Running for the German edition of Enlightennext

On September 13th I will run my first alpine mountain run in South Tirol. The “Three Peak Run” is one of the best known and most challenging mountain runs in Europe. It starts at 1300m sea-level and goes over 17km up to 2650m It’s quite a climb! ...............................    continue to read here

 

This is the intriguing question that we will discuss next Saturday here in Frankfurt, Germany.

Since three years we have developed here in Frankfurt a powerful and by know nationally well known cooperation  between three groups with a strong focus on a modern and evolutionary spirituality. The Integral Initiative Frankfurt, the worldwide biggest anthroposophic magazine Info3 and EnlightenNext have developed over several years now a joined investigation how a vision for a contemporary spirituality can look like. One of the highlights of this investigation is our yearly  Frankfurt Fall Conference (here some videos from one of the last conferences, all in German language though)

This year many participants of the conference didn't want to wait the full year for the  next one. So we will have an additional  Frankfurt-Fall-Conference-day -  in spring.  :)  - next Saturday, May 6th
where we will discuss together nothing else but the question if the Kosmos does have intention. In a good German tradition the philosopher and Waldorf teacher Axel Ziemke will give us a talk why Darwin and Hegel, the evolution of nature and conscious evolution don't have to be a contradiction. I am curious. Jens Heisterkamp from Info3, Sonja Student from IIF and I will host this conference day.  If you want to use your German language skills your are heartily welcome!  If you want to join drop us a line: info@herbstakademie-frankfurt.de

 

This weekend the  the core group of Enlightennext in Europe  gathered together in London to talk between us and with our spiritual teacher  Andrew Cohen about where we are going in our endeavor to create a new integral and evolutionary culture. Many  of us in this core group are  together in this endeavor for  10 or 15 years. There is a deep friendship between all of us, but more than anything else there is a deep shared commitment.

One of the fundamentals of what Andrew Cohen is teaching in Evolutionary  Enlightenment is  the cultivation of intention.  And it is always a miracle for me when we come together as friends who have one clear priority in life, which is the evolution of consciousness itself. It is hard to describe, but it is so tangible when we see each other, that the place where we are meeting  is not  any particular personal relationship but a shared passion for something we have cultivated for such a long time. All the friendship, all the lightness of being, all the joy we are sharing is based on this deep relationship with consciousness itself – sounds maybe strange, but it is really true. I mean, first of all we are all heavy meditators (many 2 hours a day), but our real passion is what it means to be an active part of the evolution of consciousness on this planet, in this life. Since years we pursue this shared investigation of this creative impulse, that creates and evolves life itself. There are many ways to get a grasp of this evolutionary impulse, there is a theoretical understanding (like in Integral Theory or Spiral Dynamics)  but most excitingly there is a first hand understanding of this , where you grasp this impulse as a shared I and We.

When you come together with a bunch of people who are deeply committed to this ongoing creative emergence there is this explosive  atmosphere of “liberated evolution” That is really what I love about the culture between us.  And just to make it clear – this culture is  a hard fought for. It needs a deep understanding of both the evolutionary impulse and the Ego to be able to create this as a stable reality.  I guess it is Andrew Cohen’s historic achievement that he forged this since many years.

Right now I am sitting on the train from London back to Frankfurt, pondering about why these gatherings always tend to be so ecstatic. I really think the secret is the shared commitment. This  shared commitment creates this surge of trust.  When you just know (also because it is time proven) that everyone deeply shares this commitment to consciousness and its evolution as the shared ‘raison d’être’ than there is deep intimacy and joy of life, that just breaks open. I guess that is the miracle of commitment.

I sarted a new blog   about conscious evolution, the first entry are some thoughts about the birth of the ego. Have a look!   conscious evolution.

Sometimes thing just happen. When I visited my mother last weekend in Linz/Austria I just took the car to have a nice dinner in a countryside restaurant next door, which unfortunately - was closed, so I wanted to go to another one which - I couldn’t find. As I was looking for this second restaurant, it was already getting dark; we drove by the monastery Wilhering, (see the photo) next to the mighty Danube. I haven’t been there for years, so we changed plans to have a look at the quite famous Rococo church (see the photo) of the Abbey.
Outside the entrance of the church was a young novice in his white robe, his ears though were plugged into the white headphones of his iPod. (I don’t know what music he was listening to).
As we entered the church he came behind us and ask us, as beside nobody was around, if he can lid the lights of the church. Of course we were happy to see the beauty of the interior of the church.
The young monk (he is 19) turned out to be born in the Ukraine, but lived most of his life in Bolivia, where he had become the national chess champion. Because of a Bavarian Cistercian nun that he had met there he got inspired to become a Novice in this Austrian Cistercian abbey. Magnus (that’s his name) ended up showing us for over one hour every detail of this church, his art, its history and the history of his order.
There was something in the simplicity of this obviously brilliant young man that touched me and my mother deeply. It was just hard to imagine how someone of his generation, who seemingly has seen the world (he also has lived in the US for while), had such a deep and powerful appreciation for the higher. There was just no inch of cynicism or ‘ironism’ in him, just a deep traditional faith. Only at the end of our private tour when we said full-heartedly good bye to each other he did what only a monk of his generation could do, he asked me for my email address and when we started to leave, it was already pitch dark out there, he put his iPod plugs back into his ears.
Sometimes thing just happen. My mother and I kept talking about him in the next two days. He was such a touching young man.

