I want to blog particularly with an emphasis on Enlightened Communication. I think it's about time I got my own blog going and inertia is no excuse. In fact, I've realized that when I do write and try to clearly articulate my experience of engaging with consciousness at the leading edge, that the very effort to do so, is part and parcel of the evolution of consciousness itself.
What I mean is that the sincere effort to stretch beyond where I am currently at, to the horizon of my vision, is that creative edge where new potentials can start to be actualized.

            I've been leading groups in exploration of intersubjective consciousness, (and this is what we've called ‘Enlightened Communication') for some years now all over the world, and for me, this has to be one of the most thrilling and joyful reasons to be alive - and I really mean that. I feel very fortunate to have been with Andrew Cohen for over 20 years now as one of his closest students and to have been in the thick of all our explorations in consciousness. My own journey has closely mirrored the development of Andrew Cohen's practical philosophy of evolutionary Enlightenment over the years. So I've had a unique vantage point in as both full bodied participant and conscious guinea pig and as observing chronicler.

I'm on an 8 day retreat led by Andrew Cohen at EnlightenNext's main centre in Western Massachusetts. And this retreat is different in that the focus is right from the start, on bringing out the authentic self, the creative impulse, the very best and deepest part of ourselves. What Andrew might usually cover after a week on such a retreat has been reached in a day. Andrew is giving a very full context of evolutionary enlightenment for this and each day we are meeting in groups to ‘discuss' it all.

            I say ‘discuss' because that mild sounding word does not in any way do justice to what we are attempting to do. I'll have to give a bit more background for this to make sense since you weren't there!

Andrew has drawn the whole group into the overriding context of it being up to us to evolve consciousness. He always lays out and weaves the biggest possible context we are in as fortunate postmoderns in the 21^st C - the evolutionary deep time view and the crisis of human society and the implications for me and you - and people go "Wow! I never knew it was so huge!"

But this time it's different because right from the word go, he's not talking to an audience but has everyone part with him as crucial co-creators of the mission - to evolve consciousness - together and these so called ‘discussion' groups are an intrinsic part of how we are attempting to push the leading edge.

As he makes very clear, the spiritual life - at least at this point in time, 2007 - is not about ‘ME'; it's about us. Or more accurately, it's about the process.

We are all part of a vast evolutionary process and the process has more reality than the personal dimension. This is a radical shift of orientation if any of us are willing to let in the implications of this shift. You are/ I am the process and if we are awake, we can actually become the leading edge of the process itself. And consciousness sure isn't going to develop by itself while we're asleep!

 These are not therapeutic group discussions; there is a mission and it's very goal oriented. And at the same time none of us know what it really means to evolve consciousness together. After all, how could we? These are very new potentials at the edge of human experience, which we are only touching on.

            So here we go and I'll be reporting from the frontlines of the as yet unformed and creative edge of consciousness as we proceed

I thought I could just write about the series of discussions we are having on this retreat but they are so much part of the overall retreat that there would be a tremendous lack of context if I attempted that. As Andrew is fond of saying - context is everything. And it really is. Whatever we experience is interpreted to such a large extent by what is our perspective that we are looking at it in.

The whole emphasis here is, as I said - and it's such a monumental and seismic shift in human identity and perspective that it bears repeating - is to embrace a view that we are all one process, and the evolution of that process, which is the evolution of consciousness, is entirely dependent on us. So we're not in that sense interested in individuals per se, but in the development of the field itself - (not interested in ME! - sounds harsh and uncompassionate!) But it's not really like that. The focus is on caring for the development of the whole, and that depends of course on individuals; in this case, the participants in these discussions. We're trying to evoke the very best and deepest part of ourselves - the authentic self, the evolutionary impulse - as that is identical with the process itself. But we are not focusing on peoples' personal story or narrative. In this context it is irrelevant and backward looking and tethering us to our ego ( the already knowing part). It's the interest and willingness to take part, and crucially to want to know, to find out which is the universal human quality that puts us on the edge of our experience and where we can meet and further this exploration in consciousness.

