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!

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!

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!