September 11, 2012
God’s Choice
It is my firm conviction that Spirit as the Uncreated, Unborn, Unmanifest, timeless Ground of Being “chose” to create the universe. How do I know this? Because from our vantage point in the 21st Century, we can look back and see where we all came from, which is no-thing whatsoever. God or absolute Spirit must have wanted to do something after doing absolutely no-thing whatsoever for eternity. That’s why, when we experience the creative impulse in the universe vibrating and pulsating in our bodies and minds, we experience a powerful sense of purposefulness. When you awaken to evolution, you awaken to a profound sense of directionality that is inherent in the life force, that is inherent in existence itself. At the lower levels, the purpose of existence is to survive. At the highest levels, the purpose of existence is to create. God or Spirit as manifestation is the felt desire to create and give rise to that which has never existed before.
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Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher, cultural visionary, founder of EnlightenNext, and the author of 
Andrew –
These last few commentaries by you have been brilliant in their clarity of expression as is this one. It would be wonderful to have a loose leaf binder type booklet with the commentaries one for each page with some graphics. Individual commentaries could be easily flipped to, read and re-read. Thank you.
David Meggyesy
see previous comment
It is my firm conviction that you are deeply mistaken. I would offer my reasoning, but i doubt you will read this.
for the sake of sharing with us all, please do
Should I not jest reply to each individually as you have?
What does it mean to say that God “chose” anything? Doesn’t this make God an object in a subject-object duality? I cannot understand why this language is useful, except as a way of imposing our human concepts on something that is beyond concepts and can only be experienced directly without the objectifying veil of concepts. Is there a way to explain this that is less metaphorical or dualistic in language? The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao…. etc.
>>>>>That’s why, when we experience the creative impulse in the universe vibrating and pulsating in our bodies and minds, we experience a powerful sense of purposefulness.<<<<<<
One of the things I've noticed over the years is that a large number of awakening experiences seem to activate a need to "create" in people. So the response of a lot of people is to want to quit their mundane jobs and become artists.
Having experienced this myself about 20 years ago, and seen it in so many others, I think you have to take this "creative impulse" seriously, as an inherent characteristic of conscious manifestation.
God, or whatever label you'd like to use here, seeks out novelty and creation in every possible form and niche.
My own experience sync's up with descriptions by Andrew and many others that in various states you can "see" this place of ultimate unmanifest potential, a well spring from which all things arise, where all potential exists, and yet, there is nothing there but potential. It is a void, nothingness, and yet, it's everything that could possibly exist, or will exist. At the heart of that, is the creative impulse — a drive for novelty.
My amazing dog Shayna died quite suddenly at age 8. I was stricken with grief all week. On Saturday, while driving from my home to go running, I was crying missing Shayna so much. I glanced up to look at the scattered big puffy clouds in the Florida sky and there, right in front of me was my Shayna… The cloud was shaped just like her; even her little knob tail, ears, and nose were there. I was astonished… And could barely catch my breath. I snapped a photo on my IPhone and captured her image in the sky. This experience was so profound I can only say that, yes, absolutely, the ground of being is like a blast of energy that moves through everything, touches everything, and transcends everything. The key is to be open to it.
that comment was the most convoluted, piece of BS that I have read lately. If by “existence”, you mean the universe, it has no “meaning”. any meaning to existence is the meaning that an intelligence places on it. There is no reason for a god, not only no proof, but no reason for a god to exist that cannot be explained by natural means. I really believe that within our lifetimes, science will know if our universe came from another universe, or matter from energy which always existed, never needing to be “created” by some entity that has always existed.
Contrary to Jean leCleu I do not think you are deeply mistaken, but my conviction is you are missing the essential role of the feedback.
Communication and feedback – without entering details – are tools for complexity growth (direction of the Universe) and have been leading to the emergence of consciousness.
Communication without feedback (teaching as you understand it) is just the form of expression and has very limited creative power, insufficient to face the challenge of the Now.
Therefore I share Jean’s doubt you will read this.
Thanks for this blog, Andrew. I absolutely agree that we are each an integral part of this amazingly creative universe. Our individual creativity is an extension of the universe, just as our fingers are the extension of our hands, allowing us to expand on what already exists. But it’s only when we’re ready to explore this possibility from within our own self that we can confirm its truth. Without this inner awareness, it could, understandably, be hard to believe.
Glad the word “chose” is in quotations, since by definition we can’t know the mind of the Unborn, Unmanifest Ground of Being. The universe was created, this seems obvious, something we can agree on. The intention (maybe that’s a better word – the universe was “intended”, hence our experience of the resulting manifestation). I wouldn’t limit God to the act of choice, however. A bit of anthropomorphic reasoning. I prefer to think of God as omniscient and therefore choice never enters in. Creation yes, choice no. Am I getting my semantic point across?
Also, it’s not that there was nothing before the creation of our universe. It’s just that we don’t yet have the instruments to see beyond it’s limits and are simultaneously limited by our lack of understanding of what might lie outside that “outermost boundary”, let alone have a clue as to what the mind of God might look like.
Does God choose? Or does God possess choiceless awareness and creativity? You choose. You can, because you’re human and have questions you must choose an answer to. Or maybe you too can just rest in choiceless awareness knowing that this discussion is pointless unless it allows thought to realize it’s own limitations and takes you beyond it.
The God, or Ground of Being, is infinite. Not eternal. All things arise simultaneously.
When we make a declaration that there was nothing before ‘ big bang’, the God or whoever is the primal cause of the universe,must be chuckling. We presume to know when we do not know exactly. We know only to the extent our sense perceptions allow.There is , however, intuitive perception, which is not knowing, but an inner realization, which comes like a flash of lightning or inspiration. This comes with complete immersion in the subject of study, whether it is science or philosophy or spirituality.
When we read Andrew, we go by his words, which may not be to our liking but we miss the pointer. He is talking of evolution as his mantra for humanity to scale new heights of sensibility, what is wrong with that ?
Sri Aurobindo, a seer, said ,” As the impulse towards Mind ranges from the more sensitive reactions of Life in the metal and plant upto its full organisation in man, so in man himself there is the same ascending series, the preparation, if nothing more, of a higher and divine life. The animal is a living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man.Man may himself be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman, the god. Or, shall we not say, rather, to manifest God ” (The Life Divine, ch 1, pg 3-4).
>>>>But after we’ve seen beyond the veil of materiality and temporality for ourselves, we know without any doubt that it means something to exist.<<<<
Obviously there are some people who've had these kinds of moments and realize what Andrew is talking about. And then, there's the people who think Andrew is "whack." Look, naysayers … this is like having sex. You can see it on the TV, you can read about it, your best friend can tell you everything you wanted to know about it, but unless you've had sex, you don't know jack shit about it.
Mystical experiences or union is the same thing. You can read about it, intellectualize about it, philosophize it to DEATH, but you have to have had the experience or your opinion really doesnt count. Certainly there is something called "translation" when it comes to how you interpret and make sense of your mystical experience, but thats a long post and discussion and the point here is to keep it simple.