the liberation of consciousness in the 21st century · web viewif you can create an awakened space...

Posted to www.oss.net Collective Intelligence portal page, 19 November 2006

Introduction to Evolutionary Enlightenment(The liberation of consciousness in the 21st Century)

Founder: Andrew Cohen (http://www.andrewcohen.org) Instructor: Jeff Carreira (http://www.eecourse.org/jeff.html)

Method: Video/Audio from Founder, Instructor Comments for Context & Application

Executive Summary by Robert (Written At End)

This passed the smell test. The instructor held my attention the entire time. It energized me. It forced me to confront flaws in myself, including impatience and intolerance, but it also validated the larger path, the larger goal, and it made me aware of the value of this course of instruction for all those whom I would seek to help or to engage.

Best line: Meditation is a practice in renunciation of your cynical self.

DAY ONE

What Is Enlightenment?Context Is EverythingMeditation and the Ground of BeingThe Ego and the Authentic SelfThe Five Fundamental Tenets of Enlightenment

Intended to be a systematic presentation to sustain the powerful experience

Experience is one thing—maintaining an EVOLVING center of gravity is something else

Fourteen years of teaching by the principal, but the course itself began last December 2005. Now 26 teachers, 400+ students.

We are all on a path; those ending up in this course have been filtered very strongly.

EXPECT that something significant will happen in the process of participating here.

No matter how open-minded we think we are, in fact have an inherent obstacle to embracing completely new or unorthodox ideas—an inherent cynicism.

Course Goals:

Fundamental understanding of how Evolutionary Enlightenment works.Set stage for Part Two (second course)

Prepared by Robert Steele, participant in the course.

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What Is Enlightenment?

Focuses on two questions: Who am I? And—with that in hand—What is my life? Want to help each participant experience their own authentic self in this context, not

just intellectually, but in an undeniable personal way. Part One (this course) is the individual part. Part Two course is toward a Collective

goal. That second part teaches a new way of individuals coming together as a collective. Changing one person does not change the world—changing the Collective is what will actually change the world—we all need each other if we are to prevail.

A Learned PerspectiveVIDEO of Andrew Cohen. Maturity comes from being constantly alert to the

larger perspective, as opposed to the super-narcistic ego and personal perspective.Instructor: don’t think of narcism as simply individual ego, but rather the larger

manner in which one relates to others. Pre-modern was tribal/village/group consciousness and relation—almost like a herd instead of a collection of individuals. In today’s world, that broke down and the individual has “broken out” from the group.

INSIGHT: Secret cults (or bureaucratic organizations, professional societies, structured religions) have re-created a truncated form of herd mentality that rejects external individuals and ideas, while external individuals do not themselves appreciate the reality that cults cannot “hear” at an individual level, externals do not appreciate the “code” needed to communicate new perspectives—the classic paradigm shift challenge, but secrecy and bureaucracy resist anomalous signals more aggressively than in the open academic environment.

Enlightenment is not just an Experience

VIDEO: Most of us live in hell because we are excessively focused on the emotional personal view, we give far too much significance to our emotional experience. A narcissist is obsessed with their personal experience. Less than 5% focused on communal, national, planetary, or universal consciousness. At the same time, our individual experience is transitory, constantly changing, difficult to achieve constancy, continuity, sustainability in isolation from others. Enlightenment is about the perspective within which we interpret our experience. This teaching is intended to liberate the individual from their personal strictures.

Instructor: It is a mistake to allow our feeling state to dominate how we interpret and navigate through reality. Nervous system is dominating your feelings, thoughts, and behavior. Spend too much time on this individualized interpretation of external reality. Each individual varies, but most are lost in a “loop of feeling.” It takes courage to contemplate that possibility. Difference between this enlightenment course and others is that this course does not propose an off/on dichotomy, but rather an evolutionary approach, we develop beyond simply getting free, and toward helping others develop so that the Collective as a whole develops, not just individuals in isolation. This course


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keeps you firmly engaged with the real world and all of its problems—it does not detach you from the world. “You get out (are liberated) to get back in.”

Types of Development

VIDEO: Evolution means development through time, over a period of time. Just as the body and the mind can evolve and learn over time, so also with emotional maturity and spiritual development. Spiritual development focused on moving from self-concern to concern and compassion for others. Evolution of consciousness is core concept.

Instructor: This insight that Andrew is bringing out is the million dollar insight. What is more important than the individual characteristics of the person (e.g. muscles, or compassion) is the condition of the person who seeks to develop these characteristics. Need to avoid forcing function—need to “be” in a condition that “desires” the development regardless of how developed you might actually achieve. Discovering who you really are is what energizes your ability to achieve change over time. Depth is the primary focus in this first two hours, on discovery of self. Unconscious awareness is roughly four to five times greater than conscious awareness. True being is located at the root, which is below or the source of BOTH unconscious and conscious awareness.


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Objective in above is to move consciousness all the way back.

