topic only came up because someone expressed a real desire to know about it. I kept trying to switch attention back to what I thought the topic of the day should be – The Universe Project – and it kept winding its way back to post-postmodern values. Eventually I gave in and started listing what we came up with on a sheet of paper. What will happen next weekend in Sydney I can only guess, but I bet it will be the next piece in some puzzle that we are all working out and that seems to have a life of its own.

I suppose what I need to do now is to keep more detailed records of all of the seminars that occur so that people who are not on them can learn from them. I also will make it explicit clear in Sydney that what we come up with during our time together there will be added to the collective wisdom of an emerging group of global investigators who are using the framework of Evolutionary Enlightenment to generate an interconnected inquiry into the nature of human life and development.

What could possibly be more exciting?

There is too much to write about and far too little time to write it all. I spent the morning doing a radio interview and then my weekly conference call. On both I spoke largely about what I am seeing about how a global cultural matrix of higher values can be formed. Now that I have given a couple of talks in Australia I am seeing that “it” is continuing. The investigation that I have described traveling from New York to Copenhagen has arrived in Perth and Sydney. When I speak to people I explicitly tell them about what is building in cities all over the world among the people who are engaged in the global inquiry that is “The Universe Project.”

As soon as people hear about it I can feel that they become part of it – and even more importantly, so do they! I can see how it affects them immediately. They listen more attentively, they participate more fully and they take themselves more seriously because they now it matters. They know that they are not just in a lecture or a discussion to get some understanding for themselves alone. They are part of a building, living, global, inter-subjective culture that needs them to take it further right then. And people feel ready for the challenge. People have told me that what thrills them is that they have felt done with seeking, but they haven’t know what to do with everything they have learned and now they see an opportunity to make an important contribution to a global effort.

And when people in New York or Copenhagen hear that the people in Sydney are taking up the investigation right where it was left in the earlier cities I see them change too. They become more serious because they are not just participants, but they have helped create was is now moving further. And they want to know where it goes. And the people in Sydney want to tell them what they have done with the inquiry. That is a global matrix built on engagement with a collective inquiry into human life. That matrix, I believe, will be the catalyst that will inspire, conceive of and ultimate create a global culture based on higher values and awakened awareness.

Our shared exploration of Evolutionary Enlightenment us to…

1. want to evolve more than we want to be secure
2. what to engage with others more then we want privacy
3. experience the tension of growth over comfort
4. be sincere rather than protect or self image

Those, by the way are the four values that the group in Copenhagen came up with as the values of a new culture based on an emerging understanding of our responsibility as awakening humans for the future of direction of evolution.

Is that easy?...no! Is it worth it?...definitely!

I will write again after or during the seminar that I am having this weekend to report on where “we” have taken the investigation next.

My visit to Australia is coming to a close after giving talks in Perth, Sydney and Canberra and leading a weekend seminar in Sydney. On the flight from Canberra to Perth I had time to reflect more on everything that has happened over the past week before flying out tomorrow. As I have been writing about in recent blog posts each event that I conduct does seem to add something to the last. The event in New York was an exploration of the post-modern culture that we are all a part of. In Copenhagen we looked into the new values that might become a part of whatever post-post-modern culture we create together. Here in Australia what we explored was the characteristics of the field of consciousness and the new sense of identity that begins to form as we recognize ourselves to be not separate from the circumstances around us.

During the weekend in Sydney we had a particular moment when - for me at least - this sense of being non-separate from the field of consciousness was particularly heightened. I was explaining a metaphor that I have used many times before. I was describing how human beings thinking that the consciousness that they experience originates somehow within them is like a radio mistakenly thinking that the music coming out of its speakers is coming from inside itself. As I mentioned this is a metaphor that I have used many times, but this time it seemed to take on a life of its own. Soon I was using it to explain different aspects of Evolutionary Enlightenment that I had never seen before and I was imagining creating a children's show based on the metaphor. It was a very high energy, serious and fun discussion that swept us all up in its excitement.

Later during our lunch break I was thinking about the fact that it would be easy to think of that metaphor as having immerged from me. In fact, it was obvious that even though I had been the one who brought it up, it had immerged out of the energy and intention of all of us in the room. If all of the participants had not been so engaged with me in listening I would never have felt the inspiration or freedom to have that particular analogy "pop-out" with so much vitality and clarity. As I thought more it started to become self evident that whenever we speak what comes out of conversation is never a product of just one person in the conversation, but is the product of the whole conversation and everyone's participation in it. If I were sitting by myself in a room I would never have come up with that metaphor in the same way.

