The Evolutionary Enlightenment teachings of Andrew Cohen

The Discovery of a Bigger View

My own search for liberation was, as it is for most people, focused on myself. The larger implications of awakening were for the most part not in the foreground of my consciousness. I wanted to attain final liberation from fear and insecurity, and more than that, I wanted to become convinced beyond any trace of doubt, as I had been once before, that my existence was in no way separate from all of life. When miraculously in a few short weeks with my teacher this indeed did occur, I was shocked. This shock increased by leaps and bounds in the ensuing weeks when, to my amazement, this same event—the miracle of Self-discovery—began to occur in those around me. But soon, shock grew into fascination when I began to observe something even more miraculous than the moment of Self-discovery, which was the dissolution of boundaries between those in whom the Self had been discovered. The ecstasy of perfect intimacy and absolute trust revealed a freedom of being that gradually became more significant than the liberation of any individual.

In the first few years of my teaching career, my emphasis was still on the liberation of the individual alone, but I couldn’t help but continue to be aware of the fact that something far more important was occurring. Those who gathered around me seemed to be sharing a view which eventually proved itself to be far more important than the experience of any individual. That view was that there is no other.

The ecstasy of communion first became apparent to me shortly after I began teaching. At that time I had been living for two months with seven other people in Rishikesh in northern India. As we spent our days and nights together immersed in the bliss of Self-discovery, the mystery of the timeless that was being shared was like an energy field that seemed to surround us. Being together was being alone, and in that aloneness there was nowhere else to go. It seemed that through being together the illusion of individuality became even more apparent. The boundaries between inner and outer literally had dissolved—it was often difficult to know where one ended and the other began.

Shortly thereafter I was invited to England and within a few weeks people started gathering together to hear the teaching. Even though I was still, in the way I had been taught, emphasizing liberation of the individual alone, the people who were gathering around me seemed to be experiencing liberation not only through spending time with me, but through simply being together.

A few months later I moved to Holland. It was then that I knew beyond any doubt that the significance of what was being shared by those individuals who had come to me far transcended the motives that I or any of them originally had. The original motive that I had as a teacher was to liberate the individual. The motive that many of those who came to me originally had was to find freedom for themselves. Now we all found ourselves in the midst of something else altogether. We were swimming in an ocean of being where it became clear that what was revealing itself spontaneously through the collective consciousness was the evolutionary potential of the race as a whole.

Accepting the Larger Implications

After two years in Europe I moved to Massachusetts. Many people chose to follow me there and I soon found myself in an interesting predicament. I realized that I now had to come to terms with the fact that what was occurring around me was in substance far different than what I had been taught and what I initially thought that I was teaching. Enlightenment that transcended liberation for the individual alone was manifesting itself clearly in front of my eyes, and that fact now needed to be addressed by me and those around me.

What were the implications of this event that was unfolding and that was taking a direction other than even I had originally been aware of? They seemed to be many and far reaching, and above all of the utmost significance to each and every individual involved.

We found ourselves coming together in such a way that the experience of the individual appeared to be less important than the collective context in which that experience occurred. That context was one of perfect and unbroken unity in the realization of one Self. It appeared that precisely because of that context the impulse to evolve could express itself in a rare and remarkable way. The collective consciousness itself seemed to demand that all the individuals involved rise up to a higher level of being. What was extraordinary to behold was the birth of a spiritual conscience in the group as a whole that was able to see and feel with greater depth than many of the individuals on their own. Indeed, being together in this way the intrusive presence of ego became glaringly obvious not just to some individuals, but to the collective consciousness of the group as a whole. Any need to remain separate that stemmed from the fear of that unity became apparent in a stark yet potentially liberating way. It became easier for those individuals who sincerely wanted to be free to become undeniably aware of exactly what it was that had always been obscuring that freedom. And even more importantly, the birth of that context revealed the way to perfect transcendence literally and unambiguously, not only for one but for all to see.

True liberation became no longer a distant possibility, but a living potential for any individual who had the courage to let go. And even more significant was the fact that the simultaneous recognition of unity by so many revealed a thrilling evolutionary potential. It seemed to call each and every one of those who were aware of it to leave behind any and all obstructions to that unity so that the fact of oneness could become manifest in this world, not only as inner knowing by one but as objective fact by many. Indeed, it seemed that heaven could become manifest on earth if only a few were willing.

The bond of love and mystical communion that had drawn us together was making apparent the fact that conformity by the individuals involved to the demand of a higher principle was essential.

Too often the experience of mystical union remains only a revelation of the extraordinary evolutionary potential inherent in the human condition. When the shadow normally cast by the ego temporarily dissolves, the light of the living Truth unobscured reveals not only the glorious and inherent perfection of life, but even more importantly the way that that perfection can become manifest in a seemingly imperfect world. When the way is revealed, all things become possible. But that possibility is rarely actualized, and when it is, it usually remains limited to one individual alone. Unless the spiritual vision is able to manifest itself beyond the individual, the profound evolutionary potential inherent in that vision cannot truly unfold.