Perspective in another key concept. Light post is a good analogy. We live in darkness and live within a light circle from the lamppost. You can lift your lamppost, increase the circle of light around you, which gives you a greater ability to make better decisions. Analogy: football field goal kicker. Spends most of his life kicking the ball on the sidelines into a little net. “Lives” only when actually kicking the field goals. In life, there is no sideline. You need to develop as if you are on the field every moment. In this context, development of consciousness is above developing YOU, not about developing attributes of you.

The Discovery of the SubjectVIDEO: Examine your own personal experience of consciousness? What is at

the center of you? In listening to video, part of you is giving attention. You can focus on the part of yourself that is giving attention; the part noticing that you are giving attention, and the part that may be forming conclusions based on what you are hearing. Consciousness is a form of giving attention—a form or feeling of existence in relation to other but grounded in who we are or think we are (ethnic, gender, class, history). Now, when we seek to discover the Subject, we need to shift our attention from outside to inside. Gift from the East is the exploration of self, discovery of the self. This is who you are, all the time, at the most fundamental level.

Instructor: This is about moving your consciousness from focusing primary on external realities, and toward your self, ultimately reaching your total self with no unconsciousness. Discovering the Subject is where you turn your attention on your former self, this new point of view is inherently higher than your former self. A critical value of Andrew’s teaching is that one can be both in ground of being (timeless), and in authentic self or soul, which is re-emergent into the collective. Ken Wilbur is a sympathetic person, he and Andrew are pushing the edge of human understanding. Things are not clear at the edge, which is why it is the edge.

INSIGHT: Very close connection as well as contradiction to this approach of the Volition literature, see for instance: [enter three cites], while the Collective Intelligence literature (add cites) complements this instruction in a strategic or group sense.

How does Consciousness Evolve?VIDEO: Consciousness is not an object. It is the Subject. Cannot be objectified.

We’re trying to project ourselves outside our selves as a means of understanding ourselves, but we need to be mindful of the difference between objects out there and consciousness as us, as Subject. Pay attention to your feeling of existence—what would it be like if your sense of existence was to increase in intensity? Think about it. This is about increasing the intensity of knowing (not knowing anything in particular, simply being more intensely aware, more profoundly aware. That is what we mean by acquiring


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Current consciousnessCurrent un-consciousnessSOURCE

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more consciousness, increasing our consciousness. One beneficial result is that those things that have bothered you in the past would be less troublesome because of your larger sense.

Instructor: That place, consciousness, is prior to all else. Our point is to contemplate what it means to expand that. Our next class, “Context is Everything” deal with evolutionary enlightenment within the largest possible context of all life. “That place” from which you originate, from which you perceive all else, is who you actually are—everything else is secondary.

Context Is EverythingInstructor: Be patient with this part of the course. Most of us do not live in the

here and now, but rather on the sidelines. It is helpful to have the largest possible context within which to live, and to realize that this is not a journey in the classic sense, you are “already here.” Expect some sense of vulnerability. It really does matter, you really do feel connected when you realize that you are here now, and everything you do matters.

Instructor Footnote: growing awareness might feel science-fictiony, simply because we have no experience with it. We are the raisin in the muffin---separate raison, part of the muffin, cannot be separated from the muffin. ALSO, reverse the above circles, and conceptualize the cosmos as the center, worlds as intermediate bodies, and the collective


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Personal Context

Cultural Context

World Context

Universal Context

Can not NOT BE from your given culture—it IS a given!

Globalization now largely understood, moving toward a larger cosmic awareness.

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personalities as the stars revolving around the cosmos, and collectively comprising the evolving cosmos. Humanity is just the most recent manifestation of conscious being.

Why are we Here?VIDEO: Most people have no idea why they are here? Most end up in a

particular life and just end up treading water the whole time, simply struggling to survive. Most of us do not see ourselves in an evolutionary context of billions of years. Most focus on the most basic needs. This is a critical time. UNLESS a significant number of us evolve very rapidly to a higher level of consciousness, we’re not going to make it as a species. Yet, IF we all came together, we COULD save this planet. If we are divided against ourselves we will not be able to do it, not be able to survive as a species or a planet.

Instructor: Other part of this question is “What Do We Do Now?” Doing nothing, or staying on the sideline, IS an action, IS a choice. Most people focus on what they are doing, what they need, but not on why they are here—why they are alive. Many will resist asking this question, for fear of realizing that their life up to this point has been worthless or without purpose. At the same time, those who can get past their ego, and see asking this question as a means of optimizing the future, can see that regardless of what is gone in the past, the future is bright with possibilities. We should all aspire to having a life’s mission, a singular purpose that we are dedicated to. Regardless of where we find ourselves now, do NOT allow the ego to “protect the past” and instead leave open the possibility that something incredibly bright is available to us as a future course.

INSIGHT: The IC reluctance to change is rooted in massive ego’s whose sense of worth is defined by secrecy and budget size, by inputs and methods, rather than outputs and outcomes, as well as massive investments rooted in corruption and old mind-sets, that is loath to diverge from the formulas of the past. THAT is what we have to change! We have to help them see that there is much more to live for, much more they can do to save the Nation and the planet, if they will adjust their inputs and methods to optimize the outputs and outcomes.