When we returned after lunch the first thing that someone commented on was the metaphor that "I had come up with." As I explained what I had been thinking about we did seem to elevate into a higher view of what was happening between us. As we spoke I could see very directly how each of us was contributing to the sum of what was happening in the room. Some were not speaking, but everyone seemed to be giving real attention and open interest to what was happening and that was also a contribution. In fact it became clear that there was no way to not contribute and I began to feel, and I think others did as well, the ecstatic and at the same time almost unbearable realization of true interconnectedness. It is the feeling that you already are fully here, that what you do already has an affect and there is nowhere that you could possibly go where you could be separate. In truth even if someone were to walk out the door...that would have an affect!

Sometimes in life we want to feel like we don't matter, like what we do doesn't count yet because we have not yet decided to participate. We might not feel ready or willing to be responsible for the affect we have on others. To the part of us that doesn't want to be responsible for being human the kind of interconnectedness we were exploring feels like too much.

This weekend in Sydney certainly did  seem to take the weekends in New York and Copenhagen one step further by rooting them in a direct experience of human interconnectedness - which I would say is a direct experience of human culture.

Over the past three weeks I have been traveling in Copenhagen and Australia. During that time I conducted a three-day training for students of Evolutionary Enlightenment who have now become teachers, two weekend seminars on the teaching and three talks – one at a university, one at a company and one at a chapter of the Theosophical Society. Call me a little slow on the up take, but it wasn’t until the final talk at a University in Australia’s capitol city of Canberra that I recognized that I was becoming a spiritual authority.

Of all of the events that I conducted this one had more people that had no experience with Andrew Cohen’s teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment. The audience was both attentive and respectful, at the same time I knew from the start that they were justifiably not going to take what I told them on faith. I gave a talk similar to what I had give on two other occasions.
The talk I was giving was an introduction to some of the foundational concepts and insights upon which Andrew Cohen has constructed Evolutionary Enlightenment. I first spoke of the nature of consciousness as a field explaining that although we commonly imagine that consciousness originates from somewhere within us, this teaching is based on the recognition that human beings exist within a field of consciousness. The second insight that I present is the recognition that the field of consciousness is not static – it changes and evolves over time which has been well observed by those that study the history and development of human culture. Finally I argue that at our moment in evolutionary history it is our recent discovery of the evolutionary process of which we are an inextricable part that must drive the further evolution of consciousness. These three insights create the foundation upon which I present the shift in awareness that lies at the heart of Evolutionary Enlightenment and a kosmocentric perspective as I understand it.

I realized from the first night that I spoke that I couldn’t present this as a theory or philosophy with which I was intimately acquainted. I had to express my own understanding of these things, backed up by my own experience and the reality of everything that I was doing to use these insights as the basis upon which to build a new human culture. I realized more deeply than I had ever before what Andrew has been trying to create with his closest students for over 20 years. He has referred to that possibility as “autonomy in a context of natural hierarchy.”

Andrew’s call with his students has never been exclusively to create a new generation of teachers with a similar realization to his own. He has always said that he needed partners in the creation of a new world. Being autonomous means that ones own talents, interests and efforts have to be the foundation of what one attempts to express to others. I can’t simply explain the teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment and expect people to listen to me. I have to speak about the teaching in the context of the fact that I am actively devoted to manifesting the goal of that teaching. In my own case I am directly engaged in helping people develop their understanding of Evolutionary Enlightenment by creating educational programs and by facilitating individual engagement with the teaching and with Andrew Cohen himself. People didn’t want to hear from me about Evolutionary Enlightenment only, they wanted to hear my experience of Evolutionary Enlightenment ad that experience includes everything that I have worked on, created and developed in this teaching.
In speaking to audiences I find that I am fueled by three sources of confidence. The first is the trust and recognition of my teacher, Andrew Cohen that has developed over the 15 years that I have worked closely with him. The second is my own experience and understanding of Evolutionary Enlightenment itself. The third is the confidence, conviction and most importantly success that I have experienced in my work to help create a new culture based on this teaching. What I was propelled by over these weeks was a deep confidence, not based in being somebody in particular, or having the highest realization, but on my own commitment to what I am doing. With that at my back I felt that I was able to face anyone and talk simply and clearly about Evolutionary Enlightenment because I was only talking about what I actually believed and what I was actually doing.

Getting back to that last talk that I gave and the powerful moment that illustrated all of this so clearly to me – I had just finished delivering my talk and asked for questions. The questions were more challenging than I had experienced in the two earlier talks – not unfairly so by any means, but challenging none-the-less. One question was asked of me by a woman who had been listening intently from the front row. She felt that in the way I was speaking I was separating humanity from the universe. She looked me right in the eyes and demanded to know why “I” was doing that. So there I was rightfully being asked to justify my position. I didn’t feel flustered; I simply looked straight at her and explained “my” experience. We talked it through and came to the realization that we weren’t really very far apart in our views after all.

