Andrew Cohen: "Enlightenment Is a Secret"

Andrew Cohen, Editor-in-chief,
http://www.enlightennext.org/EnlightenNext magazine.

Perhaps the first post-modern spiritual teacher, leading-edge "guru," Andrew Cohen, teaches a brand of radical non-duality he calls "Evolutionary Enlightenment." In doing so, he transcends his roots in the Advaita Vedanta lineage of Ramana Maharshi, and charts a path for our active participation in humanity's evolution and the evolution of the 'kosmos.'

Cohen's vision includes the following five "top-down" tenets for living an awakened life, here and now:

• Clarity of Intention: One must be 100% committed to the one intention of waking up to the spiritual reality of what and who we are.

•  The Truth of Impersonality: In a cosmos of 100 billion galaxies and 100s of billions of stars in such galaxies, it is sheer narcissism to focus our consciousness on what we are feeling and thinking from moment to moment; yet that is what the vast majority of us unwittingly do.

•  Face Everything and Avoid Nothing: To attain enlightenment it is necessary to face, and face down, the fears and desires of the Ego and attain to one's Authentic Self.

• The Law of Volitionality: We do not do or say anything (or omit doing or saying anything) without a voluntarily intention to do so. All of our actions are of our own volition and, thus, we can no longer foster a 'victim mentality.'

• For the Sake of the Whole: In a post-modern world, enlightenment for one's own sake is irrelevant; it is only when we attain "autonomy in communion" with others that enlightenment is an effective and true evolutionary tool.

"Realization of the Absolute," writes Cohen, "is the most demanding and all consuming form of meditation that a human being can pursue. . . . Any trace of self-interest of any kind in any form instantly corrupts (the) most perfect purity and automatically, although usually imperceptibility, taints its reflection." ("Enlightenment Is a Secret," p. ix.) Thus, he stresses, one has to get out of the way to let the Absolute manifest:

"There is a secret that is infinitely greater than anything you have ever known. It is real and it exists and if you make room for it - it will overwhelm you.

You have got to get out of the way. You have to abandon everything you've been taught and everything you've been led to believe - all those limiting, confining, imprisoning, denying ideas and concepts that you have picked up along your way. You have to make room for that which is unbelievable. You have to get out of the way. "Oh my God!" you'll say, "I didn't know it could be like this."

If you want to be Free you have to open yourself to the unthinkable possibility. You have to allow yourself to consider that which is immeasurable. You have to rise up. You have to open your mind, open your heart, and renounce the past completely."

[Cohen, "Enlightenment Is a Secret," pp. 12-13.]

In the following video, Cohen describes "Evolutionary Enlightenment" and how it builds upon and surpasses traditional Eastern teachings of personal liberation. In some sense, his teachings of radical transpersonal enlightenment make him, perhaps, the first post-modern Bhoddisatva.

Tolle and Adyashanti: What is Enlightenment?

The man or woman seeking meaning in their life is bound at some time to hear of enlightenment. But what is enlightenment, really? And where are we to find it? At the feet of a guru? Perhaps? At the top of a mountain? Maybe. In a corner bar, a bottle of pills, a love affair or a new car?  Highly, highly unlikely.

Andrew Cohen, Editor-in-chief,
of EnlightenNext magazine.

The enlightened spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen, wrote an entire book called "Enlightenment is a Secret." In it, he remarked:

"Enlightenment is a secret that very few people know about and even fewer understand. Why is it a secret? Because Enlightenment does not exist in time. That why it's a secret and that's why it will always be a secret. Enlightenment is a vision that cannot be held or grasped in any way. Beyond this world it's a mystery that is exploding. A fire that is burning. It's a fire that a person is either going to jump into or run away from. This fire burns beyond the mind. No-time is the place where this secret abides. Realize that and you realize the Self you are when there's no mind and no time. Realize that and cling to that alone as your own Self.

The  great Sufi poet and teacher, Rumi, asked us to judge the moth by the worthiness of the candle it immolates itself in. "Enlightenment is not far away," Cohen insists. "It does not need to take time."

Below, two modern enlightened teachers, best-selling author of "The Power of Now," Eckhart Tolle and the neo-Buddhist teacher and author, Adyashanti, tackle the question of just what enlightenment is.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Eckhart Tolle

Enlightenment, or the egoless state, "cannot be achieved in the future, or in time," Eckhart Tolle notes. "It is only by looking through it now, that the egoless state is here, now."

