February 12, 2012
AUDIO: Two Dimensions of the Infinite
The last two days I taught a Virtual Being & Becoming Retreat. Even though I’ve been leading virtual retreats for the past few years, before this one started I had no idea how I was going to speak for a few hours to retreatants all around the world who I couldn’t see . . . but I did and a powerful field of awakened consciousness emerged and was present nonstop the entire weekend. I wanted to share a clip from the retreat with all of you. In it, I describe how the spiritual impulse moves in two directions simultaneously—one all the way back to before the beginning and the other towards the infinite future.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
To download this audio, right-click here and select “save as.”
|
Join Andrew's email list
Sign up here to receive a free excerpt from Evolutionary Enlightenment, an exclusive video, weekly quotes, and much more.
|
|
|
We hate spam just as much as you
|
Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher, cultural visionary, founder of EnlightenNext, and the author of 
I would like to be a Student of your Courses….
Prem
So do I, very much.
Beautiful experience. Thank you, Andrew.
The Evolutionary Spiritual Impulse resonates within me. This previously-unrecognized force I now can better appreciate thanks to Andrew Cohen’s teachings. The retreat was fruitful for me and my gratitude is sincere. There is joy in my heart for knowing that the capacity to realize the Totality of Reality is already a part of me and within the grasp of my consciousness.
It’s one thing to have an intellectual understanding of these concepts and it’s another to realize them. As an recent arriver ( yeah I know there is no such word but it works better than “newbie”) to these teachings this retreat allows me to move forward with an understanding of my path for realization. Now I have clear goals for meditation thanks to Andrew’s patient and deliberate manner of teaching. Being and Becoming, subtle, sublime and one. So glad I was “there” with all of you!
Cheers!
Jupiter Jim
I am still affected deeply by the virtual Being Becoming retreat on the weekend. This audio clip on the spiritual impulse moves in two directions simultaneously was a key point for me! The clarity and subtlety on the way that you were speaking Andrew on Evolutionary Enlightenment was extraordinarily profound!
Thank you, Andrew
When you speak about the Impulse moving in two directions at once, does it seem that way to us humans because we are the ones looking backward (or down into the depths?) to our beginnings, our past … and we are the ones looking forward (developmentally up?) into the future?
If the Impulse itself is infinite, with no beginning (?) and no end, then even speaking about direction must be relative (in this case, to human experience). Otherwise, it just IS. And we manifest materiality in that slice of finiteness within Infinity itself.
Thank you for such clarity, Andrew. It was terrific. I’d very much appreciate any further comments.
That’s great, Peggy, I got a similar understanding … see the quote from my question to Andrew I had sent in during the retreat:
“I was still stumbling over this ‘becoming’ part and the idea that the Spiritual impulse goes in two different directions. Although you said both parts are One and not two it still didn’t make fully sense to me… until I came to think of what you said yesterday about our deepest dimension of our Selves/the Ground of being that it is infinite, everywhere at the same moment, never entered the stream of time etc.
What I suddenly realized was that this pure Consciousness also already exists where our Future is. So the Future exists already in the unmanifest realm and therefore we are not going into the absolute unknown but in accessing this pure Consciousness pulling the possibilities into the manifest realm.” … Simultaneously our choosing makes all the difference because in turn our choices and actions change the future as well as the past. That’s again a paradox which seems to be the trademark of Spirit. This is at least my understanding.
Dear Andrew,
Thank You very much for this amazing and wonderful event.
We are so lucky to be able to participate this event crossing time, space and language.
Love You,Mei &Ru Hong
A powerful field certainly did indeed open up, Andrew. During your Being talk I became aware of new levels of subtlety. You took us to a profound place of being, so sweet, eternal. You spoke much slower than usual and I believe you were speaking from that place which made it so easy for us to be there with you. Thank you for opening up new possibilities over and over again.
dear Andrew, again an amazingly inspiring weekend and the insight of the spiritual impulse moving in two directions brings a new realisation:
The spiritual impulse moves in two directions simultaneously, one endlessly deeper into nothingness, the other endlessly further into becoming and manifestation. It is one movement with two directions, right from the start and there never was anything, not even nothingness before the beginning! This is not Being transforming into becoming or formlessness transforming into form but Oneness moving in two directions: Depth, the One and Width, the Many, right from the very start; Oneness moving in two directions and manifesting in two different paradoxical forms simultaneously. There has always been Becoming whenever there was Being. Now we are becoming conscious of these two dimensions, these two parts, recognizing the spiritual impulse that goes both ways.
And then Being, as the Absolute Subject that finds nondual realisation through the awakening human, has to be one with Becoming, in order to create conscious Oneness in form. Then Enlightenment and Life dance as one the divine dance of survival and delight.
I am somewhat put off by the only possible description of the Being nature of God as absolute formless emptiness……That feels like a religious belief. My experiences seem to be more of a feeling of pure potential that precedes any form …. a realm in which nothing exists that can be recognized by my mind….but i”m not convinced that is absolute emptiness just because I can’t recognize or comprehend the experience. I cannot describe an experience or reality of pure potential, yet, it seems to me that a realm of pure, indescribable potential could be a mystical reality from which the becoming activity of God would emerge.
Hi Andrew
Your words ” Infinite Being at rest ” in the timeless formless no time no form before the universe was born.”Being” And ” Infinite Being” in action
or motion “Becoming” as the Infinite evolutionary impulse moving in two directions simultaniously struck a chord with me.It is the reason why “IT”
cannot be understood by the Intellectual mind, and only by a direct mystical or profound spiritual experience.
