Today Andrew asked everyone to answer the question “What is the goal of your life?” He used this as a way to introduce the first tenet of his teaching – clarity of intention. As he heard from people about what the goal of their life was he explained about the general lack of direction that is so much a part of the post-modern world that we have all grown up in.

He emphasized that it was not important what goal anyone came up with, but rather that each person came to an honest assessment of what is most important to them based on the actuality of how they live. He then asked everyone to compare the reality of what they are doing with their life with the highest philosophical ideals they recognize to be true.

In our discussion group later in the day we tackled this challenging material together. The group that I am leading in the retreat is made up of students who are already committed to the teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment and the task of evolving consciousness. From the start everyone was willing to struggle for a level of self-honesty, authenticity, and transparency that made me confident that something powerful was going to happen.

I encouraged everyone to be as ruthlessly honest as possible with the inquiry. It is easy to imagine yourself to be much more committed to high ideals than you are – OR – to falsely admit to being much less dedicated to them than your life reflects. Either one of those can be a way to avoid the excruciating nature of facing the truth of what you really know and exactly how much you are, or are not, living up to it.

As we continued to speak some were honest about the gap that they recognized between what they have already realized to be true and the reality of how they were living. Others spoke about their growing confidence in the possibility of real evolution based on the actions they have begun to take in life and the positive results of those actions.

Towards the end of the conversation we sat for periods of time in silence emerged in an atmosphere heavy with the gravitas of the implications of what we had faced into together. There was nothing negative in the air. The heaviness came from a sense of being pregnant with potential, as if we were sitting together at the edge of the next choice that any of us was going to make in relationship to what we had seen. No matter what had happened up until that moment it was clear that everything was possible and nothing was in the way.

Later when we met with Andrew a few people in the group spoke with Andrew about what they had experienced and it was obvious from what they said that in the alchemy of our silence powerful understanding was emerging for many.

On the fifth day of the retreat Andrew spoke about the first three tenets of his teaching. Continuing on from what he had talked about regarding the first tenet – clarity of intention – he then added the second tenet – the law of volitionality – and the third tenet – Face Everything and Avoid Nothing. These three tenets when used in combination represent the “work” that a person must do to follow the path of Evolutionary Enlightenment.

Andrew was stressing the perfect logic of how it all fits together. Looking at the large philosophical context of the demand for conscious evolution a person considers what is most important in their life. Once clear about what is most important in the biggest available context a person also knows that they are always free to choose in accordance with that intention. Then one must be constantly engaged in the practice of reflecting on everything – the largest philosophical context that they have recognized to be true and the realty of the choices they are making in life. These three tenets when used together become an ongoing moral navigation system that allows us to consistently make choices that are aligned with our highest ideals.

We spoke about these tenets in our discussion groups in the afternoon. The groups were all thrilling and the one that I was leading almost literally started where we left off yesterday. There was just a brief period during which people found it difficult to be simple and clear about themselves in relationship to three tenets stated above. But, after a few minutes something descended into the room that had to do with a mutual and growing recognition of our own lack of integrity in relationship to what we had already realized about life. There are times when all of us know what the right thing to do is and then consciously do the wrong thing anyway. That is a lack of integrity. We realized that when we talk about becoming integrated and whole, we are talking about having integrity.

From this point on the discussion was a cascade of insight and understanding. We all entered into an inter-subjective space that saw everything in relationship to the first three tenets simply and clearly. Everyone could see exactly where they stood in relationship to a vast evolutionary perspective and there was no fear of the truth, only the thrilling interest in what becomes possible when the truth is faced in the biggest context.

There were too many insights to write about here, but one thing I would like to mention is that the idea of the choosing faculty seemed to become crystal clear to everyone. We are, in the end, just an ability to choose. There is a huge philosophical context, a myriad of conflicting inner and outer emotional, psychological and spiritual forces acting on us all the time, and our ability to choose freely – that’s it! – everything became brutally and thrilling clear, obvious and simple.

Together we had created an inter-subjective shared consciousness that had become our own consciousness and that held a higher moral and ethical values than any of us could claim to have on our own.

Today Andrew Cohen introduced his conception of the human soul and what it means to strengthen your soul, or develop what he calls soul strength.

In the teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment, Andrew Cohen defines the soul in terms of our capacity for integrity. So one way of looking at it would be that our ability and tendency to act in accordance with what we know is right is the measure of our soul. The state of our soul is a result of our past actions and choices. You strengthen your soul by doing what is right and you weaken or deaden it by doing what is wrong. In this sense Andrew also talked about the soul as the place where we feel our conscience – the place in us that cares.

The first three tenets that we discussed yesterday are the practice for cultivating and strengthen the soul. Our discussion group today on this matter of soul strength transcended and included our last discussion. Although the feeling in the room after our discussion yesterday was that it couldn’t get more serious, we started out this discussion recognizing that the introduction of this conception of soul had brought a whole new depth of gravitas to our contemplation.

As one person described it she realized that fundamentally she had been living her life as if it were a game. – as if at any moment she could just start again. She said when she was a kid they used to call it a “do-over” when you didn’t like the way the game was going and you wanted everyone to agree to start over. She realized that without this conception of the soul she was actually using the law of volitionality as a perpetual “do-over” as if nothing she did really mattered because she always had the possibility to choose something else.

