The Bottom Line

I'd thought to just blog about the discussion groups on this retreat but they are so much a part of the retreat as a whole in the way Andrew is directing this retreat, that it doesn't make sense to isolate them in that way.

            He has brought everyone, whether new or very experienced with EE, into a single movement. This has become a collective endeavor with the aim of evolving consciousness.

The discussion groups have become an experiment to prove what is possible to effect at the leading edge of consciousness between a body of willing evolutionaries.

In this way, no one is a consumer by just passively listening to Andrew's inspiring talks, but it is up to each and every one of us. People are empowered and ennobled by realizing and beginning to actualize what we can do. Consciousness really does need us to evolve.

The good news is that when we are reporting back our discoveries to Andrew and the whole assembly, it is evident that development is occurring each and every day. And development is the life blood of conscious evolution.

             I'm leading a group of experienced students and my blog stream is reflecting that; there are other discussions happening concurrently with people who are new to evolutionary enlightenment. I'm naturally expecting more from the participants in my group because they have considerably more experience and they are committed to Andrew as their teacher and EE as their chosen path.

            Today Andrew introduces the foundation of his whole approach: Clarity of intention. It's the fulcrum on which all the whole teaching depends.

 Do I want to be free more than anything else? Is my being available for the evolution of consciousness more important than anything else?

            So this is our topic to discuss today.

Very implicating, this one. But that's what makes genuine philosophical and spiritual inquiry real - for the very reason that you are part of the inquiry. I'm almost surprised that there is no recoil in the group. I've led discussions for many years and usually when the subject of clarity of intention comes up, there tends to be an egoic recoil and participants become self preoccupied. Instead there is a genuine engagement amongst everyone with where we are each at with this crucial question of questions.

But because the subject is an absolute one, if you authentically engage with it, it does invoke the Absolute dimension and the discussion soon becomes imbued with a deep sense of gravity. It's a weighty subject -  but in a very good way.

As Andrew says, "If there is no pretence, then there is presence", and this is exactly our collective experience.

An added reality factor is that I know all these folk reasonably well and they know each other; so you can't just declare some lofty proclamation if it is not borne out in one's actions over time. There is natural peer review here. The bottom line of evolutionary enlightenment is development. It's about developing your capacity to be your own self - the authentic self - beyond ego, over time.

The beauty is that development is measurable, and peer review - from people you trust who know as much as you do or who know more than you do - is the best way to measure development. From the authentic self's perspective, going forward is the only thing that matters.

           
Interestingly, during - and even more so after - this discussion, I was very aware of a profound sense of consciousness pervading us all that was present for hours. I feel we are meeting on a soul level.

A somewhat fanciful heading?  Read down further - I mean it in all seriousness.

This morning Andrew goes on to the 2^nd and 3^rd Tenets of evolutionary enlightenment: The Law of Volitionality and Face everything and Avoid Nothing

Acknowledging we all are crazy and divided, we have to apply the Tenets to ourselves, in order to manifest unity and integration.

As soon as we start our discussion after lunch, there is seriousness and ease that follows naturally from the previous day's group on Clarity of Intention where everyone went through a very positive confrontation with the Absolute.

There is no resistance to investigating the transformative power of the 2^nd and 3^rd Tenets and everyone is taking part with unselfconscious interest.

At a certain point there is a major flip in the group when the subject changes to:

Ok, what about facing the unthinkably positive new potentials in consciousness we are touching on? Are we willing to boldly come out of the shadows and stand for what we have realized in our best moments? - those extraordinary experiences of the authentic self?

What about taking responsibility for all this?

Suddenly we're each spontaneously embracing responsibility for the success of these discussion groups. The success of the retreat depends on us pushing into new possibilities in consciousness; it's infinitely more than being responsible for my personal egoic tendencies.

 The evolution of the whole vast process of Life is on my shoulders.

            I tell the group that I am blogging about them each day ( they didn't know that until this moment!) and many people are reading about these discussions as they happen and we are responsible for giving people faith and conviction that it really is possible to evolve consciousness.

It does really really count what I do.

The intersubjective consciousness between us has been building throughout these groups ( or rather we've been building it by intention and authenticity and striving to be transparent and taking responsibility for our own ego) and it's crystal clear now that we are in the world of the authentic self.

            Now our perspective is that of consciousness itself and our allegiance is to the development of consciousness. From this view, the narcissistic separateness of ego looks insane and meaningless, as well as obviously not in the interests of the whole.

