The Evolutionary Enlightenment teachings of Andrew Cohen

Piercing the Romantic Illusion

One of things that I’ve been trying to do, ever since I started teaching, is to work on the age-old problem of romantic and sexual relationship in a spiritual context. What does it mean for a man and a woman to come together in a romantic and sexual relationship within the context of Evolutionary Enlightenment? Enlightenment means consciousness beyond ego, and evolution means development in time. So the question is: What would it mean for human beings to embrace the romantic and sexual dimension of life in an egoless context, in a relationship that is ongoingly creative and developmental? If we’re coming together to try to create a new, enlightened culture beyond ego, it’s a very important question, and we only have to look around us to see that it obviously has no easy answer, in spiritual or secular life.

What’s often happened in traditional spiritual contexts is that when people have wanted to evolve, they have either left this particular part of life behind or they have really made it the central focus of practice and development. Some Western traditions have made it an integral part of their culture, but that usually involves very traditional roles for men and women that most of us have outgrown. So in Evolutionary Enlightenment we are trying to find a way to embrace this dimension of life that makes sense in our time and culture, and which neither avoids it nor makes it the central focus of our attention. Often people find this easy to understand intellectually, but to actually put the teaching into practice in real life is very demanding, especially when we’re dealing with dramatic and explosive emotions like romantic and sexual intoxication. Even in a secular or non-enlightened context, most people’s lives are a story of failed attempts to experience a kind of wholeness and unity and real happiness with another person. So this particular issue is a real problem for most people living in postmodern Western culture.

A Powerful Illusion

In traditional cultures, when men and women would get married or enter into a sexual relationship and bear children, there was a larger cultural and historical context that supported their reasons for being together, which went far beyond personal happiness. But generally speaking, in our particular time and culture, the main reason that we get together with other people is because we’re seeking for happiness, not for any other necessity. Most of us don’t need to be in a sexual relationship in order to survive. This is important to recognize: what we’re seeking when we enter into a romantic and sexual relationship is happiness. And somehow we’ve gotten the crazy idea that some other person, in the form of our ideal sexual partner, is going to give us happiness—deep spiritual happiness, abiding contentment, and joy that is going to make life worth living.

This is the first illusion that any individual who wants to become a liberated or enlightened human being has to pierce. And if we have a collective of individuals who believe they are committed to creating a new culture, then that collective would have to be able to look into some of these questions together. This is a very deep illusion for most of us. It’s imprinted in our cultural DNA: sex and romance is going to make me happy. I have met very few people, East or West, who have penetrated too deeply into this particular illusion, let alone shattered it. So we have to begin to think about the age-old question: where is it that we’re really going to find happiness anyway? We have to discover for ourselves that the promise of happiness behind the whole myth of sexual pleasure and romantic love is grossly exaggerated by our crazy culture. If we believe the illusion, we start making a much bigger deal out of things than we need to and it inevitably creates disillusionment, craving, and suffering.

The Creative Impulse

The procreative impulse is the physical expression of the evolutionary impulse behind the initial thrust of this evolving universe. What could be more powerful than that? When any one of us feels the stirring of the sexual impulse within our own body and mind, we are feeling that same creative surge that the energy and intelligence that created the universe must have felt in order to burst this process into creation. It’s awesome to consider. But of course, in our lack of humility, too many of us underestimate what we’re actually dealing with. When you combine the awesome and overwhelming power of the sexual or procreative impulse as it begins to stir at a biological level with this cultural myth that being in a relationship with the perfect sexual partner is going to give us happiness, it’s easy to see why so many of us lose our balance in this arena of life. The biological procreative impulse alone is designed to be overwhelming, and when combined with this cultural myth it is a force to be reckoned with.

When we really look into how to embrace the romantic and sexual impulse in an evolutionary context beyond ego, all these matters need to be contemplated with a tremendous dedication. Otherwise the feelings that are brought to the surface when the friction of sexual intimacy is generated can pull one into the swamp of the cultural unconscious terrifyingly quickly. And there’s a tremendous amount of resistance in men and women to even begin to question these things. In a secular culture, what happens in the bedroom is sacred territory. If we don’t believe in God and we don’t believe in heaven, if we believe that this world and this lifetime is all there is and there’s no inherent meaning or purpose, of course there’s going to be a tremendous amount of fear about beginning to question such a sacred cow as this.

So for a man and woman to be together in a committed relationship, in an authentic context of spiritual evolution, first and foremost some of these very fundamental ideas really have to be looked into at the deepest level. None of us will be able to succeed over a long period of time unless we’ve actually shattered some of these illusions in the deepest part of ourselves. It’s easy to have a philosophical conversation about the power of the sexual impulse and how it clouds our perception, but it’s something else all together to see very deeply into the nature of the illusion itself and penetrate it—to at least momentarily see through it. When we’re dealing with illusions that are as powerful as this one, that kind of penetration is only going to happen for very brief moments. But that can be enough. It doesn’t have to be permanently broken; it just has to be something that you have seen through and continue to see through often enough that you always know and never lose sight of what is actually real and true.

If a man and a woman can each go this far, and then come together with the same ultimate purpose, there is a foundation for something different to happen. If it’s going to work, each individual has to be more interested in evolution beyond ego and in the evolution of consciousness itself than they’re interested in being together. If they don’t want the same thing, it will never work. The ego derives a great sense of security from being in a relationship like this. So if we want to create a new enlightened culture, the last thing that our romantic and sexual relationships should do is serve to create security for the part of our self that doesn’t want to evolve.

It’s very important to be able to prove that we can do this. If men and women can’t live together, not just harmoniously but victoriously, then what does our spiritual attainment mean? In a culture like the one we’re all living in, where there is so much cynicism about human potential and where we imbue the romantic and sexual bond with so much significance, to be able to demonstrate an extraordinary victory in this particular area of life speaks a thousand words.

Andrew Cohen Buy Now
Complete teaching
on MP3 or CD

Related Content