The Imperative to Evolve

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!