Each person is fully responsible for themselves and can speak freely and autonomously and at the same time, we each are one with the process itself.

We discuss this remarkable paradox between the One and the many - each completely responsible for the whole process and its evolution and yet simultaneously each of us more fully individuals.

What naturally emerges individually and collectively is a sense of moral obligation for the evolution of consciousness.

Andrew picks up on this when we report back to him and points out how we are actually creating something new which then demands something in turn from us. In other words, we are becoming obligated by our own creation. This is not an externally imposed moral code from an outside authority but is from the new emergence in consciousness of the authentic self.  

A new morality for us post-post moderns which is very much in line with Ken Wilber's philosophy of post metaphysical spirituality?!

But this is not theory! - it's experimental data straight from the field and we're the conscious evolutionary Guinea pigs!

            I wish you were there to experience and help create this. What Andrew has said on this retreat about us cynical PoMo's is borne out here. The extraordinary conviction and confidence in Life and ourselves that is discovered based on our actual deepest and ongoing experience in these discussions cannot be overstated. It's the ultimate remedy for the lost soul of us PoMo's.

 Meaning and purpose that is not a concept and belief but is discovered of our sincere striving beyond ourselves, empowers us like nothing else. The beginnings of laying down a new spiritual, philosophical and ethical context not based on ideas or beliefs for us jaded generations in 2007 could actually become a reality.

Oh my God! I really feel we're surfing on the edge of creation!

A little background for today: Andrew brought in how evolution only occurs on the wings of the authentic self  - ( I love that phrase) - yet the authentic self is not an individual, it's an impulse. What we as individuals need to cultivate in order to be available for the already liberated energy of the authentic self, is the soul. And that is done by cultivating the first three tenets. The tenets are a means to an end, to develop those qualities of conscience, authenticity, integrity, and transparency that are the measure of our soul. And soul strength enables us to override ego.

It boils down to: What kind of person am I really?

The discussion group today started already with a sobriety and seriousness and I was struck how people's faces expressed a dignity -  and to use a very antiquated and unhip word - nobility. The subject revolved around cultivating our souls so that we could be available to fully embrace the greatest purpose of evolving consciousness itself - The Universe Project, as Andrew has named it.

 People implicated themselves completely, speaking of where they stand, their life, their age, the urgency they feel, what needs to change in themselves. But here's the remarkable thing: it was deeply striking to the core of each person, and hence very very personal, and yet it was absolutely impersonal at the very same time. We spoke of this quality of impersonal intimacy where you can't even make a distinction between the personal and the impersonal any more. Everything was included, nothing avoided, and people felt the finger pointed back to themselves with, ‘What about you?!' and yet there was no personalization or victimization whatever, only a liberated interest to go forwards.

            We explored the intersubjective consciousness that we were all sharing, and recognized the very different qualities of this consciousness which, at least for the duration of the discussion, had become our locus and identity.

Our self identity was clearly that of consciousness itself, of the authentic self. We were sharing a very different hierarchy of values that come from the intersubjective consciousness that we ourselves were bringing into manifestation between us. From this very different self sense, we each felt a moral imperative to evolve which is more important than anything else. This actually becomes what we emotionally care about (at least for the duration of the discussion - more about consequences and living up to what we have seen in a moment!) We're engaged in evolving the capacity of the self itself.

Even the meaning of being a human being changes dramatically now: most important is to perpetually develop, which becomes the most defining quality of humanness.

Not to make this post too long, I will stop here, but I'm hardly touching on the profundity and range of what was covered; it really is a different dimension which can only occur intersubjectively between free and willing participants.

When we reported all this back to Andrew in the larger body of the whole retreat, he listened and acknowledged what had occurred and then he raised the bar for us all!

He said there needs to be a seamless relationship between revelation and an engaged transformation. All we had said was wonderful but the only way to demonstrate that it is real, is in its transformative power. The heroic part is the follow through. Do we actually and measurably develop in real time?

What will be the result in 6 months time? This was his challenge to us.

            He asked if that made people recoil but generally there was not a egoic pulling back - or if people felt it, then it wasn't the most important part of their reaction.

People said they were up for the challenge so that's where it stands right now

I'll keep you posted!

Today Andrew moves on to the 4^th and 5^th Tenets of Evolutionary Enlightenment: The Truth of Impersonality and Care for the Whole.