In thinking about this afterward I thought very much about the “autonomy in a context of natural hierarchy” that Andrew has been asking for. I saw that students of this teaching have the opportunity to create a powerful kind of spiritual authority – one that is based not only on the direct experience of Truth but also on what one is doing to enact that Truth into a new future. Because I was training teachers, developing programs, exploring new mediums for global spiritual engagement and a variety of other things, I was able to speak with an authority that commanded respect even if I was still justifiably expected to prove myself. Because I was able to speak about the accomplishments of my own efforts people accepted the validity of the teaching and my relationship with Andrew as my teacher without challenging it. Why? Because it is working and I could speak about that.

What I have begun to see on this trip has broken down yet another unconscious source of division that I hadn’t even known I was holding. The separation between the teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment and the products of that teaching. The fruits of the teaching are the teaching, I had previously been focused on how to train people to teach Evolutionary Enlightenment. I now recognize that any way that one is working with that teaching can be used as a platform for teaching it. for teaching it. The editors of What Is Enlightenment? Magazine have long been giving talks about what they have learned from creating each issue. I wonder how powerful it would be to hear them talk not just about the content of the issues, but on the process of creating them. Their work on the magazine is Evolutionary Enlightenment. There are students of this work who are trying to transform business organization, public education, penal systems, even personal development. Their work is also the teaching.

I am beginning to see teaching Evolutionary Enlightenment outside of the context of what you are doing to bring that teaching to life as only the first step in learning to teach this perspective. The second and more powerful is to speak about your own experience of creating a new culture with these teachings. As architects of the future we can speak about our own experience of truth with a profound authority.

Jeff (During a brief layover in Dubai after a 10 plus hour flight from Perth)

Yesterday I conducted a conference call with people who had worked with me during seminars and evening programs held recently in New York, Copenhagen, and throughout Australia. Those events are all documented here on early blog posts and what I have been writing about is how each of the events that I have conducted seem to pick up where the last one left off even though they are with completely different people in a different city or even country. This  is the beginning of a very exciting adventure and a challenge to anyone who wants to take it up to become a part of a global inquiry -  a globally integrated conversation about the potential of human beings to be agents of evolution and cultural change.

The development of that global conversation is what I see as an ambitious but achievable goal over the next year. The teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment is the perfect container for such a conversation because it is based in a view of human existence that places us right at the edge of whatever is going to happen next and the purpose of the conversation is to outline what that next step will be and to facilitate it happening.

The participants in the call yesterday expressed to me in emails afterward what they experienced through the connection with people from around the world who were committed as they are to the creation of new future.

I have posted some of the comments that I received here so that you could get a sense of what was happening.

If you want to be a part of this global inquire all you need to do is sign on to EnlightenNext's Universe Project website. It is free to sign on and once you do you will receive regular updates about how this work is going.  

http://www.enlightennext.org/universe-project/

EVOLUTION!

Am totally new to E.E. and don't have the group's vocabulary.  I was 2 minutes late and as I understood what was going on, perspiration began to roll off me in profusion, so great was my wonderment. I had been led to this moment. What an intro! (From New York)

I was in Copenhagen and what I feel more and more, is a great sense of trust, confidence. I mean I trust, that going into the field, is a very secure place to be, even if I feel fear or anything else. Just as you said when you feel insecure, maybe unstable, then you know that you are on the right way! (from Copenhagen)

Some comments from call participants

When we link we see that we are already linked. We see that the technical connection which allows us to talk to each other is only a mimic of a transpersonal connection of understanding that already links us and only needs to be recognized. (From Sydney)

I had this strange experience of seeing how I've kept this project very 'local' and in that way 'small and manageable'...and today it just blew that up and I felt both MORE responsible and accountable because it is so huge...but also more insecure and the boundaries of even how I think about "me" and "others" seemed to be changing. (from New York)

I was phoning from home in Warwick, a town population of some 12,000,  in Queensland located two hours drive west of the State capital of Brisbane and about 1,000 kms north of Sydney. I joined the conference about fifteen minutes into it after figuring out all the button pressing!  - a very interesting experience, trying to visualise the various participants scattered around the globe.

It was a great call! (From Sweden)

Thank you for gathering us globally for an inspiring call. (from Philadelphia)

As the call progressed I was very much aware of the field being generated by our commitment and interest in what was happening. As soon as attention is focused on the field I can feel the potential and the creativity that is its very nature. Yes we are becoming aware of the true nature of who we are and it is so much more than I had ever considered possible. (from Perth)

There were lots more...but you get the idea I think...