CREATIVE CONFLICT

Cohen: There's another dimension to all this that I wanted to talk about. It's something you're very familiar with in your own work, and something I struggle with all the time, which has to do with the nature of the creative process itself. If one is truly moved or inspired by the evolutionary impulse, ultimately one is going to be endeavoring to create that which is new—in our case, new structures in consciousness. New structures demanding higher and higher levels of integration. And it seems that an inherent part of the creative/developmental process involves transcending the old in order to embrace the new. This kind of transition inevitably will create conflict—conflict between the old structures and those new ones that are trying to emerge. Of course, at the deepest level it's being fueled by an ecstatic compulsion to create, but the structures that one is endeavoring to transcend and go beyond will perceive that creative impulse as threatening or even aggressive.

Wilber: Right.

Cohen: So the interesting point which I think needs to be brought out is that part and parcel of the creative process is conflict. This fact tends to challenge many of us who have spiritual inclinations. It challenges our deepest beliefs about Ultimacy, about the nature of God. It calls for greater depth, higher evolution, and a much bigger embrace of this miraculous process we are all participating in. The fact that the nature of the creative process includes conflict, and that conflict is ultimately part of our larger development, can be both a bitter pill and a glorious awakening. But it's a fact.

Wilber: Oh, I agree. I think even the traditions have generally tended to agree with that view. As you know, in the Hindu tradition, for example, generally Ultimate Reality itself, or Brahman, is seen as unqualifiable. It's a cloud of unknowing; it's divine ignorance. You can't say it is or it isn't, or it's up or it's down—it transcends all opposites including that one. So it's neither aggressive nor peaceful. But the manifest world always arises as a play of opposites. There's Brahma the creator and Shiva the destroyer—creation and destruction go together. In the manifest domain, God is all of nature and everything that's out there. And nature is one big restaurant—everybody's eating everybody; it's a daily menu. It's creation, destruction, life and death happening a gazillion times a second, and all of that is God, the manifest God, playing both light and shadow.

Cohen: Yes. And that's not difficult to see at the gross physical level. But when we go to the highest or most subtle level, the level of consciousness, the same process of creation and destruction is also still occurring.

Wilber: Absolutely. I think Hegel gave a wonderful summary of what we're talking about. It's a fancy kind of Hegelian tongue twister, of course, but this was his notion of transformation or transcendence: “To transform is at once both to negate and to preserve.” I often say to “transcend and include.” Each moment transcends and includes its predecessor. So to transcend something means that you go beyond it, and therefore you negate it in that sense. It's even a death in a sense; it's the destruction of the narrowness of the thing that came before. But then you also include it in the new and bigger reality. So I always liked that expression, “negate and preserve.” It's creative death and destruction leading to a new birth or rebirth at a new and more encompassing reality.

A FOCUSED INTENSITY

Cohen: So as we begin to understand that God is manifest, unmanifest, and also transcends both, then the question arises: What does the nature of God look like as it becomes conscious of itself, or aware of itself?

Wilber: In the manifest domain?

Cohen: In the manifest domain.

Wilber: I call it spirit-in-action. And it looks like evolution!

Cohen: And how does evolution look?

Wilber: [Laughing] Evolution is like riding a psychotic horse toward a burning barn!

Cohen: You mean because it meanders so wildly?

Wilber: Mike Murphy is fond of saying that evolution meanders more than it progresses. And that's true, but it does progress.

Cohen: Sure. But let's try to move closer to the very center of the evolutionary impulse itself. As regards the ultimate nature of this whole process, in my own experience I have found that there is a profound ecstasy at the innermost heart of it all. When it is purely witnessed, free from any distinctions, it seems to reveal to us that the ultimate nature of this whole process is inconceivably positive. And it's not felt as meandering—it feels more like a powerfully focused intensity.

Wilber: I think it varies at different moments, but I think what you're saying is very important because even though evolution at large meanders and progresses, the very impulse itself is definitely spirit-in-action; it's an Eros. It's a very erotic and very intense impulse. And half of it is a blissful pushing into newness, and the other half is sort of a carpet burn and the death of the old.

Cohen: Exactly! So this definition and understanding of God as evolution in action, as this kind of focused intensity, points to something very important, I think.

Wilber: Yes, I think so too.

Cohen: Especially as we endeavor to redefine and update what enlightenment is all about, to recontextualize the realization of nondual awareness in an evolutionary, developmental framework.

Wilber: Right. And I do think that's sometimes where people get confused about what you're saying or what I'm saying or what Mike Murphy is saying, or what any of us are saying who are trying to have a nondual view of evolution. What I mean by that is that we acknowledge ground, we acknowledge this pure emptiness that is neither evolving nor not evolving, this fundamental ground that you describe in your teachings; that's a fundamental component of meditation as well. And we're not denying that you have to be established in that ever-present nondual isness or suchness. But some people, if they just stick to that alone, end up getting caught in a quietude or passivity or quiescence, which is really a misunderstanding of ground. So what we're saying is that there needs to be a bigger mind, if you like, a Big Mind that embraces both emptiness and form. And emptiness is absolute stillness, but form is absolute shouting! It's evolutionary manifestation, and if you can't get both of those in Big Mind, then frankly, you ain't got a very big mind!

