Andrew Cohen - N° 28 - LAST TEACHINGS - Dec. 24 _ Feb. 25

So evolutionary enlightenment embraces the being dimension of reality. Being is God. God is being. God is unborn, uncreated, eternal, experiences the peace that passes all understanding. When you say God is also the evolutionary impulse, the creative impulse the universe into being. The creative impulse God has the evolutionary impulse feels like ecstatic urgency. It was that yay yay yay yay yay do what you're saying. It feels it feels feels exactly like the the recognition of experience of infinite potential. All things are possible. When you feel all things are possible we both feet on the gas. No hesitation. That's what the evolutionary impulse feels like. So God feels like that as the evolutionary impulse. It's not peaceful. It's exciting and thrilling. Always awake to the infinite potential that shows what could be. Traditional enlightenment will focus on what is. Evolutionary enlightment will focus on what could be. Because the state of consciousness of being consciousness of bliss consciousness that passes all understanding is is inherently ideal in and of itself, isn't it? But the peace that passes all understanding is always unbearable because it's too much. It's too deep. It's too infinite. It's too profound. It's too overwhelming. The evolutionary impulse is the excitement about the inherent possibility of manifest existence because there's an infinite potential in manifest existence. Infinite infinite creative potential. You at your best moments and I me and my best moments are capable capable of infinite potential. What does infinite potential feel like? Too much is too much. It's unbearably positive. When God created the universe, there was a big yes, right? Life is a big yes. What's a yes without any ifs, ands, buts, or may? Liberation, right? Well, I agree that destruction is part of the process inevitably, but I think that we I think destructive impulses, something should be avoided. But of course, this creation and destruction is part of the totality of reality, but we in ourselves personally need to resist the temptation to identify with the power to destroy because we all have the power to destroy. And there's a dangerous lust involved with the power to destroy. That's what I'm saying. We must avoid at all cost because it gives the ego pleasure to have power, the power to destroy. That's what we need to renounce that temptation. We want to try and always be constructive if we can. Terrible truths are built into the system, right? So it's the same way uh like in yoga they talk about tamas rajas and sappa we want to go for the saf possibility always need to allow ourselves to be manipulated by lower impulses lower impulses or higher impulses. There's a difference between good and evil. No. So either we make distinctions or we don't though. Right? So as long as we make distinctions, we want to make better choices. We make choices every day. Some have very little value and some have great value. The choices we make that have the greatest value determine our destiny. So freedom is not just letting destiny happen by just lying down in the middle of the street and just saying come by may. It's by getting up and walking in the right direction, making choices. No. So the problem with non-duality is the way you've been speaking about it. It points to a meaningless form of nihilism. And there's truth in what you're saying, but it's to me it's a dark truth. So the liberated life is learning how to make the the highest distinctions for the highest reasons ones that will have an inherently evolutionary spiritually empowering effect on this crazy chaotic world in the midst of this [ __ ] Kaliuga. What's happening in America is going to cause a lot of suffering to a lot of people. The most suffering is going to be the poorest and the most impoverished among us and wait for reasons that it is not fair. See, it's a form of injustice. It's unbearable to anybody who's got an open heart. It's just that terrible. But I agree with you. Evil is part of the picture. The totality of the totally Don't you think is there any greater purpose to a human life than to have the world be a slightly better place because you were actually here for a while? There anything better than that? But wouldn't it be a beautiful thing if we could say that the world is improved because Shaw was here for a while? Isn't that beautiful, Ben? What a beautiful legacy you're going to have. It is dangerous, but it means that it means each step I take in the direction I'm going in is important because it's going to involve everyone else inevitably sooner or later. It mean it means I'm it means that you're important. It means you're inherently important and you because you made the right choices for the right reasons at the right time and the world benefited from it. I can't think of anything a higher calling grand for all of us. It's not easy because then we have to care. And caring is the more we care, the more we're going to suffer, right? In the way that I think about it, the the position of freedom and non-judgment that you were that you were pointing out that we were talking, you can assume that position when you're meditating, letting go of the mind, letting go concepts of right, wrong, good, bad, true, and false and transcending all cognition, all preferences, right? And then you're letting everything be as it is. But when you open your eyes and you get up from your meditation seat, the problem is you have to have a relationship with your body, your mind, the world, the choices you're going to make. There's no way around it. There's no there's no way to escape the obligation of choices and the moral and ethical and philosophical context for making choices. So when you're meditating and you're being absolutely still and assuming no relationship to the mind you don't have to make any choices everything is one. One is everything. There's no higher or lower. There's no here or there. There's no true or false. Letting go of all judgments and all opinions. But the minute you open your eyes and you get up in your engagement in relationship with your body, your mind, your personality, the world, the whole universe, you have to take a position when you make choices. And that's my point. There's no there's no way around it. No matter what we think and the kind of choices that we make to find what we what we believe, what we treasure, what we care about. The challenge for all of us is trust in the face of fear. When we feel the fear, we have to trust anyway, right? Not always easy. My guru said the difference between enlightenment and unenlightenment is doubt. It took me a long time to understand what he meant. So what does it mean to have no doubt about God? Does God exist? Does God exist? No matter how you feel or what you think, it's no doubt and it's finished. But if you have like you said you have no doubt that God exists right till you're very lucky not everybody can say that powerful if God exists absolutely as primary and absolute that means there's no without conditions you if you realize that God exists absolutely without conditions then you then you get