Meditation is such a hugh part of my life. I practice around 1 to 2 hours a day and also I do around 1000 prostrations along with various chants.
But what is it about meditation that is so compelling?
How does one understand what meditation is? How does one meditate and get powerful results?
The next aspect of the E.C retreat was looking into precisely this.
As Andrew guided the retreat he asked us to look at what our values are when we experience deep meditation. He asked us to look at the joy and find out what was so significant about it.

My own thought about the joy of meditation is that if we manage to pierce the veil of the mind then we experience a part of our self that is ABSOLUTELY happy already. Why?
Because it already needs nothing or wants nothing outside it's self, it is already full and free.
It exists in a different dimension to our culturally created ego. This part of all of us literally does not exist in time, so how could anything that has happened to us during our short history effect this part of our self, it couldn't.
This is the secret, the Enlightened self is already free, we just have to learn how to recognise it. So meditation in the context of Enlightenment is more a process of discovering the part that is already free, rather than experiencing a particular higher state of consciousness that has a beginning and an ending in time.The enlightened self is the ever present self that is observing the change of states.

It's important to understand in the context of practicing Evolutionary Enlightenment that a big part of knowing ourselves is being able to make subtle distinctions experientially between the ego self, the absolute unborn self which we have just been talking about and the creative evolutionary urge toward higher and higher yet unmanifest potentials. I will speak about this evolutionary urge in my next blog.

Understanding meditation as being a separate dimension from the culturally created ego helps us understand that there is different parts of ourselves operating that want COMPLETELY different things. For example when one is deeply in touch with the meditative current one just want to transcend the world, nothing seems important, one is just so happy and content with just BEING. One just want to stay there forever and dissolve into infinity and not come back. Doing anything just feels like a chore. If anyone has experienced deep meditation you will know what I mean. This is also why throughout history you can read about countless individuals who have retired from the world to seek this realisation. One of the most popular people in the West in recent times being Eckhart Tolle.

Whereas the culturally created ego is driven by many desires and fears e.g. I want a relationship, I want to make lots of money, I am scared of talking in public etc.

The whole point of this exercise is to know ourselves more and more thereby freeing our attention from being lost in a separate sense of self, which in turn gives us a greater capacity to creatively choose who to become.

In the next blog I will discuss the creative aspect to the self. 15 billion years ago there was an explosion, god decided he/she was going to make a universe. in the next post I will be exploring what it means to experience a passion for LIFE that is awe! inspiring!

Here is a quote to wet your appetite )

Unselfconscious Creativity

What I call the Authentic Self or evolutionary impulse does not reveal itself in the stillness and silence of meditation. The authentic self only reveals itself through activity. When it emerges, it is unmistakable: it is unselfconscious creativity. One way to easily describe what it looks like is to take the example of a great musician, someone who is truly gifted, a master not only of their instrument but of their art. Such individuals become so fused with what they are playing, and have so fully mastered their instrument and the art form, that consciousness itself seems to be using the vehicle of music to express the transcendent dimension. Any creative individual, from a genius trial lawyer to a passionate, egoless public servant to a great poet or writer, expresses this same mysterious quality. Anybody who is completely committed to the creative endeavor at any level and who has reached the level of mastery where there is an unselfconscious intelligence that is surging through them, expressing that which transcends but includes this world, is an example of the Authentic Self in action. But in a spiritual context, we're not just talking about making music or making art; we're talking about freeing the self so the self becomes the instrument that's playing that music, so that your very own capacity for consciousness and cognition experiences the same release the gifted or talented musician experiences with an instrument in his or her best moments.

Andrew Cohen

I have just arrived back from another retreat with my teacher Andrew Cohen, but this time it was dedicated to the practice and development of Enlightened Communication .

