What creates authentic—and sustained—transformation in human beings? In their
eleventh dialogue, Wilber and Cohen pursue this elusive and complex question from the depths of mystical experience through the frameworks of developmental theory to the creative frontier, where temporary glimpses of higher potential become the permanent contours of a new stage in human evolution.
ANDREW COHEN: When speaking about enlightenment, or
the highest stages of human development, which you would call
third tier, it's become absolutely clear to me that until one
becomes firmly established at those higher levels
oneself, access to them seems to be almost always dependent upon
the experience of higher states of consciousness. What's often
frustrating for me as a teacher is that it seems to be very
difficult for most people to sustain the perspective that
reveals itself during the experience of those higher states.
We've spoken about this together many times, and it continues to
be a ceaseless inquiry for me: What is the relationship between
temporary states of consciousness and permanent stages of
development, and what are the most effective ways to work with
individuals to help them actually evolve?
For example, I often find that when I lead retreats,
something miraculous occurs that has nothing to do with anyone
making any effort. Suddenly we find ourselves swimming in a
powerful fourth-dimension state that envelops us all simply
because we showed up for this event. What happens in that
supercharged atmosphere of awakened consciousness is that
instantaneously, many individuals take quite a leap. They have a
sustained experience of being awake to what you would call a
causal level of depth, in an open-eyed nondual context, for many
days at a time. Without making any effort, they get a taste of
heaven. But I always insist that heaven is not enough. So once I
get them there, I ask them to begin to think about their own
humanity and the meaning of life in the context of the
living depth that they have discovered. I have found that
this kind of inquiry reveals a potential for conscious evolution
like nothing else. Indeed, looking into the reality of the human
experience from a higher state of consciousness dramatically
deepens one's conviction in the possibility of a truly radical
transformation. Of course, what the individual needs to do then
is to use an important event like that as a source of
inspiration. They need to begin to make the noble effort to see
directly how conditioned and unconscious they usually are. Under
their own steam, they need to face how profound is their own
lack of freedom.
KEN WILBER: As always! And as they do that work,
all their junk and all the shadow stuff comes up. But you know,
the radiant graceful immersion in that causal, or nondual,
dimension is something you can't get for effort or money. It's
something that happens only in very rare circumstances; in this
particular instance, it is a gift of satsang [audience
with a guru]. The way it works is that there are these
ever-present states, or dimensions, that we're just not
plugged in to most of the time. We can plug in to them sometimes
by grace, sometimes by skillful means, sometimes by
sadhana [spiritual practice] and sometimes by
satsang—whichever way we do it, these dimensions
are right there, and when we relax into them or open to them or
when they're energized in some sense, they just come pouring
through in a certain radiant stillness. And of course, our
development through stages tends to get accelerated in
that atmosphere. But then we've still got to go back and do the
goddamn work. And that's where you lose people, isn't it?
COHEN: Exactly. Because when it comes down to it,
who really wants to change that much? That's precisely
why, more and more, when I'm teaching, I bend over backwards to
empower people with a perspective that ideally will
enable them to sustain transformation beyond the experience of
higher states. What that means, specifically, is that I strive
to help people to gain a very clear understanding of the
different dimensions of their own self in the context of an
enlightened top-down, or third-tier, perspective. I want people,
first of all, to have their own experiential recognition of the
primordial emptiness that is the Ground of Being, the Self
Absolute beyond time. Then secondly, I want them to experience
what I call the authentic self, which is the evolutionary
impulse, the creative spark behind the cosmos, becoming
conscious of itself in the awakening human. Thirdly, and maybe
most important of all, I want them to have the rare experience
of being able to see the ego, or separate self-sense, from a
truly objective vantage point. So my retreats are
basically designed to expose people to these different
dimensions of their own selves and to constantly bring them back
to seeing the distinctions between them while they're in an
expanded state of consciousness.
It's very powerful to see people who are completely new
to the territory suddenly begin to speak with authority and
conviction about these quite profound distinctions, based on
their very own experience. Of course, they usually can't hold it
on their own, but my job is to give them the direct experience
of the territory and the perspective to understand what it
means, so that they can begin to see for themselves what the
Path is.
The X-Factor
WILBER: It's just so fascinating. The ground of
all being, the ground of experience, isn't itself an
experience—you just sort of get plunged into a recognition
of its already-full nature. But I'm constantly struck by what
happens when people come out of that state and lose it. As I've
said before, what I want to do at some point is some really good
psychometric research—set up a whole battery of tests
before, during, and after a retreat and see who holds it and who
doesn't. The scientist in me is just curious as hell to do
that.
COHEN: The thing is, what you're talking about is
what I would call the mysterious x-factor in human
transformation. There's a part of this process that is always
completely unpredictable—perhaps it has to do with karmic
tendencies and other strange variables that are impossible to
understand, things we just can't explain based on what we can
see occurring in a single lifetime.
WILBER: Some people say that the universe contains
“dark matter,” and who the heck knows what is going
on down there . . . Maybe that's what you're working
against!
COHEN: Sometimes it sure feels that way! Believe
me, if I could only identify this x-factor, I would give
everything that I own . . .
WILBER: I'm with you. I mean, this is the only
thing that we have been talking about—in a sense we've
been having this conversation for almost ten years now. Our
dialogues are just variations on a theme, a single question:
“If there is only God, how come people don't get
it?” However you want to phrase it, that's the one
discussion we've been having—variations on this same
mono-theme of all mono-themes.
COHEN: With my own students, the real sticking
point is that I want them to take responsibility, for the
highest reasons, for that which they have already
experienced. That's where all the reticence and ambivalence and
the profound and intense resistance usually comes to the
surface. A lot of people want to have higher-state
experiences—they want to taste the ecstasy of eternity and
the promise of the future in their own being. But I always say,
“Now you have to own the implications of what it
means to taste eternity, and you have to own the implications of
what it means to become the evolutionary impulse as
yourself, beyond ego.” And that's when a lot of people
start to backpedal—suddenly they seem to lose their
memories; they start stuttering; they forget how they ended up
in such a predicament.
WILBER: (Laughs) Indeed!
COHEN: The ego is always profoundly ambivalent
about truly evolving—unless it thinks it can be king or
queen of the universe!
WILBER: Oh man, God bless the ego. We'd both be
out of a job without it!
COHEN: (Laughs) It can be the toughest job in the
world, though. There are individual and collective dimensions of
ego, and in the work I'm doing, I'm digging into these
structures in a way that includes but always transcends the
individual. And that definitely makes it a lot more challenging
for the individuals involved—including myself.
WILBER: But what an extraordinary adventure to be
on, sort of riding right at the edge of this process, and
watching it all unfold. It's a fascinating view, to put it
mildly.
Right View
WILBER: I'm constantly reminded again and again of
something you said in one of our recent dialogues, and I quote
you on this all the time: that the interpretation of the
spiritual experience is more important than the experience
itself.
COHEN: Absolutely.
WILBER: It's how you hold it, how you own it.
Getting dunked in it is easy, but now let me see you carry it,
and let me see you carry it for the right reasons.