Open Enlightenment

wow
so
you are enlightened?

i can in all honesty say i am not

i like the cut of your jib
anyone who takes on an established guru
is worth his salt

can’t comment usefully on your article
sorry
well written though

> I have no doubt that Andrew Cohen experienced
> enlightenment in 1986, simply because a few
> years ago I experienced a ‘transmission’
> effect … twice in his presence… this kind
> of phenomenon happens a lot around Cohen.

Alan had a Big Special Experience while Andrew Cohen was in the room. That’s one thing. Then he interpreted that experience, which is something else. His interpretation is that Andrew himself had had some Big Special Experience, which somehow got “transmitted” to Alan.

The experience you’re having at any moment is undeniable. The conclusions you draw based on the memory of the experience are very much open to question.

In lots of old books that lots of people consider “holy,” there’s the idea that if someone has a big special experience, there’s a type of magical invisible energy that radiates from them (named “shakti” or whatever), that can “transmit” that experience to those in his physical presence. This is an ancient idea, that a bunch of people believe. Aside from the fact that the idea is old and popular, there’s zero evidence that this belief is true.

On the other hand, there’s vast, solid scientific evidence of the great power of our beliefs and expectation. We’re strongly affected when someone is presented as an Authority, as Andrew Cohen is when he gives a talk. We’re strongly affect when we’re among a group that shares a particular belief, where individuals pass to each other all sorts of subtle and explicit expressions of their shared ideas. We can see these effects at a charismatic Christian revival service, or in an Andrew Cohen talk.

When we have a Big Special Experience (or any experience), we can never say with certainty what the cause was. It’s reasonable to say we don’t know for sure what the cause was, and leave it at that.

If for some reason we choose to speculate about causes of the experience, we know at least this much. There’s solid scientific evidence that beliefs, expectations, assertions from perceived authorities, and subtle cues within a group dynamic… all can have extreme effects. (These vary among individuals, with people at one end of the spectrum being very highly affected by the suggestions given by an authority or the group psychology.)

At a Christian revival, people claim that their special experiences come from an invisible “Holy Spirit” entering the room… and not their own mind-state as influenced by the group psychology. They hold this belief based on faith, even though it’s contradicted by all reasoned analysis of evidence. The same is true of any claim that magical invisible energy transmits special experiences from one person to another.

Stuart
http://stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/

Lovely level headed article and interesting comment by Stuart. Applying his method – “reasoned analysis of evidence” – to his idea that “transmission” is due to “beliefs, expectations, assertions from perceived authorities, and subtle cues within a group dynamic” reveals that this very conclusion can only be reached when using his preferred method. Alan’s preferred method, “experiencing inter-subjective enlightenment,” and his way of making sense of that experience stands as plausible explanation, and good eouigh, to make the judgement he does make, namely that Andrew Cohen is indeed enlightened.

Alans critique of ACs teaching hits the mark, in my view, and is helpful for such a one as me.

So thanks.

Alan,

i don’t have any personal experience with Andrew and his teachings (though i’m an avid reader of EnlightenNext magazine because there are lots of juicy stuff in there). but all i can say is that i intuitively agree with your take on this.

Cohen’s missionary zeal sometimes put me off. however, one thing i do like about his approach is the attention that he put on the “collective” and “evolutionary” nature of awakening.

that said, i can’t help but share these videos of my teacher Shinzen Young riffing on a similar topic.

see:

3 Things Shinzen Got from Joshu Sasaki Roshi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdP1gQBlvAE

Six Common Traps on the Path to Enlightenment ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i288Lnb7NOk

(would love to hear your take on these videos when you get the chance.).

basically, i like Shinzen’s attitude on enlightenment and “shaktipat”. one of his common quotes is: “Today’s enlightenment is tomorrow’s mistake.” based on your critique on Andrew Cohen, it sounds to me like Cohen is possibly under the “enlightenment trap.”

Shinzen’s suggestion to avoid the “enlightenment trap” is to find someone out there who are more senior than you (rather than believing that you’re the best badass enlightened being out there).

this is also an advice for you guys who claim to have achieved “full” enlightenment. the onus is on you not to screw up, big time!

my two cents.

