This week I had the pleasure and privilege to teach my first class in Evolutionary Enlightenment to 13 interested and engaged participants.  It felt as if everyone was drawn to the course out of some interest to grow and develop .  Indeed, I saw the class as if it were a station on our own journey of  evolution.   We began by looking at  these liberation teachings as fundamentally about the cultivation of depth and a learned perspective.  Since most of us are so caught up in our experiences and feelings we often draw false conclusions about what life is about.  We don't pay much attention to perspective.  We even  looked at the degree to which we are all living life as narcissists!    We went on to contemplate how most of what we think of as development is really about developing  aspects of our self that appear to be outside ourself , but rarely do we contemplate what it would mean if the Self, itself, could develop.   To begin this develpment we got a sense of the Self as it is prior to the arising of any objects or experience.

I learrned a lot from teaching this class.  The more I was able to let go of what I know and my reliance on my notes, and just be with everyone in this profound inquiry, the deeper and more engaged we all seem to become.  It felt as if I was beginning to go "into the unknown"  with everyone.

For those of you who are not familair with Evolutionary Enlightenment, check out this video.  For those of you who are participating in my class, as you can see, this blog is an opportunity for me to reflect on the course and how it is going.  It is also a place for anyone in the course to do the same - a fertlile ground for us to continue going into what gets opened up in class and what happens during the (contemplative) week between each class....

On the way back from Philadelphia today, I was thinking about just how much is required of us to take our place as an awakening human in an evolving cosmos.   Jeff Carreira, in one of his blogs, talked about the courage and commitment that it takes to actually force yourself to try to see through to a level of consciousness that is literally beyond the one that you are at. He used the same metaphor as the one I used in class, when he described the experience of this line of inquiry as like pushing your face into ice: "...it is painful to maintain contact with the new perspective, but if you keep leaning in you will feel the ice melt and you will start to push deeper into it"  I feel like Jeff is speaking for me when he goes on to say:  "..to me it is a powerful analogy, because it describes one aspect of my own experience of striving for higher and deeper perspectives perfectly. In Foxhollow, we talked about what a kosmo-centric perspective would really be like. We attempted to stretch to see ourselves not as a static fixed entity that is embedded in the universe, but as a process that erupts through time and ultimately as The Process of life that is erupting through time."   This very notion of seeing myself as a process is very challenging.  Awakening to the realization that as an Evolving Self, I am a prism through which (as Andrew said in Boomeritis), consciousness sees itself and through which it evolves, necessitates a struggle against the bounds of my own inertia.  But, as I become more aware of what is True, the grip of the narcissistic Postmodern Sensitive Self loosens.   

Finally, in responding to the many of the questions that the students in my class asked, I felt at the edge of my own development.  It was a humbling experience. I didn't have any answers, just a desire to push further into the ice, and the knowledge that pushing further could only happen as a "We" that was pushing together-as-One.  

     Monday's class was entitled "Meditation and The Ground of Being - and it felt as if, by the end of the night, all 15 of us had fallen into the Ground of Being; reluctant to move from the stillness that emerged.  When we finally did "emerge," it seemed as if my self-consciousness had faded away, for I felt "embedded" in an inter-subjective field of consciousness.  Awakening to this, I felt more fully my-Self; more "real," as if there was an "I" no longer bounded by the limitations of self consciousness.   It even felt like a higher "We" was present.  
      Throughout the evening, we discussed meditation as a fundamental practice of Evolutionary Enlightenment.  Within the context of this enlightenment, meditation is more than a profound experience of depth.   Rather, letting go into the Ground of Being, can serve as a springboard by which one can awaken to the Authentic Self.     Further viewing meditation, as a practice of "letting everything be as it is," we listened to a guided meditation, "Having Nothing."    In it, Andrew Cohen speaks about meditation as a metaphor for enlightenment - for living a liberated life.  He says, "in letting everything be what it is, we must give up our attachments to being someone, knowing something and to particular objects that make us feel significant."  
      For some people, meditation comes easy - for me, that wasn't the case.   At first, I couldn't sit still for more than five minutes, for I was constantly  getting caught up in the movement of compulsive thinking.  Now, after 4 years of meditating, it can still be, at times, a tortuous experience.  But, why, if falling into the ground of being is so deeply satisfying, does meditation need to be such a struggle? I thought further about this in light of the perspective of meditation as "having nothing, knowing nothing, and being nobody."  Indeed, after a life dedicated to being somebody and getting somewhere, letting go at the deepest level, of the sense of who I am seems terrifying.  Yet, who is the "I" (self) that is terrified? -- Certainly not the Authentic Self or the "I" who has tasted the bliss of the Ground of Being. 
    Rather, it appears that the "I" who is terrified is none other than the "I"   as Ego who I have mis-identified as "me."   To the Ego, or illusory self, losing the bubble of self identity from which I peer out at the world from, seems like death.   In light of this, my resistance to meditation, is nothing but "me" as Ego.  Denying the Ground of Being itself, makes it possible to go on living as who my conditioning  tells me I am - a personal separate self sense, who is the judge of meaning in the world.  Whose fears and desires are real and who must, as Andrew says, surround itself with particular objects that make me feel significant.  
    So, I see that when I struggle with meditation it is a struggle for the right reason.  I meditate to remind myself that I am not a prisoner.   I mediate to encounter the truth of who I really am - inherently free.  I also, again and again want to be able to taste the groundless ground that is the source of my own deepest Self, so that I never forget that it is who I am.  
     Part of our goal for this course is to build a culture between us.  After tasting that ground together with fellow journeyers on Monday night, I sensed that the culture developing between us was deepening.

