July 17, 2012
The Source of Real Contentment
Practicing meditation for long periods makes it possible, at least temporarily, to know what it means to have no relationship to the passing of time and the movement of mind and memory. And not only that, it provides us with access to our own primordial depths, which inevitably gives rise to a profound and abiding sense of happiness. And that is because, slowly but surely, we awaken to that dimension of ourselves that has never been born, and has never entered into the stream of time. Repeatedly experiencing such an enormous shift of perspective makes it clear that the source of real contentment has nothing to do with satisfying any particular desire and that who we are at the deepest level has nothing to do with who we have been as a personality. It becomes apparent in a way that is deeply empowering that through one’s own efforts one can indeed attain spiritual liberation or enlightenment in this lifetime.
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Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher, cultural visionary, founder of EnlightenNext, and the author of 
This is a good definition of Being as opposed to Becoming. And, it is a reasonable answer to the question, “What is enlightenment?” Yet in “Evolutionary Enlightenment” you shift away from this “source of everything” to an ego based mode of doing you call “Becoming.” Why?.
Hi Bruce!
Enlightenment is rapidly moving away from the traditional translation you are applying to it in your response. Why? Because contemporary mystics and realizers have the knowledge that levels of consciousness are levels that have evolved in and through time, and the evolutionary energy or Eros of our beings is always pushing into the new to create the new as an ontological stage of development for all human beings. Spirit isn’t only Being, Spirit is Becoming.
In other words, contemporary translations of what enlightenment “is” are including what happens in manifestation, because most anyone who realizes Timeless Being will also realize that Being or Spirit IS what happens in time also, or Nonduality, which means Emptiness and Form are Not-two, hence, enlightenment is now being translated as realizing “all states and stages available at any given time.”
You are free to not agree with this translation, but according to those who’ve realized “all states and stages available at any given time,” the traditional translation has become a partial translation, outmoded really, to our current understanding of evolution. Your availability to this new translation is up to you. Either way, the awareness you enjoy is an awareness that has evolved because Spirit is that awareness that has evolved.
Light and Love,
LN
Hi Nada,
Thank you for your response. I appreciate your taking the time to answer my question.
Let me mention that I agree completely with everything Andrew writes in this blog. It is all about Being and the basis for spiritual liberation or enlightenment. It does not mention Becoming, or evolution, or development, or the manifest world of individual personalities and their desires to create…whatever. It is consistent with his definition of enlightenment in his book, “The conscious experience of Being, which is what enlightenment is…” I understand this blog to say “Being alone is sufficient to achieve the state of enlightenment.”
You state, “Enlightenment is rapidly moving away from the traditional translation you are applying to it in your response.” I think it would be more accurate to say, “Definitions of ‘enlightenment’ have begun to pop up recently that add unnecessary fluff and confusion to a term that has been around for millennia, enlightenment. They make it more modern and sexy with names like ‘Evolutionary Enlightenment’ and ‘Integral Enlightenment.’” It is not so much that they add fluff, but they say you should emphasize the fluff if you want to develop spiritually..
I think that basic to our argument is the relationship between the Non-fluff and the Fluff, between Being and Becoming, between Non-dual and Dual, between Un-manifest and Manifest, between Reality and Illusion, between Timeless and Time. They all have the same relationship, the first half of the pair is the phenomenon and the second half is the epiphenomenon. For example, Becoming would not exist without Being.
Add Fluff? Emphasize the Fluff? I say nay!
Love and Light,
Bruce
Hi Bruce, I feel perhaps the “fluff” you are talking about is the effort of spiritual teachers to inspire people to just get involved, to actually begin to question their own development. It’s every mystic and sage’s realized burden to translate their experience to address the current conditions of the culture. In our case – postmodernism. Andrew has as his experience the actual, direct knowledge of the “evolutionary impulse” or Eros (as do I), that which needs us to “become,” not only for our own sake, but for the sake of Spirit’s manifest awareness. Connecting and becoming with Eros is a journey of ascendance, a moving up and out of the mere limitations of the personal self. And if the personal self and the extreme narcissism of postmodernism is a personal/cultural sticking point preventing individuals from developing beyond petty self-obsession, I would say it’s not “fluff” to translate Eros as THE source of transformation that initially reduces and then pulls one completely out of their tendencies, because enlightened awareness unfolds in stages of nonduality, and also because each stage provides deeper recognition of the prior, unconditioned “nature” of the Self, ultimately realized to be nothing other than the forms of manifestation.