The German shadow became in such a powerful way a main topic of day two of this conference. Day three, the last day of this conference became a strong symbol of how alive and thriving the integral movement in this country is. I come since six years to these conferences and the difference is striking. There is a strong multifaceted face of the Integrals here, but more than ever there was a focus on AQUAL quality and a strong conviction that we want do something together in this country, that we in our diversity have a vision to move to a new post-postmodern culture.
The young Austrian spiritual teacher Thomas Huebl gave a talk this morning and the audience’s responses differed from very Guru-phobic to quite impressed by the different consciousness that emerged in the room. The workshops varied from Integral politics to Integral healthcare
The main thing though was impressed about was how much people on this conference want to achieves something together. The Integral movement in Germany went through quite a crisis in the last year, where out of personal controversy it the Integral Forum nearly fell apart. But it seems that the new leadership around Sonja Student, Dennis Wittrock, Michael Habecker and Hilde Weckmann established a strong and inclusive leadership that brought the Integral movement here to a new height. This conference, it’s high quality, it’s liveliness, and its spirit of “making things happen” is prove of this. The many Integral Salons that are established in bigger German cities by now, that are also highly integrated by the leadership of the Integral Forum (and were also well represented at this conference) are another proof.
I am curious about the steps that will be accomplished next year, when the conference will be in Berlin. B.t.w., that could be a good reason for Integralists around the globe to visit Berlin……

II went today to the workshop of Sebastian Gronbach about Integral Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is huge in Germany, ten times bigger than in any other country, but forget your ideas about the old and boring Anthroposophy and Waldorf schools. There is new generation of young Neon- Anthroposophists and they are discovering Ken Wilber, Andrew Cohen and the new spirituality and they are making their own cross version, hot and edgy. So cool! Katrin and Steffen gave our workshop on Meditation and Evolution. I heard they did a great job there. The main event today though was a surprise event, a spontaneous emergence that nobody had planned. People yesterday had quite a reaction to Terry Patten’s call for German leadership and for the Germans to turn their cultural shadow of the Second World War to a moral strength of a culture facing the dark side but also facing its bright site. Today in a plenum session, without any plans to go there, this topic about our cultural shadow broke through like powerful nature force. It felt quite unstoppable as one and another one and another one and another one wanted to talk about how important it is - or not – too further look into our shadow. First I thought sh... what’s going on here, as the debate was quite heated, if German should still and again after 60 years look deeper into our collective karma, but then I thought “No, this is amazing, we are witnessing a mighty shadow breaking open in the midst of 120 integralists. Because of its force it was so obvious that we are not talking about something that is long time ago, but something that is very alive in our souls. Not that we resolved the question here, but that this happened in this way, was amazing. Also in our public phone call with Ken Wilber this was one of the many questions that were asked and responded to. Ken talked a lot about Integral politics, about Obama having a Marxist leaning, about his not yet published books (like his book The Many Faces of Terrorism, that will also come out as a trilogy now) and also bout Steve McIntosh’s book Integral Consciousness. But again I was taken what he said about German culture, how Germany’s history is a big example of a pre- trans fallacy. That Hitler had also been possible in Germany ( amongst many other reasons) because people like Hegel, Schelling had been etc. such a leader of European culture into the trans-rational. Hitlers pre-reational was more possible because of Hegels trans-rational. German Integralists have to take responsibility for what they have to give to the world. Ken said there is a reason why the Integral movement in Germany is maybe one of the strongest in the world. I felt, because of what had happened today here at this conference we are in a better position to take a next step here Germany. When I spoke at the panel discussion at the end of the day about how important I think it is to own our history, both bad and good, the response of the audience was powerful.

At the first evening of the German Annual Integral Conference Terry Patten from (together with Ken Wilber Co-Author of the book Integral Life Practice) spoke in front of the 120 participants (the conference is since weeks sold out) about the three faces of God., how our Postmodern Spirituality has neglected a You-Relationship to the Absolute also because our postmodern culture is very ashamed about how our Greco-Roman-Christian tradition has conquered the world and became colonialisers. It is quite impacting to hear Terri speak how we have to re-own our Western tradition including a strong relationship as individual to the Absolute. Terri really makes a strong case for prayer. When he also emphasized that we have to have the guts to be heros again and when he asked the German audience to use our particular German history to become world-leaders for transformation, as there is a lot we can give because of the tragedy of our history, one could feel that there was also an unease in the audience. Just the idea of becoming leaders is something that creates an immediate reaction in our postmodern German culture. I admired Terry for his courage to say what he said . There are so many interesting people on this conference. It is hard to move from one place to another without getting stuck in long conversations. You feel that the German integral scene has come a long way. There are many people who work with the Integral Theory, as coaches, trainers, seminar leaders, book authors. You feel the potential of this new movement here in Germany. There is really a sense that this small crowd here has the potential to change German culture. One also can feel feel the whole evolutionary tension between postmodernity and integral consciousness in the room itself. We are pushing into new ground here. Tomorrow there will be workshops about body, mind and spirit. Steffen and Katrin will give a workshop about meditation and evolution. The highlight of course will be a life telefon conference with Ken Wilber. It am curious what he will have to so to the Germans.

Vor einigen Tagen habe mich Amy Edelstein in einem Interview gefragt wie wir denn in EnlightenNext mit dem "deutschen Karma" arbeiten würden. Ich glaube der Arbeit am Schatten unserer Kultur ist ein entscheidender Schlüssel für jede Form von Bewusstseinsarbeit in diesem Land. Für alle die diese Frage interessiert  - hier der Link zum Interview (in englischer Sprache):

Interview zur Arbeit an der deutschen Seele