Development in TimeVIDEO: Fourteen billions years ago is the rough estimate of the time when the

universe “began.” Human species has varied cultures—some are at lower levels of development than others. Both the species and its varied cultures have been under development for a little less than 200,000 years. Most people tend to think of their life and their context as relatively static rather than dynamic, and certainly not so dynamic as to be couched in the context of billions or even hundreds of thousands of years.

Instructor: “Letting go” is a big part of catching “the wave.” Worry not about the “act” of evolving or the “what” of changing and evolving, but instead focus on being an authentic self that is open to any and all possibilities for evolutionary enlightenment. However, need to guard against the arrogance of believing, if and when you do expand your consciousness, that yours is the only one. There will be other systems of consciousness that must be recognized and engaged.

INSIGHT: We’ve *lost* the best part of the herd mentality, the part that allowed intuitive communications in real time, and comprehensive “situational awareness” for the herd as a whole. Now we are trying to re-create that “total situational awareness”


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through very expensive complex and usually not interoperable external tools, rather than focusing on our internal cultural and consciousness. We took the wrong road! General Gray, USMC (Ret) had it right with “commander’s intent” and the underlying education & training to allow all elements to do the right thing in the absence of command & control, communications, computing, and intelligence (C4I) in hard-wired form.

Levels of DevelopmentNot covering formally, discussed in passing.

The World is not OutsideVIDEO: When we speak about the world actually talking about cultures, the

world is not outside of the self, in a non-duality the world is in here, in us, this is about how we think, too often placing me here, the world out there. World exists within consciousness.

Instructor: We are not just static things in the world. Point Andrew is making is that if you die, world dies (for you), and if the world dies, you die with it. Stop seeing yourself as totally separate from the world. Note, of the three goals that I have for this course, one is that you get an intellectual understanding; that you get a feeling of yourself as an authentic self; and that you also understand that there is an inter-subjective aspect among those participating and between the instructor and the participants. THIS IS IMPORTANT: by agreeing to focus on a common interest, on a common question, this leads to openness to one another, to interaction, and to consensus. Agreeing to discuss changes the space between or among people. If you can create an awakened space among people, you can change the dynamics of the situation.

INSIGHT: Douglas Johnston has it right with his books on Faith-Based Diplomacy and [ insert ]. Instead of declaring a “war on terror” we should have leveraged the global sympathy and opened a global dialog focused on understanding, on prevention, on evolution. We were right to invade Afghanistan, wrong to allow the Pakistanis to evacuate 3,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda, wrong to not do CIA or SEAL snipers (HALO’ing into the known path) or a Ranger battalion in Bin Laden’s path from Tora Bora to Jalalabad, wrong to not “Marshall Plan” Afghanistan properly, and wrong to invade Iraq. We have wasted not only the four years and half trillion in blood and treasure on Iraq, we have also wasted all the potential of the decade and more since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

We were all there in the beginningVIDEO: We were all together at the beginning, then evolved in complex

directions, but only now achieving consciousness. Most of the six billion people on the planet are simply not there, trapped in the now and how, not at all in a position to consider the larger evolutionary context.

Instructor: This makes sense, but there is no single given model. Is an evolutionary pattern, in which the same old information is interpreted in new ways. Sidenote: while there are some similarities between these teachings and those of Indian gurus, this is unique in both being focused on the modern, and is using only analogies and stories from the West, that are easier to understand given our cultural context. HOWEVER, must avoid the arrogance of not appreciating the realizations of the East. In


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passing, quite convinced that the concept of reincarnation is a valid one, at least in instructor’s personal perspective. Based on direct personal experiences, quite persuaded that he has had a previous life before this one, and will go to another life from this one. Similarly, imagine the past, where some fish flopped on to land and amphibians started. We might be in a similar position, preparing ourselves to flop from just focusing on this world to focusing on a larger universe beyond this world alone.

INSIGHT: If all the data is *relatively* static, then the ultimate global intelligence network is not about collecting or analyzing current data via mechanical means, but instead about elevating the consciousness of all individuals, connecting all individuals to all of the data (historical, current, speculative), and then letting them go.

An Evolutionary TheologyInstructor: Once you make the jump to understanding that we were all together

at the beginning and that we are all an inherent part of the world, then a certain moral factor enters into play, and one has a realization that accepting responsibility for the collective evolution is part of the deal. Andrew has been saying for several years that evolution must reach a point where it cannot continue without the participation of the awakened individuals. All of the conflicts in the world are evidence that we are at such a point—we cannot continue until all awakened individuals come together and devise solutions that can be accepted by the greater collective (with all of its cultural diversity and inherent cultural conflicts). This is natural. All of these problems facing the planet are part of the process of evolution, and we will either rise to the occasion or not.

VIDEO: The only obstacle to enlightenment is the ego. The only obstacle to consensual dialog is the go. Enlightenment is essential to the creation of the future. If we are unenlightened and burdened by our ego we simply re-create the past over and over.

Instructor: We have lost many of the moral compasses of the past. Andrew is passionate about the need for a new moral compass in this age. He and I are both passionate about the need for evolutionary theology, a commitment to a moral aspect.

