Andrew Cohen - N° 32 - LAST TEACHINGS - Dec. 24 _ Feb. 25

I think that most of our choices are conditioned conditioned impulses in many different levels. >> But I think the big and important choices we make are not completely conditioned. There's some doership involved. It's very important. It determines our destiny. So I like to look at as truth and be with it. It's very important. And also because I teach evolutionary enlightenment, I believe that the universe didn't just spontaneously happen. I don't believe that the universe was a random accident. Some people believe the universe is a random accident and the existence of the universe doesn't mean anything. I believe the universe was made as a result of a choice to give rise to manifest reality. And my experience of life is that life wants to exist. Reality seems to want to exist. And life itself has a desire to exist. And it feels like something to exist. If you really pay attention to the experience of of being aware of the life impulse, life wants to exist. So, so in the wanting to exist, we we could choose to discern that there's a choice involved in that wanting to exist. I want to exist. Not just I want to survive which is different >> but I want to exist. I want to thrive. It seems inherent in the life process is this choice to exist. Very fundamental. So they're big choices and small choices. And I think in terms of the nature of what what liberation looks like is like becoming very clear about these questions is is very important because there is if there is no doer like a lot of people say you just have to sit back put the car in automatic and do whatever comes. Nobody's doing anything anyway. So it doesn't really make any difference. Nothing matters. And if there's somebody making choices and there's a desire to exist and existence holds greater potential for goodness, truth and beauty, the more consciously we participate in it and becoming very clear about who is actually making the choices and why the choices are being made and which part of us becomes a big question about being spiritually conscious. This question is a confrontation. It's a confrontation with reality. I also think it makes life a lot more interesting because if there is no do or nothing really means anything. It's a big equalizer. Good, bad, right, wrong, true, false, it's all the same because nothing really matters because nothing ever happened. My guru is very famous for his beautiful statement, nothing ever happened. So if nothing ever happened, there's nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be, no choices to be made because nothing ever happened, which means the universe was never born. The universe was never created, which means this moment never happened. Even though we're having a conversation, this moment never happened. Even though we're having a conversation, this moment never happened. We were having a conversation. This moment never happened. How do we handle that paradox? It sure seems like this is happening, doesn't it? Either nothing ever happened or it is happening. Either nothing ever happened or it is happening. So I have a solution to this problem in this teaching. I have what I feel is an elegant solution to this question which is that the sum totality of all of reality. It contains both being and becoming. Being means the ground of being. The unborn, the uncreated, the unbecome. Zero point. to the ground of being that mysterious no place where nothing ever happened which we awaken to when we transcend the mind and transcend time. So when we transcend the mind, transcend time, we awaken to the ground of being which is the deepest part of the self when nothing ever happened. Right? But then the other half of some totality of all the reality is becoming the entire creative process that began with the big bang 13 billion years ago. That's the becoming part. You see exists simultaneously world of time, space and becoming and creativity and the evolutionary process. That's the place where the the choices are made. There's action, reaction, karma. So that's where happens. That's where we take birth. And the becoming part of God feels very different than the being part of God. Being part of God feels like peace because nothing ever happened there. But if nothing ever happened, it's very peaceful. Correct? But the becoming part of God feels like the desire to exist as manifest reality. Feels like with the wanting to exist, the appreciation of of life, the urge to exist, the urge to become, the urge to participate. So being is as real as becoming. It's a paradox. Being is non-existence. Being is non-existence. Zero point. Nothing ever happened. That's what pointed was pointing to when he said nothing ever happened. Realize the part of yourself that's never been born and never entered the stream of time. That's you discover you're always free. But it's only half the picture. The other half the picture is body, mind, time, space, world, universe. That's also reality. It's the other half of the picture where there's a desire to exist. The evolutionary impulse, the creative impulse in the cosmos feels like a desire to exist. The sexual impulse feels like a desire to exist. A desire to create new life, right? It feels like an ecstatic compulsion to create new life. It's a strong desire to exist. It's always a desire to give rise to something new. And at a higher level, human beings are very driven towards innovation and creativity to give rise to that which is new. New ways of thinking, new ways of doing, new ways of becoming. Human species is driven towards innovation, right? And creativity. When most of us are giving rise to our creative gifts, we enter into an unself-conscious flow state. We the creativity is flowing through us. Whether we're a musician, a poet, a writer, an artist, an actor, an engineer, a scientist. And when our creativity is flowing, we feel self-conscious. Enter into the flow state. It is a state of ecstasy. Greater process is happening through us through this body through this mind through this personality and beautiful things can come from it. We feel most alive when we're giving rise to this flow state. At the highest level the urge towards consciousness is the same