     It's the day before Thanksgiving and there is a lot that I have to be thankful for.  In many ways, my life looks the same as it did last year at this time.  At least the outer circumstances of my life haven't changed much.  But, what has changed and what I am eternally grateful for, is the evolving and deepening perspective that I have on why I am here, where I am going, and how I shall live my life.  Fundamentally, I have answered those questions for myself through the study and practice of Evolutionary Enlightenment (see two minute video).  It began four years ago when I said in a retreat with Andrew Cohen, "Yes, I want to be free more than anything else,"  
     Since then, the ever-evolving challenge of life has become a matter of me living up to, moment to moment, to what I, in my heart know to be absolutely true.  It's a struggle that I am thankful for.  I feel blessed to have awoken to the opportunity to consciously participate in the evolutionary process; knowing how essential it is to the creative unfolding of the Kosmos.  And for someone like me, who at 56, still has a big ego, it's a blessing to feel the importance of my personal drama melt away,  in the light of the dawning realization that it is "up to us;" that it is through our hearts and mind that the Universe is starting to know itself and consciously evolve.
     I'm thankful to have Andrew Cohen as my teacher and to live a life, enriched by the joy of coming together with others from around the world; people who are creating a revolution in consciousness and culture, "for the sake of the whole."   Finally, teaching the Introduction to Evolutionary Enlightenment Course to a group of highly motivated participants is a gift.  It's a thrilling, humbling experience.   With each class, as the students respond from their interest in going further, it reaches a place where I no longer have answers.  It's as if the tethers that bind and hold me down to what I know begin to loosen. Leaving me on the edge of my own conscious evolution, passion awakened, being with them as a higher  "We," going into the unknown.   
     Happy Thanksgiving.

     In Class IV we moved further into the heart of these teachings of liberation for the 21^st Century.  We looked at and experienced the two radically different perspectives of Evolutionary Enlightenment, the Ego and the Authentic Self.    Indeed, between the last class and this one, we all experienced, to varying degrees, the basic movement of Evolutionary Enlightenment which is letting go of the Ego, or a negative relationship to life, "falling back" into the ground of being, where there is no relationship to life and then re-emerging on "the other side" as The Authentic Self, or a positive relationship to life. 

     Andrew Cohen talks about the movement out of the ground of being "where there is absolute, unparalleled freedom, abiding for eternity in the infinite peace of the ground of being.  And yet, from this empty ground, beyond life and death, there mysteriously arises a pure impulse to become, to take form. This imperative to evolve or God impulse, when experienced directly, is felt as absolute love-an ecstatically positive, completely unified surge towards manifestation. Utterly life-affirming, the expression of this imperative in the awakening human is called the authentic self."

     As I taught this class, I could feel a tension and stirring in the room,  as if together, everyone was grappling with these two aspects of us.   And, on the way back to New York, Kevin, a fellow student, also remarked that there seemed to be a lot of moving around in the room, people getting up, even taking cell phone calls, etc.  And, although I could be wrong, when I thought about it, it made sense.  The Ego, the holder of our self-consciousness and self-concern, is resistant to change, especially at the foundational level of our Self.    Indeed, I can sense where in my own life I am still so invested in maintaining my self-identity.    The Authentic Self, on the other hand, thrives on change and creating the future. 

     The practice of Evolutionary Enlightenment all comes down to the choices that we make.  Specifically, the choice to live in accordance with the Authentic Self vs. the Ego, until our allegiance to the Authentic Self accounts for more than 51% of our choices.  So could it be that even though we were recognizing the truth of what was being said, the stirring and tension in the room (including me!), was The Ego, appearing as us (or rather as us unconsciously choosing it)?  Indeed, if the self that you know yourself to be, that you are indeed even comfortable with, suddenly gets called into question, wouldn't you have the impulse to protect "yourself" or even fight back? 

     Its one thing to understand what "ego-death" is, but it is quite a different story when it comes to having the strength to change in the face of it.  Who wants to go down with the "ship"?