The Awakening Creative Process (Quote of the Week)
What I call the “new enlightenment,” or Evolutionary Enlightenment, is based upon a growing recognition that the human experience is in fact a small but not insignificant part of a cosmic evolutionary process that began almost fourteen billion years ago. It’s the all-important awakening to the fact that this process is actually going somewhere. From energy to light to matter to life to consciousness to self-reflective awareness, evolution is going somewhere, and it at least seems that we are the very leading edge of the entire process. By we, I do not mean our unique personalities but our uniquely human capacity for complex consciousness and cognition. No other forms of life, including other mammals, have the highly developed capacity for self-reflection that we do. Indeed, it appears that the entire deep-time developmental process only gains the capacity to become aware of itself through the evolved intricacy of our human brains. The implications are enormous. As far as we know, we are the eyes, ears, hearts, and minds of the entire creative endeavor.
Filed Under: Consciousness • EnlightenNext Editors’ Blog • Evolutionary Enlightenment • Evolutionary Spirituality • Quote of the Week • Spirituality
never figured out how this differs from what you have to call the old enlightenment ..
Hi greg, re: “never figured out how this differs from what you have to call the old enlightenment ..”
If you allow, may I venture that the new enlightenment is still concerned with individual attainment of higher consciousness whereas I think the traditional way is focused on attaining Enlightenment with the side benefit of setting an example for others to follow. The traditional model is still certainly perfectly OK but I believe we of the 21st cent. I believe have a more collective consciousness that sees all are involved in consciousness raising and hold higher expectations of the race as a whole and operate accordingly.
Is this something you can agree or comment upon?
Aloha, Frank
Terence K. McKenna (1946-2000), an American author and Neo-Platonist also noted that human evolution is “going somewhere.” McKenna said: “orthodox physics is very concerned with the very early history of the universe,” which begins with “singularity” and ends with the “universe running down into an entropic heat death” (McKenna, 1987, p.25). McKenna’s idea of a Transcendental Object reverses the classic cosmology and describes a cosmological process that moves towards singularity much in the tradition of the Tao Te Ching or Teilhard de Chardin. McKenna honors Taoism for its recognition that, “Time [is] a process of becoming” (McKenna, 1987, p.25).
More and more, I feel as if we are waking up from the indoctrination of causation. Maybe we are “re-awakening,” as it seems that a number of the B.C.E. philosophers like Plato and Aristotle sensed that time was relative.
I’m interested in learning more about your theories on the “new enlightenment.” I quickly visited your website and had to chuckle at your evolutionary rendition of humankind where the meditating man stands up and walks off to the right…pictures and their inherent thousand words. Very nice.
Hi Elizabeth, re: “learning more about your theories on the “new enlightenment”
I posted a comment (two posts above) on the “new enlightenment” that I presumed to present my take on it.
See if that’s at all helpful or not.
Best, namaste, aloha!
NEW NEWS RENEW OLD
NEW = Nature energy works.
NEWS = Now Education
Wisdom Symphony
RENEW =Root Experience
Neutral Essence
Witness.
OLD = zero love Divine.
BOLD = Body Zero Love Divine.
TOLD = Truth Zero Love Divine.
GOLD = Grace Zero Love Divine.
SOLD = Sensitive Zero Love Divine.
HOLD = Human Zero Love Divine.
ZERO BODY,
TRUTH GRACE SENSITIVE HUMAN.
POINT IS CENTER AND CIRCLE,
LIGHT IS PARTICLE AND WAVE,
ENLIGHTENMENT IS JOURNEY
AND DESTINATON AT THE SAME
TIME.
BE CREATIVE IN EVERY THING
YOU DO TO EXPRESS NO-THING.
Evolutionary enlightenment is about “going somewhere”. “Traditional” enlightenment is going NowHere. Between somewhere (being in the mind) and Now Here (being in the No-Mind state) all the difference is.
Evolutionary enlightenment is a mind trip – mind exists only through projecting, imagining, having expectations. The mind product the ego can exist only if it struggles to prove its significance, otherwise ego is not, it does not have existentiality, it is false. Through projecting itself upon the universe, vast and huge, ancient and evolving through considerable times ego feels significant and important.
Thanks God, mammals do not have this capacity of the projecting and claiming ego! Imagine what would have happened to Earth if mammals, trees, birds, fishes, start claiming their supremacy and “leading edge” on Existence! We, human beings would have been in a big trouble!
At least now, they, all the animals and plants, are in trouble, not we:) If they happened to have our “capacity for self – reflection”, they would have been the ones who destroyed the others; they would have been the blind and narrow thinking consumers of existence, so much capable of self reflecting, that they could not have seen the mere fact that everything in existence is interconnected and interdependent. So much so, that the consumer will be consumed one day, the destroyer will be destroyed and the self-reflecting humanity will be mercilessly reflected by the Absolute with all the human ugliness and delusions mirrored in the divine mirror of God.
There you go, Andrew! Let’s get some real vision happening here of a living body, the singular organism that IS the Kosmos. We’ve got to stop thinking in terms of the dead nature of matter, the non-sensate microworld, as well as even the sensate world. This whole Universe is a growing, breathing, living body of condensifying light within which we and every holon down the chain exist as conscious cells. Yes, as you say, we are the eyes, ears, hearts and minds of the entire creative endeavor and the implications are enormous.
