As we discovered in Andrew Cohen’s previous bi-weekly teaching, the difference between enlightenment and unenlightenment is in one sense very simple: it is only our perspective – the way we see, how we view ourselves and the whole of reality – that makes the difference.

So how do we view reality, and make the choices we make, at any given moment? Who are we, and who or what is doing the choosing?

When we look deeply into the self – either through our own interior process or with the tools of empirical science – the chooser is a profound mystery. What it is and where it resides remains obscure. Yet when a choice needs to be made it seems to miraculously appear.

In his last teaching Andrew talked about four discrete selves, each with a very distinct relationship to the reality that’s being perceived, and with the potential to make very different kinds of choices.

When a choice is made, it’s the result of these different forces within us. But can we actively choose between each of these four selves, or is it only ever in retrospect that we see exactly how we are showing up? Can we really choose between our ego or our Authentic Self, or is this itself just an elaborate ego fantasy?

Andrew Cohen dives into the deep mystery of the choosing faculty, and describes how liberated choice-making is paradoxically a process of giving up control at the deepest level, and simultaneously taking full responsibility for the choices we make and the actions we take.

The most profound challenge of Evolutionary Enlightenment is learning how to trust in an absolute dimension far beyond the fantasies of the small self, while fully embracing our evolving humanity, and taking responsibility for everything that we are and can be.