~C

“the emphasis I want to make here is that the event is inclusive, not destructive, dismissive or repressive.”

“so in Wilber’s terms, Cohen’s view of a kosmocentric process that does not integrate and honour the personal, but in fact attempts to suppress or destroy it, is in fact a pathological moral development.”

“Judgements about the subject only further enforce the idea of the subject, and do nothing to mitigate the already existing judgements buried deep within the psyche.”

“Compassion – first and foremost for the self – is genuine spiritual practice; enforcing judgement upon your students can only be the result of an inability to bring compassion to your own ego first.”

What a wonderfully quotable article.

Thank you. I completely concur with these statements. I have already come to be very suspicious of Cohen, due to the allegations of abuse (in fact, reading reports from Cohen apologists makes me even more convinced he’s a terrible sham of a guru).

I’m with Stuart on this one, Alan. Not to deny the veracity of your experience, but definitely to deny the idea of it being transmitted from Cohen like radio waves. In my book, that idea is a folk theory which arose due to a lack of insight about the placebo effect, which doesn’t require explicit belief (your being convinced or not convinced about Cohen’s enlightenment) to operate. Thus, even the skeptical can go get a hug from Ammachi and suddenly find themselves in the middle of a big experience, causing them to rely on magical thinking for an explanation. The mind craves causal knowledge, so in the absence of other evidence or insight, it quite naturally can jump to magical explanations. And thus the folk theories are born and multiply.

Just as a little bit of background: I have spent over 15 years as a practitioner of Western magick, both solo and as part of a hardcore chaos magick order. I know placebo and ‘belief-shifting’ inside out.

When I visited Cohen I didn’t go there hoping for enlightenment. And what I got is what is normally called ‘transmission’, but as I say in the article, I think a more accurate term for the phenomenon is ‘intersubjective enlightenment’. This doesn’t mean placebo plays a part for others, but it is not what happened in my experience with Cohen, based on my personal, direct experience with both intentional use of placebo (magick) and enlightenment. I would also like to say that a). placebo effect is very limited in degree and b). no amount of placebo could have had the effect that my ‘Cohen’ experience had. At the time I had just landed 3rd Path (anagami) in the Theravada model, with emptiness arising and passing in real time. The intersubjective enlightenment kicked it so far into overdrive that I was permanently blissed out with emptiness in my face for over two weeks. Before, during and after I pretty much felt the same way about Cohen as I do now.

Furthermore, I actually experience ‘intersubjective enlightenment’ whenever I am in the presence of someone partially or fully awakened, guru or not, even consciously aware that they have any experience with this stuff or not. Hard to believe? Perhaps life and reality is a little more crazy than your philosophy can accommodate. There is something about a shared experience that arises between two or more people who have recognised Original Nature(no transmission waves necessary). Now this might be hard to swallow if you hate the thought that someone like Cohen is actually realised, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Those are the facts folks, and if you haven’t intentionally experimented with placebo, landed at least a peak experience of emptiness/awakening, and haven’t experienced what some call transmission but what I call intersubjective enlightenment, I’m not sure of what value an opinion based on scepticism for its own sake actually brings to the table.

@Jody: just to be clear, I agree totally that the ‘transmission waves’ explanation is inaccurate; but I fully believe there is a phenomenon here that is being inaccurately described, and it isn’t the placebo effect!

This doesn’t mean that fake gurus play on the inaccurate description and gullible folk end up having a placebo effect as a result. But that doesn’t mean intersubjective enlightenment isn’t a reality.

Furthermore, emptiness/awakening isn’t a ‘result’ of anything – enlightenment ‘does’ you, not the other way round – and so no amount of belief can be said to ’cause’ an awakening.

Someone who undergoes ‘the placebo effect’ actually gets better. And likewise, someone who undergoes a transmission experience can obtain genuine, lasting insight.

