Peace is Not the Answer?

Andrew Cohen challenges seekers of what he calls "21st century evolutionary enlightenment" to transcend our narcissism, our "relentless self-concern" and our "ambivalence and restlessness" and take responsibility for the challenges inherent in human existence, to participate in the life process in a deeper and more authentic way. He is surprised, he says, that spiritual seekers are still seeking for peace as the ultimate goal. He sees that as seeking an escape, a way out.

He is particularly surprised that in the developed nations, where unprecedented wealth, education and personal freedom abound, people are seeking peace -- "the ultimate relief and release from the unrelenting grind of day-to-day existence." So he challenges us to consider that perhaps suffering, at the existential level, "has been an integral part of the developmental process from the beginning."

As long as peace (or release, escape, a way out) is all we seek to achieve spiritually, we are missing the point, he asserts in his editorial in the Spring issue of What is Englightenment magazine, "Peace is Not the Answer." He even goes on to underscore the fact that, indeed, we won't be of much good to the intelligence that created us.

"In order to be truly available to the energy and intelligence that created the universe, we do have to transcend our angst-ridden separate selfs. But the motive for doing so is not so we can abide in a state of peace and freedom beyond the process. Our motive is to become passionate egoless vehicles for ongoing evolution."

Do you want "peace" today, or do you want an egoless existence that is fully-engaged with others and with Life itself?