Just asking:
I’m wondering if to use the terms “Enlightenment Next” and “Evolutionary Enlightenment” that Andrew is promoting the idea his enterprise is about becoming Enlightenment whereas I think Awakening is probably the most that can be expected. Of course Enlightenment is the ultimate objective but that seems too remote, IMO. ??
Wonderful Andrew…what I still don’t understand is how is this creative process connected to Karma…does Karma even have a place in this thought process…
You have talked about self reflection…as humans we reflect on our wrongs, and try to correct it the next time around…which would indirectly mean that if there are wrongs, there will be repercussions to those wrongs as well.
If certain dimensions are not set on evolution and it’s not curtailed, its prone to go haywire and hence comes the need for a higher consciousness that you talk about..once we care about what we sow, what we reap is no longer a concern…with the theory of physical manifestation of God, karma is absolute..sure and certain, but in this cosmic evolutionary process I don’t find any room for Karma..how does it fit in?
Hi Prerena:
If I may, I submit that karma is the dynamic where actions lead to reactions as you know. If our actions are considered carefully and responsibly, the repercussions should be less harming than those not considered well. To cultivate acting responsibly seems to be a trait humanity as a collective will be well to nurture and that would surely mean significant evolutionary progress of human social spirituality.
Thanks Frank…that is the whole point of law of cause and effect..that one needs to watch over ones actions/speech and thoughts, because sooner or later they will snowball back in to our own direction. What we pass around today, will come back eventually.
But that happens if there is a higher power or force…if there is no God, then does Karma even exist? Yes, we may want to act good, but that would be from the goodness of our hearts, not because there will be a cause and hence effect.
Whatever I have heard and read about Andrews’ teachings so far delights me, but when I compare it to the traditional theories, I get so confused..thanks again though.
Hi Prerena, re: “if there is no God, then does Karma even exist? Yes, we may want to act good, but that would be from the goodness of our hearts, not because there will be a cause and hence effect.”
TY for your response. If I may submit, I have no quarrel with those who obviously need and believe there is a higher power outside rather than within our Selves. To Awaken spirituality seems to many to confirm a belief that that power is manifested in our Selves and putting aside outside powers other than the one propounded by the collective Perennial Wisdom. Your confusion may be laid to a conflict between believing in the inner or the outer power and only you can resolve the conflict.
This would indicate that the law of Karma, like the force of Gravity or other physical forces are simply phenomena inherent in existence and Being. I can concede that the concept of God may in final analysis prove to be truer than a denial of that concept but I suspend final judgement till further information I receive for myself.
Prerena, adding to your statement:
I prefer to use the term “acting spiritually responsibly” rather than “acting good”. I believe “spiritually responsibly” is less prone to be judgemental if spirituality is understood with Perennial Wisdom.
Re: Andrew’s statement “As far as we know, we are the eyes, ears, hearts, and minds of the entire creative endeavor.”
We in our human form have the opp to work to better the world and fix what’s faulty. In the afterlife as disembodied souls, if you take credence in those things, we are not able to do this, only in our physical human form. I believe we are given the opp and responibility, even obligation to do so. We need to put our spirituality to work and no better way than to be engaged in the attempt to make the planet a better place. And better your Self in the process!
Responding to Andrew’s (the human experience is a small insignificant part of cosmic evolutionary process) in the leader:
I agree somewhat, considering the time span of human presence on earth, but I also submit that like we view history and yesterday’s news, I would say that the tip of that trajectory is maybe the most significant and exciting part of the trajectory of evolution’s progress, almost but not really eclipsing what’s gone before. Our past is also the force that drives us forward, no?
We have nothing to loose and much to gain from this.
“No other forms of life, including other mammals, have the highly developed capacity for self-reflection that we do.”
This seems to me to be a concept that is EGO driven. Who is to say that in fact WE humans are not the LEAST developed life form in the Universe/Cosmos/???.
I know of no other life form that destroys it’s own nest and it’s environment for pleasure. We enlightening/supposedly evolving humans so far have not on the whole realized survival is based on sharing, NOT hording.
I have not given up on our species, it is possible we can rise to the Enlightemnent of the trees.??
EACH STEP WE TAKE IS BUT A STEP TOWARDS WHERE WE CAN CHOOSE TO GO NEXT.
Rather than looking for THE ANSWER possibly we should be looking for the QUESTION.
ITS like MIND IS GOD AND GOD IS MIND
the mind is so amazing,dont you just love it,always having such interesting things to think and hear and wonder about,and how far it can take you.wow.dont you just love your mind to bits ,no one can even care to know how wonderfull, but it would be nice to know more about this beautifull thing called- mind.surely there is more to it than meets the eye.
karma -duty-journey of duty
after you reap what you have sown you realize that you still have duties to fullfill,even though it doesnt feel like its your responsibility to fullfill that which you either realized or maybe there must be a good explaination for the matter.yet you yourself know what needs to be obeyed.and as long as it is going to get done no matter in which way you change it or do it. ##