"A state that you want to achieve is a mental concept that is endowed with self," he observes. "And, as such, you can never reach it because it is an abstract concept of 'who I want to be,' not realizing you are it already."

"So the egoless state does not lie in the future. It has nothing to do with the future," he says. "You cannot make it into a goal. You cannot make - whether you call it the egoless state, or whether you call it enlightenment - you cannot make it into a goal. 'Goal' implies future," he observes, and "the very entry point into the egoless state or enlightenment is the present moment."

"If you make (enlightenment) into a goal you want to achieve," says Tolle, "you miss the entry point, because you are looking to the future."

"That is the dilemna of all spiritual seekers," he observes. "Because they listen to a spiritual talk or read a spiritual book and say, 'There is such a thing as the egoless state, or the enlightened state, and perhaps I can achieve it too.' And immediately they make it into a goal (and) project it away. It becomes mind, a mental image of 'who' I want to 'be' (in the) future. And (they do) not realize that their very search to actualize that image prevents them from being it, now. Because the entry point is here, (in) this moment only. The ego can only be transcended through accessing the power of the present moment." There is, he says, "no other way."

"Enlightenment is only in the power of the present moment," Tolle notes, "nowhere else. It is only humans who give up the search who realize it is already here. So you have to, one way or another - either because you are totally frustrated with the spiritual search, or because you suddenly see the truth of it -  give up the  search, as if (enlightenment) is in the future."

Adyashanti

"Enlightenment," says Adyashanti, "is simply not perceiving through ego. It's not seeing life or any thing - self, others, your tennis shoes, your cat, your dog, your livelihood, anything - it's just not seeing the world, not seeing everything through the distortion called the egoic state of consciousness. "

"That is why," he observes, "(enlightenment) is likened to the natural state. Natural, meaning its not an alternative distorting lens, it's just perception without a lens, without a distortion. Ultimately, that is what enlightenment is. It is perception without distortion."

Cautioning his audience that enlightenment is not an unending blissful experience of what Zen Buddhists call satori, Adyashanti observes that, "in the end enlightenment has very little to do with enlightenment experiences. It is simply not perceiving through the lens of ego."

'There is no doubt, he says, "that it is pretty good not perceiving through the lens of ego, it's happiness, it's peace, it's the end of your search. Not that you find anything, except sanity. Not that you attain anything, except seeing things as they actually are. And that's what nirvana is, seeing things as they actually are."

"Enlightenment," says Adyashanti, "is the unaltered state of consciousness. Consciousness needs no alteration to see that everything is one. Since everything is one, you don't need an unaltered state of consciousness to perceive that everything is one. You need an altered state of consciousness to see that everything is not one."

Andrew Cohen and Rupert Sheldrake: Is Evoution Sacred?

In a thought-provoking dialogue (below) between spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen and the innovative biologist Rupert Sheldrake, two voices from the leading-edge of our post-modern culture discuss whether evolution, itself, may perhaps be sacred.

Noted biologist and author,
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake.

"We can become aware of our connection to the cosmos and this vast evolutionary process," says Sheldrake," but the question is: 'Where is it going?' Does it just go ever and onwards and upwards forever until we get more and more enlightened and more and more cosmically aware? Or, does there come a point where there is some kind of a culmination of the whole cosmic evolutionary process?"

Noting that the Judeo-Christian tradition, which gave us "the vision of a progressive evolution in time," always had an explicit goal in the future, Sheldrake asks Cohen (a proponent of the teaching he calls "evolutionary enlightenment") what an 'end-state' to the evolutionary process would be.

In observing that it is a "big picture" answer that frankly verges on "the realm of fantasy," Cohen notes that the "direction or the 'teleos' of the evolutionary process is towards consciousness itself."

Spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen,
Editor-in-Chief of EnlightenNext
magazine.

Cohen posits that, "it would seem that the urge towards consciousness would be fulfilled, or would be ultimately completed, when all the matter in the cosmos had become enlightened - which means conscious. When all the matter in the cosmos had become fully enlightened," he observes, "we would say that the primary urge - if that's what it is - would be vanquished, that it would be fulfilled."

Noting that the process has "barely begun," Cohen  observes that we are at the very beginning of a process that is of such infinite proportions that it is nearly impossible to conceive. Nevertheless,  he calls this "urge to become conscious" our primary driving motivation.