I was there with Alan at the time and I too experienced a transmission from Cohen. It proved to be the opening of the grade of Magus (or ‘third path’ / ‘anagami’ in Therevada Buddhist terms). In other words: for the first time I was able to apprehend Emptiness in real time, whereas formerly this only happened during fruition at the peak of an insight cycle.

So this was not simply an experience but a genuine insight with lasting effects that have never gone away. But it didn’t happen to everyone in the room, so I have to conclude that Cohen provided some kind of trigger for something I had already set in motion through my own efforts.

I call it a ‘transmission’ because that was how it was experienced. Some might call this view ‘magical thinking’. Others call it phenomenology!

The advantage of using magick to get enlightened (and I admit that there are also disadvantages) is that one is forced to realise very early on that the distinction between ‘is’ and ‘seems’ is not helpful when it comes to getting enlightened. If you explore your experience by saying to yourself ‘Well, this seems to be this’ and ‘This seems to have been caused by that’ then you are not undoing the illusion of duality but upholding it.

What benefit would I derive from denying it was a transmission from Cohen? What benefit does the placebo patient gain concluding that he or she didn’t undergo an experience of recovery? The ‘truth’ in one of these views depends upon splitting experience into a ‘seems’ and an ‘is’. The Truth in the other arises from realising how the ‘is’ and the ‘seems’ are both forms of experience and empty in themselves.

You can’t do magick without realising this – it simply doesn’t work – but it’s something that religious paths don’t address or will shy away from. Unfortunately, you really do have to abandon consensus thinking in order to realise enlightenment. Consensus thinking bases itself upon a split between experience and a transcendental ‘me’. This transcendental ‘me’ gets things ‘right’ when it sees what ‘is’; gets things ‘wrong’ when it sees what only ‘seems’. Abiding non-dual awareness, however, consists in apprehending that the whole shebang are aspects of experience and empty in themselves.

One of the good things about magick is people taking it up often find themselves shocked and surprised by it. One of the bad things about religious paths is that people often use them as a refuge and a means to console themselves with certain ways of thinking, rather than shaking up and breaking down those ways of thinking.

Lovely post, Alan. Thanks for sharing your insights.

I have been transformed in the presence of a giant sequoia. I have been deeply transformed in the presence of musicians Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Hamza el Din. To collapse the “energetic transmission” of the authentic presence found in those moments into an experience of “my beliefs and expectations” is reductionist and boring.

To say that there is “zero scientific evidence” for the notion of “transmission” and to chalk it up as “magical thinking” is to ignore current neurological research into mirror neurons. Surely we have all had a direct experience of profound uplift in the presence of a radiant soul full of life, goodness and beauty. Perhaps metaphors of “energetic transmission” do not accurately reflect the exterior domain of what is happening, but for me carry more life and truth than the psychological perspective of the placebo effect. (Not to deny that the beliefs, expectations and the placebo effect are responsible for many profound experiences of wholeness.)

I think you’re mistaken on 4;

The development of the universe runs straight through the human being; There is no way that it can further develop except through the development of the human being towards the highest ideals.

No other mass of matter, nor complexity of biological organism, touches a fraction of a hair of moral development; The dreams of love are infinitely more precious than the formation of hydrogen, or the conquests of bees.

I’m no expert on Andrew Cohen’s ideas, but I have read quite a bit of Teilhard. There is little cosmic significance to the motion of rocks in space, compared to the moral acts of human beings.

When you think of the universe as a space, the human being is small and insignificant.

But when you think of the universe as time or substance, then the development to animal life is an extraordinary step forward, and the development of the sentient mind with inner subjectivity, thought, love, appreciation, and inspiration — that’s an extraordinary step further still.

Atoms did not “evolve” into molecules, nor do subatomic particles “evolve” into atoms. The language of evolution refers to temporal development only within a narrow band, focusing on animals.

The further development of the human soul, though — and by this word, I do not mean anything that could be debated for or against — that is the furthest development we can see in the universe today with our eyes.

But within our hearts, we can perceive the surface of the heart of the universe striving to form, and we are its agents.

“Furthermore, I actually experience ‘intersubjective enlightenment’ whenever I am in the presence of someone partially or fully awakened, guru or not, even consciously aware that they have any experience with this stuff or not.”

