Creating the Future

Creating the Future At the leading edge of our evolving consciousness and culture, where we awaken to the power of intersubjective nonduality, creativity flourishes. When we begin to share an enlightened cultural space in which the evolutionary impulse is emerging, we find ourselves experiencing a vertical momentum that is inherently creative. Indeed, the very source of God's cosmic surging forth, the wellspring of evolution's relentless reaching toward the future, becomes our shared location and self-sense. This liberated space vibrates with a creative pulsation and is free from any sense of limitation. When you find yourself there, many new capacities and experiences emerge which, as far as I know, are not available or perceptible to us before we reach this cosmocentric stage. At the heart of this new order of human relatedness lies the ongoing interplay of several dynamic principles: the simultaneous experience of autonomy and communion, the vertical pull of evolutionary tension, and the generative spark of creative friction. * * * The simultaneous emergence of autonomy and communion is a rare and powerful experience. When the barriers between self and other fall away, we experience a higher communion beyond ego boundaries. But when this occurs among people who are awake to the evolutionary impulse, this communion is not just an undifferentiated harmony in which individuality and distinctions are erased. In fact, the very opposite is true. Paradoxically, at the very same time and in the very same space in which we are experiencing profound communion, the autonomy and creative potential of each individual emerges, free from self-consciousness. The simultaneous presence of liberated autonomy and ecstatic communion becomes the defining expression of one experience, one reality. This may be difficult to imagine, but when two or more people transcend ego together, such a seemingly paradoxical event can happen. And if human culture is to take an evolutionary leap forward, it must happen. For real vertical movement to be sustained, communion alone is not enough. Out of the unity, differentiation has to emerge. Otherwise, even the experience of profound Oneness becomes developmentally inhibiting. Initially, that communion is such a new and ecstatic ground that all you want to do is remain there. But soon, it is no longer new territory, and in order for evolution to continue, unity has to give rise to differentiation. You have to step out of that unity as yourself, as an individuated force of the Authentic Self empowered by your own life experience, your unique talents and strengths. And when you do, you discover that your own uninhibited, autonomous, creative potential emerges without disturbing that context of ecstatic union. Autonomy, in this context, means radical independence and spiritual authenticity. It emerges when you are standing alone, in a state of self-reliance and passionate interest in the evolutionary process. Autonomy is the expression of creative freedom—the powerful, unrestricted ability to flower in your own potential without limit. When you discover true autonomy, you awaken to a fullness of self that is dramatically free from self-consciousness. You simply are who you are, ecstatically experiencing your own authenticity spontaneously manifesting itself. Communion, in this context, is the profound revelation of intersubjective nonduality that I've been describing. It is the liberating experience of the Authentic Self recognizing itself in others—the many coming together as One in egoless freedom and the mutual conscious intention to evolve. For both autonomy and communion to exist simultaneously is a paradox—two apparently conflicting capacities are able to coexist. This can only happen in a context of intersubjective enlightened awareness. In enlightened awareness, paradoxes are mysteriously resolved. Usually, there is a conflict between autonomy and communion. When an individual experiences powerful autonomy, it's often at the expense of communion with others. To realize our creative freedom, we may feel the need to withdraw from relatedness so we are free to flower and flourish. And to experience communion, we find that we almost always have to sacrifice some degree of our autonomy in order to harmoniously come together with others. In Evolutionary Enlightenment, however, a dynamic field is created where the one and the many are literally the same and yet remain differentiated. It is a new and evolving expression of nonduality in which self and other seamlessly merge, and yet miraculously do not become indistinct. And then consciousness delights in pursuing its own creative potential in ecstatic collaboration with itself. * * * This liberated creativity is felt in the human heart and mind as a powerful wakefulness, a thoroughly positive and wholesome evolutionary tension, that compels you to rise to your highest potential. Often we relate to tension as being negative, but evolutionary tension is inherently positive. It is that very same forward-reaching energy in consciousness that you feel when you become aware of a mysterious sense of purpose and responsibility for something higher than the concerns of your own ego. It's a heightened intensity that awakens your soul, and compels you to sit up straight, focus, and pay attention. Evolutionary tension is an upward pull, a profound sense of urgency to bring into manifestation that which has not yet occurred. It is the relentless demand to become more, to reach for new and ever-higher levels of moral, philosophical, and spiritual maturity. This positive tension creates a potent and spiritually charged context for human relationship because it is infused with the living presence of the possible. Evolutionary tension is the experiential quality of the new consciousness that is liberated between individuals who come together in autonomy and communion. Intersubjective nonduality is more than just the experience of peace and bliss. In fact, when you come together with others who are committed to the evolution of consciousness and culture, you are choosing to associate with a spiritual intensity and demand that is going to be excruciating for your ego. That's what authentic, evolutionarily enlightened spiritual partnership is all about. It is a kind of relatedness that would be almost unbearable if one wasn't living for perpetual change. But for your Authentic Self, that tension is experienced as ecstasy, and it wants nothing more than to live every moment at the heart of that spiritual intensity. It thrives on the creative friction that is generated in the crucible of evolutionary becoming. * * * Creative friction is the very engine of conscious evolution at the leading edge. The presence of ongoing creative friction in a context of autonomy and communion is what indicates deep spiritual, psychological, and emotional health and vibrancy in this type of intersubjective, or collective, context. In fact, I am convinced that authentic spiritual friendship—where human beings are evolutionary partners, lovers of life, God, and Spirit—requires individuals to come together and conflict with each other in the most creative way possible. Consciously engaging with each other and the life-process, we strive to deconstruct and transcend old structures and creatively construct new and more relevant