The schedule was:
06:30-Meditation
07:30-Breakfast
09:00-Session with Andrew
12:30-Lunch
14:15-Meeting with groups
16:15-Break
17:00-Session with Andrew
19:30-Dinner
21:00-Meditation 1hour min

The practice of Evolutionary Enlightenment is all about learning how to discriminate between and experience different dimensions of ourselves, then liberating the choosing faculty in ourselves to evolve beyond the conditioned self with other people to create a new higher structure in consciousness thereby participating in the transformation of consciousness and culture.
The first few days of the retreat was dedicated  to exploring what the conditioned ego is and how we can learn to see it with more objectivity in ourselves.
First of all what I was discovering with more clarity  is that the ego is simultaneously our best friend and our worst enemy. Our friend in that it is our amazing capacity to separate ourselves from our environment, if the Universe had no means of separating parts of itself from its own creation it could not revel in it's own glory. The classic developmental sequence is egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric to Kosmocentric. With each level offering a greater capacity to dissembed our identity from our ethnic roles, cultural roles etc. Allowing us greater freedom to think and see ourselves as parts of larger and larger wholes.

So ego development in that sense is good and can only help. But the downside to ego development especially in a post-modern worldcentric culture is that individuation has taken on pathological versions, just turn on the T.V or look at how people are miserably infatuated with their own self image 24 hours a day. This causes the highest rates of depression and suicide anywhere in the world, even though the western world has the most people with the highest standard of living at any time in human history.
As Ken Wilber call it the dialectic of progress, good news/ bad news.

On one hand these pathological versions can be experienced individually as depression, alienation, low self-esteem, arrogance etc. But on the other hand these individual expressions of ego  are an integral part of the collective value sphere of the culture.

So the way we explored ego on the retreat was to see it as part of a collective of values that we inherit as part of  the worldview of the particular culture we are born into.

As people explored their values they inherited due to to their own upbringing an interesting picture emerged. The people that grew up in a more traditional background had more of an emphasis on the family, it was important for them to get married have kids and be part of an extended family. With this kind of upbringing traditional religion was also part of the picture be it Hinduism, Christianity etc.

 People that were brought up in a more modern context the values they inherited leaned  towards the emphasis on achievement,  individual excellence, winning etc. God was not really part of the picture as it was with  tradition values, in fact  religion was no where to be found except in the bank account of the materialist worldview.

Then when people were brought up in a more post-modern context the values they absorbed were more to do with an emphasis on equality, were nothing can be judged to be higher or lower, everybody is at the same level whether it be Jesus or Hitler, free love for all etc.

What is interesting is that most people have a mixture of these culturally given values. We believe it is us that has chosen them , but we are so moulded by the culture we are brought into.
We experience these values like emotional shoulds i.e. I must be in a relationship, I must have kids now, I have to be successful, do not judge etc.
In the discussion groups we each talked about our background. the fruit of this exercise is to see how conditioned we all are. If we are serious about transformation seeing this as deeply as possible is paramount because without seeing ourselves (subject) as an object in our own awareness we will never be able to be a vehicle for a higher potential structure with new values etc.

I will be writing two more blogs on the retreat one on meditation and one on the exploration of Evolutionary impulse or what Andrew call the Authentic Self.

I attended my first Revolution retreat with my teacher Andrew Cohen with around 95 of his closest students from around the world. Because these retreats are closed, Andrew has a chance to work us in a way he cannot do on a public retreat.

The theme of the retreat was dedicated to spiritual practice and why it is so important.
He said the whole point of practice is to break inertia on many different levels.
He started talking about the physical body and how it is important to exercise and be very careful what we put in our mouth, we have to be very sensitive and look after our body. After all it is the vehicle for our consciousness.

Then he talked about how our relationship to sexuality and how important it is. What would it be like to be free from lust but in no way deny the fact we are sexual beings he said on one of his talks. I know from being on the path myself that the sexual impulse is one of the hardest areas of life to deal with if we want to free ourselves from attachment and ego driven impulses. Most of us define our destiny and make a mess of our life through the identification of this powerful creative force.
Also it is common for people to compromise their highest ideals just to be in a relationship.
He went on to say that if there is a problem with our personal life that is not in alignment with our highest ideals then something has to be changed, unless we are willing to compromise.