In his book Therapeutic Trances, Stephen Gilligan describes the ideal for hypnotherapy being to enter an intersubjective trance state, such that therapist and client are deeply in tune and both deep in trance, in order to access unconscious resources for healing from the “deep self.” This is a relational trance between two individuals, rather than just an individual doing self-hypnosis.

Healing professionals (including me) regularly experience this state with clients. I’ve found it far easier to enter this state with clients who already have consistent access to it, sometimes within seconds.

In the same ways, it is very believable to me that a student can enter into an intersubjective enlightenment state experience (which is perhaps the same thing as intersubjective trance).

It is also the case that the roles and rituals of therapy play some very significant part in entering this intersubjective trance. I’ve often tried to do “covert” healing in the midst of daily life, but can almost never elicit such deep trance without the set and setting of a client session, with me in the social role of coach or therapist. Most people simply won’t go there in a coffeeshop or eating dinner, etc.

Similarly, I do think there is something to the social role of guru that itself conveys power. Even a simple public speaker has an immediately stronger hypnotic influence (even when a poor speaker) than if everyone was taking turns speaking in a circle.

I should also add that many unscrupulous people have learned Ericksonian hypnotherapy and can elicit strong responses in others that are not to their benefit, but for the purposes of manipulation.

Knowing Jody’s gurubusting work (and in fact, my own as well), I think perhaps we should caution against powerful experiences in the presence of charismatic gurus as carrying the likelihood of power games and manipulation.

Oh, and one final piece is that I know of hypnotherapists who can elicit *deeper* trance than they personally can experience. Sounds weird, but one person I know had this ability, which made her feel envious, inspiring her to explore spirituality for herself!

About your comments on “Face everything and avoid nothing”: Can you expand upon what you mean by “face” does not mean “accept”? Are you saying that genuine spiritual practice is to accept everything?

I have not really come across Andrew Cohen’s teachings but this tenet is something I consider incredibly important and would list in my top 5 tenets if I created such a list. That said, I don’t think it can be taught. I think what needs to be taught is attachment and aversion as two separate principles which each need to be broken down until they end in their fundamental forms. So face everything and avoid nothing, to me, is speaking about the enlightened state of having overcome fundamental aversion.

“Judgments about the subject only further enforce the idea of the subject, and do nothing to mitigate the already existing judgments buried deep within the psyche.”

I’ve heard variations of this before, but I don’t think it’s true. The logic here is that given any emotion or action we don’t like — whether guilt, shame, judgment, selfishness, egotistical behavior, war, destruction of the environment — can be disabled by simply pointing out that the subject to whom these feelings are directed doesn’t really exist.

OK, but then surely the same holds true for any positive feelings we do like: compassion, love, generosity, saving the environment, etc.

This same logic was deployed by Japanese Zen priests who argued that the unwillingness to plunge a bayonet into the heart of an enemy soldier was a sign of a false belief in a real subject, and that blindly following orders of one’s commanding officer was type of egoless awareness. Perhaps a Buddhist Wall Street trader could argue that the desire for government regulation is betrays a false belief in an eternal subject, that the dynamic nature of the market is a manifestation of the Tao, etc.

I hope the problems here are apparent.

The second clause of the quote is equally suspect, maybe because I don’t find metaphysical assertions about “like attracts like” very convincing. In any case, it’s contradicted by this entire post, which constitutes one very long judgment of Andrew Cohen.

Other than that: great post, I think you make some excellent points!

Outstanding.

@Duff:

‘Knowing Jody’s gurubusting work (and in fact, my own as well), I think perhaps we should caution against powerful experiences in the presence of charismatic gurus as carrying the likelihood of power games and manipulation.’

Absolutely, and I think this is the basis for so much of Cohen’s ex-devotee mud-slinging. Now whether or not a specific guru is using the phenomenon of intersubjective enlightenment or the phenomenon of placebo or hypnosis as a means to exercise those power games and manipulation is a whole other question worth investigating.

@Craig: According to ex-devotees, for Cohen ‘face everything’ means being willing to acknowledge your personal ‘egotisitical’ failings: pride, envy, greed, etc.

