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| Andrew Cohen's Blog | |
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March 23, 2009
Spirit Is HigherI want to share an open secret with everyone: Spirit is definitely Higher. That might seem obvious at first. Everybody seems to already know that the nature of God or Spirit or Consciousness or Being is higher in meaning, value, and inherent glory than the separate ego or the unique objects that make up the world around us. But I think we tend, more often than not, to overlook or just not see the profound implications of that simple truth. Spirit is generally seen and understood to be the grand unifying principle behind all apparent difference. And while the absolute or nonrelative nature of Spirit or God is indivisible from and incomparable to anything else, the face of Spirit is always a paradox. When the veil of ignorance or unenlightenment is lifted and its true nature is revealed, two apparently contradictory events occur simultaneously. The first is that everything that exists and everything that doesn’t exist is all recognized to be part of one indivisible process. The second is that actual and real distinctions become more sharp and apparent than in ordinary states of consciousness—distinctions between matter and consciousness, life and death, being and becoming, and good and evil. What is directly revealed and illuminated in these moments is the inherently hierarchical nature of Spirit, as it becomes all of manifestation. It becomes even more obvious, for example, that sentient life forms are higher or more sacred than rocks or dirt, and that morals are higher and more sacred than individual desires. Spirit as the Absolute is both formlessness and form. Unmanifest Spirit is the eternal, timeless, empty ground of all Being, where there is no birth or death, and nothing ever happened. Manifest Spirit is eros, the creative impulse, the evolutionary telos, the cosmic utopian urge towards greater and greater perfection and utter and total completeness. Ecstatic reaching and striving is Manifest Spirit’s one and only posture. It is always active and creative. That dynamic and mysterious Becoming is the process by which absolutely everything emerged from nothingness. It’s a process in which ever-greater complexity and higher integration continually arise out of lesser forms. And as that process awakens to itself at the level of consciousness—through the human heart and mind—in the very act of becoming aware, slowly but surely, it begins to make distinctions. Important ones. Distinctions that determine greater and lesser value, distinctions that discern the difference between that which is lower and that which is higher. While the process itself is, in all its parts, that indivisible One beyond all difference, the infinite worlds that arise and disappear within that process are the Many that, by definition, express difference in ever-changing and infinite variety. And inherent in that difference is hierarchy, the distinction between that which is lower and that which is higher. So how does knowing this affect the way we see the world and the way we relate to the experience of being alive? What does it mean about our philosophical ideas? What does it mean about our moral convictions? What does it mean about our deepest and most cherished spiritual values? Indeed, what does it mean about how we see other human beings, nature, the cosmos, and even Spirit itself? If Spirit, or God, is that which is always Highest, then how does that affect our perspectives and our judgments? Are they always informed by the natural hierarchy inherent at every level of the very fabric of the cosmos? This natural hierarchy exists at the level of matter, as we recognize the difference between atoms, molecules, and cells, and it also exists at the level of consciousness, as we discern the difference between varying levels of moral development and levels of spiritual attainment. This is a complex discussion because, as we all know, first and foremost Spirit is the grand unifier. In its revelation, there is the undeniable recognition that we have never been separate and there is only One. But, as we have seen, the contours of that which is only One, as it becomes manifest, contain countless dimensions and levels that are not all the same. This is very important to understand. Why? Because our capacity to manifest that which is highest here on Earth—wisdom, insight, evolutionarily enlightened awareness, and deep, impersonal, spiritual love—is entirely dependent upon our being able to discern what can at times be subtle differences. Our own evolution at the deepest level of our being depends upon our willingness to strive consistently to make philosophically and morally challenging distinctions. Spirit is One. But the nature of Spirit as it becomes manifest is the Many. As it moves on its unending journey from Being to Becoming, from Nothing to Everything and back again, our capacity to recognize and honor difference and to distinguish lower from higher is what makes it possible for the Sacred, for the true face of Spirit, to shine through each and every one of us, as Itself, in the very world that it alone created. Post a CommentBefore commenting, please note that this is a moderated forum and all comments are reviewed before posting. In the interest of furthering the topic of discussion, comments that do not comply with the comments policy will not be posted. Please take a moment to read the guidelines. 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I agree, as long as we notice that any realization gets defiled the moment we attach to it. The moment this, or any articulation, becomes something we view as indisputably true, or definite, is the moment it becomes personal; the moment it becomes contained; the moment it becomes a mind-object to which we identify. Once this happens any authentic awakening we might hope to let through us gets blocked.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Awesome
Andrew,
Beautiful Post...Spirit is higher..I agree..though I have a hard time manifesting this in my life...It took me many years before I even discovered where this will to awaken comes from. You have always inspired me.My only wish is to discover this will to fully awaken.
