January 27, 2012
Q&A With Andrew Cohen
To listen to the full audio recording of Andrew Cohen’s Q&A Teleseminar about his new book (originally broadcast at 3 pm ET on January 28th, 2012), please click the play button below:
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Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher, cultural visionary, founder of EnlightenNext, and the author of 
Dear Andrew,
I am just curious….how do you know that before the big bang..
.that it was peaceful…..
that nothing had happened….
that it was a singularly…
that it was a profound stillness with nothing missing
. How have you come to know this? Thank you for your time and response.
Pauline
Dear Pauline,
Because . . . when the mind disappears, time disappears. When time disappears, the world disappears. When the world disappears, all form disappears. That means when everything disappears, you are still there formless, timeless, thoughtless. Your nature is stillness, peace, and unconditional freedom. Close your eyes and go all the way home and you’ll find this out for yourself.
Andrew,
Within the breakthrough concepts you have elaborated through Evolutionary Enlightenment, how do we address the fact that humans today are ravaging biological evolution. I mean, how in the development of consciousness do we tie together evolution of consciousness with the necessity for getting into a benign relationship with the living systems that we completely depend upon?
Michael
By waking up to an evolutionary worldview! When human beings took the profound leap in cultural evolution from traditionalism to modernism, we separated ourselves from nature and began to see it as an external object. This objectification of nature, together with the enormous power of science and industrialization, created a worldview that led to the ravages of the biosphere and the natural world that you refer to. The only solution is the evolution of consciousness. In this case, evolution from modernism to postmodernism to an integral/evolutionary worldview–one that makes it apparent to us that the biosphere is our Mother, a Mother on whom we are entirely dependent. Only through respecting and nurturing her will be able to survive and flourish. Without her we’re doomed to death and destruction.
Hi Andrew. I am curious. ‘Earth is our Mother’ is not a new perspective. It is central to most native-tribal myths / stories / consciousness and it is certainly central to the Post Modern Environmental narrative. So, can you elaborate on what in particular about the Post Post Modern Evolutionary Kosmocentric perspective positions the ‘Earth is our Mother’ recognition at a uniquely higher, more vertical, more ascendant ‘octave’ in the developmental spiral. What are the distinguishing interior qualities of the ‘Earth is Our Mother’ recognition within an Evolutionarily Enlightened context? Thank you so much. Daniel.
It’s now 3:42 EST and I have heard the intro and the monotonous music at least 3 times. And shortly after you announce the % of people who have read his book, all sounds stop.
I suppose I will stay – hearing the same thing again
What a HUGE disappointment!!!!!!!
So I’ll just keep on reading his book.
I really appreciate your ‘direction’, Andrew and have for many, many years!
From Mary in Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Hi Mary–I assume you’re listening by webstream and not via the conference call phone number? The webstream will frequently need to be stopped and restarted if it gets caught in a buffer loop; sometimes you’ll even need to refresh the page. This is why we do things primarily via phone, but offer webstream as a backup for those who prefer it over telephones.
Sorry you’re experiencing trouble, but you will be able to download the audio recording from today’s call soon.
It was enlightening to listen to Andrew and thus to be part of the process of evolving. Change itself as our project in all that we are and are doing, is real challenge and mission for us. Change is our potential. That is great.
The Q&A session yesterday was inspiring, thank you.
One of the questions near the end of the session was from ‘Bob’.
Near the end of his comments he mentioned the “Eros Impulse”
Would you please tell me more about the Eros Impulse, or suggest where I could read about it?
I am in Craig Hamilton’s 9-month ELTP .
AND I subscribe to your weekly quotes. Great inspiration and wisdom
there.
Elizabeth Stinson
Dear Elizabeth,
The Eros impulse is what I call “the evolutionary impulse.” I warmly suggest that you purchase a copy of my new book, Evolutionary Enlightenment. In it, I go into great detail describing what this impulse is and the profound role it’s constantly playing in not only our own personal lives, but in the life of the cosmos itself.
