Authentic Questionsing

Dear Jeff & Katerine,
I get the invitations for your week's conference calls. Unfotunatly it is impossible to participate, because it's 3am in Berlin. Usually get up 5:00 - 5:30 to go to university & work. Still need 7-8 hours sleep!
All sounds so exiting!
Just startet to participate in the german calls on fridays & the member calls on sundays. Start to need them. Trying out everything what could possibly help to develop, grow up, get mature, go forward & push the edge. Your weekly calls seem to be a great opportunity.
Hopefully soon there is no need for so much sleep anymore. (Even I'm sure that in the dreams some work gets done as well...)
Thanks for your work
Wish you the best

Dear Jeff and Katherine,
          Thanks so much for this call tonight.  It is very exciting and so valuable, learning about how to inquire and learning how to differentiate where the question is coming from.  I really want to listen again on MP3. 

Evolutionary Nonduality

Dear Jeff and Katherine,
Great conference call – very thought provoking.  I had a split second of sensing the reality of being the consciousness of the universe in this unique, nonpersonal, non-possessive way.  It was a bit alarming.  I can tell i'm not ready for that.  I'm still individuating.  Reading great book by Joseph Chilton Pearce, THE DEATH OF RELIGION AND THE REBIRTH OF SPIRIT, A REturn to the Intelligence of the Heart.  And he said what I was thinking a while back....that we have to remove all the obstacles to truly being ourselves...as Harvey Jackins would say, being our full selves.  Consciously.  But, it was interesting.  On my own I would not have thought of thinking of myself as the consciousness of the universe, but frankly, as I write that, I can see, intellectually that it is true.  What a horrifying thought and dreadful responsibility.  I do shudder at the thought.  Mmmmmm.  On reflection I don't want to think about it.  I think this is my mind telling me that I still have more work to do before I'm ready to truly consider that.  I can "sense" the enormity of the concept.  I don't want to experience it, yet, but I can see that I have the capacity to do that when I'm ready. 

Dear Jeff and Katherine,
It was another fantastic call last night – very engaging. We had 12 people listening together here at the EnlightenNext Center in New York. While we were all gathered after the call we couldn't stop speaking and that fact alone seemed to prove that the Authentic Self never stops it just wants to keep going and going.

Hi Jeff  and Katherine
Bull’s-eye...this is the conversation that invites us directly to take  responsibility for the inquiry ...the work lives and dies there.....the languageing of the context prior to the call every time would make a difference in establishing the container in which the inquiry can happen .....powerfully lanaguaged...need to hear it 3,000 times ........

Dear Jeff,

I’m taking you up on your invitation for listener feedback… Have been thinking lately about the notion of evolutionary enlightenment as a spiritual “movement.”

To anyone who has grasped and felt the power of this teaching at the deepest level, I imagine the call to a movement will seem perfectly appropriate, because consciousness itself seems to compel it.

But I imagine that many of us have a ways to go before we get the teaching to that extent.  And even when we do get the teaching to that extent, we'll probably still recoil from time to time at the idea of participating in a spiritual movement.  You might be losing a lot of people before they've had their “ah hah” moment.

Even though I think I understand this teaching and have experienced it at a deep level, I have also found myself asking “why now?… what is so urgent about this that we need to make it a movement?… won't consciousness go on evolving even if we don't consciously engage in the process?… it has evolved for millions of years all by itself, why does volitionality enter into it now?”

These questions have been answered (for me at least) by the substance and experience of the teaching, but as I mentioned above, I would bet that many people aren't getting that far with it and might respond more positively to answers framed in more practical terms, whether historical, environmental, economic, scientific etc.  There certainly seems to be a widespread feeling out there that humanity is off course.  This is implied by Andrew all the time.  But I'm wondering, if you're calling people to a movement, shouldn't the argument that a movement is necessary be made explicitly and specifically?

This is difficult to do without wading into politics, I know… and I know that the core of evolutionary enlightenment is fundamentally positive; it isn't about griping.  But if what you want is a movement, it seems that would be best served and best justified by detailed “real world” arguments about how humanity is off course.  Not so much political arguments. – for example, arguments concerning our failure to walk our talk when it comes to certain universal values like genocide, the environment, basic human needs, clean drinking water or disease.  These are all possible illustrations of the need for a greater consciousness.  Presenting this movement as one intended to bring more consciousness to bear on such issues might be more attractive to the spiritually skeptical than a more nebulous (to newcomers) and potentially off-putting “spiritual movement” or “revolution in consciousness.”

True, this doesn't capture the highest potential of the teaching.  But maybe presenting it this way could help to engage more people where they are.

Thanks again for all that you and EnlightenNext are doing.  I'll definitely stay in the fold and am excited about where this can go.

AM

Response from Jeff:

Dear AM,

Thank you for writing. Your letter is right on.

Your question, why now? Won't consciousness evolve without us?, is a great one. I would like to respond to both aspects of this that you bring out.

First, as far as volitionality comes into, the reason it has come in now is because choice at the level of consciousness has only just appeared in evolutionary terms. Reptiles don't have the ability to choose at the level of consciousness. They can't choose to have higher states, or even recognize if they are having higher states or not. But with human beings you have this completely new ability to be aware of the fact that you are aware. And that allows awareness or consciousness to become the object of your attention and there for it is something you can make choices about.

This brings up an interesting point. Because part of your question asks: why does Volitionality enter into the evolutionary process now. And the fact is that Volitionality has been a part of evolution for a long time - as in the example of the choice to sexually reproduce above. It is just that now choice at the level of consciousness is possible and that hasn't been the case before. And even more to the point choice of the level of consciousness exists along with the understanding that we are part of an evolving universe - and that is even more recent.