This is the hardest part of being on the path of ego trancendence, we want to experience higher and deeper states of consciousness but don't want to change our outer life to reflect that.

He then went on to talk about the value of meditation and how important it is to know that the mind is a veil, we have to keep piercing the veil through the practice of renouncing the mind.

There is different levels of commitment to Evolutionary Enlightenment that one can engage in.
The most commited is called a core student, this normaly means that one lives in a centre and has given their life to the practice of EE. Then there is a global student (which is what I was) this means that you don't have to live near a centre but are still commited to the practice of EE, with this level one engages in a study program for a year and commits to seeing Andrew 4 times per year which will includes one long retreat. The next stage down is called a practitioner, this means that one recieves a pack with meditation and contemplation instructions and is endeavouring to put the teachings into practice, but there is no formal commitment to do anything. It also includes a free subscription to WIE magazine and to WIE unbound.There is also a global enquiry site where one can link up and share information and experiences with people from around the world.

Andrew now wants some of the Global students to be part of the core body. The Revolution retreat was our first initiation into the core. Part of this transition means we now do prostrations every morning. Prostrations are a physical expression of surrender, where one lies down flat on the ground stretched out with the intention of giving yourself to the Evolution of consciousness. It is a very powerful practice to do in the morning before meditation as it really breaks inertia and resistance. A great way to start the day!



The group of 15 Global students that have become part of the core mostly live in the world outside of a main centre. We are part of a new experiment to see if EE can be brought into the world in a new way.



I feel very privileged to be part of this adventure of consciousness!

The public speaking workshop I done on Saturday was very interesting. The teacher  was An 88 year old man called Joe Gifford. He has done alot in his life from what I know, from being a dance coreographer to working with famous conductors. His life energy and passion for a man his age is truly inspiring.He is also a student of Andrews, that is why he does these workshops for  nothing here in Foxhollow.

We started with doing gentle stretches combined with breathing practices to loosen ourselves off. It was a sort of combination of yoga and chi gong moves. Then we were asked to communicate between each other non verbally using only hand and body movements combined with intentionality and different kinds of energys i.e anger, love.

We then moved onto each individual having a turn to speak while the rest of the class watched. Joe would then offer each individual advice on what they can improve on. He pointed out that we all have habits that are ingrained into the body, and that these habits reflect our physcological conditioning. One guy kept on moving his head when he spoke and another womans  eybrows would not stop going up and down. When he pointed these out to people and made other adjustments it was amazing to see  people change.

He told me how to stand properly, slow down and look at everybody and connect with them. On thing he emphasized alot is the need for spontanaity, to know ones material and then to throw it away and enter the unknown!
When I was speaking I was very consciously allowing my mind to fall away and to trust the stillness, Therby  allowing a greater force of consciousness to work in me.

The group energy of the workshop was priceless, the whole time it was infused with a medatative current that was like a whirlpool that just wanted to suck you deeper and deeper!!

On Sunday mornings the whole revolution does a long practice called an absolute relationship to life. It is a combination of chanting and meditation that last around 4 hours.
After eating  lunch in silence we then split off into men and womans groups. In the mens group we were engaging with what is the relationship between collective and individual development. The core students were saying that they have been meeting together in this way for around a month since Andrew asked them to,  the meetings were fantastic, but for Evolution to move forward the collective development has to have an impact on individual development e.g physical practice, meditation practice, etc.
I was sitting in the meeting just trying to feel into what everybody was saying because sometimes it was not clear in my consciousness, but that is the whole aim of evolution is to constantly move to higher and higher understandings of  what is possible.