I am now 31 and fully interested in this self discovery. I have decided recently to take shorten my work week..for six months to inquire deeply into this…
I am doing this from home.I am truly grateful..For the one time I got to here you speak back when you came to Toronto when I was 17. And for for the accessability to you on the internet.I would say that in this life you are one of my greatest heroes.
Tara
Have you seen “Man on Wire” what a demonstration of spirit and form beautifully integrated for God to see.
When in front of an empty canvas all of myself including consciousness and my unconcious reveal a picture of creation with the movement of a brushstroke. This picture could be made from any one of us.
Inniately we all are an empty vessell moving moment by moment recieving data, each and everyone collecting the mystery of life communicating this outwardly and inwardly within the cosmos.
Distinctions between you and me are built at roots from the centre of the surface and below which grow and reach high, low and across like branchs of a tree. Each tree varying in form and colour, baring a vast array of sweet smelling breaths of flowers.
The swinging monkeys bounding from branch to
branch unite us all.
I’m interested in the idea that discerning what is higher, also seems to plunge us into a deeper communion with the world and its natural hierarchies. Height and depth seem to yield a new capacity and desire to provide stewardship and care of lower levels as a new way of relating to them.
The process of “Higher” seems to create a greater capacity for openness to the depths of the ground of being which wells up into the manifest and washes it clean of misleading emotional distinctions and layers. When the world is cleansed in this way and truth is revealed in all its unfiltered glory, the need for actions becomes clearer and the effort, more effortless. Compulsions to survive are replaced by compulsions to create.
Being made aware of the obvious is not always so apparently clear to me at times,but once again Andrew makes clear the profound simplicity of that which is before us ,the unity of all things and the arising paradox when discerned gives us that oppurnity to choose between life and death.
We have to consistently act from the place of no-difference from the place of one without a second. All of life is a continuos action, so even our inaction is an action. Knowing this brings us into the world of ein-sof, which is the knowledge that all of our experience is part of a developmental process that is going on forever. And by forever i mean forever, and this is a profound context for the experience that we are having right now. This knowledge is like graduation on the spiritual path, where the path and the journey become the same.
An absolute hierarchy of values, leading to an absolute hierarchy of contexts all emerging from the enlightened mind !
I love this way of encompassing both the non dual and the manifest world. For me the non dual is like a quantum field, the zero point field, or morphic field of knowledge. The manifest life is the way we measure the field, our Experiences is The measurement of the field.
Evolution can probably be described as a theory of quantum measurement....
Thanks Andrew for this wonderfully inspiring blog - I cannot wait to get enlightened to be able to contemplate the magnificence of the context and values hierarchies unfolding at infinity !