INSIGHT: This is why we always prepare to fight the last war. The individuals doing the planned were validated by the last war, they are invested in their ego, and they are unwilling—and have the rank to make it stick—to listen to iconoclasts. The future is what motivates our enlightenment, and enlightenment is what enables an active creation of the future. Human volition, when it lines up with the evolutionary imperative, the imperative to evolve, then we are living a different human life. The evolutionary theology emerges when enlightened individuals see their sustained enlightenment as a sacred obligation.

Meditation and the Ground of Being

Instructor: no training manual, no rule book, just need to find a path or a philosophy for “just dealing with it.” Morning was about defining the problem and the goals, now we start to focus on solution. Starts with meditation and the ground of being. This is like re-booting the system. You got to this point with a lot of false assumptions. The short-cut to sanity is to let it all go in meditation, get back to zero, take a look at everything, decide what you want to pick up as part of authentic self, and go with that. This meditation


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phase is a form of freedom—degrees of freedom in choosing what you are going to identify with. Get rid of your fixed idea of who you are.

Summed up: let everything be as it is.

3 line instruction: Sit still (physically and deeper sense) Pay attention (don’t fall asleep) Relax—do not be tense to stay awake

Instructor: In addition to Andrew’s fundamental guidance: Close your eyes Surrender

You don’t do anything about anything. There is nothing to do. Let anything happen.

Instructor: Do not have any angst. You can’t get it wrong. Let it happen.

Choosing to have no relationship to thoughtVIDEO: Be still, deep pool, sinking, not moving. Can be bliss, but will not

necessarily teach you how to relate to the chaos of the world. This is an important and inspiring experience. This is one dimension of it. The other dimension is learning to stay on the surface and be able to cope with the chaos. Cannot just drop out. Have to learn how to be free when you want or need to be free (in the face of external chaos). Avoid conclusions about what you are seeing, hearing, or feeling. BE free. You can be stronger than the chaos of your own mind.

Instructor: What Andrew is emphasizing is that you can have peace from meditation is isolation, but that does not necessarily equip you to deal with chaos in your mind. Need to build up a psychic muscle that can be used “on demand” rather than when convenient. There is no way for you to NOT have a happening meditation, because the only thing you have to do is NOTHING.

The Subway MetaphorVIDEO: Dealing with weirdoes on a subway, just “delete.” You’re not there,

they are not there, you choose to not have a relationship with them.Instructor: Just let it all go by. As long as feel physically safe, can tune them

out, however loud or insulting. [Sidebar on early failures in meditating.] You do not need to meditate to be free. You are already free. Meditation is a choice. However, it can be helpful as a means of sustaining enlightenment. Easy to fall asleep. Meditating with eyes open is one means of avoiding the fall into sleep. Eventually I had a big flip in my own relationship with meditation, after years of failure, during a silent retreat, was when I committed to not falling asleep. Can experience burning eyes, muscle twitches, even delusional fantasies. At some point, realize that you are not actually tired whatever the symptoms might suggest. The symptoms might continue but your mind overcomes that—your mind is awake, not tired, ignoring the symptoms. Aha experience: awareness can never be tired—the body can be tired, but the mind can be 100% awake. Then get to


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the point that the body is asleep and the mind is awake—NOW one is in touch with their full awareness, which never sleeps. [This tends to be transitory, one does actually fall back into patterns of full sleep, but important to remember that awareness in its full and perfect form never actually sleeps.] The REASON you should try meditation is to explore the possibility that there is so much more to you and your mind, the potential is worthy of exploration. Do not do it mechanically, do it with a really big heart, see where it takes you.

Guided Modification: from ego to beyond egoVIDEO: Close your eyes, just relax, pay attention to your experience.INSIGHT: Ego is what reacts to problems that are only problems in relation to

ego. Personal: years of being angry at plagiarists, calling specific ones out, or complaining to their bosses—that is all EGO. Authentic self, in contrast, is continuing to teach, being pleased that someone found the work worthy of plagiarism or replication.

Instructor: basketball metaphor: only thing that counts is ball going through the hoop. In a department store, cash into the box. Everything else is on the side. Meditation is a way of distancing from ego, and ideally STAYING with the authentic self, not perfect, but happy, not being burdened by problems. Ego protects the past, the authentic self focuses on the future, on developing beyond the past. On sense of self, Andrew distinguished between the grounded being, undifferentiated, and then you have the beginning of manifestation, this beginning sense of self. To be discussed more tomorrow. Meditation subdues the ego, leaves the authentic self ready to go forward.

Discovering the Authentic Self through ModificationVIDEO: Just being. No world, no mind. Nothing to worry about. Zero point.

Idea of meditation is to just leave it all alone. No relationship, having nothing. No movement. Ego is a habit, nagging about problems that the authentic self can ignore. Ego thinks you are a victim, authentic self moves beyond that, lives in the possibilities, not the past. Resist the temptation to think you have a problem. Spend an hour every once in a while without problems—that is when the authentic self emerges.

