Written by Mendy Urie

As an elected representative of local government, I am invited every year to attend one of the community-organised Australia Day events around our Shire. Usually it is a community breakfast followed by an official program of a flag-raising ceremony, some music, some speeches and a brief award ceremony where local people are recognised for their exceptional achievements and
contributions.

Often the invited Councillor is asked to speak at the ceremony and I have come to really appreciate and love this opportunity when it arises. It’s a great opportunity to tune in to all the opinion pieces in the media and to do my own reflecting on our Australian Culture.

This year I was asked to speak at the Lakes Entrance ceremony. The organising local Lions Club had catered for approximately 500 cooked breakfasts from 8am onwards and about 50 people stayed on for the more formal part of the morning.

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Join this week’s call on “The power of conscious choice.”
Tuesday, 31 January, 9.00pm AEST (Sydney time)

Dear Evolutionaries,

Welcome! Morgan Dix and I are looking forward to resuming our bi-weekly EnlightenNext discussion forum with you, starting Tuesday, 31 January. This will be the first of a teleconference series of three, based on Andrew Cohen’s new book – Evolutionary Enlightenment, A New Path to Spiritual Awakening, available at www.EvolutionaryEnlightenment.com and Australian bookstores. These teleconference discussions are designed to be time-zone friendly for the Australia-NZ-Pacific region.

Morgan and I have enjoyed the dynamic engagement with many of you in the past and look forward to resuming this forum of lively spiritual and philosophical enquiry. For those of you who may be receiving this email for the first time, this teleconference forum provides an opportunity to explore some of key principles and tenets of Evolutionary Enlightenment and how they apply to our lives.

To kick off this series of discussions we thought we would start with an excerpt from Cohen’s book on a tenet central to evolutionary enlightenment – the power of conscious choice.

“The power of conscious choice, or free agency, is unique to human beings as far as we know. You and I are highly evolved individuated selves who have been blessed with the extraordinary capacity for self-reflective awareness and the freedom to choose. In fact, these are the very faculties that make it possible for us to consciously evolve…And yet, how much do you really appreciate the significance of this extraordinary birthright? It is surprising how few people consider the deeper implications of possessing the freedom to choose ……while it is true that we are all profoundly influenced by many forces, both inner and outer, at the same time, it is equally true that we always have at least a measure of freedom to choose how we respond”

Call details: Tuesday, 31 January, 9.00pm AEST (Sydney time)
To register and receive the call in details, go to: Maestro registration

We look forward to exploring together!

Warm regards,
Mary Adams and Morgan Dix
________________________________________
Call can be made inexpensively by using international phone cards -gotalk is a good one, purchased at www.cardcall.com.au or petrol stations and supermarkets eg Woolworths or by calling in on Skype. Check your times zones at timeanddate.com

posted by Jeanine McMahon

The following was written by Morgan Dix and Laura Harzell after the Meditation Marathon was over and you might be interested in reading about our collective success too.

Dear Friend,

We have incredible news to share with you. Over the last three weeks, through the profound and exhilarating lead up to the EnlightenNext Meditation Marathon, we raised over $213,000 to support the work of EnlightenNext.

Thank you so much!

Over 1,500 people donated in the weeks leading up to the marathon and that response provided a surging wave of inspiration for the more than 750 evolutionaries who participated in the Meditation Marathon. Your generosity and creativity, and the spirit of giving that permeated this event, has moved and impacted all of us here at EnlightenNext and it is a testament to the spirit of you—our members and supporters.

This year’s marathon was an evolution beyond what we thought was possible. Here are some of the incredible results that emerged from the 2011 Meditation Marathon. In 2009 we raised $50,000 and this year, we have raised over $213,000! This exceeded our imagination, and we have you and all our incredible fundraising volunteers to thank for it. Every dollar is very critical to EnlightenNext being able to continue furthering our mission, and donations cover 30% of our direct expenses each year—and this year’s Meditation Marathon raised one-quarter of that! If you want to support EnlightenNext through this effort, but haven’t donated yet, you can do so here.
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Dear Evolutionaries,

Over the weekend of December 10/11 we will be hosting one of our peak events of 2011, the 3rd Annual EnlightenNext Meditation Marathon. It’s a vibrant global explosion of consciousness with hundreds of Evolutionaries around the world going beyond limits and plunging themselves into periods of prolonged meditation.