After the meeting I read an article in the new WIE magazine in which Andrew Cohen interviews Frank Zane about self mastery. Frank Zane is an ex world champion body builder who is 65 years old. This guy also plays 5 musical instruments mediates every day writes books etc. Then it occured to me that the revolutionary creative potential that can be harnessed in the mens meetings can then be used to move your own personal edge forward in many lines of development i.e musical, physical etc. By setting your self personal goals.I knew this before but I think I seen it at a deeper level than I had before.

I am very excited about this because it is pointing toward a seemless intergration between the inner, outer individual and collective development!!

So I have set myself a few new personal goals(very exciting)

I will keep you posted!

On Wednesday I participated in a meeting where some of Andrews male students come together. (there are womans meetings also)The purpose of the meetings is to come together in a field of higher consciousness, and then explore the new potential in what ever way we can. 

At the end of the meetings we were just swimming in a sea of unity consciousness, one of the most truly revolutionary things about this kind of experience is that one feels so incerdibly alive and at ease with oneself and the others it just blows your mind.
This is the kind of experience that can happen in Enlightened communication .

After that meeting it just makes working and doing practice here so enjoyable because of the brotherhood you feel with everyone.The challenging part of being here is coming face to face with the part of me that only want to remain separate (ego). It can come out in all sorts of ways but the good thing about being here is that it is easier to see. So in a way one is almost compelled to live up to ones higher potential, because everyone else is doing it. Or the other option is to run away :)

Yesterday I made my first podcast, which is recording a telephone conversation onto mp3 and then downloading it onto the internet for people to hear.
I taught a 5 week course in Nov last year called living Enlightenment. I interviewed someone who had taken the course to find out how it had impacted their life.
You can listen to it by clicking here.

I had so much fun making it. I also had to learn how to use the audio programs to edit
the interview.

I am doing a public speaking workshop all day tomorrow so that should be fun.

I will keep you posted!

A few months ago I decided I wanted to participate in a silent retreat in America, guided by my teacher Andrew Cohen.
It was due to start today (Monday) , but a couple of days ago I got an e-mail telling me that there is only one other person signed up for it. Andrew thought instead of spending the ten days in silence with only the two of us, it would be better to come and participate in the flow of liberated creativity that is happening here in America. 

EnlightenNext is a non profit educational organization  founded by Andrew Cohen and is dedicated to the transformation of consciousness and culture by integrating the inner and outer dimensions of human life. All over the world there are centers and people dedicated to this Revolution.

Up to a couple of days ago I thought I was going to be exploring the peace of meditation and  the ground of being. But now I am in the midst of watching in awe! as people are dedicating themselves to creating something new in culture!

After 2 hours of meditation this morning I was working on a new website that is being piloted which will serve as a hub of communication for all levels of people that are intrested in Evolutionary Enlightenment.

I then went to what is called an engagement meeting, this is where around 8 students of Andrews get together to discuss what they have been doing, ideas are exchanged as the creativety is flowing. I was asked to create a pdf for Jeff's talk at Albany coming up.  I was then asked if I wanted to participate in a public speaking day workshop which is happening on Saturday. I am very excited about this because I want to develop my skills in this area as I have done a few public talks before.

The students of Andrew living here normally do 1 hour of physical practice per day along with 2 hours of meditation in the morning and 3 hours on Sunday.
I started with my physical practice doing intense musscle ups, which is doing pull ups and press ups but on rings hanging from the celing.

I will be spending two weeks here working and doing spiritual practice in foxhollow, at the end of the time I will participating in a revolution retreat, this is where around 95 of Andrews closest students from around the world come together and really go into the heart of what Evolutionary Enlightenment is about.

You can read about it here . I will be keeping this blog updated for the duration of the two weeks. So keep posted!

The class this week started with a written test. As I handed the papers out there was an almost automatic response of tension and nervousness from most of the people.

The reason for this test was not to find out how much people understood, but to prove that people respond in conditioned ways according to specific circumstances.

By applying the five tenets one can start to see these conditioned impulses that arise in our awareness, this creates the potential for consciouss evolution.

