The Power of Enlightened Communication in our World in Crisis

The Power of Enlightened Communication in our World in Crisis The art of enlightened communication is a skill of great value in our complex, globalized world in crisis. If we are to bring back sanity into our polarized public discourse and heal the unbridge- able cultural divides in our broken societies, we need to learn how to master the skill to communicate with one another beyond ego and the games it plays. If we are to create a new culture in which we can have difficult, open conversations that really make a differ- ence; conversations that have the power to open up a portal into the next stage of our evolution, mastering the subtle art of trans-egoic communication based on Intersubjective Nonduality is one of the skills we now need most. Unless we advance this ability, the power of enlightenment to have any real impact on the evolution of culture and affect deep change in the world will remain inherently limited. Here’s the reason. In this newly evolving expression of nonduality, the focus is no longer only on personal enlightenment: the realization of the Ground of Being, contained within the consciousness of the indi- vidual; the “enlightened one”. In the New Enlightenment, enlight- ened awareness breaks out of the boundaries of the “I”-space and emerges in the shared We-field between a whole group of individ- uals. The shift from the traditional ideal of an enlightened “I” to this new capacity of an enlightened “we” opens up a reality of an entirely different order. It’s like a burning match turning into a rag- ing forest fire. Why? Because the moment enlightened awareness is released into the We-field, it can begin to flow freely into the world through the Many. As this happens, real collective change can begin to emerge from within, since the We-field is the carrier of the values, perspectives and worldviews we share. It is our collec- tive interior, the domain where culture lives and is advanced. And thus, working with the “we” space within an evolutionary context will uplift our values and widen our perspectives and worldviews. The result is that the power of enlightenment to catalyze cultural evolution and affect change in the world magnifies. At this point in history, most of our cultural values, beliefs, and perspectives come from the traditional stage, the modern stage, and the postmodern stage, or from a mixture thereof. In most of us, only a fraction of our values and perspectives originate from levels higher than the value sphere of the postmodern stage – and thus, most of our responses to the world’s most pressing sociocultural challenges arise from less than enlightened cultural values and perspectives. But if enough people were to be able to come togeth- er in the direct experience of their Prior Unity and awaken to the future-oriented evolutionary vibrancy of their Authentic Self, then the greater wholeness that is disclosed in these Higher We states would begin to inform and create a new and nobler value struc- ture in our culture. Their gatherings would begin to generate truly creative conversations, prompting original solutions, able to more adequately address the highly complex challenges we face in our world in crisis. And thus, at this turbulent moment in history, the emergence of intersubjective evolutionary nonduality carries the power to orient us toward a brighter future. This is why spiritual communities matter. They function as training grounds for refining the art of human relatedness. When at its best, the Sangha is a crucible for the evolution of both our individual consciousness and our shared culture – a space where enlightened values are not just discussed, but actualized and lived; where individual and collective growth mutually reinforce each other; and where the shared pursuit of truth creates a powerful field of spiritual transformation. At Manifest Nirvana, we work to establish an awakened Sang- ha where participants become adept at creating a living Bud- dha-field of shared higher consciousness between themselves - an enlightened we-space, brimming with the ecstatic urgency to create a new world. If more of us could learn the art of living awaken- ing relationally, more enlightened brightness would flow into the world, and this – we feel - would actually transform it. How to optimize the art of human relatedness is the all-import- ant koan for our time!