Foreword

by Deepak Chopra When books speak to you personally, you hear the author's voice whispering, not just in your ear but to your deepest yearning. Andrew Cohen did that for me, making me believe something I long to be true: There has never been a better time to be enlightened. When I was a child, it was easy to feel left behind. I was born too late to shoot arrows beside Arjuna, meditate under the Bodhi tree with the Buddha, or sit on an olive-covered hillside in Galilee hearing the Sermon on the Mount. There is a pervasive sense, even in advanced spiritual circles, that we are looking over our shoulders at the epochs when humans were closer to God or to their souls or to the promise of Moksha So it's heartening to hear a teacher who insists, with passion and a clear voice, that we haven't been left behind. This is only one of the messages to be found in these pages. Andrew has the pulse of modern life at his fingertips. His diagnosis of the demands and distractions of our noisy, busy world shows the accuracy of a skilled diagnostician. But long ago, when I spent many hours a day diagnosing patients, I learned that none of them would take any advice until they understood, quite basically, what the first step to healing needed to be. That first step was always the same: "You're going to get better." Reassurance is medicine, even if it can't be bottled, and in this book Andrew touched me with a deep sense of reassurance: Don't worry. There's a place for the seeker. The universe has collaborated to bring you here, to this moment, so that you can wake up. The famous adage is wrong: The journey of a thousand miles doesn't begin with the first step. It begins with the assurance that you can take the first step. Many people lack that assurance, for all kinds of reasons. Some feel unworthy to seek beyond the limited territory of the known; some feel trapped behind walls or inwardly blocked; some feel paralyzed by timidity, fear, doubt, and skepticism in all their dubious coloring. When Andrew asks, Why do some people develop a passion for spirituality while others don't? , the answer he gives agrees perfectly with my own perspective: they haven't awakened to the evolutionary impulse within. There's another famous adage that is true, about the spark that is enough to burn down a whole forest. Speaking literally, it means that a glimpse of your authentic self—which Andrew identifies with the impulse to evolve—will be so appealing that you cannot help but follow where your own growth leads. We know that this is a natural tendency. Children are eager to pass through every stage of development. Being five years old holds no allure when over the next horizon you can be six and then seven and eight. This automatic process has a magic hidden inside it that few realize. As a child develops, he (or she) doesn't have to lose who he is today in order to become who he will be tomorrow. Children happily remain who they are, while at a deeper level the future is unfolding the next stage of their growth. We lose touch with that magic once we grow up and, as Wordsworth said, "the world is too much with us; late and soon." I know of no one else who is so intent on reinstating that magic as Andrew Cohen, and the means is simple: reconnect with the evolutionary impulse. That impulse began beyond space and time, in the domain of pure consciousness. It manifested in physical form and thus became shrouded by the mask of materialism. The human mind became distracted by the dance of maya . For all these reasons, the evolutionary impulse needed to be revealed again and described in detail, as this book does so beautifully. And I second Andrew's point that traditional spirituality focused too much on escapism, other worlds, withdrawal, and fatalism about the conduct of affairs in a corrupt world. By definition, the evolutionary impulse changes its focus as human society shifts. In the sixth century BCE, the average person lived on the brink of survival. His needs and worries were drastic, and therefore it was seductive to retreat into a private world of peace and silence. Once there, communion with the transcendent proved immensely fascinating. But it was also true that to limit spirit to inner peace—or even the inner world—was misleading. Transcendence permeates everything; there is only one reality, deriving from the same source. The problem is that each of us lives in duality, and our minds have been shaped to look upon duality as real. We have divided selves, and we perceive the world in terms of opposites, like right and wrong, good and evil, light and darkness. How can we transform ourselves to reach unity when duality is the only vehicle we have? A fish would have an easier time trying to get dry. After brilliantly unraveling the nature of duality and how it has captivated us, this book prescribes a cure for the divided self. I was particularly attracted to the five chapter headings that describe the Tenets of Evolutionary Enlightenment: Clarity of Intention The Power of Volition Face Everything and Avoid Nothing The Process Perspective Cosmic Conscience Here, I think, Andrew reveals the core of self-transformation, and since each key is so critical, I'd like to comment on them in turn. Clarity of Intention: Nothing is more powerful than intention, because it brings together three ingredients: desire, steadiness of purpose, and depth of awareness. These are the three facets of Samyama , as it is known in the Indian tradition. When a person has mastered Samyama , his every intent has the entire cosmos behind it or, to sound less grand, what you want is what the evolutionary impulse wants to give you. Clarity, then, is more than saying, "I really, really know I want to be rich"—or any other dream that we'd like to have fulfilled. Instead, clarity means that you have used self-awareness