Back to the future.
Oh, how beautiful!! Finally, words beyond either/or!!
The Descending and Ascending currents, Involution and Evolution, Eros and Agape are the active, transcendent forces of Becoming; Complimentary Opposites, the Two that are One.
These Not-two energies are the push and pull *Cause* of existential tension, and for the ego-level identified person, this tension is often felt as a desirous wanting and yearning, or discomfort and confusion, perhaps even a persistent irritation, or even, a nihilistic sense of no-meaning to life. It all depends on how awake you are to your interior.
Culture, in almost every way, because it has it’s agenda for its citizens, doesn’t support the greater meaning of what our potentials actually hold. In an almost unhealthy way, culture asks us to translate, or I should say, mis-translate, our existential tension into dis-ease, something to treat with therapy, exercise, relationship, fun or anti-depressants. Perhaps you need these and perhaps you don’t. I feel, and not only me, that this is the next great level of cultural transformation, a potential for all humanity on the brink of a more profound awakening. Andrew’s effort is to help move individuals in quantity to a greater understanding of not only this often difficult level of transformation, but what awaits beyond, the truly “spiritual dimensions.”
If you feel this two-directional energy, it’s very important to bring all of your available attention to it, to stay with it, no matter where it takes you; be fearless from your Heart, and have faith that Spirit, the One Self, is the energy within you asking you to surrender with and as It.
Co-creation is beautiful agony and a rewarding burden…
Andrew, Congratulations…This resource which you have created could be of great value to mankind, and there is no doubt that mankind needs all the help it can get. In my humble opinion, while the general content of your talk is solid, the delivery is rather convoluted and it would be difficult for a “newcomer” to really follow and thus comprehend the message. On a positive note I suggest that you take it in small steps and be careful about your choice of adjectives.
Thank you, dearest Andrew, for the retreat and for sharing your penetrating insight.
Re “This spiritual impulse moves in two directions simultaneously.”— sounds like an enigma. However when I see that they each take place like a gig and a break, I get it: “Being” during the “rest break” and “Becoming” during playing the gig: rest and motion.
As human beings we participate in four different states of being alive: wakefulness, sleep/dream, meditation, and the painful phase of dying. Each of these states has its unique reality and dharma. So you are brilliant in explaining the significance of both “Being” and “Becoming.” However I see each are appropriate to their significant states: “Being” to the state of meditation and “Becoming” to the state of wakefulness. So yes, the spiritual impulse moves in two directions simultaneously, but I see that it’s not like a tug-of-war, or an enigma. Like you can’t play the music and take a break at the same time. Rather, couldn’t it be said that they’re appropriate to their own, significantly unique state of consciousness?
Sat Nam Andrew. Amazing description of infinite becoming!
When you described the formless as ” complete emptiness”, my heart center constricted. The formless contains no thing yes, the question I have for you is are you suggesting emptiness defined by the absence of things? Paradoxically the formless is All……..far from empty, and yes contains all things! Much Love Brother.
Infinite and Eternal Blessings to Us ALL.
Being and Becoming – two dimensions of the Infinite are ’1) as above,
2) so below’.
As a student of Taoist philosophy “being and becoming” is to me the interpenetration of yin and yang – and that all phenomena is an expression of both form and formlessness simultaneously. And then to live from that understanding – one source, one spirit both empty and full – this is the practice as I understand it…
Thank you for sharing this clip from the weekend.
The BEING is Becoming…..IN OTHER WORDS AS GURU NANAK SAYS THAT THE CREATOR,THE GOD, HAS BECOME AND IS BECOMING BY BEING FULLY PRESENT IN HIS CREATION….THAT IS, IT IS ALL ONENESS ……
Even though I could only take part on the Sunday, this exact point – of the simultaneity of reaching towards the future, and also going back to before time – has hit me like a still-exploding nuclear bomb.
The love that draws me forward, to what has not yet occurred, needs the readiness to let go repeatedly and ever more fully.
This is one recognition and action now.
Only then can creativity bloom.
Yes, you are showing how “mind bombs” can be dropped.
Thank you.
AUM
Hi Andrew, I like you work. The thought “First find the Kingdom” for me easily translates into first find the eternal oneness of BEing and secondly moving forward and upwards as you are doing by sharing this important work and “setting the captives free!” The directional thing is to find the primordial all inclusive self. and secondly to increase the collective awareness of our true inheritance.
I think the public needs 2 realize that everything is 1. We r a non stop evovling Creative System. We r the starting and the ending of LIFE. We r nature with a brain 2me the ? is- What R we going 2 do with it? Love 2me is the so-called GOD and we R IT and IT is us. Creatively we’re in our infancy. Man has manipulated man since we started functioning with our brain.4 me my confusion lyes with the Otherside our real home. Ur book helped me tremendously with that struggle when u state that LOVE was always space and it decided 2b. That makes perfectly good sense 2me:). I’d also like 2 tell u some of the ways LIFE has been coming on 2me. I can look at the sun and not have 2 turn away, birds disappear right in front of me. I have a vending machine where I work that has worked 4me b4 I could complete my information of choice. Nothing bothers me genuinely anymore.Little things that might bother me r non existent.I was never on a spiritual path.My life changed when I genuinely asked 4my LIFES purpose. I know ur a busy man. I hope U read this and not a staff member. PeaceFul Love & Understanding 2us ALL:)!