Gaia Community: Kevin's Blog

Millions are Meditating; Why? Lets find out: Class 3

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:59:32 -0000

Millions of people meditate everyday. Thats a fact. Obviously there must be something very positve about the experience of meditation. In this weeks class we (Mark, the class and I) explored what that is, and how Evolutionary Enlightenment looks at meditation.

These days there are so many different approaches, techniques and reasons for meditating. Many people seem to be doing one form or another, or maybe even a combination!

This week, the third course of five, is about the practice and the experience of
meditation. We found that the reason we meditate and context we meditate in, is as important as the practice itself. In the context of Evolutionary Enlightenment,(interactive model).

The reason we meditate, and the function of meditation in this teaching, is
to be able to step out of the complexity of the Ego's conditioned view
of life, to discover the Ground of Being , in order to re-emerge as the Authentic Self. The function is to be able to detach from the ego and choose the Authenic Self, by going to that empty ground.

I really love to meditate. I actually feel the need to meditate, and find it an absolute requirement to have any chance at leading a truley liberated life free from personal, emotional and cultural conditioning, I mean free from Ego, thats the enlightenment context.
I found this class exciting to present and discuss.

My teacher, offers these very simple instructions : Andrew Cohen’s meditation instructions,

A common belief about meditation is that many people meditate and use spirtuality as a way to feel better, the experience of deep well being, bliss and peace is definitely important, and what we spoke a lot about this evening, was the strength and confidence that the practice of meditation can give us.

We spoke about taking the inner position of having no relationship to any thought, feeling or experience. It is quite subtle and deep, but as more people were starting to get it, the energy in the room became more grounded, stronger and deeper. It was tangible that we
were laying the foundation for a deeply engaged life. Andrew said in one of the clips we watched; ‘This will enable you to be free when you need to be, when the chaos of your conditioned mind is right in your face’.

Having spoken about all this we practiced meditation by leaving everything completely alone. As we went deeper into that during the evening, I felt like we were entering a different dimension, a place where it is impossible to recognize ourselves and where we are free to go beyond any boundaries that we always assumed we had.

As our evening concluded, Mark and I noticed our class engaged with each other in a new way. People stayed for a good while in the afterglow of the what we are sharing.

For those of you who are inspired by this and want to find out more, there is a great CD set for sale on this particular powerful form of meditation that I recommend.

If you want to experience Andrew Cohen personally, come to his 3 day Intensive this spring, which is open to the public, at a reasonable cost, in the Bershire Mountains of Western Massachusetts.

Next week we explore the difference of the ego and the Authentic Self and the advantage of choosing this mysterious compulsion to evolve for Human Deveopment.

Meditate, meditate, meditate!

Kevin

Class #2- Philadelphia is Aware of our identity as Cosmocentric

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:57:25 -0000

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for stopping by!

I really find this so exciting to continue to share with you All, the experience of our investigation of our 5 class offering of Introduciton to Evolutionary Enlightenment

Last night was Class #2 - Context is Everything as we began, there was a sense of anticipation in the room. We started with looking into what the difference between Context and Perspective.

We looked at our own context of living in a postmodern world, which Ken Wilber calls, Boomeritis (click on and see this video). We did not get a chance to see Boomeritis in class, the conditioned perspecitve we see through in our lives, for the most part today.

The perspective and context we spoke most about is what Andrew Cohen
calls the evolutionary context, the context in which we see ourselves
as a person, a member of a specific ethnic group, of a country, of the
world (!) but mostly, we recognize ourselves to be (part of) the
process of evolution that was initiated with the Big Bang 14 billion
years ago and that led to beings (us) that could recognize themselves
as that process of evolution. Or, to say it simpler, through our eyes
and minds the Universe is starting to know itself.

As the class went on, the palpable sense of wanting to know grew in intensity. We recognized that this is a BIG LEAP, to IDENTIFY with THE UNIVERSE, AS ME, wanting to know itself.

As if consciousness wants so badly to see through our eyes, our Power Point presentation flashed up the Hubble Telescope Image of Andromeda, something about this evolutionary context, we were just marveling, looking back on the cosmos, what WE created 14 billion years ago, and ARE still creating today, through the interiority of humanity (us) who feel the evolutionary impulse, and choose to respond by actively expressing a pure passion, creating the future, egolessly, together! In other words this is a collective emergence

By the end of the class, our heads were spinning, you cannot really grasp this leap from our present world centric to the ever emerging evolutionary Kosmocentric context and we still have a burning desire to know!

Next week: Meditation and the Ground of Being.

Class# 1 in Philadelphia of Evolutionary Enlightenment Course

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:48:57 -0000

Monday, April 9, this week, my fellow instructor Mark Flashen and
myself began the second Introduction to Evolutionary
Enlightenment Course with a new group of interested participants in the Philidelphia area.

Whatever has happened in consciousness since our last class has
seemed to effect this group of 14 people, who were even more
developed than the previous one, and the previous group were no
slouchs either!

The evening was a thrilling exchange of ideas,
experience and passion for the deepest aspect of being human. The
courage, transparency and participation of this group was inspiring.
The more we shared our experience, the more the field of
intersubjectivity grew, the awareness of what we share between us
became more apparent than our difference.

Are people like Rupert Sheldrake right when they say that things
change in a field, rather than in the consciousness of individuals?
Could a group of 14 people who are investigating life's deepest
questions at the edge of their understanding and potential create a
pathway in consciousness for the people that come after them? Could
groups of people doing this all over the world (29 courses offered
this spring) influence and support each other unknowingly? If
consciousness is One, what all sages throughout the ages have always
said, that sure would make sense…wouldn't it?

Something else happened that effected our evening. On our way to down
Philadelphia, Mark and I engaged in a conversation in which an
amazing amount of gratitude was expressed by living in this context,
and how when we wander from this perspecitive, how crazy life can
become so fast. We are really inspired by our teacher, Andrew Cohen
in his most recent blog posting “Overwhelming Gratitude”

What is even more interesting is that this seems to be catching on;
quite a number of the people that graduated from the first course here in
Philadelphia are apparently feeling the same way. Not only are
several repeating the course, they have commented last night, that it
feels new to them, different from before. Philadelphia is becoming a
place where (r)evolutionaries gather together to investigate life,
make plans, enjoy each other's company, and evolve.
Mark and I are from EnlightenNext NY http://www.andrewcohen.org/ny/
in NYC. Exciting events, courses and seminars are happening every
week. Stay tuned for following along on our development of the
course, and our students responses.

Love,

Kevin