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June 2009 
Experiments in Intersubjective Consciousness
Chris Parish
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
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As a relatively new student myself, I understand the difficulty of maintaining the peak experience found in the group. My group in Charleston continues to meet weekly (although our official class ended last fall) and we discuss these difficulties which helps so much. Last night's session centered around Andrew's quote of the week which calls it a “moral imperative” to continue growing outside of the intersubjective context so you have a hand in moving the whole group further in enlightened growth. Danielle, our group leader, reminded us that discipline in meditation daily combined with reading the tenets will help keep us on the very edge of conscious evolution. As we grow, we can get complacent (having come a long way, ego wants us to feel pretty good about that) but then the drive is to keep growing and not be satisfied with past growth.
Thanks for your post. It's great to know that people everywhere are having these encounters and that we are able to share our insight, breakthroughs and encouragement collectively.