Instructor: We now believe that up to two hours a day, even three hours a day, is valuable as the time investment in meditation. This is of course for the earnest practitioners. This kind of time investment inoculates you against being caught up in anything and everything. However long you choose to do meditation, your commitment must be absolute—you must be *in* meditation, not dancing around it. Must let go of the whole mechanism of thought—do not get caught up in considering and then discarding individual thoughts as they arise. No mind, no thought. Erase the concept of “good” of “bad” meditation. You either did it or not.

INSIGHT: You *can* do it! Steele’s trial technique: 100 boxes one within the other, each with a door, enter slowly, closing each door behind, the final box is a Japanese bunk cubicle, very comfortable, cool, dark, no light, no TV, no noise. Then graduate to a fast track, which is an enclosed pool slide with spring flap doors that slam behind you, whoosh into the inner-most box.

Guided Modification: who am I?Guided Modification: having nothing, knowing nothing, being no one


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END OF DAY ONE (SATURDAY). OPTIONAL DINNER.

DAY TWO

Optional 50-minute MeditationINSIGHT. Holy cow. Sat still with eyes closed for 50 minutes. Felt like ten.

Initially felt obligation to the others to not move or be disruptive, but working on a series of efforts to feel and focus on the light from the bay, to be still. Some movement, opened eyes three-four times to see others, probably benefited significantly from the overall environment with 30 or so other people absolutely still, many first times (I was surprised that I showed up for the optional period, and very glad to have done so).

Instructor: This opening hour was optional because it was important that you come to meditate volitionally. YOU decided to come, and that is your authentic self. Your authentic self is the part of you that is inspired to EVOLVE. Don’t undersell meditation—it is actually a path to human evolution, both personal and collective. Yesterday we dealt with existence of human predicament and how to deal with it by letting go. Part of us is cynical; we have to address this by turning on to meditation which opens the window to “oh my God, anything is possible.” Takes effort to sit still, suspend judgment, and remain open.

The Ego and the Authentic Self

Instructor: Ego is worst part, authentic self is the best part, and the whole focus is to live from the best part instead of the worst part. The whole point of this is to go from ego to grounded being, and when you come out of grounded being, you strive to go and stay with authentic being. Meditation is the means of renouncing your ego and cynical self. The part of you that does not trust is the ego. This is the most challenging of the classes.

See also http://www.andrewcohen.org/teachings/ego.asp

The Authentic SelfVIDIO: The urge to become more consciousness, awakening to the impulse, this

is the authentic self. Simple but important distinction is between the spiritual impulse to become more conscious, and the ego, which has its own agenda. Authentic self is not self-conscious in negative sense, not afraid of life, not ambivalent about being here on earth, no existential confusion. Ego runs parallel to authentic self you tend to be on one track or the other—the point is to get off the ego track and on to the authentic self track.

Instructor: The authentic self is a gush waiting to be unleashed. It does not diminish, it is simply repressed, waiting for us to open the faucet and unleash it.

See also http://www.andrewcohen.org/teachings/authentic-self.asp.

Two Different WorldsVIDEO: Ego is invested in own fears and desires. Always personal and relative,

not at all interested in evolution. Authentic self is always absolute and always


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impersonal. Authentic self always interest in what is possible, in the future. The ego is invested in the past, security, status quo, terrified of change, radical transformation, and vertical development. People have trouble making progress because they go back and forth between ego and authentic self, which are two different worlds, two different perspectives, in competition with one another. Important to understand they are parallel lines, never meet. Locate these two places in yourself; doing so will be the greatest gift.

Instructor: Advertising is all about appealing to the ego. They are not marketing to the authentic self. [Robert’s note: this is where Naomi Klein’s NO LOGO makes the important point that we can not buy, not accept, using information to support decisions by our authentic self, instead of accepting propaganda (advertising) that enlarges our ego.] Instructor continues: Andrew and Ken Wilbur distinguish between top down and bottom up. Bottom up suggests that you can work on the ego and eventually meet the authentic self but this does not really work. Cannot work through ego to authentic self. You actually need to work on authentic self from top down, sidelining the ego completely. [Robert’s note: better analogy would be work from inside-out (authentic self) instead of outside in (ego and external)]. Andrew says that the authentic self is the part of you that already believes it is possible—this is the part you would really be embarrassed to let others see. MUST get to 51% authentic self, otherwise ego is ultimately in control. Ego tries to dominate, and people fall pretty to the all or nothing view: that must be perfect to be authentic self. In actuality, simply committing to authentic self, even with occasional lapses, puts ego below the line. At root, this is about commitment.

INSIGHT: Family and work (as calling or vocation) are two different areas. One can be over-invested in one and under-invested in the other. If one *has* a family, need to be “in the game” and not on the sidelines there, as well as at work. Those who speak of “trade-offs” are creating a false dichotomy. It should be possible to have it all, but at a different level or balance.

The Strength of ChangeVIDEO: The only freedom we can demonstrate is through choice. Avoid

confusing interest in spiritual growth (going through the motions) with actual change which is much more difficult and requires much more commitment. Fear of failure (ego) is the greatest obstacle. Authentic self chooses, commits, continues…strength to change.

