The Evolution of Enlightenment Pt 2 - Andrew Cohen

so now I want to speak a little bit about what this what what this evolutionary impulse is that I'm speaking about and so this is this is uh very very exciting and this is really the the the foundation the foundation or the essence of this new interpretation or this new uh contextualization of Enlightenment that I'm speaking about and that I teach now in the in the when I when I speak about Enlightenment I'm speaking about the eastern Enlightenment so the very typically and traditionally in the Eastern Enlightenment the spiritual impulse is usually interpreted and has been traditionally interpreted as a desire to to transcend or go beyond The Human Experience to transcend the the experience of thought and cognition to to transcend uh the awareness of time and also to even to transcend the body to tr and ultimately it's the it's the desire to transcend the experience of being trapped in a physical body uh trapped in in in a thought PL in a thought process and and trapped in in the time process and so most of the traditional Enlightenment really is about Transcendence and some of the most popular the most popular kind of exponent of the traditional Enlightenment would be someone like e Carle in his Power of Now teachings which uh as powerful and as authentic and genu genuine as they are um are still basically about transcending the process your you know transcending the life process and I see that really as being very problematic cuz I don't really feel that we were born I don't feel that we were born or that can I use I know this is a very can I use the word God in this are we is it cool all right sometimes I have to be careful I only have an hour today so he she or it so then I got to cover it so I don't think that God created the universe it doesn't make any sense to me that God created this universe you the universe was created as far as we know about 14 billion years ago or 13.7 to 14 billion years ago it's never made any sense to me that God could create the universe so that uh about 14 billion years into the process very highly evolved sensient life forms would emerge that had this very highly evolved capacity for self-reflective awareness that we have self-reflective awareness means you have the capacity to be aware of awareness to be aware of Consciousness right uh uh you know know dogs and cats don't have that capacity birds and alligators don't have the capacity as far as we know only human beings really have this a highly developed capacity for self-reflective awareness and the reason why self-reflective awareness is so important is because it's only through a highly evolved sensient life form like us that the energy and intelligence that initiated the creative process which is what God is because if if if the if the if the if the Manifest Universe emerged out of a big void if it was if there was a big explosion and something came from nothing there was there there there seems to be an energy and intelligence that initiated that explosion that caused it to OCC to occur and has created this big trajectory which has become the evolving Universe which we are all products of we've been produced by a cosmic evolutionary uh process we are all part and parcel of it and and the degree to which we engage with the life process is the degree to which we are engaging with the very process that produced us so we uh from a non-u point of view or from kind of an enlightened point of view when you really get this you really begin to see that every aspect of your of your Humanity including your your capacity for Consciousness itself has been produced by this Cosmic event and the cosmic event that has that has made your experience of Consciousness possible gains the ability to behold itself or become aware of itself through you in other words if you weren't here if highly evolved sensient life forms weren't here and I mean I assume that we're not the only ones that there are in the expanding universe but just for the sake of the argument let's say we were even though I already said I don't think we are but if we were if we were who how would the energy and intelligence that initiated the creative process that created the universe be able to behold itself because you because you all know there is no Cosmic being there's no there's no Old Testament father God up in the sky neither is there a cosmic being that exists outside the process that's God in the process the God is the energy and intelligence inherent in the process that caused this process to occur and that's driving it right now and this why one of the reasons why we're at such a very interesting or Tipping Point in the whole evolutionary creative process and is one thing everybody wants to know are we going to take responsibility for what's actually happening here because um up up until fairly recently in human history when in in the kind of um uh before the modern era you know it was believed that there was a higher you know uh there was a great being in the sky who was driving the process and who could turn things on and turn things on and make things happen and we and now we're beginning to realize that that being doesn't exist out there that being exists within the process itself and that being becomes aware of himself her s or itself through us so the degree to which you awaken and you become aware of what Consciousness actually is and you become aware of this impulse you become aware of what's of this Godlike impulse and the Godlike impulse I'm speaking about is not something that you can experience or become aware of uh as long as you as long as you uh as long as your own experience is trapped within the confines of your own personal ego but but as we as you all know and I'm sure you've all heard many times and I'm sure many of you have experienced from time to time moments when the the fears and desires and conceptual filters that make up the personal ego become temporary temporarily they become transparent and the and and depending on how transparent they become one becomes aware of the fact that there's something very big going on here that one most of the time doesn't seem to be aware of and of course when you have those kinds of experiences they really blow your mind because you realize I've been asleep for 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 years I had no idea how big this was but when you become aware of how big this is it really does change just about everything and in my own case I had my first initiation into this kind of perspective when I was like 16 when I was a teenager I just kind of had a some kind of spontaneous visitation from the unknown the doors of perception open for no reason that I can particularly understand and I really did have my have my mind blown