Each day after being with Andrew in the morning for 2 or 3 hours of talk, dialogue and meditation, we are holding discussion groups after lunch and then reporting back our findings to him later on, when the whole group reassembles.

I'm leading a group of people with relatively quite a bit of experience of evolutionary enlightenment as these folk are all students who are committed. There are several other groups meeting at the same time but I'm focusing on the group that I'm ongoingly facilitating.

The first discussion (for my group) plays out all the factors that Andrew has laid out as the dynamics of spiritual and philosophical inquiry - especially ‘already knowing' (I'll explain in a moment)

Verdict: Not exactly successful to put it mildly, but very educational, so taking a developmental view of it, I'm sure it's a very valuable experience.

Most participants talked about what they already knew about the whole subject of evolving consciousness and the authentic self and the ego. And being quite conversant with the philosophy of evolutionary enlightenment, they genuinely do know a lot.

We couldn't go anywhere new though. I end up having to repeatedly tell people that what they are saying is maybe true, but is not authentic to this moment.

But no problem with knowing a lot, in case you think we're encouraging idiotic- not knowing- anything- at- all- mind. The rub comes when we are attached to the knowledge we do have and can't (actually won't is more accurate!) let go of it to discover anything new.

As Andrew laid out beforehand, already knowing is the unconscious position of the ego. We need a relationship to knowledge that is non binding.

For the intersubjective field to develop - which is what we're aiming for, as this field is another way of saying consciousness, the self - we have to make room and to be willing and interested in the evolutionary process. And if we already know, then it's not going to be possible to even begin to find out what collective consciousness beyond ego could look like.

So ‘not already knowing' is not erasing our memory into some kind of dumbed down ‘be here now' type approach! It's me or you being unattached to information, because if information is wrapped up in who we think we are as our identity, then we can't not know at the same time. And again, for the self to evolve in an intersubjective context, we have to be willing to let go and not know.

Each discussion group reports its findings to Andrew in the larger assembly of all of us after each group, and he gives reflection and guidance, drawing out and elucidating salient points, in his amazingly skillful way. My group is understandably not happy with their performance and decide to be very different the next day when we discuss again.

And it is really different.

My participants don't just ‘show up' to use the popular term, as if my gracing all of us with my mere physical presence is enough in itself!

No, there is a strong conscious intention to take forward this exploration in consciousness from everyone in the group which is palpable as soon as we gather. And this makes all the difference.

I know it doesn't sounds that unusual, but I really think it is actually really quite rare. (unfortunately)

To have 20 individuals together, each genuinely and seriously focused on the evolution of consciousness - whatever that means, and for now all we need to know is the general direction of beyond our current boundaries - is a rare and precious occasion.

I mean, think about it. When does that ever occur? Each person one pointedly and authentically stretching into their edge, individually - and since we are together, also collectively?

Our particular topic today set by Andrew, is to make the distinctions in ourselves between the ego and the authentic self and the ground of being. The dialogue is very real and because we are not treating this as a game, these qualities and distinctions become very clear in a way that is personally implicating and at the same time are impersonally utterly relevant to each of us. After all there is, at a deeper level, only one human experience.

 Interestingly, we find that we can describe our experience of ego more easily than the authentic self. The only way to talk genuinely about the authentic self is to actually be on the leading edge of one's experience, because the authentic self is the leading edge. You can't talk about the authentic self (well, of course you can - that's what we did yesterday!); you can only be it and speak from it.

            As Andrew says, when I report our findings to him later: it's because the authentic self is an Absolute that you can't define it; the ego is relative and in time and historical and so you can define it and nail it down and hence speak more easily about it.

            The other point is that while the demand is for each of us to be on our own edge, this is also where we can meet at a deeper level.

I don't have my authentic self and you have yours; the thrilling and paradoxical reality is that there is only one authentic self and that's the leading edge for all of us. And that's where consciousness can evolve.

Wow! I love this!