Andrew Cohen: Evolutionary Enlightenment

so as far as we know what happened when the universe was created is that there was a vacuum and in that vacuum there's there was no time there's no space there's no thought there's no thing whatsoever ever the vacuum was absolutely empty and for some reason uh 14 billion years ago or so there was an Impulse to [Music] become light you know and energy became matter which then gave birth to life and then through life Consciousness a capacity for Consciousness emerge through life finally in human beings is the capacity for Consciousness to know itself and be aware of itself and why that's so important is that through us through the Awakening human and his in her capacity to be conscious of Consciousness the first cause creative principle God principle whatever you want to call it now has the capacity to be aware of itself through the evolving human who am I I am We Are You Are I Am we actually all are more than we're an individual part of a process so the the transition from I'm a separate individual ego with a separate personal history to I'm this cos MC developmental process becoming aware of itself it's quite [Music] dramatic many people in the world today uh refuse to accept or believe that uh that the world we're living in is is is changing as fast as it really is and as a matter of fact many are actually trying to stop it but development can't be stopped so so therefore we need a we need a kind of radical uh Spiritual Development an Enlightenment that's going that's going to be able us to actually embrace the reality of the world that we're actually living in right now Andrew Cohen calls his teaching evolutionary Enlightenment this new understanding of Spiritual Awakening redefines the premodern notion of Enlightenment for the modern world now the purpose of high Consciousness is no longer to be free from the world or go to heaven after we die but to be an instrument for The evolutionary process itself in in evolutionary Enlightenment there's the goal is not to get out of the the universe the goal is not to escape from the universe the goal is to get into the process the problem for most of us is we're not in the process we are lost in this small-minded self-centered hell life experience in which our experience of what it means to be alive is so partial and so small and so minimal it's almost impossible to imagine how small it is until you wake up so so the goal here is to get out of this small mind and self-centered hell partial almost non-existent dream so we can begin to wholeheartedly unselfconsciously passionately participate or you can say co- participate in the cre creation of the conscious Universe with and as the very force that created it then your own deepest aspiration your own deepest heartfelt aspiration and desire becomes one with the creative principle the first cause itself you see that means you you begin to recognize who you really are what you're really doing here and it's a big thing it's a big moment it's a profound Awakening you awaken to to the to the literally Cosmic and Universal uh significance of your own emergence at this particular time and your inherent potential to participate in the evolutionary process for the uh development of Consciousness itself I literally mean that [Music] [Applause] [Music]