Opening Remarks

Ken Wilber: We live in rather extraordinary times, if you think about it. We have access to all the world’s great living traditions. This has never happened before in history. We are blessed to be able to experiment with and mine the various ways that Spirit has chosen to make itself known in the past. This is a challenge, and it’s a threat. It’s something that we want more than anything else, yet it’s something that we’re frightened of more than anything else (and if you’re not frightened, you don’t understand it). So it’s a very delicate balance. Fortunately, we have God on our side. Unfortunately, however, we have egos; we have self-contractions.

So what we want to do today is talk about both sides of that street and ways that you can tip the scales in your favor. And also look at some of the ways that all of us are inherently dedicated to not waking up—which we know is the case, because the empirical evidence is right there. Of course, there’s also the fact that we are all here together today, pooling our understanding and resources in order to engage in arguably the greatest adventure there is: the adventure of consciousness, the adventure of waking up, the adventure of going so deep into yourself that you stumble and fall into infinity. Under those circumstances, a new destiny arises from consciousness. And this destiny is one of pain and suffering plus bliss and ecstasy, minus your fundamental objection to life. And that’s quite an extraordinary thing to realize you can do without.

There’s a politically incorrect definition of a pioneer: the guy with all the arrows in his back. That’s fundamentally what any of us who are trying to push the envelope are up against. We’re running into the stresses and strains of cosmic reluctance, because what are being laid down or created right now are actually structures of consciousness. The structures of the future are not Platonic givens that drop down from heaven. They are structures that we build every time we have a thought that’s just a little bit higher than the thought we had a moment before, or engage in an activity that’s just a little bit more noble than the activity we engaged in a moment before, or transmit our own state and the transmission is a little bit deeper than it was a moment before. In these ways, cosmic habits are built up, and that’s basically what we’re engaged in. It’s an extraordinary adventure. I can’t think of anything like it.

One of my favorite exercises from Quaker prayer gatherings is: “Let the next sentence out of your mouth be from your very highest self.” Everybody gets quiet at that point! But that’s the kind of attitude we want to bring to these dialogues. New structures in consciousness are being laid down right now—they are just faint footprints on the face of the cosmos. So your behavior, to the extent that you live up to your highest, is actually creating structures that future humanity will inhabit. Therefore, choose your acts very, very carefully. Make sure that the next action you take comes from your highest self. Make sure that the next thing that you say comes from your highest self. Then there’s hope for the future. Those structures are already being laid down. God is laying them down; Spirit is laying them down—through us. So we have to become appropriate vehicles for Spirit to lay down the very structures that humanity is going to inhabit. And if we don’t, that is a guilt we will carry with us for eternity.

Andrew Cohen: Ken was just speaking about what it would mean to give up our fundamental objection to life— or what I would call our refusal to transcend our almost pathological engagement with our narcissistic inclinations.

Wilber: Yep. (Laughter from audience)

Cohen: So what would it be like to truly give that up—to be so serious about it that it wasn’t a joke anymore? The reason to strive to do that would be so that we were able to take up the ultimate challenge, the adventure that Ken was speaking about, which, to put it very simply, is to actually create the future ourselves. As he was describing, the structures that lie in front of us don’t yet exist, and it’s up to us as individuals, together, to actually create those new structures. I feel that the degree to which, on an individual level, we are willing to let in the absolute uncompromising fact that the future literally depends on us will mean everything about the kind of person we’re going to be, the kind of relationship to life we will have, and ultimately the difference we’re going to be able to make in this world. So it’s a deadly serious matter.

What I’m very interested in, and what Ken and I have often discussed, is how enlightenment itself is evolving. As human understanding develops and we begin to understand the spiritual path in an evolutionary context, we can see that it is no longer about merely transcending the world but about embracing this active dimension of what it means to consciously create the cosmos. Until very recently, God, or the creative principle, was something that we were asking for help from. But I believe we’ve reached a time in history when God, which I would describe as the energy and intelligence that created the universe, is now completely dependent upon us—upon those sentient beings who have reached a level of development where we’re capable of beginning to appreciate who we are and why we are here. God is not “up there” waiting to save us. That creative principle is who we are—not just in the formless, unmanifest dimension but in the creative, manifest world, as the evolutionary impulse, the spark that initiated the big bang, which is our own Authentic Self. The mysterious compulsion to evolve that we experience at the level of consciousness is nothing less than God becoming aware of himself, herself, or itself, as us. In this awakening, we directly know that the future depends upon us. It’s no longer just an idea; it’s an emotionally felt absolute reality.

So I think that creating the future at the leading edge is dependent upon each one of us waking up to this Authentic Self and making whatever effort is necessary to begin to identify with that thrilling creative passion and to transcend our attachment to the fears and desires of the ego or separate-self sense, which go on forever. Traditionally, the seeker would aspire to transcend ego in order to abide in the timeless ground of being. But I don’t think that what the world needs now is more people hanging out in the timeless ground of being! I think we have to resist the temptation to get lost in timelessness and begin to embrace the overwhelming urgency of the evolutionary crisis we’re in, which, as Ken has stated much more eloquently than I can, is a crisis of consciousness, a crisis of understanding, a crisis of development. Many of us can intellectually appreciate our predicament, but that’s not enough. We have to bridge the gap between our capacity to cognitively appreciate the problem and our willingness to actually become the solution ourselves, as truly enlightened human beings.