@Pauline that’s an interesting question and I hope Andrew Cohen will answer. I thought I’d comment because this interests me too though I think there is a danger people might feel overly dismissive of Andrew’s teachings just because they might not like how he speaks about creation and before, or because they may not share his apparent certainty. For what it’s worth, I’ve no axe to grind here though have been interested in Andrew’s teachings for several years.
Understanding the origins of the universe is as much an issue for many scientists as it is for spiritual seekers, and while the two tend to come at the issue in different ways, they don’t have to disagree just as no one has an answer which is beyond the scope of rational debate, no matter how intuitively convinced they may feel. Andrew Cohen’s talk about there being stillness etc kind of accords with a “scientific” theory of creation which suggests there was no time before The Big Bang (arguably, with no time there can be nothing happening – a point often directed against the possibility of an intelligent designer of some sort). However some scientists have other ideas, like those who suggest there wasn’t just “The” Big Bang but that there has been, and will be, an infinite succession of them (there’s a nice Scientific American article on this http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=no-evidence-of-time-before-big – interestingly, this is another theory which can oust the possibility of a designer). I guess your point is that scientists themselves aren’t in agreement about how it all began.
I don’t think Andrew claims to have settled such scientific controversies, though his teachings do seem to me to affirm certain “scientific” views rather than others, as if they should be taken for granted. I expect this is in part a teaching device, as we all know that scientific theories are always revisable and like most “spiritual” approaches Evolutionary Enlightenment is not just a collection of theories about the universe, scientific or otherwise, but includes personal or “spiritual” practices and so forth.
So what I’m saying is that Evolutionary Enlightenment doesn’t seem to me to simply set out to replace/challenge/affirm scientific views of creation, and has other aspects, but in how it is taught it does seem to adopt certain questionable scientific views and treat them as taken-for–granted when to many of us those views are questionable or even necessarily mysteries. It would be informative if Andrew would explain a little more about this, as my understanding is these theoretical or “evolutionary” aspects to his teachings were not imparted to him by his own Indian guru or his guru’s broad “tradition”.
Oh, and thanks for making this download freely available!
Dear Keith,
You are certainly correct that the Big Bang Theory is not universally accepted as an absolute fact by all scientists. Since it has largely been accepted, I use it as a teaching tool, because it helps me to help others to make sense out of how we got here. That being said, even if we find out that it is an inaccurate thesis, Evolutionary Enlightenment as a teaching will still be philosophically coherent, because all we have to agree on for this teaching to remain coherent is that evolution or development is happening in the cosmos and that we’re a part of it.
hellos!
) i wondered, Andrew, in the book you mention about the Absolute ‘I’ or maybe one would say ‘Absolute Subjectivity’, maybe just ‘Absolute Subject’, or even merely, ‘Absolute’, never having entered the stream of time, yet unborn I guess. please forgive me if i’m mistaken, or misinterpreting, but maybe could this imply that it is Possible that this entering happen, and if so, do you still have hope that humanity has enough time, that this experiment, the human experiment, i guess someone has called it before, still has a chance at Absolute correction, Redemption, if you will? If so, maybe what should we do to help this along, i guess as painlessly as possible? um. ? Thank you, so much, for this. 
)I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Thank you.
Hi Andrew,
I think I got what you mean by the “Choosing Faculty”,
but don’t understand the following:
Who is the one wanting?
Who is the one choosing?
Is the Choosing Faculty the same thing as the Soul??
What makes the one who chooses to make better choices?
What is appealing to the one who is choosing?
How do we strengthen our Choosing Faculty and improve its ‘abilities’ so that it is more inclined towards making better choices?
Thanks a lot!
Dear Thais,
You are the only one who could be that is doing the choosing or the wanting. The choosing faculty is not the same thing as the soul and if you want to make better choices, identify more with the part of yourself that wants to evolve and become an Enlightened person than you do with the fears and desires of your ego.
Totally Awesome! Bodhidharma’s “No Knowing” applies here!
Hello Andrew
thank you for your book. I resonate with your Eros ethos and like good literature I found myself connected with insight to your writing.
I am a psychoanalytic therapist and a philosophy and cultural studies academic – so concerned with both internal life and culture.
I live and work in Australia and am increasingly feeling isolated from the possibility of a spiritual home and alienated from the internet even though paradoxically the internet has made this engagement possible.
