With the global financial meltdown moving from the headlines into our bank statements and climate change becoming a more frightening reality every day, the state of the world seems more daunting than ever. And in times such as these, we often find ourselves faced with an overwhelming pressure to sacrifice our highest spiritual aspirations for the sake of just getting by. 

This rare Unbound audio features EnlightenNext founder Andrew Cohen and integral philosopher Ken Wilber in the twenty-third “Guru and Pandit” dialogue. Since its inception in 2002, the series has become central to ongoing inquiry of EnlightenNext magazine. In the latest installment, which will appear in the upcoming issue, these two visionaries discuss what they describe as one of the most significant spiritual challenges of these times: staying connected to a higher perspective even when our very survival seems to be hanging in the balance. As Cohen puts it:

Generally speaking, when we are threatened at the level of survival—whether by war or global warming or the apocalypse—there tends to be a contraction. We let go of the spiritually awakened perspective and just become concerned with our own welfare. We lose touch with the light. And in that, we lose touch not only with the infinite openness and inherent freedom of the Ground of Being, but even more importantly, with the awareness of our potential for infinite development, our potential to consciously evolve. I think that we need to consider how important it is to never let that happen, no matter what happens to us.

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