Twice, Isaac Shapiro looked into my eyes and it seemed to me that he cleared away thoughts and concerns. Once I was just chatting to him about cars I think, and I was blissed for a week. The other time I was critiquing him and he zapped me so that I found myself saying, “I love you”!

The most immediate and obvious explanation for me was that his “special” powers caused those effects in me. Mind you, I wouldn’t call those effects “enlightenment”, but it made me believe that some people have the power to operate on a non-normal level.

Nevertheless, liberation requires understanding, so if someone zaps you, it will only produce a temporary effect or give you a taste of what’s possible. You need to complete it with understanding and action based on understanding.

I’ve got to say again that the idea of “intersubjective enlightenment” is very likely to be a kind of attribution error. I realize you and your partner have had experiences which have led you to believe in this phenomenon. I’ve had many such experiences too. But the brain is a very vast place, and we all have to admit that anything we experience is entirely within its purview. Thus, it is easy to imagine that something in the immediate sensory environment can trigger a “big” experience entirely outside the supposed “enlightenment” of anyone present.

That said, it may be perfectly natural for Cohen to assume that his own “enlightenment” is the trigger for these “big” experiences in his students, and thus operate from within that assumption, all in complete sincerity. After all, there is a tremendous cultural precedent for the transmission model. I imagine many gurus are sincere in their belief in this model. That doesn’t mean it’s right, but it suggests a certain institutional naiveté is at work rather than an outright con, in many cases.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the idea of transmission is a likely source of occlusion, as it sets up the expectation that one’s own enlightenment will bring such a power to his/her own life. In fact, some may not be able to accept their own enlightenment in the absence of a demonstration of this power. Thus, they preclude the recognition of their own nondual awareness in favor of an expectation about what that is like, trapping themselves in a perceptual sink that shuts direct awareness into a held concept of enlightenment rather than allowing for a direct recognition of it.

I can only do one article at once!

‘True progress is when we are able to say that Cohen’s behavior is unacceptable *despite* the authenticity of his spiritual awakening and teachings.’

Well, the point of my article and my perspective is that Cohen’s behaviour is unacceptable despite the authenticity of his spiritual awakening, and his teachings are a reflection of his misunderstanding of that awakening.

Also, as an aside, I’d love it if you’d install the WordPress Plugin “subscribe to comments”:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/

The plugin creates a little checkbox that says “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail,” making it easy to continue to participate in the dialogue.

“I shall never turn back from vanquishing mental afflictions. I shall be tenacious in this matter; and fixed on revenge, I shall wage war, except against those mental afflictions that are related to the elimination of mental afflictions. Let my entrails ooze out and my head fall off, but by no means shall I bow down to my enemies, the mental afflictions.”

It’s possible to make an argument that this approach is unhelpful, but the spiritual traditions are filled with this way of dealing with “defilements” and Zen masters are well-known for handing out savage beatings for lapses in discipline and concentration. Western psychology gives us a very different perspective, of course.

Much of your criticism is true, of course. But why only criticize Cohen when the entire tradition of enlightenment spirituality that he is drawing from is filled with these abuses? My concern is that I think many people want to position mystical Eastern spirituality as the moral exemplar for the West, and aren’t people like Cohen embarrassing because they have adopted it too faithfully? When spirituality is romanticized, it becomes necessary to whitewash the past and frame Cohen’s teachings as illegitimate or otherwise unspiritual in order to preserve the (IMO undeserved) vaunted position that spirituality occupies for many people today.

True progress is when we are able to say that Cohen’s behavior is unacceptable *despite* the authenticity of his spiritual awakening and teachings.

Since people are in no way separate from the creative principle, when people make choices, those same choices are made by the creative principle.

Sort of like individual currents within a river. Get enough going in the right direction and the river can flow around any obstacle. Individual choices though, would have little-to-no effect.

But if we can:
1) become aware that we are the CP
2) be open to and aware of what is going on right here/now around us in the CP’s expression of itself
3) be a separate enough that we can be consciously active within that self expression,

then maybe we can make a claim to be “helping God”.

This is captured really well, I think, by the Tao Te Ching: “know the active but keep to the passive.” (verse 28)

My comment, however, had to do with “God needs us” specifically, since AC is not alone in using that phrase, and it has quite a few meanings, starting with the traditional Christian usage of course.

Wonderfully written! Definitely resonated with what you had to say here. Cohen was the primary reason I never subscribed to Enlightenext–seemed to boxy and self assuring to me. Although, to be fair, the content of the magazine outshines Cohen’s ego.

A major concern I’ve had with Cohen, Wilber, etc is their walled-off presence online. They create $$ boundaries, preventing a more open and collaborative talk. The idea you have going here is a great start in a more bottom-up direction, spreading wildflowers amongst the temple walls

Hokai,

Good point too on evolution needing us, more relatively speaking. Although I do think its important not to think that evolution or God -needs- us in any ultimate sense. Responsibility might become secondary (as I think is happening in EnlightenNext to some degree). I like what Teilhard said on a similar note… paraphrasing here but: If human beings should fail in building the Earth, life’s energy would be set back and have to travel up another path into the noosphere.

At any rate, great thoughts all around!

-shamansun