Instructor: The ego and the authentic self will always be inside of you, always in conflict. This is a constant conflict. Power of meditation, of paying attention, is that it allows you to locate, to identify, to choose one (authentic self) over the other (ego). Choosing to be in a class like this comes after a considerable amount of self-reflection that led to your choosing this opening to a new or more refined path. You are not here by mistake, this is not a coincidence, you made a deliberate choice, not an easy choice, to open up to these possibilities. World we live in thrives on ego, on fears and desires. Media and politicians play on fears, corporations and advertising play on desires. When you scale this to millions of people, it becomes a real problem. If everyone is staying on the sidelines, the delay of millions is in fact quite costly. DO NOT DELAY. Your change will inspire others, you in changing will link up with others also changing, and together you will inspire and engaged with others.

INSIGHT: The “party line” or the “school solution” or the “loyalty to the chain of command” are all forms of external imposed EGO. Our politicians that agree to vote


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as they are told to rather than voting their conscience for their constituency are falling prey to party EGO. Our students that go along with rote learning are failing to explore alternative. Our generals that carry out lunatic orders from politicians are confusing loyalty (EGO playing it safe) with integrity (being open to calling a lunatic order what it is, regardless of the risk to one’s career).

The Choosing FacultyVIDEO: The “you” is the choosing faculty between the ego and the authentic

self. Choice, or volition, plays a huge role. We all, always have freedom of choice. YOU are the free agency that chooses between the authentic self and the ego in any given circumstance. The role of choice is key, foundational. Discovering and engaging the choosing faculty changes everything. If you find yourself denying that there is any choice, you are falling prey to the ego. If we can choose, the possibility of creating a new world is ever-present. This cannot be over-emphasized. Denying that we can change is to break the evolutionary development path. You MUST manifest your freedom of choice in your relationship to yourself and to others. Most of us are in denial. Very few people actually are interested in the evolution of consciousness, in part because choosing to care makes you responsible for yourself [and down the path, for others]. What is insidious is that the ego attempts to deny that a choice exists, pretending authenticity that does not exist. Ego is laden with emotional conviction that is convincing but false.

Instructor: This is a second million dollar insight. Knowing that you are ready and able to choose is the key to growth and evolution. You are not a victim at any level to anything. Constant process of choosing. Returning to the line showing conscious versus unconscious, points out that many of our choices are being made “unconsciously,” but deniably. When we choose to be truly awake we are deciding to take responsibility for those “unconscious” choices. WE decide where to draw the line between how much of our life is conscious and how much we allow to be un-conscious. If you are honest with yourself, you do feel victimized most of the time (e.g. intelligence analysts who feel trapped and subject to politicization or paucity of open source information). Cannot emphasize the primacy of recognizing this choosing faculty enough. Ego does not want to have the responsibility. The beauty of this is that we have a win-win for EVERYONE within our grasp.

The Authentic Self: Discovering ItselfVIDEO: How did we all begin? Big bang? From nothing to something? SOME

sort of dramatic, intense, powerful impulse to BECOME. At the physical level we experience sexual desire. No ambivalence in that physical impulse. At the highest level, the level of consciousness, we experience the same impulse but differently. On the one hand is the desire, an insatiable desire, to want to know. To evolve, to know. It is a compulsion. And higher than that is a spiritual compulsion to evolve as consciousness itself. As we awaken to this imperative, it has a moral component, a sense that you/we have to do this. The authentic self is the part of you that you become aware of, that you experience as the part committed to evolution, to consciousness. When you become aware of this part of you, you have made a dramatic leap in development.

Instructor: Two points that I want to bring out. One is about expanding your consciousness, evolving. Warning: higher levels DEPEND on lower levels. Destroying


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the biosphere will destroy us. This is the leading edge right now. Second point, Andrew makes a subtle distinction, is when the authentic self wakes up to its own existence. Instructor expansion: authentic self actually emerges in collectives. Others who are emergent connect with you and vice versa, and suddenly the group or network realizes that it has a life of its own, a hyper-level in which you are in the authentic self and it is NETWORKED. This is a whole other level of working together. Everyone had LET GO of their egos and resistance, and were ready to move forward together. Over time, collective aware groups begin to see that their individual psychology is not so individual, but is tied to their group more than they realize.

INSIGHT: Intelligence czar who leaves the old cultures in place, is neutralized from day one. Intelligence reform can happen ONLY if we first gather the leaders at varied levels, integrate them with iconoclasts and leaders from the non-secret tribes, and walk them through this course first.

The Five Fundamental Tenets of Enlightenment

Instructor: This is how you hold on to the perspective, sustain the experience. These are the five tools for transformation, for sustaining an unbridled passion for living. Below are the first five tenets that Andrew Cohen has identified. The first three focus on developing strength of character. Playing all in a row, they work better that way.

Clarity of IntentionVIDEO: I want to be free at all times in all circumstances. No matter what

happens, liberation first. This is the foundation for the whole thing. This puts it all right in your hands. You have to want to be free FROM EGO more than anything else. You want to *be* your authentic self that cares about evolutionary enlightenment. This is black and white—EGO or authentic self. No mix. Ego frightened, full of doubt, ambivalent. The authentic self has no doubt.