I am wondering if you can suggest ways for people to connect in mind-body time space relations – although I will try to come physicaly to one of your retreats this year in the US.
yours in evolutionary enlightenment
Grace
Dear Grace,
Great to hear this! I’m teaching a week retreat in California in March and if you can make it I’m sure it would have a powerful effect on your development. Also, EnlightenNext has programs with different levels of engagement specifically designed for people to come together and develop in these extraordinary teachings. You can learn more about these programs here.
When enlightened individuals (and I believe you are one) are unsure whether some statement or other about the nature of the universe is true or not (e.g., whether there is or isn’t reincarnation, whether there are or aren’t angels/gods, etc.), I wonder to myself if such individuals are unsure, then is there any entity in the universe that knows for sure the answers to such questions? And if being enlightened or ‘one with the Self’ doesn’t give one access to these answers, then maybe human enlightenment is not really being ‘one with the Self’ in its most encompassing meaning?
Dear Skye,
Buddhists claim that the Buddha was omniscient. That means he had access to all knowledge about the past, present, and future. With cultural evolution we have discovered that these assertions were the products of mythic religion and magical thinking. No one knows everything including men or women who are believed to have access to higher and deeper states of awareness. To be enlightened simply means that one is stabilized in the traditional mystical revelation about the ultimate truth about the nature of reality, which is: there is only One and not two. Understanding the nature of the manifest universe in all its subtlety and complexity is an ongoing process and we should all continue to try and learn as much about this amazing space in which we exist, no matter how enlightened we think we are.
Andrew, it’s refreshing to see you responding to the blog comments here, thanks for making that effort. I heard you speak in Boulder this summer and met you briefly. Just finished your book… thank you! Listened to two recent audiocasts, last weekend and with Terry P for ISP.
My question: your teachings resonate deeply for me, and I’m starting to see them manifest in me, my work, and my life. I long for stories, narratives, examples, any way to see more clearly how real people are applying your teachings in the real world. Where can I find more of that? I wished for more stories as I read your book.
Dear Bob,
That’s a great question you’re asking and as there are many, many stories of how different people have been deeply effected by awakening to this extraordinary teaching, I must admit we haven’t put enough time into making them available for people like yourself. I agree that this is very important and we’re going to get right on this. In the mean time, my student Mike Wombacher has written a book about attending one of my retreats called, 11 Days at the Edge. Have you had a chance to look at it?
I just purchased the book on Amazon – it looks intriguing. Thanks for the sugggestion, Andrew!
Beyond traditions and theories (« external forces ») could be THE NEW : a personal revelation one can be with , nomatterwhat : joy of light ?
How can we reach that ? Do you ?
Dear Andrew,
Traditional enlightenment teachers have been quite emphatic that sexual release (especially for men) depletes valuable psychic/spiritual energy (thereby in effect slowing down one’s spiritual evolution), whereas sexual sublimation (and the purification process it entails) greatly accelerates one’s spiritual evolution. Would you say that in post-traditional enlightenment teachings this still holds true?
Dear Skye,
No, not really. In a post-traditional mysticism I think the goal is to free ourselves from the bondage of believing that if we don’t have sex, we’re either going to die or be missing out on the most important experience you can have in life. Are we slaves to sexual longing or do we experience freedom in relationship to it? Overindulgence leads to bondage and depletion–spiritual, psychic, and otherwise. Total abstinence is a powerful practice, one I used to do myself for a period to gain clarity. The issue here is freedom and celibacy, while noble, does not in any way garauntee spiritual evolution. In my teaching, you can tell how spiritually evolved someone is in relationship to how much karma, if any, they have created and/or are continuing to create in relationship to this challenging area of life. Is my relationship to sexuality bringing me joy or suffering? Is it bringing joy and suffering to others? Most importantly, do I know that I’m already free and full whether I experience the bliss of sexual union or not? Obviously, there’s a lot more to spiritual evolution than our relationship to sexuality. With that being said, it is a very important subject.
How do I distinguish between ego and true self with respect to dreams? For example, pursuing a dream job is the act of ego or the true self? Do we have to pray for dreams?