It’s not enough to experience the priorness of enlightened awareness; one must become the Enlightened Self with all of their beings; body, mind, psyche and soul.
Thanks to you,
LN
Hi Nada,
Thank you for your reply.
The term “fluff” may not have been the optimum choice of words in my last post, but now that I see it used in your post I am beginning to like it. When I said “fluff” I meant that, ego is fluff compared to spirit, the physical world is fluff compared to the non-physical world (the timeless formless ground of being), illusion is fluff compared to reality, and Becoming is fluff compared to Being. It means (fluff is) second order, incidental, relatively insignificant.
I think spiritual teachers should inspire people to get involved and question their development, and I think Andrew does that well. That is why in reviewing his book I recommended that everyone read it. In my review I also tried to warn people that there are (fluff and) contradictions in the book.
I am not a spiritual teacher, but the “evolutionary impulse” has also spoken to me. It told me that the words, “must,” “need,” “obligation,” and “responsibility” are not in its vocabulary. It doesn’t need anything. As far as the physical world is concerned, it not only has everything, it “is” everything. It also said it doesn’t care at all what I do or what I become, even though it has opened its menu of all possibilities and unlimited opportunities for me to choose from. It said whatever I choose is “perfect.”
At the risk of being redundant, my disagreement with the new EE philosophy is that it tries to combine “all states and all stages” (including enlightenment) of spiritual development into one grand unified theory—called Evolutionary Enlightenment, or “Becoming.” This is equivalent to taking all the stages of spiral dynamics, combining them into one stage and saying, “I am going to grow through them all at the same time.” In this process, Andrew (and others) is saying that all those millions (or hundreds of millions) of people who for thousands of years have been focusing on or emphasizing one stage (Being) are all WRONG! They only see part of the picture. And he is saying that the same is true of contemporary teachers who focus on only one part of spiritual development, such as Being. If I remember correctly, the names Tolle and Adyashanti have been directly discredited by Andrew and friends, and by inference Ram Dass who wrote the book, “Be Here Now.” Andrew has an uncanny ability to dismiss tremendous contributions to this conversation that has been ongoing for millennia with a wave of his wand. This all came into focus for me about four of five years ago when in one of the “Guru and Pandit” sessions, Ken Wilber said, “You need to stop being here now.” I remember his exact words, because at that time (and even now) I considered his statement “The worst advice ever from someone who knows.”
Other disagreements from you last post:
You say, “enlightened awareness unfolds in stages of nonduality,”
I say, There is only one stage of nonduality. “Nondual” means one stage.
You say, “the Self, ultimately realized to be nothing other than the forms of manifestation”
I say, forms of manifestation are such a small part of the Self, that they can be considered “fluff.”
You say, “one must ‘become’ the Enlightened Self with all of their beings…”
I say, (we have already covered “must”) one has the opportunity to Be who you really are, to “be” your Self.
And this last point is the crux of our argument, Being versus Becoming.
What is it like to Be who you really are, to be your Self? I leave it to a real wordsmith and offer this quote: “And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”—Marianne Williamson, “A Return to Love.”
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the origin of this conversation was a beautiful expression of non-fluff by Andrew about Being.
Thanks for listening,
Bruce
Nada,
Thank you for engaging in this conversation. I really appreciate it because it has allowed me to understand your perspective better and also to clarify my own thinking. As a possible final thought, I offer the following:
When you make contact with the “evolutionary impulse” and you look at it through the filters and blinders of ego, you see ego constructs such as “needs, musts, responsibilities and obligations.” And you see Eros. If you are looking for answers or solutions, they are ego based, such as “Becoming.”
When you make contact with the “evolutionary impulse” and you look at it without the filters and blinders of ego, you see no ego constructs; the evolutionary impulse is beyond ego. What you do see is Reality, “all possibilities and unlimited opportunities” (as mentioned earlier and also defined in my book review). You also see not only “Eros,” but you see Philia, Storge and Agape as well. The answers and solutions you see are egoless, such as “Being.”