It’s an unusual combination-marathons and meditation-but it works! This popular event has been gathering steam over the last three years as participants discover, again and again, that they can go deeper and farther in their spiritual practice than they ever imagined.

To build momentum toward the marathon, accomplished “spiritual athletes”- Chris Parish (Director of EnlightenNext London) and Mary Adams (Senior Teacher and EnlightenNext Retreats Director) were invited to participate on two calls about meditation, transformation, and the joys of going beyond limits. Chris and Mary shared stories from their own adventures in consciousness about how they have each been exploring the outer limits of meditation and spiritual awakening for 35 years (a combined 70 years between them!) with some of the most revered teachers of the last century, including Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and J. Krishnamurti. As close Senior Students of spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen for the last 25 years, they have collaborated deeply with Andrew in developing his teachings of Evolutionary Enlightenment, and are now regarded as spiritual authorities in their own right.

You can listen here to Chris and Mary speak about their experiences of peace, freedom and awakening, in ways that are sure to surprise and delight you – not to mention infuse your own practice with new passion, fearlessness and commitment.

Following on from these two calls, Chris Parish has generously agreed to do a special time-zone friendly 45 minute call with us in the Australia – NZ – Pacific region so that we can engage with him directly about the purpose and practice of meditation. Please listen to the previous calls and come with any questions or comments that you would like to put to him.

Call details

Tuesday 15 November 2011
9.30pm AEST (Sydney) 6.30pm AWST (Perth) 11.30pm NZ
Dial-in Number: 1-213-342-3000 (Los Angeles, CA)
Participant Access Code: 456227

Register for the EnlightenNext Meditation Marathon Check it out – you can read about this year’s event, listen to a 3-minute audio of Andrew Cohen speaking about meditation, and when you register, you’ll be able to download “The Art and Science of Stillness,” a chapter from Andrew’s new book, Evolutionary Enlightenment.

Meditate together with Evolutionaries around Australia

You can participate in the Meditation Marathon on your own or come together with others. Evolutionaries will be getting together for the Meditation Marathon in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane and Perth. Please contact the following people if you would like to join in:

Sydney: Christopher Liddle: cliddle16@gmail.com
Canberra: Jeanine McMahon: jeaninemcm@gmail.com
Brisbane: Melisah Feeney: melisah.feeney@gmail.com
Perth: Andra Kins: andra@iinet.net.au
Bairnsdale VIC: Mendy Urie: papilio83@hotmail.com

With warm regards,
The Australian students

Reviewed by Leo Drioli

This ground-breaking book published by Select Books, goes beyond the realm of traditional enlightenment, that place of pure being where all evolution stops, where there’s nowhere left to go, taking the reader into an in-depth exploration of what Andrew sees as our next step, both individually and collectively, to honour and follow what he calls our “evolutionary impulse” into the future.

For Andrew, it was never enough to simply settle into a permanent enlightened perspective, to simply “be” in Beingness.

His passionate exploration of the true meaning and ultimate purpose of Enlightenment led him to the realisation that there is always more, that after Being there is our Becoming, our purpose in the world once the enlightened perspective has been attained.

Andrew has never been afraid to ask the big questions or challenge the accepted perspective on all things spiritual, and in this book he does exactly that, but he also explains the stages that lead up to enlightenment – the traditional process of awakening into Being – and then offers the next stages of moving into Becoming,
awakening to our responsibility to not only recognise exactly how the evolutionary impulse works in our lives but how to become one with it.

This book is a powerful and must-read for anyone truly serious about living an enlightened life. Deepak Chopra in his foreword to the book writes “Andrew Cohen made me believe that there has never been a better time to be enlightened.”