thing. It's I must become more conscious. I have to become more conscious. It's not I'd like. It's not something I'd like. It's something that must happen. It's the highest level of the evolutionary impulse. And if you you look into the nature of the evolutionary impulse as it relates to consciousness, you'll notice that consciousness itself seems to want to awaken. As if you notice in very subtle moments if you're paying attention to your own experience of consciousness seems that consciousness itself wants to awaken, wants to become more conscious. There's a drive inherent in pure consciousness for your own awakening to happen coming from the source of everything, the source of reality. This news is a mysterious compulsion toward towards greater consciousness. So the becoming side of the picture is where things happen. The being side is where nothing ever happened. But the problem with from my point of view, the problem with with the enlightenment that only talks about being doesn't tell us what to do about the becoming part of our life which is where we live most of it. It's the realm of the body, the mind, the world, and the universe where happens. Where karma is created, karmas are burned at gross level and subtle level. They're both equally real, both God. form and formlessness being the becoming form and emptiness. So if we can appreciate more of this becoming part of the God principle, we can embrace more of the totality some totality of reality in a spiritual practice. So enlightenment is no longer just about transcendence. That's the foundation of liberation. But it's liberated engagement with the realm of time, space and form, mind and personality and world and karma. A fully conscious, fully embodied, wrestling with the challenge of manifest existence, manifest reality, which is not easy for anybody. That's the idea. If you're meditating in your room on your bed for three or four hours, the whole universe disappears. Your body disappears. Your mind disappears. Your memory disappears. Time disappears. Everything disappears. And you're in a formless state of nothing ever happened. I've never been happier. Having nothing, knowing nothing, and being no one eternally for eternity is unconditional, radical, absolute, total liberation. So you're happy. I've never been born. I never had a problem to solve. I thought there was something wrong, but nothing ever could have been wrong. So that's the mind, right? And then somebody goes bam, bam, bam, starts pounding on your door and then you get off your bed and come out of your higher state and you go to your door and you have to be ready to respond to whatever problems waiting for you on the other side of that door. So never having been born, never having entered the stream of time, nothing ever happened doesn't really prepare you for how to respond because if nothing ever happened, you wouldn't move. If you're nothing ever happened, you'd hear bam, bam, bam. There's nobody pounding on my door. That's part of the dream of existence. I don't need to get up and respond to it. But with the evolutionary piece of the puzzle, the creative part of including the creative part of God, we can learn how to respond in the most appropriate fully conscious way as we learn how to become more fully human. Then we have both both halves of the whole picture and we can embrace the fact that there is that we can embrace the chooser in us without worrying about being a hypocrite. Now in terms of embracing the chooser, the ego, the personal ego makes different kinds of choices than the true self or the authentic self. The unenlightened ego likes to make different choices than the authentic self. When someone's very focused on their e egoic consciousness, they experience fear and the fears and desires of the small self and they're very grounded in the authentic self. They experience a very different perspective as it relates to choice. They still making choices but the cho the desire to make choices is coming from a different part of themselves in the ego. And that's why that's why being very clear about these this choice making faculty is very important. So I I always answer the question when someone says who's the doer I always say who's ever making the choices it could be the unenlightened ego or it could be the enlightened authentic self and if you get into this kind of dharma you start to notice in yourself in ourselves ego feels very different than the authentic self. The ego wants different things than the authentic self does. It makes different kinds of choices for different kinds of reasons organically. And just insisting that there's no doer doesn't dissolve these distinctions. Make sense? And also looking at the the totality of reality from this kind of perspective, we can relax and embrace the totality of our complex humanity and all this complexity. We don't have to deny any part of oursel. We face it all and then try to make informed choices. And when I was younger, I became a seeker when I was 22. I started going to see gurus and teachers. I always wanted to know what the enlightenment look like when it walked and taught. I appreciated the dharma, the beautiful word, the beautiful descriptions of consciousness. I wanted to know what does the dharma look like when it's being embodied by a unique personality. And if you get to know enlightened people, I don't care who they are, you'll see. There's always someone in there making choices. Some may be more enlightened, some may be less, more free, less free, but there's always a chooser. So, we'll still be able to be located somewhere other than that. It's part of how we're built. So if there are these choices to be made and we deny that there are choices to be made, we're making our life more difficult than it needs to be. But then if you admit there is a chooser, then we have to get into this whole question. Being responsible for what it means to be a chooser involves a kind of confrontation with oneself and one's relationship to reality, to life, which a lot of people would rather avoid. I hope it helps. I encourage you to think about it. Made all kinds of choices. Some were great, some weren't that good. Because in the end, he was a human being just like you and me.