« Back to subject directoryEvolutionary Enlightenment

Andrew Cohen’s twenty years of experience as a spiritual teacher provides dynamic counterpoint to Ken Wilber’s comprehensive integral theory. The result is more than an exchange of ideas, as “guru and pandit” bring their rigorous inquiry and passion to this lively exploration of Wilber’s new manifesto.

Cohen and Wilber take to the stage in Denver, Colorado, and explore the future of enlightenment—they also field a wide assortment of questions and articulate commentary from the audience—in their first-ever public dialogue.

In this, their 11th exchange, Cohen and Wilber explore how transformation is sustained in people. This leads to a discussion about the value of both spiritual experience and the framework in which experience is interpreted, and how each can lead to enlightenment.

What does a second-tier, or integral, perspective signify? What does it look like, and how do we acquire it? These are questions that Cohen and Wilber address in this dialogue, which advocates a commitment to the very biggest perspective.

The importance of how the spiritual experience is interpreted is the focus of this conversation between Cohen and Wilber. They examine the impact of evolution on both culture and spirituality and delve into the nature of enlightenment in a world of evolving form.

Cohen and Wilber turn their attention to how large-scale change actually takes place. They find that both including and excluding previous levels of development are part of the process of transcendence as they investigate how higher expressions of consciousness emerge.

A New Spiritual Canon

The guru and the pandit discuss the relationship between belief systems, views of reality, and political orientation in this thought-provoking dialogue. In so doing, they describe the nature of the creative process and its role in the process of transcending old structures.

Wilber and Cohen exchange their understandings of how the developmental trajectory unfolds. They discuss the evolutionary impulse, what it is and why it’s significant, and differentiate between stages and states of consciousness.

The importance of a moral context for spiritual experience occupies the attention of Wilber and Cohen in this riveting exchange. They confront the ethical ambiguities of our time and re-insert morality into the discussion of postmodern spirituality.

What would “spirituality appropriate” to our rapidly evolving times look like? Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen consider new religious structures and the potential they have for bringing people together in a context that transcends the individual.

The West's foremost cartographer of consciousness joins the founder of WIE to discuss the anatomy of modern spiritual transformation. Together, they confront the prevailing cultural disposition that must be challenged if humans are to take the next evolutionary step.

In this, the inaugural dialogue of a new serialized feature of WIE, integral philosopher Ken Wilber and WIE founder Andrew Cohen talk together about the implications of enlightenment in an evolving universe.