As the Authentic self rises to the surface of consciousness one experiences 
instantaneously ecstatic freedom that liberates us from limiting conditioned responses that result from the past. But when this experience fades and the conditioning of the personal ego gets back in the driving seat, this is when the five tenets can be applied.

The first three tenets cultivates soul strength, which Andrew defines as an increasing capacity for integrity, transparancy and authenticity. As the soul can be strengthened it can also be weakened, the choices we make when our conditioning arises will determine which one will happen.

Its good to point out that each persons soul is at a different point of Evolution. I heard Andrew describe the soul as the sum total of the individuals actions and responses to those actions. Where as on an absolute level everyone is consciousness, at that level there is no difference whatsoever.

The Authentic self emerges in the model as the fourth and fifth tennet are practiced. This is where the change from a personal perspective to an impersonal universal view starts to come into awareness.

The final video described the amazing potential that will start to happen when two or more individuals come together who are living the five tenets. A higher collective consciousness will start to emerge between people that is completely thrilling and liberating.
This course is an introduction to the teaching and did not even scratch the surface of the collective potential. I am hoping we continue to meet up after the course. So people can get a sense of this and develop it further!

When I look back to the first class I can see how much development there has been in five weeks from the whole group, we definitlely finshed at a deeper place than when we started.

All my Love Ross

p.s I thought I would ad this quote I found.

For the Next Million Years

Christians have been reflecting upon Jesus' crucifixion for two thousand years. If you had happened to be around back then, for example, in Alexandria, it was a cosmopolitan world and they had news of what was going on, and you heard about some Jewish rabbi being killed - big deal. It wouldn't really have had an impact on you. But then, for two thousand years afterwards, Christian theologians are thinking about it. So my latest thought is, maybe for the next million years, humans will be reflecting on what it actually means for the earth to go through this extinction process. It may take us that long to fully take it in, with all of its ramifications. I don't understand it. It's vastly beyond my mind. I think that we're not prepared to really understand what it means. That's all I'm hoping for. If we just get a glimpse of it, we can begin to think at the level that's required to deal with it effectively.
Brian Swimme
Cosmologist and leading proponent of the 'Universe Story', a deep time developmental perspective on the evolutionary dynamics of the cosmos

In the teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment experiencing the Authentic Self and knowing what it is is a hugh part of the teaching.

So in this class we were discovering that the Authentic self  as Andrew defines it is the ecstatic creative urge toward consciousness, most people at some point in there life has had the experience of it wether they know it or not. We first brought out how this part of the self feels. Then we looked at how the ego feels, and discussed how these parts of the self are completly different.

Then we looked at how the creative energy that is driving the evolutionary process manifests its-self at different levels from the sexual energy to the intense desire to innovate  and create to the highest expression available at this point in Evolution which is the urge towards consciousness(Authentic self).

The class really responded to this by talking about and exploring their own experience of these two parts of the self, its amazing so see! In EE the 3 step process is going from ego to the ground of being (meditation), then to come back as the Authentic self and start to participate in the creation of a new culture and consciousness. So when we as individuals make the choice to transform ourselves from ego to the Authentic self we are literally consciously co-creating a new stage of human development, one were the limiting boundaries of separation are flung off to reaveal we are life itself, evolving at the highest level on this planet.

We also talked about how Andrew has said for years that synacism is a hugh obstacle for us post modern people if we want to evole or even experience the Authentic self. This was brought out nicely in the class when one participant described thier experience of spaciousness and an ecstatic urge to know more, and yet maybe a day later their synaciscm and doubt took over and they lost  sense of  the exctatic positivity that the Authentic self brings.

So our first goal in EE is to start to transform ourselves from ego to Authentic self and then eventually get to 51% Autthentic Self.

This is where the practice of the 5 tenets come in. Which will be the last class next week.

I think the atmosphere of the class is deepening with every week that goes by. And I get the feeling I don't want to stop! I also really appreciate everybody's participation in the last class, I think that's what makes it a success.
 