As I say in the article, I think there is a difference between labelling a particular part of yourself as ‘bad’ and trying to extinguish it and accepting that part with compassion (which is the only real way to change anything). The latter for me is authentic spiritual practice.

@Mr Teacup:

‘“Judgments about the subject only further enforce the idea of the subject, and do nothing to mitigate the already existing judgments buried deep within the psyche.”

I’ve heard variations of this before, but I don’t think it’s true. The logic here is that given any emotion or action we don’t like — whether guilt, shame, judgment, selfishness, egotistical behavior, war, destruction of the environment — can be disabled by simply pointing out that the subject to whom these feelings are directed doesn’t really exist.’

I think a misunderstanding might have occurred here. It’s not about pointing out that there is no subject, or trying to get rid of emotions we don’t like; it’s about bringing compassion – not judgement – to the feelings and motivations for all of the terrible things in the world (such as destruction of the environment), and by doing so, overtime, those emotions and motivations change, leading to a very real and lasting change in behaviour.

I mention the subject in the above quote because I was specifically dealing with Cohen’s notion that the ego (the subject) can be defeated by labelling it as bad and then trying to crush it. This isn’t the way to change the behaviour on an individual.

I hope that makes sense and that you can see the difference!

‘the phenomenon of intersubjective enlightenment or the phenomenon of placebo or hypnosis’

I find interesting the assumption that these are three distinct and different modes of mind rather than three different ways of interpreting the same phenomenom, dependent on which belief system we are currently operating from.

As I see it -and as strange as it may seem-, shaktipat plays a big part in advaita transmission and this is not a placebo effect. However, it only affects those who are ready for it.

The danger is that those who are able to transmit this shakti are not always perfect human beings and some might even turn into bona fide psychopaths encouraged by devotees worshiping them like living gods.

The idea of killing the ego is not only a bad translation of the Sanskrit expression “manasamarana”, but is also a complete absurdity. The easiest way to get rid of ego is to commit suicide.

Kind regards,

Alex

Excellent article, Alan.

Alan: “Isn’t it a little bit narcissistic to believe that the fulfilment of God’s greatest desire rests on our decision to pursue ‘evolutionary enlightenment’?”

Yes. It’s monumentally narcissistic. I guess AC might be doing it to encourage intensity of practice, but only the dumbest person would believe that God needs us. Ironically, one of AC’s early teachings was, “The truth doesn’t need you to hold it up.”

Alan: “I’m convinced that it is this belief in the conference of perfection through realisation that has led to Cohen’s pathological brand of enlightenment, and his inability to recognise the workings of his own overblown ego, visible to everyone else but himself and his followers.”

Yes. It is strange that AC attacks the ego viciously, yet his ego is so obviously overblown. His followers don’t see his ego because their ego is of the same kind – idealistic. He is the reformer/perfectionist type in The Enneagram (see: http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/TypeOne.asp).

Alan: “If you were told that you were perfected, without ego and ready to teach – in the midst of the profound, life-changing event of enlightenment – by someone you believe is also perfect, and then great numbers of the best and the brightest of the spiritual scene begin to treat you as if you were indeed perfected and without ego, hanging on your every word and showering you with gifts, how likely is it that you would attribute any of your thoughts, beliefs or actions to something you and everyone else is certain no longer exists?”

That’s the money comment, imo. Once you invest in something and it gets supported, it gathers its own momentum and is hard to stop as you become increasingly identified with it. Imagine the ego boost of having so many big names approve of you. But I think Wilber and others approve, or at least hold back on criticism, because they themselves gain from exposure in AC’s magazine. Regarding Papaji telling AC that he’s great: Papaji also subtly told AC to get lost (see all Papaji’s capitalised words in My Master Is Myself) and criticised AC behind his back. For what it’s worth, I think Papaji couldn’t speak directly to AC because he was smothered by AC’s daddy projection.