to acquire the three aspects of Samyama You have a desire that is in keeping with your overall evolution and growth. Your purpose is steady enough that you can follow the universe's response to your desire, wherever it leads. You are established deep enough in your awareness that the right messages can come through and be heard—after all, you cannot receive or act upon what you aren't aware of. I've only described the basics, as they have impressed me personally. Andrew goes into more detail and gives an immensely valuable transpersonal, enlightened perspective. The Power of Volition: Here Andrew touches on an ancient teaching, Aham Brahmasmi , or "I am the universe." This principle is close to my heart, because I find it unthinkable to be enlightened in a world of darkness and ignorance. Tradition holds otherwise, at least the reclusive tradition that impelled spiritual seekers to leave the world behind or retreat in solitude. In India, one hears various swamis and yogis calling the world "the mud" in contrast to their own spiritual place of purity, usually in the high, clear air of the Himalayas. You can't treat sick patients and try to alleviate pain while still considering them as creatures of "the mud" I am of the mud, too, and so is everyone. It is our responsibility to change the environment on all levels, beginning with the spiritual, if human beings are to make the next evolutionary leap. Andrew's call to responsibility is as clarion and bracing as any I have ever heard. Face Everything and Avoid Nothing: Andrew calls this principle, quite rightly I think, the "liberation of awareness." We are all imprisoned by the limits of what we call normal awareness, and the evolutionary impulse wants, above all else, to make us free. William Blake said much the same thing about "mind-forged manacles," and thus Andrew joins a long line of inspired visionaries. What he has added to this lineage is once again reassuring. If you face everything in life, you won't be left exposed and vulnerable, like a sea creature wrenched from its shell and left quivering in the blazing sun. That is only our fear, which is why we keep delaying the confrontations that take more existential courage than we think we possess. Instead, we need to be reassured that facing everything is in keeping with our own evolution. Nothing is more natural than to evolve; it entails neither struggle nor fear. Andrew's path still requires courage. Breakthroughs cannot help but have the word "break" in them, and dismantling our old conditioning does confront us with feelings and memories it would be far easier to bury. What makes such ruptures bearable—indeed, most desirable—is that in facing everything, we awaken dormant powers inside that can cope with anything. A prisoner can fashion a kind of comfortable world within a small, confined space, but that is nothing compared to the power of liberation. The Process Perspective: When you are willing to look at everything about your life, it ceases to be "your" life. That is, it belongs not to an isolated individual who can be labeled according to convenient tags: your likes and dislikes, your race and religion, who you love and who is your enemy. An impersonal view emerges instead. "Impersonal" isn't a word to make the heart beat with hope, but I think Andrew is right to use it. An easier synonym might be "universal." The small self evolves into the universal self. You discover your true status as a child of the cosmos. Keeping your cosmic birthright in mind isn't easy when somebody rear-ends you in traffic or the person you are infatuated with isn't infatuated with you. Better to focus on process, taking each step as it comes, fitting the small stones littering the shore into a grand mosaic. Andrew's emphasis on process is for me one of the most valuable practical aspects of following the evolutionary impulse. Cosmic Conscience: Many readers will blink twice at this phrase, hoping that it says cosmic consciousness—but Andrew means conscience . We all know why the other wording is seductive. Enlightenment is like one big paycheck, and having worked for it year after year, we expect to be showered with spiritual riches—or richness—that the rest of the world will admire. It's a comforting fantasy on those long dark nights of the soul, or shadowy afternoons. But the evolutionary impulse looks after the future of all ; therefore, its conscience, if we may use that term, is vigilant about what is good for everyone, leaving out no living creature. It is wise and right for Andrew to call us to have such a conscience. It doesn't miraculously descend on you on the day when you are noticed to be a saint rather than a normal person. Cosmic conscience is part of the passion for evolution, so the more you yearn to be transformed, the more you see yourself intertwined with all living things. This viewpoint stands out in high relief in the Buddha's teachings, but Andrew has couched it in modern terms, as he has the rest of this eye-opening, unique book. The five tenets of enlightened living are enough to change the world. How many times have you heard that said, while thinking to yourself, "but nothing will really change. The world will go on the way it has always gone on." In this case, the opposite is true. The world cannot help but change; the cosmic plan has been evolutionary since the beginning, and before. No one can escape the process of evolution. We can blind ourselves to it; we can join the side of the resistance to change. Conscious choice makes a difference. But when asked what would happen if a person didn't wake up to the evolutionary impulse, a wise teacher once replied, "The divine plan doesn't need you in order to succeed. But you can choose to have it succeed through you." Which is the choice the following pages present, with great imagination and insight.