Following on from the first 2 classes, which are more about the development of the  perspective and worldview in which Evolutionary Enlightenment is based on.

The third class is the first class in which we look at what are the steps the  individual must take in order to practice EE.

So the first step on this journey to wholeness is going from our culturaly conditioned sense of self and letting all of it go and experiencing the ground of our own being. When we experience this dimension of ourselves through the practice of meditation we can start to free ourselves from being completely lost in our thoughts and emotions most of the time. Believe me it's a big relief!

We started by looking at the ego model and discussed some of the characteristics of this part of the self i.e I don't want to be free, I live for my own sake, I face nothing and avoid everything, I am a victim etc.

Then we looked at what  meditation is and what are the qualities of this experience. For example Andrew said that meditation is absolute peace and not relative peace, also he mentioned that when we have access to the ground of being itself we just want to abide there forever.

We then dicussed the absolute context for Andrews instuctions for meditation and how this means we have to actually do them no matter what our experience is and not work at getting better at them.This can be the challenging part because most of us are alot more concerned with the content of our experience rather than our relationship to it.

Then we had a guided meditation and talked about it.

Then we looked at the question what does freedom mean? I explained to the class that this point for me was one of the biggest transfomational insights that Andrews teaching has showed me.It basically says that freedom is not only and experience but a choice we choose to make, and if we make the choice to be free when it is difficult for us then we will experience enormous benefits by doing this because we have made noble effort.

We then finshed the class with a meditation which was lovely.

I thought more than ever there was a deepening of something bonding within the group and people are opening up to this and sensing it more with every week.

I hope this continues to develop as we move on my hope for the next two classes is for the Authentic self to start to rise to the surface and for people to experiencially recognise it.

Ross Deighton

 

Class 2 is called The Universe Awakening To Itself :

This class along with class 1 sets the stage for Evolutionary Enlightenment.Where classes 3 4 and 5 is more about how the individual actually practices the steps to awaken to the realization that the teaching is pointing toward.

In this class we say that consciousness can develop in two ways one is depth and the other perspective.The first video is all about introducing ways to see onself from a higher perspective,the first way I started this was to show a video of Andrew called embracing the perspective of the process.
Then I used different examples to illustrate how the perspective on life we have is completly culturally molded by the life conditions we are born into.And by that I mean most of us see oursevles as individuals on a individual journey.
By embracing the perspective of the process we can  view ourselves in a different way and start to see ourselves as a product of 14 billion years of Evolution, that is only  starting to recognize the very process that gave birth to all of us.

So this class revolved around this whole idea that we are the Universe awakening to itself.
And if you really think about it what else could we be?

I think last week was a real ice breaker for everybody that was in the class, and I know if you have never been exposed to these ideas before they can seem a little hard to follow, but I am just encouraging everyone to stick with it with focused intention, as this is when the magic can start to happen, and when it does it will blow you away!

The atmosphere of the class for me was much more developed than the first one and there was much more participation from everyone which added to the succsess of this class.

I personally very much enjoyed teaching this class as I can feel development is happening.

The next class is meditation.

p.s Here is a quote that In read today that I thought fitted into this class very nicely, also it is very inspiring.


We Are the Future

Every little thing counts because everything is real and is part of the picture. Nothing escapes; nothing is on the side. Everything is making its difference to the whole. No one is ever outside the God-process. But it goes only where we go with it. It doesn't force us; we are the movers from the inside. So it won't go forward unless we move it forward. That is why we are all so important. We cannot wait for the world to turn, for the times to change that we may change with them, for the revolution to come and carry us round in its new course. No more will the evolutionary forces of nature propel us in their groping way through the next critical point into a new state of Being. From now on, if we are to have any future, we must create that future ourselves. We ourselves are the future and we are the revolution.

Dr. Beatrice Bruteau
Cosmologist with advanced degrees in mathematics, philosophy, and religion whose perspective is a remarkable synthesis of Western science and Eastern wisdom
WIE September-December 2006