The opening comment in our discussion group on this subject sets the tone and context for the ensuing meeting. One woman says that we can only really see and appreciate the truth of impersonality from the perspective of the authentic self, from the view of liberated consciousness itself. And this rings so true.

From the point of view of the ego or separate self sense, we can try to grasp the fact that in actuality absolutely everything is impersonal, but since our vantage point is from being separate (i.e. I'm special = personal = the opposite of impersonality), it doesn't really work. And it tends to be like trying to convince yourself that bad tasting medicine is good for you! Because ego essentially is the habit of compulsively personalizing our experience.

            In the discussion group today, what is most striking to me is the fact that there is a definite development from the day before (as there has been every single day - which Andrew later comments on), and from the start we are meeting in an egoless field of consciousness. This is no small feat and I know that by much hard work we are building the structures in consciousness which support and enable this to occur.

I can sense the stability and depth inherent in the intersubjective field between us and this allows us to investigate anything with fearless interest and passion. This is the world of the authentic self and it's a radically different world where the evolution of consciousness (= care for the whole) naturally becomes the prime directive. In this world, we all see impersonality as liberation. Instead of ‘impersonality' having cold or negative life denying connotations, it's liberating, as why would we want to cling onto false notions of trying to make our experience personal and special, with all the mess that produces? Personalizing our experience is what isolates and separates us.

            But then if absolutely everything is impersonal, and there is really only one human experience, one process that is not separate from us, then we are that process.

Now everything is personal - but in a very different sense. I'm responsible for the evolution of the process; it's all up to me. But that ‘me' is a very different ‘me' - it's the deepest and most real part of ourselves, the authentic self. In fact, the awesome ( and I mean that in the true sense of this overused word - after all, I'm English, not Californian!) truth is that the evolution and manifestation of God really does rest on each of our shoulders.

            We discuss all these things in a very sober but fast moving kind of way that's hard to understand if you don't experience it. When you're in an egoless field, there are no barriers to communication - heart to heart, soul to soul. And the implications are that one's words can't be just fine words; they have to carry weight i.e. there has to be follow through.

            We talk about our reaction when Andrew challenged us by questioning whether our revelations would become transformation and change, measurable over time. Did we feel egoic recoil? Did we personalize that recoil? It doesn't matter what feelings we experience, or if there was fear; all that counts is what do we do. Do we care more about the evolution of the whole process (which depends completely on us)?

            This is the last discussion on this retreat but I'll update this retreat blog stream as things happen (e.g. what are we going to do to ensure real transformation in time) since I know that we're only just getting going on the Universe Project!

We are more a process than an individual

It was impressive on this recent retreat seeing what is possible collectively in just a few days between a group of people. If we are willing and more interested in developing the field of consciousness that we are sharing and creating, than in asserting our separate self sense or ego, then things really are wide open with no limitations. There is no end to development. What an amazing thought!

Human beings becoming an open ended process -  then one of the deepest human qualities becomes how much we keep transforming ongoingly. That's a different definition of human-ness for sure.

Getting in line with this greater truth of us being more a process than an individual, is a big step in development itself. It means we're embracing the evolutionary impulse, and not holding it separate. I think many people who are inspired by the vastness of conscious evolution see it as a wonderful cosmic movement that is still outside of them. It's a whole different thing when we're hit by the realization that we are this One process.

            I'm developing a new day seminar on Enlightened Communication that I'm going to try out in Copenhagen, Denmark in a week's time at the EnlightenNext centre there. This is going to be all about how we can get traction with these subtle dimensions of consciousness in a very practical way. I'll write about my ideas in this blog as soon as I have a moment.

I've been leading groups for years and it's clear that I have to keep developing too, given what I just wrote!

Also the mind blowing thing is that only when we are on our edge - which is the leading edge - do we find the authentic self.

I think meditation is an extraordinary mystery. I know the emphasis on this blog of mine is on Enlightened Communication, but actually meditation is really foundational and inseparable. At the London EnlightenNext centre, one of us regularly does a guided meditation for the public. This week was especially powerful; I led the meditation and each time I said something about the meditation, I found myself dissolving into a vast field of being, where I know absolutely nothing.

            It's funny because I'm speaking out loud about my experience as it occurs and at the same time I'm listening to my own words and being deeply affected by them.