The Law of VolitionalityVIDEO: Ego’s position is that I am a victim, wounded. That’s the sensitive self.

The authentic self has never been hurt, wounded, traumatized, victimized. Whatever your personal trials and tribulations of the past, they happened to your ego, not to your authentic self. Avoid reacting to the past. Being free means taking responsibility, accepting the past, focusing on the now and the future.

Face Everything Avoid NothingVIDEO: If you want to be free, from self-image, you will not have any reason for

avoiding anything. Ego is based on an image you have of yourself. If you are invested in seeing yourself in a particular way, then any information you receive about yourself that contradicts the image you have of yourself, will be rejected. Ego is a defense mechanism. It protects the sensitive self from the truth. Ego limits what we hear and see to what affirms us as we already see ourselves. This is why it is so difficult for people to change. If you want to be free, have to be able to face your own imperfection.

INSIGHT: The IC “culture” is about ego, protected by secrecy, bureaucracy, and too much money—no incentive to cope with reality. Totally resistant to reform.


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Instructor: The above three strengthen your capacity for integrity. These three tenets increase your capacity to make choices consistent with your authentic self. The first one, the clarity of intention, was one of Andrew’s first teachings. “If you really want to be free, you will be.” This is another one of those million dollar points of unending contemplation. Free to make the right choice, unhindered in doing the right thing, unhindered in the right to evolve. The second one, the Law of Volitionality, says that nothing can stop you from making choices. The third one, Face Everything, Avoid Nothing, keeps you going. Things happen. The direction you are going in may be the wrong one. You will get signals to this effect. If you refuse to face those signals, you will not be able to make a new choice. The authentic self ALWAYS wants to know what the truth is so it can move on. These three tenets work together. Have a little model:

Direction of your good intentions

Conditioning Awakening Challenge STRENGTH

Instructor: Initially the teacher is responsible for building student’s confidence, but ultimately it is the student that must create their own re-affirmation and confidence. This is how you generate soul strength.

INSIGHT: The next intelligence czar can NOT start with the GIVEN of existing leadership “as is.” They have been conditioned beyond redemption, absent awakening. Hence, the first priority for the next intelligence czar must be to simultaneously give as many of the existing leaders as possible an opportunity to awaken (e.g. via a retreat and then a commitment as a group—those that survive—to innovation and transformation), and as many new iconoclasts as wish to return to service or engage for the first time, to understand and sympathize with the existing cultures, while choosing NOT to accept the old premises.

The Truth of ImpersonalityVIDEO: The law of personality is that the entire human experience is completely

impersonal. You are part of this fifteen year explosion, we are all part of this big evolutionary trajectory. In this context, the personal dimension is not real. The personal melodrama of your own life may seem like everything to your ego, but in relation to everything and everyone else, the ins and outs of your personal drama are almost irrelevant. Now you can begin to stand back and see the flow of the entire human experience, take it less personally. Your fundamental perspective begins to change. Now you see that your own life is not yours alone, but part of the larger human experience. At this point you escape from being lost in the nightmare of the personal sphere, the tiny little sphere with a tiny little ego in the center. Must be willing to renounce the personal sphere in order to be free and be part of the much larger world.


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Instructor: At this point you cross a barrier, crossing over from the personal soul to the impersonal dimension of being a human being. You are not just an individual human, but rather you are part of this mass of humanity. Now, if you are here in this class, this is an END POINT for you. You have completed a particular journey. Now let’s experiment. Think back to your own moments of awakening, the moments that have led to your splitting off. [Robert: turned away from Wall Street to USMC; from USMC to CIA; from clandestine operations to USMC Intelligence Center (analysis); from bureaucratic resistance to change to independent wandering in the OSINT wilderness; from IC centric to USG centric; from USG centric to UN/international centric; from divorce to reaffirmation of marriage; from indulgence to abstinence; from brute force of mind to collective intelligence and group evolution.]

Instructor’s Diagram: from ego-centric to ethno-centric, to world-centric, to cosmo-centric. Now you are beyond the personal, tribal or even world awakening. Now you are in “the whole shebang.” Recognizing the evolutionary impulse as the spiritual impulse is the beginning of your next journey.

Care for the WholeVIDEO: What is your fundamental objective? Now your motivation has to be

for everyone else’s sake. No longer for your sake, but for the sake of the whole, so that evolution will happen, to ensure that the evolutionary transformation occurs and the edge of consciousness is pushed forward—everyone benefits whether they realize it or not.

Instructor: The first three tenets are encompassed within the soul, while the other two merge into the authentic self. Thinking of the whole, most think of it as caring for the whole people, but in this teaching, the emphasis is on the WHOLE of evolution and its process—not just the people, but everything. If evolution is allowed to continue, the people will be taken care of. That’s the five tenets of evolutionary enlightenment.

An Unconditional Relationship to Life

A Commitment to Total VictoryVIDEO: For this teaching to actually work, the individual aspiring to

transformation must begin the path from an undivided place. What is your intention? It must be absolute and unconditional. This is a results-oriented teaching. The target here is evolutionary transformation for the whole, not your own self-centered transformation. No one cares about your individual ego. It is irrelevant. It’s a big leap. Total victory.

