What is the moral context for the human experience
at the beginning of the twenty-first century? Most importantly,
for the minority who are privileged and educated, for those at
the leading edge—us—what is the moral
context for our relationship to life? The fact is, for
most of us, there isn't any. That's the problem, really. But
it's not our fault. We are all products of our own time and
place in history, and ours is the age of the individual—a
time when our own personal desires and concerns are almost
always the determining factors in making our most important life
choices. In this time when we have almost infinite options, when
many of us are dubious of notions of higher truth and experience
an aversion to any sense of obligation, it's no wonder that
morally we find ourselves at sea. So self-focused have we become
that we've literally lost touch with the moral dimension of the
human experience. And the only way that a new, authentic moral
context will begin to reveal itself to us is if our fixation on
our personal desires falls into the background. It's for this
reason that spiritual experience is so important.
The traditional teachings of enlightenment tell us that only
when we are willing to let go of our personal desires will we be
able to directly experience the grandeur, glory, and
awe-inspiring mystery of Being that transcends life and death.
The living revelation of enlightened consciousness itself is so
extraordinary, so liberating, because freed from the tethers of
the personal sphere, our awareness expands to what feels like
infinity. And in that infinite embrace of everything that is, a
care and concern, a love and passion for everything
that is reveals itself quite spontaneously. And we recognize
that that care and concern is not in any way separate from
consciousness itself, and is in fact our own deepest
care and concern. There is nothing that gives greater conviction
in the inherent goodness of the creative principle, or the
source of life itself, than the direct discovery of the
passionate care that emerges naturally when consciousness has
been freed from the endless desires, fears, and concerns of the
personal ego. That care, we discover, is not only an innate
quality of who and what we are, but is who and what we
become when we authentically begin to evolve beyond
ego. And the most thrilling part of this evolutionary transition
is the emerging intuition of a living moral context that exists
in and as a fundamental part of the fabric of creation itself.
This cosmic moral context becomes apparent in and through
the evolving consciousness of the awakening human being. In
fact, the higher moral dimension of the life process only
reveals itself when the awakening human is able to see beyond
not only the desires of the personal self but also any and all
notions of self-identity, individual and collective, that are
less than limitless. A new enlightened moral framework for the
human experience—one which we as a race are so desperately
in need of—will become apparent only when more of the
privileged minority who have already been given everything are
willing to let go of our attachment to our good fortune to make
room inside ourselves for the gift that consciousness itself is
waiting to bestow upon us.
Ironically, we're in a double bind. Never have so many of us
been in a position to understand how much the universe needs our
evolution beyond ego, our enlightenment. And at the same time,
because we're all products of the age of the individual, never
has our attachment to our personal ego or self-sense been
stronger. In fact, it is because of this that even in
sophisticated contemporary spiritual circles, the perennial
challenge from the greatest masters throughout history—ego
death—is dismissed as an outdated relic of our
less-enlightened past. So what are we going to do? The next step
really does depend on each and every one of us.
It's urgent that we begin to define a new moral context that
will, in its depth and breadth of vision, be able to embrace the
multidimensional nature of the human predicament in all its
complexity at the beginning of the twenty-first century. And
some bold pathfinders are already well along in that endeavor.
But the most important part of this project, and I'm sure few
would disagree, is actually being willing to pay the price for
self-transcendence, as individuals, so that more and more of us
will be able to directly intuit the contours and parameters of
this new moral ground from the core of consciousness itself.
Andrew Cohen, founder and editor-in-chief of What
Is Enlightenment?, has been a spiritual teacher since 1986, and is author of numerous books, including Living Enlightenment and Embracing Heaven & Earth. For more information, visit www.andrewcohen.org.