From my perspective Evolutionary Enlightenment is, fundamentally, a look at Reality through the lens of ego, and seeing (surprise!) Ego.
Bruce
It’s good to read this description as I have often wondered WHY, what factors cause this sense of bliss, all-encompassing non-specific love, during meditation, and now, more and more in my daily life. Not being able to explain in, I just accept it as so. It helps to think of it as deeply connecting to ‘time before birth, time before time’, which is still part of us as a continuum, but so easily covered over and forgotten by the daily dust. This is good.
Thanks Andrew. The base line from which it all emerges and obviously us humans as well. I think th emost important understanding and insight to remember is we humans can change perspective at will. What a gift.
These are the words of a VISIONARY. Thanks very much respected Andrew Cohen.
I have found myself returning to this Andrew Cohen quote a couple of times because it brings home with considerable force something that has been nagging at me for some time. I meditate almost daily, and have experienced fairly profound states of altered consciousness – a few times a state of non duality and a couple to times what seems to me to be the Buddhistic emptiness. There is no question this brings (a temporary state of) peace, contentment, acceptance, non-judgementalism, and so on which actually is love of everyone and everything. This also, as Cohen implies, temporarily eliminates or extinguishes my sense of individual personality, of separate self. And that is what is bothering me.
Virtually all of these spiritual writers seem to think this is wonderful, this is what it’s all about, this should be life’s goal. But why? If the purpose of life is to go beyond life or to transcend physicality, and furthermore if this unending emptiness is the source of our essence, why do we have physical life? If our goal is to go back to where we originated, why make this side trip? If, as Cohen says and many others have also said, “who we are at the deepest level has nothing to do with who we have been as a personality,” what is the purpose of life? It doesn’t make sense to me that the purpose of my life is to leave this life by becoming one with emptiness, which they say is where I started. I think or certainly hope that we actually have a purpose here on earth. If we don’t, then why even bother trying? If what we do doesn’t matter, what does?
To me this is very unsatisfying. I think these guys have it wrong somewhere, but I can’t come up with a defensible alternative.
Hi John,
Very well said! I have absolutely no doubt that Andrew would agree with you wholeheartedly. In fact, your question is a significant part of what catalyzed the emergence of Andrew’s teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment! http://www.andrewcohen.com/2012/07/12/the-new-enlightenment/
In this context, discovering this source of profound freedom, release from existential tension, and a sense of self that absolutely transcends the personal is the foundation. But it’s only half the picture; the other half is the creative dimension of evolutionary Becoming, Spirit-as-the creative impulse to evolve. This is something the traditional enlightenment doesn’t recognize but what we awaken to is a profound desire to be here, to exist in the manifest world, not to escape it.
I think you came to the right place:)
John,
I was struggling with very similar questions which you have mentioned here and then I started reading about Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy. Increasingly as I understood what He wrote about the evolutionary process, gradually these questions came to rest.
Regs
Jyotsna
Hi again, Bruce! Nonduality is not a “stage” and neither is “Being.” These are both PRIOR to duality. Only when we are dual are there stages of becoming. People can, and often do, have PEAK EXPERIENCES of Being and Nonduality, as in meditative states, but it only becomes a *permanent acquisition* when one “becomes” through all of the stages adequately enough to transcend and include them in, and as, their own awareness. This requires radical fearlessness, ongoing inquiry and transmutation of energies, releasing identification after identification, until one becomes identified with unconditioned awareness or enlightenment, and thus, “becomes” liberated from duality or Nondual.
Human beings are always applying their intention to something and condemned to find meaning in what they seek. Why not apply enlightenment teachings to help bring the focus of human intention to help change culture? How could this not be a good thing? What do you think Jesus and Buddha were doing with their talks among the people? They were telling people to bring their “drive” of intention and meaning to CHANGE the current culture, thus helping evolution along,(not with these words of course) which is, after all, Spirit recognizing itself through us via ever-increasing levels of awareness. No easy task for any teacher of any era.
What say you?