Thursday December 8th an eager London audience experienced a rich and very satisfying evening the third event in our Enlightennext Evolutionary WorldView conversation series, between Chris Parish and Bernard Carr on the topic of Cosmos and Consciousness. Bernard is a Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary University in London and is also current chair of the Scientific and Medical Network. Bernard has an incredible mathematical command of physics but unlike many so knowledgeable, he is very down to earth speaks clearly and communicates with an engaging effervescent passion.

Evolutionary WorldView conversations are structured evenings, where the speakers explore fascinating questions in a generative conversation that are aimed to expand consciousness over the course of the evening. This is in order to bring an evolutionary worldview into the perception of the audience as well as the participating speakers. We … Read More »

This week we kicked off the Becoming section of our Tuesday night Meditation+Evolution programme. The topic was Emergence. As Andrew Cohen describes, “Emergence means creating the conditions for higher potentials that never existed before to enter into time and space”. This week’s podcast centers around a discussion when a gentleman asks Patrick Bryson whether this emergence is actually a new thing, and this opens up a fascinating look at what it really means for us now, and also brings light to the very definition and perspective we have on Culture itself.

During last Tuesday’s Meditation+Evolution evening, Chris Parish, MD at EnlightenNext UK, gave us an insightful evolutionary view of the history of Non-duality. The most poignant insight he gave is that only in the last few decades has meditation been associated with stress relief. Throughout the history of human civilisation, meditation has always been about the very serious business of Enlightenment. You can listen to our first podcast supporting the Tuesday evening events.

Yesterday in London, I traveled with friends Blake Ludwig, Ann-Mari Freebairn and Alan Smith to film us meditating near the protest site at St Paul’s cathedral. With specially designed “Occupy Zero” sweatshirts the three of us sat down motionless in the midst of a chaotic and restless demonstration scene.

What happened then was really miraculous and unexpected. First of all, we all experienced in a similar way the sense of going very deep into stillness and ease very quickly when we sat down to meditate. It was like a magnetic pull compelling us to let go and be completely undefended in an unusually profound way. This seemed to cause somewhat of a scene in and of itself, as nearly everyone else was running around and quite agitated – the protest rally was just about to take off down the street as … Read More »

This blog was submitted by Carole Chapman:

As I left the busy noisy streets of Islington and entered the EnlightenNext Centre a wave of calm came over me. As soon as I stepped through the door I felt a sense of homecoming, a sense of peace. I’m here for this week’s Meditation+Evolution evening – and the topic tonight is ‘Practising the art and science of stillness’.

Patrick, a long time student of Andrew Cohen, commenced the evening with a reading from Andrew’s latest book Evolutionary Enlightenment, where he speaks of our deepest inherent nature as being free and the mind as a mechanical process.

Together we meditated. Almost instantly I was aware of the stillness in the room, the stillness of my body and the stillness I am inside. It seems each week I attend the more profound my experience… I was drawn … Read More »

Last weekend, I travelled with Patrick Bryson, a senior student of spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen’s, from London to Dorset to facilitate a day event. This was a gathering of the South West Integral/Evolutionary group, organised very generously by Ralph Cree, so this day was organised for us to go into the teachings and practises of Evolutionary Enlightenment together. We were also lucky enough to stay over the night before, so had a chance to spend more time in a more informal way.
We were 17 in total and from the get go on the day itself I was moved by the level of interest, authenticity and openness in the group. The theme of the day was the 3-step process that Andrew Cohen outlined on his last long retreat in Tuscany this year. We listened to a powerful audio of Andrew outlining … Read More »

This blog was submitted by Peter Cloudsley:

The regular Tuesday Meditation+Evolution evenings at EnlightenNext are already a fixture in my week as they have helped my meditation to go deeper. For example, last night I had a dream that I was attempting a major project and at a critical moment, a new sense of self confidence came over me telling me it was all perfectly possible.

This came after Tuesday evening when we explored ‘Ultimacy’ – in the context of meditation this means the experience of infinity. Patrick Bryson, who leads the events and guides us, always encourages us to talk about our experience of meditation after the weekly sessions. At first I found it very difficult, even unanswerable, but now I see the point of this inquiry and ask myself this question frequently as this helps me to stay alert and … Read More »

This blog was submitted by Andrew Poulson:

I’ve been coming to the Tuesday night ‘meditation and evolution’ evenings at EnlightenNext for a couple of years now and find them an opportunity to explore in depth and detail significant aspects of the nature of Enlightened Awareness.

In an audio clip we listened to this past week, spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen suggested that if we go deep enough into our own Selves during meditation, we can discover the ground of our own being, and that one of the distinguishing features is its infinitely compelling nature. By this he means that the more you put your attention on that ground, the more you are drawn to go deeper.

My experience of meditating at the Tuesday meetings usually bears this out. I inevitably find a kind of ‘field’ of consciousness opens up for me. Most of the … Read More »

I love bonfire night because it reminds me vividly of the evening when I discovered meditation for the first time 31 years ago. I had already been practicing a form of meditation, which I picked up from a book but not much was happening because I didn’t really know what I was doing. I did somehow know intuitively that there had to be a more meaningful way to BE rather than the confusing time I was currently having as a young adult.

What made this evening so memorable (in addition to the fireworks within and without!) was that I’d discovered a group of people interested in meditation who were being guided by someone with experience. This was so priceless and I no longer felt in a club of 1, which was the case up until then. I felt the permission to … Read More »

For weeks now we have been collectively inquiring  into the importance of meditation and what we find when we have no relationship to the content of consciousness. This Tuesday evening we went further. Patrick Bryson led us in a discovery of Non-Duality and the incredible significance of recognising that there is only One, not two.

We listened to an audio by spiritual teacher and philosopher Andrew Cohen taken from his summer retreat in Italy, in which he taught that when we discover non-duality there is no longer fear, because we realise there is only One without a second. In that realisation there is nothing to be afraid of because there is only One.

The ensuing dialogue was very illuminating. I was particularly struck that, from this discovery of non-duality, we can allow all of our human experience to be present; in this … Read More »