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What Is the Leading Edge? Part 1

by Megan Cater

I remember very clearly the first issue of What Is Enlightenment? magazine I ever read. It was Issue 31 (December 2005-February 2006), “Spirituality vs. Religion.” Elizabeth Debold’s article on moving beyond postmodern spirituality quite literally shocked me awake. I’d been serious about spiritual practice for ten years by that time, often spending three hours a day meditating and practicing Tai Ji and Qi Gong, or various other forms I’d accumulated over the years. As serious as I thought I was about spiritual development, I realized in the midst of reading Elizabeth’s article that the context for my spiritual practice was painfully small and, in the same moment, glimpsed the enormous perspective this magazine was offering. The history of human transcendent longing and discovery had been spread out before me, and my own place within it. The biggest shock value of the article, however, was the importance it placed on the interpretion of spiritual experiences. “The real significance of this surge in spiritual experience,” Elizabeth wrote, “will depend on how we make sense out of the experiences themselves.” I felt as if I’d been shown a hidden doorway in my mind to rational thinking about Spirit. Prior to this, spritual practice had largely been about not using my mind, as I felt its ramblings carried me away from direct contact with the transcendent. In truth, of course, that is exactly what happens most of the time. But this article offered a context for interpretation that was so all-encompassing it actually expanded the meaning and depth of spiritual experience in a way that nothing I’d ever read before had done. I was ecstatic at this insight, and it initiated a full-on rebirth of my mind. Three subsequent issues, “Death, Rebirth, and Everything In Between” (Issue 32), “God’s Next Move” (Issue 33) and “The Mystery of Evolution” (Issue 35), spanned a thrilling year of discovering the evolutionary or “integral” worldview and finding my spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen.
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Apr 30, 2009 | 2 comments | View Post

Perspectives on Integral Ecology–A Dialogue

by Ross Robertson

j38-350About a year and a half ago, I wrote a feature story for EnlightenNext magazine about a cutting-edge perspective on environmentalism known as “bright green.” When I first discovered the term—and the emerging movement it represents—at the internet’s bright green mothership, Worldchanging, it completely transformed my outlook on nature, on human society, on our ecological crisis, and most importantly, on what to do about it all.

Ever since that time, it’s never stopped amazing me just how radical, and how subtle, this change in my own thinking about humanity’s role in the biosphere has been. I’m endlessly fascinated by the fall line where many of our most cherished assumptions about nature and our proper place in it bump up against the urgent realities of a world evolving so fast it’s hard to keep up with—and against our own very natural impulse to push forward irrepressibly into an unknown future. Every time I share the bright green perspective with others (most recently, for example, in some workshops I gave to college students at an American Institute of Chemical Engineers conference at UMass Amherst), I’m equally amazed by how little-known it still is, how provocative it always tends to be, and simply how much sense it makes of where we are and where we’re going in these perilous and promising times we live in.

As I wrote in the article, the edgiest dimension of bright green has to do with its passionate embrace of modernity, and of many of environmentalism’s traditional enemies: technology, creativity & industry; capitalism; globalization; the propulsive force of science; even the very notion of progress. Its big Achilles heel, on the other hand, is its tendency to get lost in a worldview defined by scientific materialism, a value sphere which emphatically denies the reality of consciousness and casts a blind eye to its undeniable relevance for any and all questions of social and cultural evolution.
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Apr 29, 2009 | 1 comment | View Post

Freedom in the Face of Fear (Think About This #54)

by Tom Huston

In this sneak preview of the “Guru and Pandit” dialogue from the upcoming issue of EnlightenNext, spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen and integral philosopher Ken Wilber discuss one of the most significant spiritual challenges of our time: staying connected to a higher perspective even when humanity’s survival hangs in the balance.

WILBER: At times like these, our spiritual practice becomes essential. We have to develop a heightened awareness of our own internal mechanisms and of what can throw us back into a contracted, survivalist mode. That’s really important, because there are some very serious survival issues right now. We might not make it as a species. And being able to watch yourself contract in the face of that is a supreme teacher. It’s a chance to really learn how you allow the survivalist mode to knock you out of your true self and your already-free awareness.

COHEN: Yes. And the reason it’s so important is that it isn’t just our feeling experience that contracts; it’s our perspectives and our values. We fall out of touch with that which is higher, that which has inherent glory, and we contract into a very fearful orientation to life. Often, those who are able to really make a difference in times like these are those who are able to see global events and crises in the biggest developmental context—to see it all as part of a larger process, which itself is indestructible. Never losing touch with that perspective is critical, because when we lose touch with the bigger perspective, we lose touch with the best part of ourselves.

Don’t forget to join Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber for their first live virtual seminar — “Living Evolutionary Spirituality and an Integral Life” — on Saturday, May 9, from 12:00 noon to 5:00pm ET. In this special event, Cohen and Wilber will explore the evolution of enlightenment, spirituality, and culture and discuss how each of us can become a fully awake, purposeful, and integral human being. For details and to register, click here.

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Apr 29, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post

Good Times

by Tom Huston

Homo floresiensisThere have been some great articles in the New York Times in the past few days that are right up our EnlightenNext alley:

  • A Tiny Hominid With No Place on the Family Tree
    Six years after their discovery, the extinct little people nicknamed hobbits who once occupied the Indonesian island of Flores remain mystifying anomalies in human evolution, out of place in time and geography, their ancestry unknown.

