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Coquelicot's work has evolved through her more than 20 years of experience of being a minister with the Association & Integration of the Whole Person (AIWP). To every session, Coquelicot brings her intuition and vast knowledge base. Then she gets out of the way to let something else arise; she makes room for a larger knowledge, and invites grace to enter. Coquelicot has a capacity for deep listening, listening beyond the limits of her personality and academic learning. By dropping and melting into something much larger than herself, she becomes simultaneously a student and a teacher, a facilitator and a catalyst. From there, she supports people to free themselves from the internal obstacles that block their innate ability to access this source directly.

Evolutionary Enlightenment – Seek Until You Find

By Andrew Cohen

I BECAME A SPIRITUAL TEACHER twenty-four years ago, once I found what I was looking for. Up until that point I had been a deadly serious seeker—an ardent meditator as well as a dedicated student who sought out companions and teachers who shared my passion for Spirit. Typical of my generation,
I looked to the East to find illumination rather than to the West. After two and a half years in India, I met my last teacher and he liberated my soul when he uttered ten simple words: "You don't have to make any effort to be free." Upon hearing this, I made the transition from seeker to finder.

For any one of us who is moved by spiritual inspiration, it is important that we seek wholeheartedly until we find. And, once we begin to seek, we must not stop until we are convinced, at the deepest level of our being, of the mystical reality that God, or Spirit, is our own true Self. For some, that might occur in an
explosive revelation; for others, in a very quiet moment. However it happens, we will know. And it is at that moment that we have to be willing to take the most important step on the path to libera­tion: to give up the seeking process forever. There will always be more for us to experience, to understand, and to realize, but once we are convinced of the reality of Spirit, at a soul level, we are no longer seekers. And therefore, we have to take responsibility for what it means to be finders.

As finders, we don’t need any more evidence. To use theo­logical language, we no longer have the right to demand that God prove him- or herself to us, over and over again. It could even be considered unseemly, greedy, and, in some cases, immoral for individuals who have been blessed with a direct glimpse of the miraculous to continue to insist on more expe­riential proof. As I see it, the purpose of mystical experience is to convince us, at a soul level, that our true nature is Spirit—to convince us so deeply that we are liberated from existential doubt. Why? So we will finally be available to participate, consciously and wholeheartedly, in the greatest gift we've been given… which is the life we are already living right now.

I was deeply struck when Mother Teresa died, and her journals revealed that this remarkable woman, who so many millions revered as an expression of the highest compassion in action, had been living in a state of spiritual torment. While early in life she claimed God had spoken directly to her, since then, her inner experience had been like living in a spiritual desert, agonizingly separate from her chosen God, bereft of connection to the living source of her very own faith. But did she stop her extraordinary work and demand more proof of God's existence? Did she insist on needing to feel God's love in order to express that love to those in need? Her powerful example reveals in the most poignant way what it really means to be a finder.

When we are finders, we no longer have any doubt about who we really are and why we are here on Earth. In our own direct awakening to Spirit's true face, existential doubt dies a sudden and irrevocable death, liberating an infectious confidence that is rooted deep within our souls. A true finder may or may not continue to engage in spiritual practice, but if he or she does, it is motivated only by the desire to con­tinue to evolve for the sake of the evolutionary process itself.

Indeed, in evolutionary spirituality, making the noble effort to catalyze our own individual and collective higher development is recognized to be the very raison d'être of human beings at the leading edge. And we can only begin to do this when we have given up seeking forever. Then and only then will we stop reaching for a spiritual epiphany to convince us of something. We instead make the effort to evolve because we are in love with life and are committed to unlocking its highest potentials through our own development. I have discovered that those potentials will only come to the fore when we are no longer trying to become enlightened but have let go of any other option than to be the expression of the highest we have seen and experienced, in all our imperfection, right now. That's what it means to be a finder.


Learn more about Andrew Cohen's philosophy of
Evolutionary Enlightenment at andrewcohen.org.
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Coquelicot teaches didactically, experientially and by example. She brings to each session a lifetime's worth of tools, exercises and practices that I use at home to further my own development. Her genius combines intuition, sensing and a comprehensive knowledge of human emotional and biological development. What I've learned from her has not only given me a deeper understanding of my own patterns, dynamics and behaviors, it's also enhanced my understanding of others. I am a far more compassionate person thanks Coquelicot. In fact to the degree that I am a more evolved being in any regard, Coquelicot was instrumental in my transformation.

-L. M. Artist and wellness ally

"Dear God:

Please untie the knots that are in my mind, my heart and my life. Remove the have nots, the can nots and the do nots that I have in my mind. Erase the will nots,
may nots,
might nots that may find a home in my heart.
Release me from the could nots, would nots and should nots that obstruct my life.
And most of all,
Dear God,
I ask that you remove from my mind,
my heart and my life, all of the 'am nots' that I have allowed to hold me back, especially the thought that I am not good enough. Amen."
- Author unknown, The Knots Prayer

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