In our contemporary age of the individual, there has never been so much personal freedom and choice available to so many people on the planet. But while the benefits of increasing independence and autonomy are numerous, many have also identified the concurrent tendency toward increasing narcissism and materialism as serious barriers to higher spiritual, moral, and cultural evolution.
In this special recording, taken from a lecture in New York City, EnlightenNext editor in chief Andrew Cohen lays out a cosmic context for both the challenge and the opportunity presented by the extreme individuation that characterizes our age. Drawing upon integral philosophy, evolutionary theory, and his own exploration of spiritual development over twenty-two years as a teacher of Evolutionary Enlightenment, Cohen describes the history of the cosmos as one of “consciousness disembedding itself from matter” through the gradual emergence of greater and greater complexity and individuality.
But in order to access the extraordinary potential that this individuation enables, Cohen suggests, we have to grapple with its dark side—the narcissism and materialism that blind us to the deeper significance of life. And transcending this “cultural disease” requires us to become more concerned with the evolutionary process itself than we are with our own self-centered fears and desires.
BIO
Andrew Cohen, founder of EnlightenNext magazine, is a spiritual teacher and acclaimed author widely recognized as a defining voice in the emerging field of evolutionary spirituality. A life-changing awakening in 1986 brought Cohen to the end of his own search for liberation while simultaneously starting him on an exploration of the meaning and significance of enlightenment for our time. This has led him to a profound investigation of the human predicament and into dialogue with sages, saints, and spiritual luminaries from nearly every tradition and beyond.
In 1992, Cohen released the first issue of EnlightenNext (formerly What Is Enlightenment), expanding his own inquiry through the public forum of a magazine and pioneering an innovative form of spiritual journalism reminiscent of classical Socratic dialogue. Over the last decade on the pages of EnlightenNext, Cohen has brought together leading thinkers—mystics and materialists, philosophers and psychologists—to call for a higher and wholly contemporary synthesis of the spiritual truths found in the East and the empirical rigor of the West. Through the magazine and his writings, Cohen is creating a new context for understanding enlightenment as a human evolutionary imperative. Together with a growing network of integral visionaries, including Ken Wilber and Don Beck, he is helping to define a culture of thought that places spiritual transformation at the center of any vision of transforming the world.