Leo Drioli

Editor
Innerself Newspaper Australia
(Review published in Oct-Dec 2011 Issue)
http://innerself.com.au

From EnlightenNext Australia team

Dear Friends,

One of Andrew Cohen’s most significant contributions to contemporary spirituality is the unique connection he makes between our deepest spiritual aspirations and what he calls the “evolutionary impulse,” or the force that drives the evolution of the cosmos. In his new book, Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening, Cohen presents an original path, practice, and philosophy focused entirely on aligning yourself with this fundamentally creative impulse.

 Click here to download Chapter 5, “Awakening to Evolution,” in which Cohen gives his detailed definition of the evolutionary impulse.

From “Awakening to Evolution”:

At the highest level, the evolutionary impulse is experienced as the spiritual impulse, the mysterious compulsion to become more conscious. Sometimes we feel this as an inexplicable yearning, a reaching toward perfection. At other times, it’s a nagging and relentless existential discomfort, a sense that I must find a way to wake up, to evolve, to liberate my heart and enlighten my mind. This spiritual longing, this ecstatic urge to become more conscious, is the most profound expression of that initial cosmic explosion. Your own spiritual yearning is not separate from the big bang itself.

 Click here to download the chapter “Awakening to Evolution” from Andrew Cohen’s new book.

Warm regards,

EnlightenNext Australia team

Written by Sally Wheildon

I feel like one of the luckiest people alive on the planet at this present moment. I have just spent 20 days with Andrew Cohen, my spiritual teacher and the founder of EnlightenNext and 300 seekers and finders from around the world.

During the 10 day Being Retreat we were totally immersed in intensive meditation practice. Andrew would give a profound teaching for 3 hours every day about the beginningless and endless Ground of Being that we become aware of in our deep meditation and realise is the nature of our true self. The meditative current grew stronger day by day as everyone committed to doing more hours of meditation, some people meditating through the night. It really was extraordinary and very inspiring to be with 150 people so committed to going as deeply as they could, to overcome any obstacle that the busy mind, complaining body or roller-coaster emotions could throw at them. I experienced such ease and lightness of being and such joy in dropping the frontal self and sinking deeply into pure Being. Heaven right here on earth.

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Written by Graeme Burn

Some of my most interesting insights arise during meditation. This is not why I meditate, but the space that is created when I sit still with the purpose of having no relationship to whatever arises, seems to regularly produce enlightening realisations.
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Written by Melisah Feeney

There is movement afoot in the Theosophical Society with some groups actively integrating the notion of evolution and integral philosophy into their ponderings of the universe and the perennial wisdom contained within. New Zealand theosophical society members, Linda Watts and Victor MacGill are pioneering this exploration and recently teamed up with myself and Julie McNall (both EnlightenNext Australia students from Brisbane) to deliver a workshop titled “Creative Awareness: the tools and skills to ride the waves of change”. The workshop was an initiative of the Theosophical Society on the Sunshine Coast QLD: an excitingly fresh group who are very open to synthesizing new ideas that explore the frontiers of consciousness.

Linda and Victor started the workshop with an open mind about the creative synthesis possible between Integral thought and practice and Theosophy. It was wonderful their willingness to “not know but be interested in exploring” the dimensions of the inquiry they were embarking on. They posed questions like:

• Have we tried to corral and institutionalize theosophy?
• How do we honour the essence of theosophy?
• Do we keep theosophy for ‘us’…contained, imprisoned and separate?
• Can we enable the surrender and free flow of the essence of Theosophy into all human forms and organizations?

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Written by Mendy Urie

From L-R: Tanya, Kim, Megan, Gilly, Joe, Jenny, Collin, Teresa & Mendy (standing)

Over many years in the past, it has been the venue for Buddhist meditation gatherings, invited teachers and on a continuing basis, my own daily meditation practice. It is not a large space, but it is cosy and comfortable and being separate from the house is usually quiet.

This year I have used the yurt to run 2 courses; ‘Meditation from an Evolutionary Perspective’ and (just completed) ‘Living Evolutionary Enlightenment’. It’s the perfect space for up to 10 people to watch video clips of Andrew Cohen explaining various aspects of an Evolutionary perspective, discussing and grappling with what has been heard and finally sitting quietly together letting go of all uncertainty, all thought, everything, in meditation.

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