The Evolutionary Enlightenment teachings of Andrew Cohen

When Nothing Became Something

The teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment is all about the manifestation or expression of the experience of enlightened consciousness. Enlightened consciousness, in one way of defining it, is the experience of consciousness beyond the narcissistic separate self-sense or ego. Traditionally, spiritual aspirants have discovered this dimension of consciousness through the practice or spontaneous experience of meditation.  Let go of your compulsive attachment to thought and emotion, and allow yourself to sink deeply into absolute non-activity. Quiet down. Slow down. Stop moving. Stop thinking so much. Concentrate. Be still and stay awake. When your attention begins to release from the conditioned mind-process and you fall into a deep meditative state, you’ll notice that the interior dimension of Being or consciousness itself begins to open up to literally an infinite or immeasurable degree. You discover the infinite Ground of your own Being, the unmanifest dimension of reality. In that no-place, there is no time, no space, no world, and no mind. Nothing has happened yet. This absolute nothingness or voidness or emptiness is traditionally called the unmanifest dimension. And when you discover this in the depth of your own self, you realize, “This is what it was like before the universe was created.” The manifest dimension is everything that has been created—everything that has come from that emptiness or that nothingness.

It’s very important to understand that everything that exists—the whole universe, including each and every one of us, is a manifest or material expression of that which does not exist. From nothing came something. The unmanifest became the manifest. From emptiness, from the void, this whole material universe which eventually gave rise to life emerged. Everything that exists came from nothing. That means nothing is the source of everything that is. That which became everything is that nonmaterial spiritual essence. The fundamental mystical insight throughout the ages is basically this: that the ultimate essence of everything that exists is this no-thing-ness. That is traditionally the revelation that enlightens—that frees the self from this world of creation and everything in it. In a traditional context, enlightenment was transcendence, freedom from the world.

Evolutionary Enlightenment, however, is about the manifest or active or creative expression of enlightenment. It points to a new orientation to spiritual development and a completely new context for the human experience. It is a radical embrace of manifestation in which human beings begin to see their own incarnation—whoever you think you are including your human personality with your body, your mind, your soul, from the gross to the subtle, from your deepest spiritual revelations to your most mundane experiences and everything in between—within a truly cosmic, evolutionary context. You realize that who and what you are is a product of 14 billion years of cosmic evolutionary development. Every dimension of who and what you are is intimately related to, connected with, a part of, and an expression of the creative process itself  that began when something came from nothing fourteen billion years ago. And therefore, every part of you is also connected to that groundless ground out of which everything emerged. That unmanifest dimension is at the very core of your own experience in every single moment including this one, whether you are aware of it or not. The ground of your own experience of being yourself is that mystery of consciousness.

But when seen from this evolutionary perspective, the nothingness is not nothing. There is nothing happening there, and yet it is deeply compelling. If you get into a deep state of meditation it’s absolutely enthralling. Why? Because even in the absolute nothingness prior to the big bang there was still the infinite potential for everything that came out of that void. The unmanifest domain is the realm of infinite potential before anything happens. It’s a place where everything is possible but nothing has happened yet. So even in absolute emptiness there is some kind of positive creative tension that is experienced as a suspended state of absolute awakeness. This quiet tension exists in consciousness because everything is possible but nothing has yet occurred. So there is a vibration of empty fullness that is enthralling.

When I speak about the manifest expression of enlightenment, I’m pointing very specifically to what happened at that precise moment when nothing became something. What happens when the nothingness which is the essence of everything that exists becomes manifest? It’s very important to actually recognize that moment in your very own experience. So what we’re very interested in, in this particular teaching, is locating that same vibration—the same energy, the same intelligence—that initiated the entire creative process at the very beginning.

That energy and intelligence is the creative impulse, the urge to become. It can be called Eros. And the highest and most profound expression of the evolutionary impulse at the level of consciousness is when a human being experiences a mysterious urge or compulsion to become more conscious. It’s the spiritual impulse. And that impulse, which is the same evolutionary impulse that initiated the creative process and is driving it right now, doesn’t have a personal ego attached to it. Most people have no idea about this particular part of themselves. In this teaching, I call it the Authentic Self.

The Authentic Self is that same vibration that exists in the nothingness. And just as the empty ground of being is vibrating with the infinite potential for everything, the Authentic Self within you is fueled by a sense of infinite potential to effect change in the next moment, in relationship to what has not yet occurred. This evolutionary drive has been active since the beginning of time, but now it is actually beginning to become conscious of itself in individuals who reached the higher levels of development. From nothing to energy, to light, to matter, to life, to consciousness, to self-reflective awareness, this drive to become has been surging forward for fourteen billion years, and it is just now beginning to awaken to itself in the light of human awareness. 

In the highly developed human capacity for self-reflective awareness, the process that originated with the big bang not only it awakens to itself but begins to take responsibility for itself. The entire evolutionary process begins to take responsibility for itself through the consciousness and cognition of the awakened human being at the leading edge. And that’s why this is of ultimate importance for all of us. When you really understand Evolutionary Enlightenment, you realize that this is not really about you as an individual, it’s not about your development; it’s about the evolution of the process itself. The significance of your human life is that the universe is evolving through you. That’s the manifest expression of consciousness beyond ego. That’s when you become an evolutionarily enlightened human being.

Andrew Cohen