For his part, Sheldrake - an innovative biologist who is noted for his theory of 'morphic fields' - observes that "there is already a large degree of consciousness throughout the  universe, and perhaps that extra awareness comes from us, rather than somehow by our own conscious development we are going to inject consciousness into the rest of the universe."

Their discussion is a fascinating leading-edge discussion of concepts that have long been an integral aspect of the ultimate teachings of both Mahayana Buddhism and the Advaita Vedanta, as two of the most innovative contemporary minds approach what may be thought of as "the biggest question" from two very different directions . . . and nonetheless come to agreement.

"When consciousness awakens to itself, Cohen concludes, "that's when everything comes alive." A point which is acceded whole-heartedly by Sheldrake.

Ending the 'Optical Delusion of Consciousness' to Demonstrate 'True Compassion'

"A human being is part of the whole called by us the universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness."

"This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."

(Albert Einstein, 1954)

The primary basis of all the world's great wisdom traditions and religions is love - not "love" in a personal sense, per se, but a love without conditions and without any particular object. And, of course, the result of this unconditional, all-inclusive love is the 'compassion' Einstein speaks of, or what the Dalai Lama calls "unbiased compassion."



"Compassion,' from the Greek 'pathos" (meaning suffering), means that we recognize the suffering - both physical and psychological - of others, and that in a very real sense their suffering invokes suffering within us. Interestingly, realization of the Buddha's 'First Noble Truth' on the path to enlightenment, or "liberation from the self" (the 'Noble Truth of Suffering') is that to the 'unawakened' mid or 'imprisoned' mind, this life is dukkha, or "suffering." Einstein realized, as the Buddha did 2500 years before this time, that what the individual (indeed the world) needs to survive and flourish is "a substantially new way of thinking."

Today, as ever, there is an imperative need for this new way of thinking; or, as spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen explains,  there is an "urgency" for individuals to seek enlightened consciousness and adopt a purposive relationship to the attainment of that rarified state of being, not for themselves alone, but for the sake of others - for the sake of the Whole. We need, as others teachings have long advocated, to become what may be thought of as 21st century bhoddisatvas, vowing not to give up until there is a broad based enlightenment  - or the adoption of "a substantially new manner of thinking," to use Einstein's phraseology - amongst all human (and other sentient) beings.

Andrew Cohen, Editor-in-Chief,
EnlightenNext Magazine

The vow of a boddhisatva - even a 21st century boddhisatva - like all things spiritual, it seems, is somewhat paradoxical: There is a need for individuals to awaken spiritually for the sake of all humanity; yet, in obtaining spiritual enlightenment, individuality slips away. As Cohen observes in his book, "Enlightenment Is a Secret:"

"The most delicate and difficult task possible to accomplish in this life is simply to be Free. One who succeeds is very rare. It is hardly ever seen. If a person can be Free it is the greatest blessing. It means an alternative to the human mess is possible. Simply being awake and staying awake is a demonstration of the solution. Living Freedom is the solution. You become the answer. You become the solution. Few have the courage to do it.

And yet . . . this aspiration to be "the solution," even for the sake of the Whole, remains personal and therefore paradoxical. While all the violence and suffering that is rampant may make it seem that it is "a very selfish endeavour" to seek a higher state of consciousness and being for oneself, Cohen observes that, "Nothing could be further than the truth."

"You are doing the human race the highest service by realizing your Self," he notes. "Self-Realization is evolution. Coming to the end of aggressive, destructive and selfish behavior is evolution is action. When you evolve to the point that you are able to actively manifest the profound understanding discovered in Self-Realization you are cooperating with all the forces of nature. Only then will your own life be the very expression of the opposite of everything you claim to abhor. What more can you possibly do? What more can anyone possibly do than that? When you have Realized your Self you simply 'are.' When you have found that harmony that you are, then you will be the harmony and no longer an obstruction to it. When sturggle has come to an end, so does all division."

The end of "all division" is the end of Einstein's "optical delusion of consciousness," of course. It is the attainment of a wholly "new manner of thinking" that Einstein would undoubtedly acknowledge as the necessary state which we all need to demonstrate "true compassion."

Beyond Perceptions and Conceptions to 'Acceptive Consciousness'

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

In our ordinary consciousness we see the world as a manifested reality of "things" - animal, mineral and vegetable. But at the smallest levels, physicists tell us that our "world" consists of granular, distinct quanta (or, sub-particles) of energy, which are "realized" by the act of observation. Because of this, it has been said that modern physics has become "the study of the structure of consciousness."

