Andrew Cohen the man behind WIE and self proclaimed Spiritual Guru was in Israel last September on some kind of teaching tour. During his visit he took some time out to participate in an interesting interview which discussed among other things, Israel and what Cohen refers to as “Evolutionary Spirituality“.

I’ve known of Andrew Cohen and his work for about six or seven years thanks to a friend who talked me into buying an issue of his What Is Enlightenment magazine. Coincidentally (or maybe not, who knows) that issue also turned me on to Don Beck and Spiral Dynamics which is something I’m hugely interested in but that’s a topic for another post.

While I’m off-topic I might as well mention that Ken Wilber also recently did an interview (phone) with a journalist from Israel. I meant to post about it while Tamara was here but to be honest several of his comments aggravated me so much I decided not to bother for the time being. Let’s just say that I didn’t feel he came off all that “Integrally Informed” about Judaism and I basically figured that if I didn’t have anything positive to say, I might as well not say anything at all. However maybe I can come back to it later on this week and try tying it into this post. Who knows?

Okay let’s try to get back on track with this here post…

At least on the surface much of Cohen’s Evolutionary Enlightenment shtick resonates with me and I believe that many aspects of his Evolutionary Spirituality are quite compatible with Judaism, at least the more liberal/progressive expressions of it. However many things about the man and the way he personally manifests in the world just doesn’t work for me. I suppose there are several reasons for my cautiousness about him but they aren’t relevant to this post, so I won’t bother going into them. For me the bottom line is that Andrew Cohen is right on the mark about a few things which are IMO both important and worthy of exploration. I don’t have to accept him as enlightened or as my spiritual teacher in order to benefit from his views, so I see no need to throw the guru out with the bath water.

The interview touched on several interesting topics for example much of what he was pushing throughout the interview was the importance of action and engaging in the active pursuit of change, both internally/spiritually as well as communally and globally. I found his emphasis on doing more than just talking to be rather synchronistic, echoing one of my own recent posts on ethical behavior versus ethical thinking

I was also impressed by his ability to focus on Israeli/Jewish issues as perceived through the perceptual lens of his Evolutionary Spirituality. Also to my surprise he engaged in far less Judeo/Israel bashing than I expected. Of course he touched on how modern Israelis are as narcissistic as any other Westerners and he alluded to some of the ethnocentric limitations of Jewish tribalism but overall I found him  to be balanced and on the money. In fact I even found him somewhat optimistic albeit in an edgy way when he drew comparisons between how there were many similarities between the philosophy underlying the Israeli Kibbutz movement and his own take on Kosmocentrism. All very interesting.

Part One

Early on in part one Andrew Cohen touches on the fact that he believes more people today are clueing into the global crisis that currently exists. He goes on to explain how people are coming to the sober realization that we can’t as a species continue going about things the way we have been. Although he doesn’t go into details I think it’s safe to assume that he’s suggesting that we as a species are now moving to a critical point where our way of life environmentally, economically and socially is simply no longer globally sustainable.

I also agreed with his points (BTW I’m heavily paraphrasing here) tying in enlightenment and evolution as a never-ending process which is continually taking place. The key as I understand it being that enlightenment is not a destination but rather an evolutionary process, leading towards greater wholeness. A process which all humans must go through if we are to survive.

Personally I feel that Andrew Cohen’s Evolutionary Spirituality ties in extremely well with our own Jewish notion of Tikkun Olam and our pursuit of the messianic age.

Of course I realize that the traditional use of the term Tikkun is generally understood as repair. I however perceive it as something more accurately referring to, growth and improvement in an evolutionary sort of way. My understanding of Tikkun is not one so focused on acts of repairing defects, deficits or a sense of brokenness. Rather I see Tikkun (in all of its manifestations) as the divinely inspired human impulse to constantly grow towards G-D, much like a plants drive to grow up towards the sun. Ultimately when the process of Tikkun is engaged in, it acts as a force that continually moves us towards ever increasing experiences of wholeness, both individually and collectively.

Andrew also makes an interesting point about narcissism which struck me as something one could also describe as a form of immature adolescent materialism. If I understood correctly he suggested that this problem (which is not limited to Israelis BTW) is probably one of the largest barriers to his notion of Evolutionary Spirituality. I can’t say that I disagree with him however I’m not sure that it isn’t just another part of the evolutionary process itself. Anyhow I think the basic point he’s trying to make is that regardless of whether this narcissism is part of the developmental process or not, it needs to be overcome in order to continue our spiritual evolution. In fact remaining stuck at this narcissistic level according to him is the main reason we now find ourselves in this state of crisis and I can’t say that I disagree.

Cohen goes on to discuss how out of this narcissistic state a lot of confusion has grown in Israeli society and the West in general. He talks about how today people seem to have an arrogant sense of entitlement, which more or less keeps everyone hyper-focused on themselves. He basically says that his teachings are about getting people to grow up and I think it’s a great teaching. I think the idea of becoming a grownup fits in very well with my previously mentioned take on Tikkun. In fact I would suggest that our messianic goal is also very much about growing up. In fact one could argue that the messianic age will only come about when we collectively become responsible adults and act accordingly.

Part one concludes with what I consider to be something of a contradiction where Andrew discusses how what is required to overcome our narcissistic problems is a cultural revolution, similar to the one which took place in the 1960s. He then goes on to discuss how there is a basic and fundamental goodness which permeates everything including our own evolution basically suggesting that there is this fundamental goodness that fills the entire life process. That to believe in G-D is to have a faith in the fundamental goodness that is this life process, regardless of the challenges or evil we encounter along the way.

Although Cohen may only be using the term revolution to indicate that a rapid change needs to take place, it’s a concept which strikes me (ironically enough) as being aggressive and narcissistic. More importantly I view the very notion of revolution as something incompatible with any real sense of faith in a basic goodness which permeates all of life. It seems to me that one engages in revolution when they have lost faith and have become so desperate as to try and force a change instead of growing it.

That’s not to say that one cannot or should not stand up and fight when it is required. Simply that someone with a view rooted in an awareness of the primordial goodness which fills all life, IMO will never need to push any form of revolution. Rather when one has a faith in the holiness contained within all of life we can instead seek out opportunities to nurture every G-D sparked evolutionary (Tikkun) impulse in order to find solutions and adapt to the situation at hand.

In no way am I suggesting the people should bliss out in only view the world through rose-colored glasses. I’m suggesting that we can have faith in our Basic Goodness and the abilities which come out of that, in order to reflect, grow and evolve in a way that allows us to meet our challenges.

I believe my evolutionary slant is very much in sync with what it means to be a Jew spiritually. After all it’s a commonly held Jewish belief that G-D never throws more at us than we are capable of handling and that with proper faith in effort we can meet our challenges. It is also a commonly held Jewish belief that our role here on earth is to elevate and sanctify the world, manifesting the holy everywhere until we elevate all of creation right up to heaven. To me that’s a very organic process which doesn’t require any revolution, only our G-d-given impulse to grow and evolve.

Part Two

Wow, I was going to comment on the second part of the interview however I seem to have spent way longer than I’d planned to, so I think I need to wrap up here.

Anyhow check at the videos they’re both very interesting and are under 20 minutes in combined running time.

And as always feel free to share your thoughts if you do in fact watching videos.

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