On Risk and Trust

Question: Once we surrender to what you’ve called the “creative principle,” how can we know that we’re on the right track, that
we’re really acting on behalf of a better future?

Cohen: How can we know? Well, it’s a very delicate question, but part and parcel of the kind of awakening we’re speaking about is that you begin to directly intuit or cognize a higher order. It’s experienced as a kind of harmony or fullness or integration, a higher structure that makes profound sense out of everything, and the best way I can describe it is that it’s self-authenticating or self-legitimizing. This may be a silly metaphor, but it’s almost like you can hear the angels singing. These intuitions are of the impersonal structures of consciousness itself, higher and higher manifestations of the ultimate truth of oneness. So the higher you go, the greater is the sense of being at the very center of the universe, of creation—of seeing with the eyes of God. Now, as to whether the individual is actually enlightened or is some insane pathological maniac, I guess others will have to make up their own minds. I mean, Hitler obviously had his own visions too . . .

Wilber: There’s one way you can tell a little bit, and this is approaching it more from the pandit’s side of the street. When that higher manifestation comes down, to the extent that it’s healthy, you should feel it resonating in all four quadrants—and it feels deeply, deeply right. So it’s impersonal in the sense that it’s a higher person; it’s not just radically without person. It’s God in the first person; and it’s also dealing with the world and dealing with you and we and it, and you can feel it resonating. When it hits all four quadrants, there is something very right about it. If it hits just one or the other, there’s something inherently a little bit off. It’s very seductive, because you can get one or two and you think, this must be right. But it may be just resonating with the I—not resonating with the you or the we, and so on.

Cohen: So unless it’s all quadrants, it won’t vibrate in that way that is self-authenticating.

Wilber: Right. And even if you mentally have to back off and check, write it down—all of us have to do that. Andrew’s right on the money in saying that when it comes down and it’s healthy, you feel its authenticity; it creates an extraordinary sort of coming into manifestation of the next higher you. But then you can stand back and reflect on it. That’s what critical reflection is—after the fact, you do a little review process.

Question: So Andrew’s speaking more about the felt experience that it’s right, and you’re saying it also fits the four quadrants.

Wilber: Yes.

Cohen: But it’s also seen—it’s felt and seen as a whole. I don’t want to reduce what we’re talking about to a felt experience. I’m describing a higher level of cognition in which the emotional experience and what’s being seen, what’s being cognized, cannot be separated. The felt dimension is actually the least important part of it. What matters is what’s happening in consciousness. New structures will have to come along to be able to contain what’s being seen at moments like that.

Wilber: Yes, and it’s not itself an experience.

Cohen: Right. But you know, the directly felt and seen dimension of this is always going to be moving faster than our understanding of it.

Question: So are you saying that at a certain point we have to trust that what feels right is beneficial for the cosmos? We can never ultimately know?

Cohen: Well, I’m just saying that if you are pushing an edge in the way Ken was describing it, you are inherently going to be exploring territory that is, relatively speaking, unknown. So it takes a certain kind of courage to let yourself go that far. And of course, there is a risk there. Now, the risk is only felt by the separate-self sense or ego. The part of you that is pushing this edge, the creative impulse, doesn’t experience it as a risk because pushing that edge is a function of consciousness at that level. But when your human self, your ego, begins to be overwhelmed by that energy that’s endeavoring to create the future, two things can happen. To the degree to which you identify only with that consciousness that’s trying to create the future, there’s no fear. But when you step back and start thinking about it, there can be a recoil, an absolute terror.

When it comes to the question of whether one is on the right track or not, whether one is actually in touch with a higher level or just a little crazy, we have to be careful. How do we define sanity anyway, especially when we’re talking about pushing an edge? I mean, in a world where most people are struggling to even keep up the pretense of integration, what does sanity actually mean? None of us should take for granted that we know what it is. Perhaps relatively speaking we can know, but when we are speaking about pushing the edge, about reaching for higher levels of development, the difference between madness and a higher expression of profound sanity may be very difficult for one who is not wise or enlightened to distinguish. It opens up questions that should force all of us to sit back and maybe question a lot of our assumptions.

So I think what I’m trying to say is that there are no guarantees. Of course, what Ken said is true—if you could see that all four quadrants were being taken into consideration, you could probably have a sense that you’re on the right track. But still, when you’re talking about pushing the edge, there’s always going to be an element of enormous risk.

Wilber: Let me play the other side of that too. What Andrew’s saying is very important, and you also have to balance it with a fundamental trust. There’s a very fundamental moment in consciousness where you establish trust. You can’t distrust what’s arising moment to moment. That very point of touching what’s arising moment to moment—you can’t doubt that. If you did doubt that, you’d be aware of the doubter. So you are in basic trust of the universe as it is arising. And that moment of contact with the universe when it’s arising, that moment of touch, is Spirit. You can’t fundamentally doubt the existence of Spirit, any more than you can doubt the arising that’s happening right now. So it’s important to do all the things that Andrew’s talking about. And it’s important to then stand back and reflect: Does it seem like it’s resonating with all the different components in me, such as the quadrants? But don’t ever lose track of that fundamental trust, because that’s the very nature of God in you that’s touching this world. And it’s very palpable.