Steve McIntosh on “Evolutionary Enlightenment”
by Tom HustonIntegral philosopher Steve McIntosh weighs in on EnlightenNext founder Andrew Cohen’s new book, Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening…
Andrew Cohen’s important new book, Evolutionary Enlightenment, demonstrates spiritual evolution on every page. Rooted in the venerable soil of Eastern nondual teachings, while simultaneously expressing an emerging new form of evolutionary spirituality, Cohen’s insights provide rich nourishment for the discerning seeker. Evolutionary Enlightenment clarifies what it means to transcend one’s ego and sheds new light on the true nature of the self. Moreover, this deep yet accessible book effectively integrates the science of evolution and the new integral philosophy of development into a livable form of spirituality that will transform all who practice it.
Even though my personal spirituality is rooted more in the Western theistic tradition than the Eastern nondual tradition, I nevertheless find Cohen’s teachings to be compatible with my own sense of spiritual truth. And I am especially grateful for his discussion of cultural evolution in Part IV of the book, with its emphasis on using our spirituality to catalyze the emergence of a higher form of civilization. Cohen himself has evolved considerably since his last book was published ten years ago, and his current teachings now reflect the leading edge of spiritual evolution in our society. Evolutionary Enlightenment is a modern-day masterpiece—a splendid contribution to the new field of evolutionary spirituality.
—Steve McIntosh, author of Evolution’s Purpose, and Integral Consciousness
Evolutionary tension is a heightened intensity that awakens your soul, and compels you to sit up straight, focus, and pay attention. It is an upward pull, a profound sense of urgency to bring into manifestation that which has not yet occurred. It is the relentless demand to become more, to reach for new and ever-higher levels of moral, philosophical, and spiritual maturity. This positive tension creates a potent and spiritually charged context for human relationship because it is infused with the living presence of the possible.
Evolutionary Enlightenment, and the new culture it promises, is something we can deliberately and consciously bring into being together, if we care deeply enough about the potential it is pointing to. But it is not something that can be simply manufactured through sitting in a circle and practicing a certain technique or generating a particular emotional state. It is an emergent perspective, or state of consciousness, that bursts forth spontaneously and miraculously only when the conditions are right. “Emergent” means that it is something greater than the sum of its parts—a new order of relatedness, a new level of consciousness, a deeper and higher perspective that is always unimaginable until the moment it explodes into existence. 
On Wednesday, November 17, we received the sad news that 