Makes me wonder if I'm dispassionate or just schizophrenic! 

But anyway, it is interesting because in order to speak you have to come out of meditation - the ground of being, where there are no distinctions, no me, no you, only pure consciousness - and yet that speaking sends me further into the limitless zero that is the deepest sense of self.

            I'm very grateful to know a depth of meditation, since I find that over time it does permeate the active dimension of life. Without a ground of conviction that at the core of Life, nothing is inherently wrong, that there is liberation, the thrilling journey of development and engagement of the authentic self doesn't have a real foundation and it can easily be superficial and merely intellectual.

            We've started recording these short guided meditations as podcasts and the one I'm referring to, is on our podcast site as well as several by Patrick Bryson, a good friend of mine.

Check it out: Meditation podcasts

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EC 2.0 - (the evolution of collective consciousness dialogues)

As I said before, I'm trying a different approach in seminars on this subject, borrowing heavily from the way Andrew Cohen has been teaching recently.

From experience of leading groups all over the world, I find everyone wants to jump to getting into a circle (the reflex Green response since many of us egalitarian folk can't bear any suggestion of anyone leading a group!) while they think - and more often than not tell me in no uncertain terms -

"I know all this stuff, it's all too intellectual. Let's get on with this EC discussion we've been hearing about, and skip the theory etc etc...."

Unfortunately if I do as they suggest, it doesn't work (and guess who gets blamed!) because there is a whole science to these matters that we need to have some awareness of.

So I'm giving people "the experiential part" right away, but hopefully in a way that satisfies peoples' desire to communicate and not just listen to someone lecturing, but in a way that brings out the depth of the forces we are engaging with when you attempt vertical ascent on the developmental highway.

To give an example in a little more detail: 

Already Knowing

On this seminar I got people to grapple with the almost universal underlying attitude we all have about how much we think we already know.

What I mean by this, is that we are consciously or unconsciously holding on to assumptions that we already know what is and isn't possible. This is a pervasive position we all hold to varying degrees and many of these assumptions are not conscious.

 There's nothing wrong with knowledge - which is only information anyway - it's us wrapping our self sense in our knowledge which makes it all but impossible to learn anything new and thus live in a developmental framework. This is a big big obstacle.

In an Enlightenment context, the conviction that we already know makes it almost impossible to develop at a deeper level. This is what is meant by EGO in an Enlightenment context.

I know it can sound simplistic and maybe like kid's stuff. But believe me, it isn't; the simplest and most unexamined things are often the most profound.

In this new seminar, I experimented with some interesting and provocative ways to get people to see what a far reaching and also subtle matter this is. Because the only obstacle to the emergence and meeting in the authentic self is - you guessed it - ego. The more we see this experientially, quite simply the more we will be available for the greater purpose of the evolution of consciousness.

There really is a science to all this that we are learning.

Here's a little sample of some of the questions and statements I posed people to start with:

• Do you feel you have a sense of what's possible today?
• I know about ‘Enlightened Communication' as I've experienced the same sort of thing in other groups
• I don't know about ‘Enlightened Communication' so I want to just observe what happens today
• I'm completely open and receptive to whatever occurs
• I don't understand at all about all this and the language is quite a problem
• I know where I'm at and what are my limitations

Not knowing 

During this seminar day, we explored the opposite of ‘already knowing', which is about, not unsurprisingly, ‘not knowing'.

It was very experiential and people had profound experiences of going to zero, to the ground of being, way beyond the mind and any concepts.

Wanting to Know - The Authentic Self

Then we turned to ‘wanting to know' which is the felt expression of the authentic self, the best part of ourselves (the creative impulse).

I found it fascinating that we were able to access the pure positivity of the authentic self very readily and that movements of ego were much more noticeable to the participants. I'm sure this had to do with our heightened awareness of ego, of the drive to already know, and that this enabled people to discriminate better between ego and authentic self in themselves and others.

The result is that we could chose the authentic self and the discussion became a rare exploration into the potentials of human consciousness beyond ego.

The day finished with a discussion group - and yes, we did get in a circle!

And the resulting discussion was staggeringly good (see discussion group post)

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I tried out a new way of doing a seminar this weekend (which included the discussion group described in the previous post) and I think I'm onto something.

 EC 2.0 is taking shape: by which I mean a new way of doing seminars on Enlightened Communication.