Instructor: Summary of all of the above. Meditation is the way you re-boot your own system to strengthen your conviction and work from your authentic self.

QUESTION & ANSWER TIME

Lady. Believe in love, concerned about the suggestion that on a subway you can “delete” them.

Instructor: That was just a metaphor, not meant to be representative of how to relate to all.


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Man: Picking up on that, do think that love is a huge word, and did not hear it once. Why is not a part of this presentation?

Instructor: This is a question that always gets asks. Love, like God, is a word that has so many interpretations. My answer to this question is that I hope that my love for this teaching is so obvious, that my love for the potential, and for all of us to wake up is obvious. I do tend to avoid the word love.

Lady: When you talk about the goal being avoiding the bad part of yourself and always going toward the good part of yourself, I always assumed that love was part of the good part, so I did not see it as missing.

Lady: On the subject of ego, what struck me was not so much about perfection but about thinking that we are right. Also the whole notion of heaven and hell, good and bad.

Instructor: It is the context that defines good and evil. Forward evolution is the goal. Good is what helps that process, bad is what hinders it. Ken Wilbur is relevant here, he talks about the myth of the given. We tend to believe things that appear to be true unless they are proven true. Need to be open to opposing points of view. Need to be more open to the possibility that you may be incorrect.

Man: Largest group for which this can be done?

Instructor: Want to try couple of hundred.

Man: Changes in demographic over past few years?

Instructor: Used to be spiritual New Age. Something now happening. A different group, a different meme is emerging. People interested in new ideas. A lot of that New Age stuff that was not really useful kind of fell to the side and what really helped has survived. What I am planning to do is take this out as broadly as possible. Want to help train people to teach these ideas to others. The next wave of people who will begin to transmit these messages needs to be cultivated, and hopefully every wave will be bigger.[Robert: this needs to be part of the orientation at boot camp, at war colleges; indeed, could be a part of transpartisan grassroots organizing and mobilizing.]

Man: What’s next?

Instructor: There will be. Steve will talk about it. Two levels, one regional, and one educational. This movement is about GIVING to people. Whether people realize it or not, there IS a movement to do this, we need to do better at directing people to what they are already looking for.

Man: Fundamentalists ever attend a course? How did they do?


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Instructor: Had ONE, a banker, a pentecostalist, did not believe in evolution. After I got a grip, asked her if she believed in development, she said yes, and she ended up being the best student. Thought that because she really did have a deep spiritual basis, she could engage, whereas most of the people in the room only cared about making money and did not really care about the ideas.

Man: You kind of said that if you don’t meditate two hours a day and or engage in a communal activity, we won’t make progress. Is there an option for non-meditators?

Instructor: Nope. (Laughter). Don’t jump in too fast, it usually does not work out. Meditating is not the most important thing. The most important thing is to really think about these ideas and talk to others about them. This about really pursuing this cosmos-centric path.

Man: In the Christian tradition, meditation is considered to be contemplation rather than blocking out all external thoughts.

Instructor; In the Eastern tradition it is about having an empty mind.

Man: What’s the missing half? What do you expect for a group like this?

Instructor: This is a work in progress. Want to put a book together. What’s important is that you pursue these ideas on your own, with your local area ENLIGHTEN group.

Lady: Some people teach meditation as something you can do while doing everyday tasks, which actually has helped me work with my own client who can then work it in to their schedule. What are your thoughts on that?

Instructor: There are a lot of different meditation practices. In this teaching the practice is to sit and be focused, to handle the movement of mind. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be helpful to try other methods, but the important thing as Andrew said in this last video, is results.

Lady: Interested in transformative moments.

Instructor: Context is critical. Transformative in relation to what? Does it show that you are unhindered in your development, and pusing evolutionary enlightenment along?

For more information including availability of this and other courses world-wide, visit: http://www.eecourse.org

If you participated in this course and can improve on these notes, please send necessary changes or additions to Robert Steele at [email protected] with ENLIGHTEN as the first word in the subject line. Or fax to 703.266.6391.


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mailto:[email protected]

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IOP ’07 Pre-Con 0 (Saturday-Sunday). This course costs $225 a person but I can probably negotiate a discount if we put together a group. If 20 or more people sign up (no money will be charged until numbers meet the objective, at which point each individual will be asked to confirm and then if the numbers hold steady, to pay), we will arrange for this course to be offered at the hotel the week-end prior to the conference (13-14 January 2007). If you are an intelligence professional, a bureaucrat, or an organizer, this course will enhance your understanding and capability by at least 15% and perhaps much more.

Step 1: Send Robert a FAX with name and legible email “Interested in Enlightenment Course.” To fax ++ 703.266.6391.

Step 2: If and only if 20 or more sign up, Robert will send you all an email asking you to confirm.

Step 3: If and only if 20 or more CONFIRM, then Robert will send you a separate registration form with which to pay by credit card, wire, or check.

General information about IOP ’07 (15-19 January 2006): http://www.oss.net/IOP. 50% scholarships available for enlightenment participants; 100% for E-Staff.


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