Countercultural Spirituality

The higher state experiences that we begin to access when we embark on a spiritual path can completely shatter and upturn all of our beliefs about the nature of reality.

In these dramatic mystical states, the doors of perception open, and we momentarily glimpse the shocking truth that we have been asleep. In the uncompromising light of such a revelation, we see how little of our relationship to life has been freely chosen, and we begin to recognise the depth of our personal and cultural conditioning.

What happens next very much depends on our orientation and intention. In the postmodern spiritual marketplace, these rarefied states of enlightened awareness have become something we can simply fold, all too easily, into the life we are already living.

More often than not, they become part of a process of self-development, healing or psychospiritual growth – just one more tool in a suite of measures that can help us feel better. At worst they are reduced to a form of recreation, a kind of spiritual entertainment.

But enlightenment does not exist merely to comfort, console, entertain or even heal us. Radical or transformative spirituality is truly countercultural. It challenges everything – our personal and collective belief systems, our values, and even our shared agreements.

When we are compelled to follow the spiritual impulse all the way, when we fully embrace the profound implications of higher state experiences, everything changes. We understand at a transrational level, beyond ordinary awareness, that we are not separate from the Absolute Principle that gives rise to the evolving universe and all of manifestation.

Within this higher context, we become inspired to follow the path courageously to the very end, wherever it’s going to lead us. We are fearless about embracing change, and trust implicitly in our deepest revelations and convictions about the nature of reality.

Finally, we find the spiritual courage to act on what we are seeing or understanding – the very thing that most of the time we are afraid to do. As a result we discover a level of freedom, trust, depth and joy in life that is utterly profound and intoxicating.

Andrew Cohen invites us to break through our perceived limits, to take a leap beyond the conditioned mind and into the fathomless depths of enlightened awareness. Can we authentically respond to the deepest truth about the nature of reality? Do we have the courage to go all the way?