Yes, Andrew, it is truly important to understand with every cell, with every string and with every moment of our being that the one and only Spirit is One, that we are within this One as undivided part of the Being, and, at the same time as part of the great Becoming our open eyes and hearts can see very clearly the natural hierarchy which lies in all things, doings and thoughts as well as in the different levels of consciousness. Out of the great freedom that arises from this sight and understanding we are called to answer in every second of our life with a constant YES or NO in a crystal clear, radical and responsible morally distinguishing and orientation setting way. This constant YES or NO which is constantly followed automatically by our actions - without any need, any intention or struggle for being active - is our contribution to the Becoming, is what Andrew called: sitting on the driver seat after having been awakened and realized, that we are the drivers and that it is up to us as awakened parts of the Self to set the directions of the journey.
It is endeed fascinating, painful and full of joy (eros) at the same time, to be able to see all tins clearly from this overwhelming “new” perspective while becoming more and more part of this “new” perspective itself, while becoming more and more part of this cosmic project and even more than that - while becoming more and more the project itself.
Send you all my/our love
Ralph Remo
brilliant article, that enters into subtle realms and subtle differenciation that is so crucial to understanding spirit. Duality then, is not such a bad word. It helps one make choices with refinement, as hierarchy is so deeply ingrained at the matter. This awareness had brought a deep calm over me, in unexplainable ways. As I refine my understanding of lower and higher, I also refine my capacity to manifest spirit. Discernment is the key here.
Dear Andrew,
Thank you for this powerful post. It is so important for us to question our relationship to spirit. So much is revealed when we start seeing that the postmodern world view does not value spirit because our self centered minds leave no room for it. It is becoming so clear that valuing Spirit as Highest is autonomy and that allows collective creativity to take off, and it’s a much bigger and more beautiful endeavor than I ever thought it would be!
Diane
Spirit is generally seen and understood to be .... (2nd verse): not true, wish it were ... and everybody who does understand and see Spirit as the grand unifying principle knows the rest of the message already, so why bother to write/read a long blog over it?
I love this subject for lack of a better def. When I was a little girl, I use to say “We have always been just like our creator."There has never been a time when we were not even in our nothingness. Resistance and submission are the true key, (for me that is.) I see my self as the whole, but my part of the whole is resistance and submission. I feel there has to be level of insanity that is experienced for there to be enlightment. I do not pretend to understand much of this but I am just glad to be having. Thank you
That Spirit is higher and/or One seems to me to be less important, if at all important, than that Spirit is the Source of my ability to be in faith with Spirit. I believe in Spirit, in God, in Soul, in “having” faith. And it may seem formless to me because The Form is not accessible to my perceptions--only to my faith, intuition and trust. Perhaps that is why we can perceive Spirit as Higher and Formless. Nonetheless, I still believe our measurements of higher/lower, wider/narrower are of little, if any, significance to the I Am That I Am.
Of course, finally, I realize we are creatures of structure and that tends to lead to the allure or practical reasons for hierarchies. We want to aim higher, for more, for the best, and spiritual terms, those desires are noble, in deed, but risk arrogance, and I hope all of us can be humbly wise so that we can remain vulnerable (as scary as that is) for our faithful spiritual ways to evolve, so we can evolve, ever less worried, evermore trustful, inwardly peaceful, focused, dedicated, balanced, never perfect because attempts for us, ourselves to aim for becoming perfect is to risk our sanity and replace the possibiliy of balance with a disproportionate Life view that forces love to dance with hate, perhaps, or death, perhaps--or am I falling into to much poetry now. Well, let us go wisely in faith--with hands held and heads bowed in deep thanksgiving--hope--and above all--of integral worth and dignity--of Inspiring Integrity.
This is a great blog post. Some might not recognize what prompted Andrew to address this issue of hierarchy, but to those of us who deeply embrace an evolutionary model, its at the core of what makes our ontological point of view work. Some people out on the edge of political philosophy want to strip hierarchy out of our social structures or at least neuter it, and that is something that needs to be railed against. It’s deeply misguided and needs to be understood by everyone, as it’s a dangerous place to go because it renders so much of life essentially meaningless. So while this blog appears to be about high minded ideals, Spirit and metaphysics, it’s got a very practical mundane side to it as well. Well done, Andrew.
i feel like the only positive piece of this structure in my world. I know one person on my level and its very hard to keep this way without other inspiration. Im glad your around. Hope that more comes around me if i maintain it.
