We sometimes republish Andrew Cohen’s weekly email quotes here, especially when they strike a particular chord. This week’s certainly does. It develops Andrew’s ideas of “evolutionary enlightenment”, the notion that the whole of the manifest world is a straining for greater consciousness on the part of the unmanifest.

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Reaching for the Unattainable
The traditional, premodern notion of enlightenment was all about coming to an end, a final state of perfection or a complete attainment. But when we redefine enlightenment in an evolutionary context, there is no longer an end–development is constant. Of course, the unmanifest ground of all being, which is the foundation of traditional enlightenment, is inherently full and perfect as it is and will never change or develop. But in evolutionary enlightenment, we awaken not only to that unmanifest ground but also to the evolutionary impulse that is driving the manifest, evolving universe. And that impulse is only interested in higher and higher development. That is its nature. So if our goal is to become a living expression of that impulse, which is what evolutionary enlightenment is all about, we as evolving individuals would have to become very interested in the notion of perpetual development, and let go of any emotional or philosophical investment in the idea of attaining perfection any time soon.

As evolving human beings, we are inherently imperfect and we’re not capable of reaching perfection, because we are in a constant state of development. But the path to evolutionary enlightenment is paradoxical, because I have found that the most appropriate posture for consistent higher development is one of ceaselessly reaching for perfection while knowing full well that we’ll never be able to achieve it. Only reaching toward that which is absolute–ever striving to attain the unattainable–puts the self in a position to consistently evolve. And it’s a lot to ask of any human being, because our nature is to seek comfort, security, and rest. But when we reach that point in our own spiritual journey where our attention is no longer primarily focused on our own comfort and security or even on our own enlightenment, but has become dedicated to the evolution of consciousness itself, we will find the courage to bear the creative tension of ceaselessly extending ourselves toward the unattainable.

Andrew Cohen