The answer to the question, “Why now?” is because this is the first time choice at the level of consciousness has entered into the picture. And once a new feature of the organism enters into the picture it has to start to play a role in the future evolution of that species. For instance once some organisms adapted sexual reproduction as apposed to asexual they had to have sex in order to continue on. You couldn't decide not to have sex and still survive.

Now of course evolution will go on with or without us, but do we really want to have the race destroyed and leave the universe to find a suitable replacement? That brings in your second point.

I believe that you are right on when you talk about the fact that our human world is swerving dramatically off course. In “What is Enlightenment?” magazine we have devoted a great deal of time to articulating how we are off course in many ways and no matter how many we find there are always more. The only problem with this approach to justifying urgency is that I think people are numb to it. All of us have heard over and over again that the “sky is falling” (ala Y2K) and it hasn't happened yet. And also people often get overwhelmed into inaction by the shear magnitude of the problems we face.

I think that engage people in discussion is the best way to help us all get clear about how important it is to evolve. Even a dialog the one we are having here will bring both you and me more in touch with the realities of our evolutionary predicament. That being said, I do think you are right that these arguments are more easily graspable and more concrete to many people

Thank you for writing and please stay connected and engaged,

Jeff

Dear Jeff/Katherine,
There was certainly a lot more “on your feet” engagement in this past week’s call, however, Jeff, in his invitation months ago, asked us to join him in creating a revolution and at this point the Mission is not clear.
What is the revolution?
Is it a transformation from ego to authentic self?
Is it achieving an ecstatic experience through meditation?
Is it a retreat week in Italy with a great spiritual teacher who speaks about enlightenment?
Is it a restful weekend in the Berkshires?
Is the invitation to be with a spiritual leader to learn his practices?
Is it enlightenment for everyone?
Is it a religious practice based on a God who fell from the sky based on the five tenets and the six principles?
Is it that we are to be authentic and have oneness with the world?
Is it to be rid of the ego that says I have a problem?
If this were a revolution you would need to make out a clear business proposal with your purpose and objectives.
I would like to suggest that maybe this is not a revolution. Maybe it was just a good idea well intended, but not a revolution. Maybe we just need to face that and move on with it.
Sincerely,
DD

Dear DD,
Your call for defining the goal of this work is very much appreciated. As your list of questions point out there are many facets and aspects to everything that I have been talking about over the past few months and we would do well to begin to create a more cohesive picture out of it all. In a vision statement for EnlightenNext that Andrew Cohen wrote he speaks about the goal of this work in terms of the authentic self, the creative impulse behind the evolving universe, becoming the conscious driving force that enlightens the leading edge of consciousness and culture.
As I would say it, we are trying to get people to discover the authentic self within themselves and then train them with tools (The Five Fundamental Tenets of Enlightenment) that will allow them to align the actions of their own life with that creative impulse. And since this is about changing culture we then need to bring together people who are aligning with the authentic self to find a way to live and be that is going to meet the challenges of the present and future.
Maybe this isn’t going to work. Maybe my call for an evolutionary/revolutionary movement in New York City was a good idea that just isn’t going to make it, but something’s got to do it. I don’t believe the human race can survive without a real shift in our level of consciousness and I don’t believe that shift is ever going to happen unless some of us decide that we are going to make it happen.
We seem to be caught in the “catch 22” of consciousness. We don’t tend to believe a shift is possible unless we see it and we won’t see the shift unless we make the shift happen first. That’s why I believe so strongly that inspiring each other to go beyond what we already know and take a big risk to care about a completely different possibility is the most important part of this work right now.
Thank you for your sincerity and interest,
Jeff

Hello Jeff,

I just had to write to you and express my gratitude to you for sharing the story about the sentence Andrew Cohen posted from your letter for other students to read.  Something like, "I realized I had stopped trying to figure out a solution to a problem as soon as it arose." 

It is so simple, and exemplifies a foundational aspect of Evolutionary Enlightenment, but I honestly did not see it so clearly before the call tonight.  It had an immediate impact on me and continues to, as I realize the implications of letting the need to solve the problem, from the place of being convinced that there is a problem, go.  The ego has no hold.  Wow.

Thanks again,
M

Dear M,

How we generally operate is that we unconsciously assume that we are fine the way we are and then when circumstances make it obvious that we do need to change we tend to adopt one of two positions. The first is that we start solving the problem and so we go from “not needing to change” to “changing” with out having to experience “needing to change”. The other position is to go from “not needing to change” to “I can’t do this” (ie. despair) again without ever having to experience the discomfort of “needing to change”.

Bottom line - we never want to see ourselves as needing to change – needing to evolve. Our general state of consciousness tends to be that we don’t need to change, that we are fine the way we are. Our post-modern society has convinced of it, ala “Free to be You and Me” and that is OK as far as it goes, but if you begin to want to evolve – to care about the creation of something new – you have to be willing to experience the need to evolve, you have to be willing to experience the tension and confusion of not being perfect. It is a simple point, but if you think about it you will see that it is outrageously profound.

Stay in Touch,
Jeff

I asked a woman who spoke on our last call to write something about the expereince that she was describing on the call. This poetic description is what she wrote back.  Jeff

...I've been thinking about the fact that even though we're in the middle of an information explosion and in the middle of our lives, a question like, "what is most important about being alive?" presents us with a "blank slate".    As if we're at the starting point.

We've been breathing since birth, but between every single in-breath and out-breath, there is a very brief, but physical sensation of neither.  There's a gap there.  Questioning the value of life itself belongs to that liminal, in-between place where life and death are defined.  It is that close to our human experience and that profound in its implications.  With every single breath we take, we start again, we choose to stay alive.  The question is, "why?"...