I have trouble understanding last part of the 3rd section: “While the process itself is, in all its parts, that indivisible One beyond all difference, the infinite worlds that arise and disappear within that process are the Many that, by definition, express difference in ever-changing and infinite variety. And inherent in that difference is hierarchy, the distinction between that which is lower and that which is higher.”
I can’t grasp how something can be higher. What does it mean? Does the hierarchy try to determine which world is most conscious, most complex or what is the factor that makes the higher?
Thank you a wonderful posting that reminds me so much of the pillars of the Ageless Wisdom. The awakening and response of the intelligence principle in collective humanity seems to me to be the illustration of Hierarchical endeavour. The duality constituting our very nature contains the blueprint based on the Great Pattern/Design..(as above, so below’
This duality is essentially Spirit and Matter..we read that ‘spirit is matter at its highest point of development and matter is spirit at its lowest point of density.’ These opposite poles that dwell within us might be termed Self/Not-self-Soul/Personality-Higher Mind/lower mind-masculine/feminine. Consciousness generates a magnetic field that stimulates the interplay between the opposite poles and brings them into relationship with one another.
The Awakening and development of the intelligence principle in man seems to demonstrate as the capacity for Response to the impact and vibration of Spirit.
The human atom Man might be viewed in terms as a ‘points of light’ or a unit of consciousness.
To the uninitiated, this blog--the lead article by Andrew Cohen and the brief comments by readers--is confusing, even bizarre. The article and commentary are written totally in the abstract, with not one case study, example, or anecdote to illustrate the ideas being presented, and with not one skerrick of evidence for those ideas, either.
Both the owner and readers of the blog would doubtless claim they have evolved to such a high level of “spiritual” awareness that their thinking and writing is removed from and above the comprehension of us lesser mortals.
But what use is a higher order of awareness, if that is indeed what it is, if it comes across to us lesser mortals as “philoso-babble” (as opposed to psycho-babble) and “metaphysical mumbo jumbo”?
As a method, science is still evolving. Evolutionary neuropsychology and other mutli-disciplinary fields of research are already yielding discoveries about Human Nature (the inner, psychological world) rather than just Mother Nature (the outer, physical world). Why not wait until our theorizing can be matched and either confirmed or disconfirmed by our research efforts before we wade into the great cosmic unknown?
Many people are free to think in terms of spirit and matter as being their higher and lower, but have you ever tried thinking in terms of girasas and human (kingdoms) as being the higher and lower. If you see all of the higher united in a “living” being, influencing you, awakening you, trusting you, then you begin to be a participant in caring for the life of the spirit or girasas. While I so much want for other people to love this girasas kingdom for what they are, I also want to acquire as much of them as I can within my own constitution and I don’t know how to do this. Is it possible to convince others that the spirit is a separate living thing with its own separate goals and direction (toward ascending humans) whereas our direction is quite the revers (toward descending girasas). Putting them more firmly in material is unselfish though vague and untried. I am at peace in being part of the same life that the girasas are part of. I am torn apart with the work of communicating the scene of evolution where I don’t have the right to claim “I AM” what they more truthfully are. Is there any chance that both could live in their own right? (Free to search girasas for other writing.)
I enjoyed your inspiring post Andrew. I agree, Spirit is One and Spirit is All levels. Spirit evolves and manifests through natural hierarchy. The evolution of consciousness and of culture emerges through hierarchy. So from one perspective hierarchy is an integral component of our development. Spirit and our capacity to manifest that which is highest here on Earth is not mean spirited or oppressive.
And yet we humans have adopted forms of hierarchy in most of our cultural institutions characterized by domination. In societies throughout the world, privilege goes to a select few at the top; power is established and maintained through force and intimidation. What gives?
