The second Evolutionary Enlightenment course class in Utrecht was, I think, the best class I’ve done so far. The class was about perspective (how we see ourselves and the world), culture (what happens between us when we share a perspective) and evolution (how all that developed and is still developing). I illustrated tribal consciousness with a scene from ‘King Kong’ and from there we ‘evolved’ up the evolutionary ladder to the so called post-modern culture we come from, in which the feelings and ‘truths’ of the individual have taken the place of collective higher values. In our culture the individual has become all important and actually defines the context we (think we) live in. We then talked a lot about the cosmic, evolutionary context we actually live in. It was a mind expanding evening in which we looked into complex structures with lots of humour and opened up our perspective with, what seemed, light-speed to encompass the biggest view a human being can have; seeing oneself as the whole universe and the whole process of 14.000.000.000 years of development.

For me personally it was an evening that gave me more confidence in Evolutionary Enlightenment than I have ever had; the cosmic perspective isn’t a perspective one can hold in one’s mind, yet it is possible to talk about it and even act on the implications this perspective has, as Andrew Cohen says: “You don’t have to know to function perfectly.” I am learning and developing along with everyone else, just as interested in the things that are coming out of my mouth as everyone else. It is like the universe speaks to us, through us, using our individual and collective interest as the door to enter into the classroom…

That may sound grandiose to our post-modern sensitive self that claims nothing can or should be higher than anything else, but hey, that part of us can’t always be right ;-). As our view kept expanding, the walls between us kept crumbling until, at the end of the evening, we were together without defences, not being so sure anymore about who we are, but experiencing the potential for human beings to come together in unity and diversity…

Being a student of Andrew Cohen and a teacher of the principles of Evolutionary Enlightenment is by far the best thing that ever happened to me, it is also the biggest challenge I have ever encountered.
Take last night in Utrecht; the topic of this course session was the distinction between (spiritual) ego and what Andrew calls the authentic self; it is a distinction that is not easy to make in our culture since we are so identified with ego, cultural and individual. So standing up in front of a group of people and making that distinction isn’t necessarily a nice thing to do. The ego does not want to be seen as ego, that is what seems to be the problem, yet the authentic self can speak about ego in a free and honest way because freedom from ego is all it is concerned with and the creative impulse is all it is interested in (so it is only interested in itself, just like us :-)).
I had to work hard last night to get people to make that distinction, and also to not give in to my own ego’s tendency to be pleasing everyone and flatten everything out. I believe genuine spirituality is not possible without both the absolute limitless ground where no distinctions can be made and no judgements exist and, in the relative world, the distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, higher and lower, Self and ego etc. As far as life in the relative world is concerned, it all hinges on this vital distinction, so last night’s success hinged on our ability to make this distinction together.
This fourth class is designed to be a collective investigation, and I had to encourage people to give more, so we could really investigate together. The point with ego and authentic self is; you can hear about it till the cows come home, but unless you start to make the distinction yourself, it will remain theory, which means that when it counts, when the chips are down as they say, you are very likely to give in to the ego’s interpretation of reality (which will always blame others and insist on it’s own good intentions!)
As the evening unfolded, more and more people gave real examples of the difference between ego and authentic self, and as more pieces of the puzzle were added, (like the fact that ego and authentic self are two completely different parts of the self that have nothing in common and that we, you and I, always choose between the two), something seemed to give. I don’t know when and how it happened, but by the end of the evening we seemed to be in a different world, a different dimension. I am inclined to say that the ego lost the battle that night, which is great news for the future of our culture, because as nice a group as we were last night in Utrecht, there was nothing about any of us that gives us special power over ego, besides the fact that we came together in our interest in life, freedom and evolution, so if we can do it…

In response to last night’s class a dear friend of mine who is a journalist attending this (and the previous) course because she wants to write some articles about it, wrote me this email:

I was comparing my notes from both courses [see earlier in this blog] this morning and again I am so astonished and surprised by the level at which everyone’s experience and the insights that result from them, yesterday as well, were being spoken about. There is a sharp precision in the conversation and investigation that could easily be overlooked because we are not used to it, which makes it hard to recognize and acknowledge. Again I see that comparable themes and questions come to the table and that in this second group the answers you give –that are often on the razor’s edge and can, as a result of that, be provocative- seem to land very quickly, which moves the whole forward again. I see how people express themselves and what that does with the interaction; that in all subtlety a bigger context is created from which this can emerge. What a miracle to see all of this happen before one’s eyes. How to express all this in my writings –that  is a beautiful practice in itself.

One of the most thrilling parts of my life over the last three months has been to see people open up to a possibility they were rather cynical about before. In our culture we tend to be quite blasé, we have it all, we know it all, we have seen it all and we simply know that it is not possible. It being something beyond being blasé and cynical, like profound happiness or deep care for everyone and everything around us. The way we often think is this: “I have not really been happy for most of my life, so that shows it is not possible”. Waterproof logic!

People that come to the introductory course on Evolutionary Enlightenment often have that attitude too, we all do, we are steeped in it, it is the air we breathe, there is so little else in us and around us that we are not even aware how alienated and closed off we are. Yet when you ask people about their experience, quite often they will admit that they don’t really want to keep going in the same way for much longer, many of us long for change, for depth, for CONNECTION. So even the smallest step we make in that direction is important and needs to be nurtured.

By coming to the course I mentioned above my course-students all made such a step, to which I (and all my 24 fellow teachers all over the world) responded by asking them to make room for the possibility that in those 5 weeks something very profound and important could happen in their spiritual development, after all, the cynical attitude that is etched into our consciousness isn’t going to crack just because we decided to do a course… And they did, I have seen a lot of them go through remarkable personal transformations over the 2 ½ months that I have been teaching. I have seen their eyes light up and their faces become open, I have heard their choice of words become deeper and softer and I have experienced their noble willingness to struggle with doubt and fear in order to leave old habits and thought patterns behind and make room for something new that they now recognized to be REALLY POSSIBLE…

Also after our last class in Utrecht last night, which to me felt like pushing a heavy door open, (hearing about Evolutionary Enlightenment, if it is real, is probably always too much because of the pressure it puts on the ego in us). The door did open and people left at the end of the evening in a state of gratitude, innocence and openness, (all not exactly characteristics of the post-modern self). It made me think; if my fellow teachers and I (worldwide there are over 40 of us right now, and we keep growing, Jeff Carreira just finished his second teacher training), can touch people in this way, and if we manage to nurture their interest after we helped to awaken it, we can really have an effect on our culture. If enough people take the possibility to be a happy, caring, good (oh oh dangerous word!) person seriously, it must, at some point, put pressure on the old, cynical and above all destructive paradigm! And that would be the beginning of a new world!

February 13, I will teach this course again in Amsterdam, followed by one in Rotterdam and Eindhoven, I will also be doing a weekend in Amsterdam, on this link you can find all the details as soon as we know them.