Notes from the Revolution

I put down the phone after well over an hour of stupendous conversation, although even that word seems inadequate to describe what happened. I stagger away feeling exhilarated, expanded, blissful, stretched so that my brain seems to throb, disorientated, unsure of my identity, passionately urgent, totally relaxed, washed clean, cast off from any moorings, mind-blown – and all simultaneously.

I just finished facilitating an Enlightened Communication discussion group via conference call with twenty EnlightenNext students and practicing members from all over the States and Australia, and as I write this I feel I am groping like a partially blind person in a new landscape, reaching at the very edge of my perceptions and trying to articulate what I am discovering.

I’ve been leading Enlightened Communication discussion groups since their inception several years ago, and since then these discussions have become a regular part of the public events held at all the EnlightenNext centers. But I was frankly stunned when we first discovered by accident that having conference calls for people who live in far-flung places and couldn’t join the discussions worked just as well as meeting in person. I had thought that group discussion by conference call would be a poor second choice, but that we’d do the best we could. In fact, I’ve learned that there can actually be advantages to phone meetings.

There are no visual cues on the phone; you’re alone with your handset. There are no distractions because you obviously can’t see anyone. There are no nods or smiles or opportunities to look around for affirmation. The “conversation” is of a radically different order and doesn’t have the quality of a discussion in the usual sense of what that means. It’s not about my point being pitted against your point; it’s not about agreeing or disagreeing, or having a favorable or unfavorable opinion or belief about the topic being discussed. Miraculously, despite the fact that as many as fifty people may be on a call at once, very rarely do two people try to speak at the same time. And yet the talk is uninhibited. The subject for discussions is often a particular aspect of Andrew Cohen’s teachings of Evolutionary Enlightenment taken from one of his writings; for example, a recent Quote of the Week. And the general aim is to help shift our attention away from the habitual concerns of the self towards a radically expanded perspective that brings into view consciousness itself.

As the conversation unfolds, the experience is that one’s whole being becomes focused entirely on the listening. Nothing else exists but that. The listening becomes one with consciousness and intensifies so that there emerges a single attention: one consciousness, one intelligence, one scintillating, surging energy that is, paradoxically, also completely still. The power of authentic listening keeps magnifying and deepening consciousness itself. And that is an unparalleled thrill.

Here is an account of a recent call by EnlightenNext student member Jill U.:

I’ve thought a lot about the extraordinary experiences we’ve had on these calls, which are now occurring on a regular basis every week. (Discussion groups by phone are now scheduled each Sunday and are open to all EnlightenNext practicing members and students worldwide.) I’ve asked myself, why does hearing seem more conducive than vision to evoking such remarkable experiences of unity, simultaneously combined with the deepest autonomous expression of each person?

Robert Godwin, in his highly original book One Cosmos Under God, remarks:

And this I think is the key: the sense of hearing and of speaking on these calls is more in line with reality (which is a single, evolutionary process evolving through time) than is the illusion of a seemingly static world, which we habitually buy into when we rely on our sense of sight.

In fact, one of the most powerful realizations that many people have in Enlightened Communication discussions is directly experiencing that creative process firsthand. Rather than each of us being a fixed, separate individual, it becomes apparent, through the medium of participating in a single, unfolding conversation, that we are all part of a vast, unitary process developing through time.

On the last call, someone remarked that this is a “noble” gathering, and I realized how surprisingly apt that word was. It’s interesting how these long-out-of-fashion words and virtues now seem so appropriate. Because ‘noble’ does accurately describe a group assembling for the sole purpose of exploring and deepening consciousness. After all, how often do people ever gather for this express purpose? How often do we experience a field of instantaneous relationship beyond separation, with no barriers to learning?

I’m getting a sense of how learning in this collective, intersubjective consciousness could be of a different order: any insight is instantly absorbed by all present. There is an individual and collective interest and passion to learn, to stretch for that which is just beyond the edge of our understanding. On both the phone calls and in the meetings in person, participants are often shocked by the experiential recognition that our sincere, authentic listening and speaking are actually inseparable from consciousness wanting to move forward, higher—to become ever more manifest.

The discussions are like some ultra-broadband communication. With everyone’s attention freed beyond their own self concerns and separate self-sense, all the habitual strictures and limitations to communication are strikingly absent. At first this sense of open-ended, no-limitation is unfamiliar; it can even be difficult to grasp the significance of what is occurring. But the truth is that there is no impedance. In this environment, ego is in abeyance. Communication has been freed, no longer filtered and percolated through the usually hardened insistence inherent to the ego, that separate sense of self.

Whenever I touch this leading edge, it’s the most fulfilling and meaningful time. It’s undoubtedly my deepest yearning, and yet what gives it far greater significance is the realization that one’s deepest yearning is actually one and the same as the passion of the authentic self—that part of us that seeks to manifest the future, the new. That which is the creative, evolutionary impulse itself.

It’s hard to find words or emotions adequate enough to describe the reality of what is experienced. But I realize as I write this that even struggling to attempt to clarify and discriminate what I’m experiencing is also an expression of the evolution of consciousness! It’s this struggle which enables consciousness to become more pronounced, more manifest. And in this, our deepest aspiration and that of consciousness itself become indistinguishable.

Sound far-fetched? Yes it does, but it’s undeniably true. And we’re only just getting started!

Read an article by Andrew Cohen on the art of enlightened communication.