Alan: “With a heavy investment in the egoless model, and re-enforced by group behaviour and shared bliss states, it doesn’t seem quite so puzzling how a guru and his followers can spend a lot of time feeding the guru’s ego, only to suffer as a result without ever realising exactly what the problem is.”

Yes. The followers’ logic is: “AC is a perfect person who criticises ego, so he cannot have an ego or be wrong. Therefore, if he makes a mistake it must have had the best possible intention behind it, and so it must actually have been a brave risk that just happened not to have turned out right this time.”

Check out the gushing comments on Cohen’s blog (www.andrewcohen.org/blog). If I were AC, I’d be appalled at the delusion that is evident, so the first thing I would say is, “Dear disciple, You are showing signs of extreme attachment to utopian ideals rather than clearing everything away and seeing the reality that is left and operating from there.” I think that was the intention behind AC’s early teaching “The truth doesn’t need you to hold it up.”

How can such delusion grow so deep and blatant? I think the followers project their idealism onto AC, and fall in love with him on that basis. In other words, they are enthralled with their own projected idealism. AC approves of his disciples idealistic actions and comments, and the disciples return the favour. I think the idealism comes from delusion, but AC says that it comes from God. It must be the ultimate ego-boost to say that your egoic idealism is God incarnate.

Nevertheless, I think common sober goodwill is true to life.

good stuff, Alan.

what’s your take on this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPXvp6asF48

sorry, I don’t think that was the video I intended to post- can’t seem to find the right one – there are a couple on youtube & some his concepts seem similar to what I’ve read here so far.

I’d love to hear your opinion on his teachings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1xWXZ2ZaM&feature=related

Good points, and interesting discussion, though one argument misses the mark, imo. The God of “God needs us” is not Reality, but more specifically is the “creative principle”, in other words Eros of emergent novelty. In that specific sense, it becomes clear that evolution does need humans, its budding tips, to cooperate actively, since we – at least some – are evolution aware of itself, namely the process of creative principle aware of itself, so that the duality of “God/CP” and “Us/humans” becomes an instance of codependent origination. It’s been tested and proven that our simple consent goes a long way in establishing certain dynamic and creative processes, and allowing them to flow through our lives in many ways. I’m not sure this is the meaning intended by AC and his sangha, but here it is.

Once again, thanks for the post.

Hokai

Hey Alan,

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

Yeah, well, I’m not sufficiently conversant with his perspective. There is a clear distinction between identification with the separate-sense (which is what person actually means for most humans) and the CP. “Engaging fully with life” may take care of that, but from my own experience with practicing and teaching meditation, it is rarely used to bridge that gap and merge with the CP. The two, person and Eros become distinct and separate, except for brief shifts and peak experiences, safely kept limited to the cushion, i.e. experienced, misinterpreted and then simply ignored.

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.

If I can hazard a guess at this (although I am not familiar with exactly what AC means either)…

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)

Alan, I’m sure you are familiar with Santideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. Here’s a quote:

“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.

Perhaps the problem of “helping God” is solved when one realizes the nonduality of self and God, that I am not separate (nor equivalent to) God.

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.

@Mr Teacup: ‘But why only criticize Cohen…’

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.

@Duff: Good idea about the plugin! I’ll ask Dunc if he is up for it (me being technically ignorant).

Hey, I was at a Bob Dylan concert when suddenly I felt this overwhelming experience overtaking me. Hard to describe. Anyway, I mention this cause I have also had “transmissions” by various Gurus, even now “discredited” Gurus. Is it possible that there is a personality, physical, or (gasp) psychosis, wherein some are more susceptible to this kind of stuff? Could be. About all that Enlightenment stuff, I dunno, I’m a simpleton. I realized that There is only That. But, this is an intuitive non-philosophic unalterable thing about me. I would not call myself Enlightened however. Only occasionally is my total mind-body subsumed in Love. Big thumbs up on the marriage thing, if you can’t Surrender and love one other person how can you do that for total strangers?

@Alan: “whether or not a specific guru is using the phenomenon of intersubjective enlightenment or the phenomenon of placebo or hypnosis as a means to exercise those power games and manipulation is a whole other question worth investigating.”

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.

To Jody:

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.