Evolutionary Enlightenment by Andrew Cohen

Author:Andrew Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781590792292
Publisher: Hillcrest Media Group

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The reason you meditate is not to become free. When you awaken to the ground of Being, you discover that you already are free. In this deepest part of your self, nothing has ever happened. You have not been born; even time itself has not yet begun. The purpose of meditation is to recognize, over and over and over again, that you are already free. If your practice has power, if your experience of the ground of Being is deep and profound, you will discover and rediscover that, in truth, you are not a prisoner. You are not held captive by your own mind, nor are you imprisoned by your thoughts and emotions. This timeless mystical insight sounds so simple, but it's so, so easy to forget.

The ground of Being is a deeper, infinitely more subtle dimension of your own consciousness that cannot be perceived by the gross faculties of the conditioned mind and ego. You can't see the ground of Being; you can't taste it; you can't touch it. Even if you have directly experienced the unconditioned freedom of that empty ground, when you return to the world of conditioned mind and ego, you're likely to doubt it. The mind simply cannot cognize this dimension of formless Being, and the ego cannot know it. That's why it's important to practice the art and science of stillness as much as you can. If you meditate regularly, with a strong intention, you will keep rediscovering that you are not a prisoner. You cannot recognize that enough. Until your conviction in your own freedom is unwavering, and you're able to prove it through unbroken consistency in the way that you live, meditate every day as if your life depended on it. You need to keep having that experience. Each and every time you realize that you're not a prisoner, it gives you a deeper confidence in that empty ground that is your own deepest self. It builds a conscious conviction in the liberating truth of no-limitation.

When you practice the art and science of stillness, you must strive to maintain that posture of unconditional freedom, no matter what your inner experience may be. In that posture, you disengage your attention from attachment to and identification with all thoughts, images, memories, emotions, beliefs, and convictions, and simply allow it to come to rest upon awareness itself. If you want to be a liberated vessel for the evolutionary impulse, you must learn how to directly experience the chaos and confusion of your own mind without being disturbed by any of it. Only if you can bear it will you be able to take responsibility for it. If you can't calmly endure the chaos of your own mind, others will inevitably suffer the consequences. If you can't handle the movement of your own thoughts and emotions with ease, while you are simply being still and paying attention, then how are you ever going to make the appropriate choices when you are walking, talking, and engaging with others? Meditation is training for life.

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