Now she realized that things were more complex than that. Her ability to make a different choice had everything to do with the state of her soul. She realized that in effect everything always counted. From this perspective it is foolish and naïve to ignore the state of your soul and remain confident that when you need to make a radically different choice, you will have the wherewithal to do it!

As we got deeper and deeper into this investigation of the soul we experienced both the weight of responsibility to build our own soul strength and also the vast unlimited potential of doing that in the context of committed relationships with others who were dedicated to doing the same.

Today, the last full day of the retreat, Andrew spoke about the fourth and fifth of the fundamental tenets of his teaching – The Law of Impersonality (four) and For the Sake of the Whole (five).

He spent the greatest amount of time speaking about the fourth tenet, essentially breaking down the identity of self to reveal that in the end we are not an individual but a process. He spoke about how challenging it is to see oneself as being a process because the ego as the separate sense of self is obliterated in that recognition.

Andrew also talked about how the realization of being part of a process was critical if one is to make the leap from a world-centric world view to a kosmos-centric world view. He talked about the transition to kosmos-centricity as being the same as becoming not less than 51% aligned with the authentic self and also as shifting our locus of identification from the ego to the evolutionary process itself.

Our discussion group in the afternoon had a rocky start. Too many people were trying to describe being a process from outside of the process. I pointed out that the difficulty that we were having with the discussion could also be seen as part of the process. Specifically we were witnessing what happens when human beings who are overly identified with ego are confronted with the reality of recognizing themselves to be a process.

What happens? A certain degree of fear and panic is unleashed in the human nervous system and if you are not awake to that as an impersonal mechanism you just start frantically trying to nail down some way of defining “being a process” that leaves your ego intact…which of course is impossible.

Once people began to see that we really are a process, right now! everything changed. The group started to take off and went further than in any of the other discussions because rather than being a room full of individuals trying to understand something, there was a process of human understanding trying to understand itself. We had begun to see ourselves not as individuals, but as a process of evolution in just the way Andrew had described the fourth tenet.

By the end of the discussion each person began to recognize that they were the only one. That they were the energy and intelligence that had created the universe – the project of evolving the universe (what Andrew had called the Universe Project in his teaching) was their own project. Before time began they had started it and now they were waking up needing to finish it. Without mentioning it by name we had gone about as far into the fifth tenet as you can go! :)

Interestingly it did seem (and of course this can also be seen as part of an impersonal mechanism) that there was some back sliding in the group by the time we met again with Andrew to discuss what had happened. Fair enough I guess. The implications of recognizing that you are god can be a bit overwhelming. :) :) :)

 

What is the Universe Project?

When human begins awaken to the fact that they are nothing less than the process of evolution itself they awaken to what Andrew Cohen calls The Universe Project. The Universe Project means taking responsibility for the evolution of consciousness and the creation of the future.

A few weeks ago I conducted a seminar in New York City called “Living with Meaning and Purpose.” During the day that I spent with the participants I attempted to convey that we – people who would come to a seminar like that – are already cultural leaders and therefore our work is not to look for what is meaningful in life, but to strive to take real responsibility for what we have already found. Ultimately, I was asking them to take on The Universe Project.

To evolve consciousness I explained that we need to do three things.

First we need to strive for and reach new heights of potential as true leaders in the movement to take humanity to the next level of consciousness.

Second we need to attract and inspire others to do the same. My personal goal is to have not less than 1,000 people in the New York City area engaged in this project by August.

Third we need to work together continually using all of our collective recourses, knowledge and expertise to explore and discover ways to accelerate the progress of the first two above.

Achieving these goals can help create  the revolution in consciousness and culture that Andrew Cohen and the teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment are aimed toward. Namely, evolve ourselves and help others evolve.

During the seminar, I asked everyone who attended to commit to six months of some degree of engaged participation in order to create a real evolutionary movement in the New York City area. And I want to give you the opportunity now to accept the same invitation and join this project. I only ask that you agree to the following three conditions in order to say yes to my proposal.

1. I acknowledge that I already recognize that humanity must take conscious responsibility for its own evolution at this point in our history in order to survive and thrive into the future and I realize that my own recognition of this fact already makes me responsible.

2. I commit to engage wholeheartedly in the conscious effort to evolve and deepen my understanding of the philosophy and methods of Evolutionary Enlightenment over the next six months.

3. I commit to using my own understanding and areas of expertise to help others in their effort to consciously evolve.

To accept this invitation simply join my mailing list and you will get information on the activities that have already started around this project. Including:

• Weekly conference calls that explore themes of Evolutionary Enlightenment and the development of consciousness and the podcast I create from these calls
• Courses and seminars conducted at the EnlightenNext Center in New York City
• Events with Andrew Cohen the revolutionary spiritual leader and pioneer of Evolutionary Enlightenment
• Networking events and opportunities to meet other people in the New York City area that share your passion for evolution

Please sign my mailing list now!

 

 

This is a short clip taken from a class I taught in which I discuss one of the differences between the ego's perspective and the perspective of the authentic self.