ones. Creative friction is the very spiritual lifeblood of the new culture that we need to create. Often, those of us who are interested in higher consciousness tend to be attached to the perennial spiritual ideals of peace, harmony, love, and bliss. We don't generally associate notions like friction, tension, or conflict with spirituality. But if you are interested in spiritual evolution, you will find that these qualities can be powerful expressions of Spirit in action. Indeed, without evolutionary tension and creative friction, higher development cannot and will not occur. This is true at every level of the creative process. Was the big bang a peaceful event? When stars collided so that new elements could be born, was that a harmonious occasion? The ongoing process of material evolution has unfolded through extraordinary force and violence. And in the domain of biological evolution, the same truth holds. Nature is ruthless and brutal—"red in tooth and claw," as the saying goes. Our own bodies depend on conflict—the immune system is designed to fight and destroy to ensure our physical survival. Even the process that creates new life—the sexual encounter—is a kind of friction. If we look at the evolution of culture, the same principle holds true: development requires friction. For evolution to occur, the creative process demands that we transcend the old in order to give rise to the new. And this kind of transition inevitably will create conflict—friction between the status quo and the higher values, bigger perspectives, and new potentials that are trying to emerge. When you begin to see the whole process from a cosmocentric vantage point, you will understand that conflict and creative friction is simply an inherent and essential part of the developmental unfolding. Did you know that human beings only develop through interaction with each other? If you take a little baby out of human society and leave her to grow up among wolves, she is not going to develop in the ways other children do—her psychological structures are not going to evolve beyond the most primitive levels. Adult development works in the same way. For all but the rarest exceptions, the evolution of our own consciousness is largely dependent upon how profound our engagement is with the culture around us. So in an evolved spiritual context, the nature and purpose of human relationship would be a creative friction at the highest level that would mutually ensure ongoing individual and collective development. This may come as a surprise to some, but when life is only peaceful and calm, there is little fertile ground for evolution. It's not difficult to see this at the physical level. For example, if you only eat and sleep, what's going to happen to your body? Will it develop? Of course not. But if you add evolutionary tension and creative friction by exercising your muscles and your skeletal structure, something positive and developmental begins to occur. The same thing happens with your intellect. If you just read comic books and watch television, and don't make the effort to exercise your cognitive and conceptual capacities, what happens? Your mind doesn't develop. But when you're applying evolutionary tension and creative friction on an intellectual level—through challenging yourself to think in more complex ways, and to dialogue and debate with others—your capacity for intellectual depth, abstract thinking, and subtle discrimination will grow and develop. At the highest level, the level of consciousness, this same principle applies. And it is within the awakened field of intersubjective nonduality—the space between subjects who have awakened to Eros—that creative friction and evolutionary tension can drive a profound process of cultural development in the interior of the cosmos. Remember, the relationships we engage in and the values we share create the structures of the intersubjective dimension, which is culture. If you are truly dedicated to creating a more evolved world, the future is not some far-off fantasy realm but is something you forge in and through your relationships with other people right now. The intersubjective we-space between such inspired individuals becomes a creative vortex in which something is being born every moment out of the spiritual, moral, intellectual, and philosophical friction. Together, you become a portal through which evolution occurs. * * * Once again, the recognition that evolutionary tension and creative friction drives both the internal and external development of the cosmos can challenge some of our most fundamental spiritual ideals and assumptions. For example, if you believe that Spirit or God equals peace and love, it makes sense that you would see all forms of conflict, tension, and friction as inherently negative, as well as antithetical to higher human development. And many of them certainly are. But in an evolutionary worldview, we are compelled to redefine who and what God actually is, and what love really means. In the unmanifest dimension, the ground of Being—that perfect, empty no-place where there is only absolute stillness—you could say that God is peace. Before the universe was born, resting in that state of perfection and ease, it could not have been more peaceful, because nothing had yet occurred. But when God decided to become, to take form, this whole process of creation and destruction, friction and emergence, was set in motion. That is what you are, that is what I am, and that is also the nature of God, in the manifest realm. What does this new understanding of God have to do with love? This is an important question, because the common idea is that love is God, and God is love. And to many of us, spiritual love means compassion, forgiveness, and unconditional acceptance. That is one kind of love. But that kind of love is the expression of God as Being —the reflection of the mystical revelation that everything is already perfect. What happens to love when God becomes the evolutionary impulse, or Eros? That's the emergence of a very different form of love—the expression of God as Becoming. In an evolutionary worldview, God's purpose is perpetual development, or vertical ascent. So in this context, the expression of the greatest love is an insistence on higher development. It is not the kind of love that's going to accept you as you are. It's a kind of love that always wants more, and is therefore always challenging to the status quo of the personal ego and the culturally conditioned self. No matter how far you have come, there will always be farther to go. This love is infused with evolutionary tension, and it generates creative friction. The idea of God as peace and Love as compassion is an ancient ideal, one that took root in the human heart and mind long before the knowledge of evolution emerged. While it remains as powerful and as relevant ever, this idea of God is only half of the picture. Now we understand the nature of God to be both Being and Becoming, emptiness and Eros. And discovering what God as Eros actually looks like and feels like within us and between us is new territory. When you embrace this evolutionary interpretation of who and what God is, then you realize that yes, God is love but love is a dynamic and dramatic will toward higher emergence. It is God trying to evolve, through you and through me, and most importantly, through us.