The Evolution of Enlightenment Pt 1 - Andrew Cohen

good afternoon everybody so I don't I don't know much about or should let me put it this way I'm not an expert on sustainability or on green businesses but I do know something about Consciousness so what I wanted to uh what I wanted to do today was to uh speak about what have I have discovered about the evolution of Consciousness and how it relates very much to uh how it's possible to work together in unprecedented ways to do great things so I think it's relevant but the first thing I wanted to just bring up as a as a very brief uh introduction is that um um I wanted to just say that there's a there's a very big is everybody focused good should I have to talk louder very good the what I want want to do as as an introduction was basically to to speak a little bit about the difference between the impulse to survive and the impulse to evolve now there's a lot of talk these days not only at this conference but of course all over the news and in a lot of the conversations we have about the global financial crisis about the global warming about environmental degradation and overpopulation all things that we all are all too familiar with so we know a lot about that and many of us understandably are quite frightened uh about what we're going to do in order to be able to survive the many crisis we're going to face very recently uh when we were putting together when we were putting together the last issue of enlightened next magazine that we produced we interviewed uh a very a very bright futurist named John Peterson and uh John Peterson uh was listing about 25 possible scenarios about uh the worst possible things that were all going to be happening in the next five years years so after I listened to the interview that my colleague had conducted with him I I experienced so much Terror and so much fear that I felt I felt my my perspective began to contract so emotionally psychologically philosophically and spiritually my world shr my perspective and the way I was seeing things and the way I felt shrunk to the size of a pee so most of the time I am I'm a very turned on very inspired person I'm very interested uh and passionate about the evolution of Consciousness and culture and it's something I speak about all the time and this is something I live and breathe and I'm working with people all the time and I'm really trying to make something very important happen that I'm always excited about but suddenly what I noticed had happened when I uh after I heard this talk by John Peterson is I I I I felt my uh my inspiration disappeared and instead of the uh my familiar and usual aspiration about being very thrilled about our our potential to evolve as individuals and as a species uh all I could think of was we don't have time for that I don't have time for that and uh I have students all over the world and I was thinking we have to think about how we're going to survive this crisis and so what I and I it took me a few hours to come out of this uh psychotic State and uh because uh you know because I'm I'm pretty I'm pretty good at being aware of what's Happening within my own experience and so I what I saw was that the more the more frightened and the more intimidated I be uh I became about uh about the the the thought that we might not make it my my interest in higher matters which is how which is how are we going to evolve as in as in as individuals and as uh uh culture uh I lost I had I completely lost touch with my own passion for that and uh um and so what I noticed is that the impulse to survive is very very different than the impulse to evolve and it's something very very important because many people who are innovators these days and there are so many brilliant uh innovators who are coming up with all kinds of the most incredible ways we're going to be able to solve so many of the problems that we're facing um are often uh doing so uh from the perspective how is it that we're going to survive and sometimes or maybe not sometimes so quite often many of us confuse the the impulse to survive with the impulse to evolve and so the just as an introduction I just wanted to make clear in a few different ways because it's something very interesting that when you notice that the impulse to survive for human beings is very um is not a new one that we have been uh trying to survive and struggling to survive ever since we stood up on two legs and also before that so um the survival Instinct you know the the the experience of being in in a position where where the individual or the or the group or the tribe or the clan or the or the uh U or or whoever is being threatened either by um uh either by another tribe or or animals or nature is something that we have been used to responding to forever so the the situation of being being faced with an overwhelming threat and coming up with a way to respond to that threat is uh is is a human instinct that is very uh very um ancient whereas the impulse to evolve the the the consciously felt this the the when the impulse to evolve the desire to to evolve or to become more than who and what we we already are as as individuals and also as a culture especially when that that is actually ex consciously experienced because you know not all human beings and not every human being experiences what I'm calling the evolutionary impulse and The evolutionary impulse is simply uh is a is is a moment when you become aware of a mysterious ecstatic uh uh excitement and ecstatic passion about your own potential to develop to a higher level of of of cognition to a higher level of Consciousness and to a higher level of potential not just because it's going to be a good thing for you as an individual but for a deeper or higher reason in other words that there's something intoxicating uh deeply thrilling uh there it is there really is some there is some experience of ecstasy uh connected to the the experience that occurs when we awaken to what I'm calling the The evolutionary impulse and The evolutionary impulse once again is that experience of getting in touch with a sense of infinite potential and and and inherent in experiencing or becoming aware of this sense of infinite potential is a sense of overwhelming goodness overwhelming goodness overwhelming goodness and um there there's a it's deeply wholesome and there's the sense that this is everything that if I give myself uh to this impulse to evolve we get in touch with the best part of ourselves and this is a big deal so I want to speak a little bit I want to speak a lot more about this particular impulse because it's something that not that many people are actually speaking about and I want to I want to speak about it in such a way that I want to make I want to make clear to everybody that if we discover this impulse and we harness it we're going to we're going to find a way to work work together to do all the most important things we want to do in ways that would not be possible otherwise but I just wanted to start by just making clear that this that the impulse to survive the survival impulse uh is is a very is common to to The Human Experience and also common to the experience of most animals but the impulse to evolve the consciously felt the consciously cognized impulse to evolve that become more deeper higher is a recent is is a very recently emerging impulse in Human Experience um just that's has happens to be a very interesting fact but but and and even now that it is beginning to emerge you also have to realize that a lot of human beings are don't experience an evolutionary impulse I'm sure you know a lot of people that are not inspired to change for deeper profound reasons and even many people who are inspired to change are often inspired to change in in in ways that are very small-minded and self-centered it's very it's it's an uncommon thing for an individual to be driven by uh by by a force of nature which is really uh as I describe it and and understand it which is which is one with and synonymous with the energy and intelligence that created the universe which which is what I want to speak about now but once again just remember that this this evolutionary impulse is really a new a new thing and that in the face of all the all the understandable fear and Terror that we face because so many because we face so many crisis it's important that we don't lose touch with the big picture