A little background and history of ‘Enlightened Communication' :

I've been doing Evolutionary Enlightenment days/weekends including discussion groups for many years now, and in recent years I've made a particular focus on enlightened communication.

While these have been great in their time, I've recently backed off on doing so-called "EC" (Enlightened communication - anything that long would inevitably have to get shortened!), because I'd felt that it was becoming somehow reduced to a peak experience.

 People were having mind-blowing experiences in these events and sometimes spoke afterwards with the clarity and vision of liberated consciousness. Also this wasn't merely giving people a personal internal meditative experience; it was between a group of people while engaged in vigorous dialogue.

 It was a collective spiritual experience.  So you couldn't doubt it later as just an internal feeling that perhaps you had been deluded about, or had only imagined.

But in spite of this, often I would talk to someone a few days or weeks later and the same person who had spoken like the proverbial oracle would say, "Oh, yeah, ‘EC', it was good - It felt really good," but now there was only the memory of a feeling - no liberating perspective. I realized that the all important perspective was not there.

            It wasn't their fault. I saw that I needed to give much more background and context of Evolutionary Enlightenment in the hope that people would start to build some structure to be able to integrate what they were experiencing in these seminars. I needed to give them more understanding and framework to give traction, which would help them hold a perspective. And also I needed to get people to learn and experience at first hand, the powerful factors at play which govern the emergence and sustaining of the authentic self.

Hence EC 2.0

EC 50

One mind with 50+ people

Enlightened Consciousness
or

The stuff of which postmodern nightmares are made of: Group think?

A Day Seminar in Denmark

I just led a day with 55 participants on intersubjective consciousness and the high point of the day had to be the discussion group which was the culmination of what we had come to from the whole day.

Here's my attempt to put into words the multidimensional nature of that extraordinary occasion. This is what I scribbled down after:

"What was striking right away in this discussion, was the attention and quality of listening. The listening was acute and the mind-bending impression was as if there were only several people instead of over 50. But simultaneously there was a general complete absence of tension and self consciousness that you might expect would be there with such focused attention.

We started speaking at first about the authentic self; though to be accurate, there was much more speaking from or as the authentic self, than about it. In other words it was stunningly real!

Going back to the listening: Really there was One listening. And it was to do with where people were listening from: not from the separate self sense but from the deepest part of our self, the authentic self.

People remarked with wonder at their feeling of dynamic and ecstatic urgency to go forward and simultaneously that they experienced deep deep ease and relaxation.

How can deep ease, rapt attention, and ecstatic urgency all exist together? And yet the actuality of our experience is that it is true. Here we've entered into the dimension of the authentic self and different rules hold here. Paradox is the name of the game here because paradox is natural when we're in the realm of manifest non-duality. It's just that our brains and language don't quite have the structure to be able to neatly and linearly express it. 

            People expressed how they were more deeply and autonomously themselves while they were also not separate. Again this impossible paradox that is the hallmark of enlightened communication, of communication at the level of the authentic self.

This is the heart of the matter: Oneness, non-separation, at the very same time as liberated individuality and creativity.

This is why I'm always so thrilled at the potential of this kind of relationship - because it's radically different and literally rewrites the rules of human society.

To the degree each person feels personally responsible for the evolution of consciousness itself (quite an autonomous stand to be sure!), is the degree that we will feel intimacy and oneness with others who also share this same context of the authentic self.

We talked of the intimacy we were sharing: closer than close, and yet most of us didn't know each other at all, and certainly didn't know each other's backgrounds. The intimacy of the authentic self is impersonal intimacy. But this is an intimacy which is much more deeply human than the personal intimacy which comes from knowing all about each others aspirations, hopes, fears, and history etc."

 A discussion like this didn't come out of the blue, of course, and the earlier part of the day was laying the groundwork to able this to happen seamlessly. (Easy to say in retrospect, as I never really know what's going to happen though I do my damndest to steer it always towards the direction of depth!). The main limitation on how many people can engage like this is in physically being able to hear each other; in this case the circle was pretty huge.

I was interviewed by Kirsten Andersen in Copenhagen about what Enlightened Communication is all about. She did it for a documentary she is doing on collective creativity - amazingly she's funded to do this project. It must be because it's Denmark.

I asked her if I could use a couple of the responses I gave.

Here's several short answers I gave about it in a podcast including: Is it the same as other approaches such as Collective Intelligence or Collective Wisdom?