Humans, with our many layers of consciousness, are capable of "envisioining" our world at both levels. In his most personal writing, "Some of the Dharma" Beat-writer, Jack Kerouac, set this out rather poetically:

---FORM IN THE NORM---
 Instead of bothering with one side of the coin
  or the other, throw it away---in the same way,
   instead of either bothering with arbitrary conception
    of manifested phenomena or non-manifested non-phenomena,
     the coin of existence,
                                       throw it away----
                                                                  Rest beyond conception.

Richard M. Bucke (1837-1902)

Richard M. Bucke, one of the first Westerners to attempt a "scientific" explanation and synthesis of the mystic or enlightenment experiences recorded in the world's wisdom traditions, discussed four progressively higher states of consciousness in his iconic work "Cosmic Consciousness" (sometimes referred to as "The Hippie Bible.")

At the lowest state of consciousness, the simplest animal organism will respond to stimuli. This receptive consciousness, may be illustrated by a simple earth worm recoiling from the prick of a needle. 'Reception' of the stimulus begets a reaction.

At a higher level of consciousness, what Bucke called perceptive consciousness, the "perception" of a stimulus will provoke a reaction. Thus, the second time you take your dog to the vet for its shots, your dog will react when it merely sees the needle.

At the higher level of ordinary human consciousness, what Bucke called conceptive consciousness, the mere "idea" of the stimulus will provoke a response. If you tell a child that he or she is going to get a shot, that the doctor will poke a needle into her arm, the mere thought (or "concept") causes a "response," most often tears.

Bucke speculated that there is yet another higher level of consciousness beyond 'ordinary' human, "conceptive consciousness" - a level he called cosmic consciousness - and he compared the recorded experiences of saints and sages, from Lao-Tze to Jesus, and from Paul, Mohammed, St. John of the Cross and Shakespeare to his mentor, Walt Whitman - in order to outline the parameters of what this higher state of consciousness is. He theorized, like so many before and after, (see, "Pain, Sex and Time" by Gerald Heard, or the "evolutionary enlightenment" teachings of Andrew Cohen), that humankind is inexorably evolving towards this higher state of consciousness and awareness.

In that higher state (known in the West as "enlightenment" and in the East as 'samadhi,' 'moksha,' 'nirvana' or, simply, "liberation") ordinary consciousness, with its "conceptions" that crystallize the world, moves to a higher all-inclusive awareness that is beyond stimuli. For that reason, I call it "acceptive" rather than "cosmic" consciousness. It is in this state of "acceptive consciousness" - beyond the labelling and attachments of our egoic conceptions - that the spiritually adept has an experiential realization and radical acceptance of both the 'manifest' and 'unmanifest' realms or worlds. It is "the ineffable" or what, I believe, the Buddha pointed to as "suchness."

Andrew Cohen's Teaching: Evolutionary Enlightenment

Andrew Cohen, spiritual teacher and founder of EnlightenNext magazine, describes his teaching of "Evolutionary Enlightenment", as follows:

"Traditional enlightenment is what I learned from my teacher, but Evolutionary Enlightenment is what I have discovered and created in my own work over the last almost quarter of a century. During this time, I have discovered a new source of emotional, psychological, and spiritual liberation that easily exists within anyone’s reach, anyone who has the eyes to recognize it and the heart to desire it. To put it simply, enlightenment is evolving. It is no longer found only in the bliss of timeless Being; it is found also in the ecstatic urgency of evolutionary Becoming."

Cohen, commenting on The Momentum of Karma, has the following to say about the individual's responsibility to evolve his or her own consciosness:

Unless a moment comes in your own evolution when you are willing to take responsibility for all of your past, without conditions, no matter what the implications, the karmic momentum will not come to an end. If you don’t stop it, it will continue. It always does. And that momentum will inevitably determine your choices and ultimately, your destiny.  

Evolution, Karma and The Fourth Way

Karma - the universal law of cause and effect - ensures the one constant we know: the constant evolution of change.  Ouspensky observes the following in his book, The Fourth Way, at page 9:

The evolution of man, if it occurs, can only bethe result of knowledge and effort; as long as man knows only what he can know in the ordinary way, there is no evolution for him and there never was any evolution for him.

One of the early 20th century, Ouspensky's teaching, above, reflects the evolutionary enlightenment taught by modern spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen.