If you are not aware of author Andrew Cohen, then you should be. His new book entitled “Evolutionary Enlightenment-A New Path to Spiritual Awakening” is truly written to get the true spiritual aspirant thinking about their own limitations. In my interview with Andrew we discuss a very important concept being articulated in the book about ” letting go”. Now all of us who are on a spiritual path have heard or discussed this concept of “letting go” but Andrew in ” Evolutionary Enlightenment” take the concept of letting go to a whole new level. He states “you have to take an inner journey beyond everything you are and everything you know, beyond time, form, thought and memory , all the way back to before the beginning, before anything every happened, before the universe was born”.
Now for most of us we have discussed this aspect of letting go, and have probably experienced it to some level or degree–but what Andrew is writing is about takes this concept to a whole new dimension. Through meditation Andrew states if you go deep enough, letting your attention expand and release from all objects in consciousness, you will find that all the structures of the created universe begin to crumble before your eyes. Awareness itself-limitless, empty, pristine–becomes the only object of your attention.
Andrew refers to this state of emptiness the Ground of Being. A place where you cease to identify with objects, that timeless, spaceless, infinite no place emerges as the very nature of your own unborn self. So in one sense Andrew explains the level of consciousness available to anyone so that they can come to his place of evolutionary enlightenment.
The teachings of Evolutionary Enlightenment are about the evolution of cosmos and culture as yourself. So it is essential that you make the effort to see your own self and your life-circumstances from the biggest possible perspective, and relate to your own predicament as our shared predicament. Andrew states when you begin to awaken to the perceptive beyond postmodern individualism, in which you see your own human experience in the context of an evolving culture and cosmos, it changes everything. When you discover dimensions of your own self and of life itself that are infinitely deeper and higher than your culturally conditioned indivuated self-sense, that “personal” dimensions of your experience is now seen as an important but part of a very big picture. In this shift of perspective, the way you understand and approach the spiritual path changes.
Andrew outlines five tenets of Evolutionary Enlightenment: 1) Clarity of Intention 2) The Power of Volition 3) Face Everything and Avoid Nothing 4) Process Perspective 5) Cosmic Conscience.
If you want to learn more about ” Evolutionary Enlightenment” I highly recommend this book by author Andrew Cohen. You can also visit his website to watch video’s and read more about the Evolutionary Enlightenment movement. I hope you enjoy this interview with truly a great spiritual teacher and though leader–Andrew Cohen.
