For the past few days I’ve been on the East Coast giving presentations on integral philosophy. On Wednesday, January 23, I spoke at EnlightenNext’s beautiful Boston Center, and the audience participation (a group of about 80 people) was really terrific. Much of the discussion focused on “free will” — where it comes from, why it is an organ of perception of values, and why it is a critical feature of human consciousness’ role in the “cosmic economy.”

Next, I traveled to Andrew Cohen’s EnlightenNext headquarters in Lenox Massachusetts. Set in the Berkshire Mountains, this former Vanderbilt estate consists of a large “manor house” (in which the offices of What Is Enlightenment? Magazine, the community dining room, and other facilities are located), and several other historical buildings, including a large “meditation hall” where I gave a presentation to another sizable audience on Saturday night.

I stayed at “Foxhollow” (as the estate is called) for six wonderful days, having private dinners with Andrew and Executive Editor Carter Phipps (see the snapshot from my i-phone of the three of us above) on three occasions. Andrew, Carter, and I talked a lot about “integral natural theology” — the aspects of spirit that become “self-evident” from an integral perspective. That is, even though Andrew’s teaching is rooted in Eastern Nondual traditions, and my spiritual path has been Western and theistic, there is nevertheless very much we can agree about, and even directly see from the newly emerging vantage point of the integral worldview. For example, Andrew and I both agreed that evolutionary spirituality yields a kind of “developmental logic” that shows us how the evolution of our consciousness will continue beyond this life, with death changing very little. Also, we both could see that there is really only one “authentic self” in which we all participate. However, in our discussion we did encounter some interesting differences regarding the spiritual importance of originality. From my perspective, even though “we are all essentially one,” we are all also uniquely original. And it is this originality that allows us to be known and loved by God. Although Andrew now recognizes a Divine Person through the concept of the “second face of God,” this concept is not as central or robust in his theology as it is in mine.

Concepts such as the “Authentic Self,” the original and eternal nature of human personality, and the love of God, are obviously beyond the scope of this blog post. So suffice it to say that Andrew, Carter, and I had a very fruitful and heartfelt discussion, which is continuing to resonate and give me a new appreciation of the movement of spirit in the world. I hope to write further about integral natural theology soon.

Overall, I can say that I was very impressed with Andrew Cohen; I found him to be warm, natural, and thoroughly authentic. Despite my reservations about the Guru model of spiritual community, I received a most favorable impression of the Foxhollow residents. Especially edifying was the friendships I established with WIE editors Carter Phipps, Elizabeth Debold, Ross Robertson, Jeff Carreira, and Robert Heinzman (not to mention Andrew). In fact, in my travels to various cities to speak about integral philosophy, I consistently find that the EnlightenNext folks are some of the most spiritually fragrant people I meet. It does seem that Andrew is definitely doing something right.

After giving a variety of presentations and interviews at Foxhollow, Carter Phipps and I took the train down to New York City to give a joint presentation at EnlightenNext’s center near Madison Square Garden. Here again we had a large and receptive crowd and I thought the evening went very well. You can hear a recording of this presentation in its entirety on the INTERVIEWS SECTION of this website. The New York talk was a new format for me — usually I give a prepared power-point presentation followed by questions. But in New York, Carter and I started with a brief statement of what the integral worldview meant to us, and then we devoted the rest of the two-hour event to questions and discussion. This Q&A format helped me see that I am a much better speaker when I can be spontaneous and let the “intersubjective field” of the audience bring out the content.

In the next few months I’ll be giving a variety of presentations at the new Boulder Integral Center (see the SCHEDULE SECTION). Also, we are continuing to work on planning my trip to Southern California, where I grew up.