Andrew Cohen - The Miraculous Impulse to Evolve

Spiritual teacher and EnlightenNext founding editor Andrew Cohen describes a vision of human history, life, and destiny that is as thrilling as it is challenging, utterly cosmic, and absolutely relevant. Based on his contemporary reconception of enlightenment, called “Evolutionary Enlightenment,” Cohen first establishes the vast context in which our lives actually unfold—that we are the work-in-progress of 14 billion years of evolution. Not only that, Cohen says, the mysterious spark that brought the entire universe into existence at the Big Bang is the very same creative urge still alive within us, a mysterious force experienced by the awakening human as the impulse to evolve at the level of consciousness itself. Our ultimate calling is to recognize this force of intelligent awareness and to fully embody the evolutionary process, not just for ourselves, but for the sake of life itself.

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.