  • Enlightenment Therapy
    If he hadn’t been so distraught, he might have laughed at the absurdity of it: a Zen master in the waiting room of a psychoanalyst. He was a … man with a “Zen noir” temperament and an un-self-sparing wit. “Anywhere I hang myself is home,” he liked to say.

  • More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops
    Two months after the local atheist organization here put up a billboard saying “Don’t Believe in God? You Are Not Alone,” the group’s 13 board members met in Laura and Alex Kasman’s living room to grapple with the fallout.

And props to the Times for their new “Global Edition.” Who says Americans are cut off from the rest of the world? (European readers, don’t answer that.)

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Apr 28, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post

Happy 19th Birthday, Hubble!

by Tom Huston

Hubble Space Telescope Today marked the 19th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s exemplary service (well, 15 years of service, anyway; there was that horrendous mirror fiasco early on). I think it goes without saying that this telescope, like its namesake, has dramatically expanded our sense of the vastness of the universe in ways we still can’t begin to wrap our tiny primate minds around. But I’m sure we’ll be able to someday, once our consciousness is up to the task. After all, since 1968, when the crew of Apollo 8 took that famous shot of the Earth rising over the moon, a cerulean jewel suspended in the inky void, humanity’s growing capacity to hold a truly global, worldcentric consciousness has been steadily on the rise. And this past Earth Day was another reflection of that. But at EnlightenNext, we don’t think a merely planetary awareness provides a context or perspective big enough to help us answer the biggest questions of all: Who are we? and Why are we here? No, any attempt to tackle those metaphysical mind-stoppers requires that we strive to be true to the evolving edge of what we actually do know. And given the ways in which Hubble the man and Hubble the telescope have radically blown open our sense of the enormity of the Kosmos, nothing short of a Kosmocentric orientation to life will suffice from here on out. That doesn’t mean merely appreciating the physical vastness of space and time, but also seeing ourselves in the context of the 14-billion-year evolutionary process that has led to this very moment, with your incredibly complex brain and incredibly sophisticated consciousness comprehending these incredibly cool words. :)
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Apr 24, 2009 | 2 comments | View Post

Do We Really Need to Take It Easy?

by Joel Pitney

reebok-run-easy

In a world of “Just Do It,” “No Pain No Gain,” and the many other extreme slogans used by sports companies like Nike and Gatorade to inspire the inner athlete in everyone, the current ad campaign by Reebok stands out like a . . . walk in the park. Their slogan, “Run Easy. I Am What I Am,” was launched by the shoe company in 2007 (and still going strong) to assuage the fears of potential would-be joggers that exercise is only as good as the pain it inflicts on the body (not to mention carving out a new niche in the sportswear world after decades of unsuccessfully trying to beat Nike at its own game).

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Apr 23, 2009 | 7 comments | View Post

Reinventing Capitalism (Think About This #48)

by Tom Huston

In the midst of our current financial crisis, it may seem natural to cast doubt on the entire enterprise of Western capitalism and wonder if its basic tenets of progress and production have led humanity astray. But according to avant-garde cultural theorist Howard Bloom, writing in EnlightenNext back in 2005, such dismissals tend to overlook the true evolutionary significance of our economic system:

The problem does not lie in the turbines of the Western way of life—industrialism, capitalism, pluralism, free speech, and democracy. The problem lies in the lens through which we see. Capitalism works. It works clumsily, awkwardly, sometimes brilliantly, and sometimes savagely. So we need to dig down to find out why. We need to reveal the deeper meaning beneath what we’ve been told is crass materialism and see how profoundly our obsessive making and exchanging of goods and services has upgraded the nature of our species. This is not a mindless consumer culture destroying the planet in an orgy of greed. It is the most creative and potentially idealistic bio-engine this planet has ever seen. We desperately need a reinvention and a re-perception of the system that has given Western civilization its long-term strength and its recent weaknesses. We need to wake up capitalism to its mission—a set of moral imperatives and heroic demands that are implicit in the Western way of life. By reinventing capitalism and injecting our own souls into the machine, you and I can raise the bar of human possibility.

Read the full text of Bloom’s column “Reinventing Capitalism.”

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Mar 18, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post

The Goldilocks View (Think About This #47)

by Tom Huston

According to some interpretations of the ancient Mayan calendar, the year 2012 may mark the end of the world as we know it. And in the midst of our global economic crisis, many are starting to take such doom and gloom claims seriously. But do things have to fall apart completely before they can get better? In a recent interview with EnlightenNext magazine, cultural historian Gary Lachman offers a more nuanced perspective on our current trajectory:

We’re part of a long process that’s been going on now for a few hundred years. Modernity is an experiment. No one knew in advance what was going to happen. British historian Arnold Toynbee said that all civilizations have a kind of momentum: they move forward and then they hit a kind of plateau. Before long, they’re faced with a challenge. If the challenge is too great, the civilization collapses. If the challenge isn’t great enough, then the civilization overcomes it too easily and becomes weak, soft, and lazy. I take a “Goldilocks” view of history: the challenge has to be “just right.” It has to be just enough for civilization to muster its resources, but not so much that it destroys it. I think that what is happening right now is part of a much larger process. So am I worried about 2012? I’m already looking forward to 2013.

Listen to the full interview with Gary Lachman here.

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Mar 11, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post

Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy (Think About This #46)

by Tom Huston

In a recent appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, stand-up comedian Louis C.K. offered a poignant and hilarious wake-up call when he pointed out one of the tremendous ironies of our time: the fact that, in the midst of the most highly evolved and technologically sophisticated civilization in human history, we still often overlook our incredible privilege and manage to feel strangely blasé about it all…

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Mar 04, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
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