How does natural hierarchy relate that human cultural evolution? What would natural hierarchy look like in our social institutions without domination? As we Become and evolve a new culture that honors the highest levels of Spirit how do we structure cultural hierarchies based on that partnership?
This is my 84 year old gradually recognized lived experience. Result: I am free as a bird to continue to live and explore this incredible creation of which I am a live, living organism, and also a cocreator.
You express it beautifully! blessings, Gini
Great article...Just as Plotinus once said,"The mind that can conceive God, must itself become God”...Spirit is higher and Spirit is...Thanks !
Thank you Andrew for this so inspiring and integrating post ( as usual!
Yes, I also deeply feel that natural hierachy is inherent “at every level of the very fabric of the cosmos” . As far as I can comprehend it , it is the ladder towards higher and higher forms of development and integration because it is the way God or Spirit or Consciousness expresses Itself in the world of manifestations throughout the whole manifested universe. Indeed, relationships at all levels are the means for Spirit to recall all of us at any level of development we are now and here ,and the whole of manifested Universe to a great and joyful re-union with the Divine within. It is done so, through a process of authentical, stimulating, respectful and all-encompassing sharings.
Natural hiearchy is therefore the prerequisite, the cement and the fruit of Relationships for Higher Purposes. It is as natural, as nourishing, as pervasive to thoses Relationships as the deep flagrance of a flower is naturally exalting to the senses and the soul for all around who are opened and vulnerable enough to receive its gifts.
Yes, no wonder. I have nothing against natural hierarchy as long as it is mutually recognized as a natural part of the cosmic order from the inside out, and guess what ? I naturally run away from any hierarchy based on human fears and ambitions.
Thank you again for reminding us of the essential.
Minute Distinctions is breath-taking. To see how all in minute detail is in proper order, to know in each instance what is the right or appropriate response. How often do I, or should I hold my tongue not to do harm to this natural order or hierarchy. To speak when the Spirit leads, to be silent when the Spirit begs. To assume full responsibility in regards to its working in your very own self/soul. Listen to the Spirit and do its will, is often not much more than being appropriate in word and deed in all circumstances. Doing the right thing in your life, knowing that there is always more that you can do. Integrity is a life in the Spirit.
In response to Helen Harrison (posting 20).
Hi Helen I read with your post with interest and found myself pondering on some of the comments in your posting. I thought it might be helpful to consider the idea of Spirit and Hierarchy in the context of the Ageless Wisdom.
Wisdom has to do with the development of the life within the form, with the progress of the spirit through those ever-changing vehicles, and with the expansion of the consciousness that succeed each other from life to life. It deals with the life side of evolution. It deals with the essence of things and not with the things themselves, it is an intuitive apprehension of the truth apart from the reasoning faculty, and the innate perception that can distinguish between the false and true, between the real and unreal. (Extract from ‘Ponder on This’-Lucis Trust)
The Mysteries, for that is what all Creation is essentially were given to the Initiates and Adepts eons ago. The Keepers of Wisdom were initiated into the ‘life’ of spirit having trod the same path that humanity now finds itself on -Initiation is essentially the Path of Evolution and certain fundamental pre-requisites were necessary before the treading of the Path. Evolution follows several lines of approach simultaneously. Kind Regards
Anna.
The Mysteries were given to the Initiates and Adepts -Initiation is essentially the Path of Evolution and certain fundamental pre-requisites were necessary before the treading of the Path.
As long as lesser evolved humans insist on a hierarchy to make their place in the cosmos seem important we will have missed the point, and more importantly, missed the opportunity to evolve toward luminous beings. Spirit isn’t higher, Spirit is all and everywhere, even in the dirt and the rocks.
You express it so beautifully Andrew! the way the hierarchy of distinctions in manifestation is forever calling us upward, while existence is continually non-dual and perfect. What a privilege to recognize this paradox and how blissful to realize it!