THE STRUCTURES OF THE FUTURE

Cohen: So then to take this one step further, we agree, more or less, that the expression of God in the manifest realm, at its best, is this evolutionary push, this thrust forward. And in that, there is always the exciting possibility of new structures emerging, which is something we're both very interested in. But if one has awakened in this way and is compelled ecstatically to create new and higher structures, that's inevitably going to demand the use of some kind of force, for want of a better word, or insistence, that we move to a higher level.

Wilber: Yes, in the manifest domain, of course. But a lot of people are going to object to the word “force.”

Cohen: I wish there was a better word, because “force” sounds so negative.

Wilber: Well, it's like whatever a chicken does when it hatches out of an egg. You can use whatever words you want, but what that chick is doing looks pretty damn forceful to me.

Cohen: I call it “evolutionary tension.” Often we relate to tension as being bad or negative, but I always remind people that evolutionary tension is inherently positive. That's what makes you sit up straight. That's when you're focused, you're paying attention. It's when your higher conscience has been awakened and you are conscious of a mysterious sense of care for something higher than the concerns of your own ego.

Wilber: This is another thing that people commonly misunderstand. People think that when you say force, it means “I have the right to force you.” But what we're talking about is that my higher self has a right to force my lower self. That's all we're talking about.

Cohen: Exactly. As I've mentioned to you before, one of the most important things that I'm trying to do with my students is to create a structure that is based on the radical truth of that higher self, which we described in our last dialogue as the Authentic Self, and that will not admit the limited truth of the lower self, the ego, and all of its relative fears and desires. For many years I've sensed that if a collective could meet in this Authentic Self, a higher structure would be created that could become, one could say, a portal or even an engine for the evolution of consciousness itself. One that would support a kind of development that was beyond any individual, a new or higher form of creative potential. Does this make any sense to you?

Wilber: Well, it does. This is the thing that's so interesting, frustrating, exciting, freaky, disappointing all at once—that to the extent that spirit is in action, any age is evolving. Whether it's in the Paleolithic caves or the Middle Ages or any other time, moment to moment that spirit is in action. Moment to moment God unfolds in the manifest domain. And so if you're on a spiritual path, in any age, and you're actually attuned to the authentic moment itself whenever it occurs, you're going to be riding the edge of evolution. You're going to be sitting on the edge of that chaotic, frothy emergence and both helping it to unfold and also intuiting the higher, deeper dimensions of spirit itself. So you're actually watching structure-building occurring. And to some extent you're helping it, and to some extent you're having it done to you. But we're all sort of groping our way into it. New structures have to be built, and we don't know what those are. And so there's this trial-and-error process, where you try to build these structures and hope they get laid down in some way that fits with the other grains and dimensions of the universe. And certainly somebody who's in a sangha like you are, and pushing this thing forward, is going to see these kinds of things starting to happen.

Cohen: It's so exciting. Because one gets glimpses of an enormous potential that's just right on the edge of awareness. And at times it really feels like we're trying to create a structure that's going to be a vehicle for something so much bigger than anything I understand.

Wilber: I think down the line, there's going to be an increasing sort of subtlety and sophistication in being able to discern exactly what's going on. For example, if you're building inter-subjective structures, to the extent that they do get built, they'll stick because structures are permanent. They're actual stage accomplishments. You'll notice that once they're laid down, everybody can kind of breathe easier and rest there. But then there will be these ecstatic states, which I would call “trans-subjective,” that kind of swoop down. And every time a trans-subjective state is experienced, it helps to break the previous inter-subjective structure.

Cohen: To take it to a higher level, you mean.

Wilber: Exactly.

Cohen: Or at least to reveal a higher potential.

Wilber: Yes. So all of this is part of that creation/destruction process. Any moment of laying down a new structure has at least those three parts. One, it has a trans-subjective state that sort of descends on people. Then there's a destruction of the previous inter-subjective structure. And then the third component is a laying down of the new, higher inter-subjective structure, and that is driven by this trans-subjective state that's pushing fullness and evolutionary unfolding and trans-individuality. And that's an impersonal force, not an inter-subjective force, if that makes sense.

Cohen: Yes, it definitely does. And it's so thrilling when one begins to see and understand how these new structures are formed and to recognize what their incredible evolutionary potential is. I mean, that's what you must find in your own work—you're not only helping people to see what structures already exist that they weren't aware of before, but through that same insight, also making it possible for new structures to be created.

Wilber: I certainly hope so. The hope is that by looking at the formation of structures in the past, using empirical and historical research, we can not only honor and acknowledge the structures that are there, but we can also focus our attention on that leading, frothy, chaotic, creative/destructive edge of evolution and help to move it forward. We have no choice. Evolution is conscious of itself now. There's no going back. Therefore we have to take it into our own hands. It's spirit in action today. So if you're spiritually active today, you're helping to understand evolution. That's my strongest belief.