Andrew Cohen about the Importance of spiritual Retreats

you know usually the reason we go on spiritual retreats meditation retreats consciousness consciousness be able to win a measure of relief from the tyranny of our minds and from the ongoing challenge of our emotional experience and that's very reasonable and that's understandable and all the more so in it today's ever complexify in confusing world we just want some relief but there's a deeper reason to to go on as a spiritual retreat there's a deeper reason to want to let go spiritual experiences come and go the experience of peace is usually transient the experience of bliss that we find on retreat is usually transient but the discovery of who we really are the disc and in that discovery the awakening to a completely different narrative a completely different reason to exist changes absolutely everything what changed my life in the biggest in the biggest way possible was the miraculous discovery that are there already embedded in the very fabric of the interior of the cosmos it's a completely different storyline a completely different answer to the question of who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing here in this universe and it was the discovery of that narrative and realized that real I and my realization of that narrative already existed and in my discovery of it I had a recognition of a completely different purpose to live the life on living and I firmly believe that it's the awakening to higher and deeper purpose and higher deeper context that changes everything not merely the experiences of bliss and peace and joy and so the teaching of evolutionary enlightenment is all about the discovery of this deeper and higher narrative specifically in this case in the context of evolution when you discover that there's a self existent evolutionary narrative that's waiting for you to awaken to it waiting for you to discover it and in that discovery your life can change beyond all recognition that's extraordinary that's what that's what happened to me and it's that kind of awakening that I'll be speaking about in great depth in detail on this retreat