Life

Andrew Cohen was born in 1955 in New York. The details of his life are set out in his Autobiography of an Awakening, and further information is provided in a book by his mother called Mother of God. Cohen tells us of a relatively unhappy, though relatively privileged childhood, marked at the age of sixteen by a profound spiritual experience. He describes this experience in terms not dissimilar to Maharshi's description of the moment of enlightenment, coincidentally at a similar age. Cohen's transformation was not a permanent one however, and his growth into the enlightened condition took place later and after exposure to India and its spiritual teachings. Cohen pursued the ambition of becoming a jazz drummer for a while, but became convinced that even if he was to be highly successful in this field it would not bring him the happiness that he sought. He had recognised at an early age that the secular life was insufficient for him.

At the age of twenty two he began a search for teachers who could afford him 'self-realization', a search that led to a range of teachers including a direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda. The Kriya Yoga that Cohen learned took him deeply into meditation, but even at this stage he was aware that the teachers he came across seemed flawed. Cohen heard Krishnamurti speak in Switzerland, and although his initial response was cool, the long-term impact seems to have been profound. There followed an exposure to Buddhist thought and practice, and after a somewhat confusing period he decided to travel to India to the site of the Buddha's awakening at Bodhgaya.

India had a powerful effect on Cohen, where he met both his future wife Alka, and his future guru, H.W.L.Poonja, also known as Poonjaji. This spiritual teacher was a direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi, and is considered by many to be fully self-realised. Cohen had found a teacher of sufficient stature to match his enquiry, and in turn Poonjaji found a student of unusual capacity, claiming that he had only seen the emptiness of self-realisation in the eyes of three people in his lifetime, Maharshi, himself in the mirror, and Cohen. Poonjaji was soon talking of Cohen as his spiritual 'son' a statement that is very significant in the spiritual life. If enlightenment took place at a particular time then it was during this period, in about 1986, when Cohen would have been thirty one. A highly charged and ecstatic state propelled Cohen into a career as a teacher of enlightenment, in the first instance at least as spiritual 'son' of Poonjaji, and by implication in the lineage of Maharshi.

Cohen found his own way of teaching however, one that corresponded to his own experience, and after a time was less reliant on Poonjaji. In 1990 Cohen's relationship with his Master cooled, and he began to see him in a more critical light. It seems that throughout his extensive spiritual journey Cohen was able to find fault with all the teachers he came across, and in the case of Poonjaji this centred about accusations of sexual misconduct. When Cohen attempted to present about 150 of his students to Poonjaji as their spiritual 'grandfather' it backfired, and left him disillusioned. A rift took place which meant that students had to choose between Cohen and Poonjaji, at which point Cohen decided that he had surpassed his teacher.

Cohen now teaches under his own authority, and his claim to be controversial is probably justified. Contributing to this is the account by his mother of her experience as one of his disciples and her eventual rejection of him as teacher. The account is painful but probably typifies a feature of the spiritual life and context of Andrew Cohen, a lack of mutual understanding. Cohen puts this down to his insistence on the 'truth' however uncomfortable for others.

Teachings

Cohen's teachings, despite the rejection of his guru, are a form of non-dualism that sits well with the Advaita Vedanta that Ramana Maharshi found himself to be a luminous illustration of. However Cohen's insights and methods are original, bold and direct. In the first instance it seems that it was the sheer fire of Cohen's inner experience and conviction that brought him so many students, in particular his insistence that liberation came from a profound honesty. In time he developed a number of coherent and focused themes to his teachings that are found in his five tenets. These tenets (reproduced verbatim below) grew out of Cohen's point of departure from his teacher, considering that instead of the sole spiritual enquiry 'Who am I?' there existed a second question of equal importance 'How shall I live?' This has a radical implication for Cohen's teachings, and reflect his lifelong concern that the liberated individual should live according to the highest moral standards. In the spiritual communities that have grown around Cohen's teaching both these questions are pursued with equal weight. The five tenets of the teachings are presented here (taken without editing from the Andrew Cohen website).

"Once again, the first tenet is Clarity of Intention. It states that if one sincerely aspires to achieve Liberation and Enlightenment in this life, then the desire for that Liberation must be cultivated in such a way that it will always be stronger than our desire for anything else.

The second tenet is The Law of Volitionality. It states that there is only one doer and that that doer is us. It says that the unconditional acceptance of that fact makes it possible to take complete responsibility for the consequences of everything that has ever happened to us. It tells us that only then does Liberation become possible.

The third tenet is Face Everything and Avoid Nothing. It states simply that if we want to be free, we have to be willing to face everything and avoid nothing in every moment. It says that if we are not willing to face everything and avoid nothing, then it is inevitable that others will suffer the consequences of our own unwillingness to be awake. It tells us that facing everything and avoiding nothing is the ultimate spiritual practice, and that if we want to be free our Liberation depends upon it.

The fourth tenet is The Truth of Impersonality. It states that every aspect of our personal experience, when scrutinized closely enough, will be revealed to be completely impersonal. It says that the discovery of the ultimately impersonal nature of our personal experience is the door to direct perception of the universal nature of all human experience. It tells us that it is through the direct perception of the universal nature of our own experience that the truth can be known.

The fifth and final tenet is For the Sake of the Whole. It states that to be truly free we must finally be willing to renounce a relationship to life that is based on wanting to have everything, including spiritual experience, for ourselves alone. It says that the whole point of spiritual experience is evolution. And it tells us that that evolution occurs, and the true significance of human life is found, when we cease to live for ourselves but live only for the sake of the whole.

Through the sincere contemplation of these five tenets, the way to actually live the enlightened vision–the vision of nonduality–is revealed."

With a living Master it is of course impossible to separate the teachings from the teacher. Cohen has a presence and impact in his discourses and question-and-answer sessions that can only be assessed by being present. His teaching and his manner seem to polarise his audience however, some in favour, some against, but few remain indifferent.

Commentary

Andrew Cohen is the only living Master, apart from Mother Meera, presented in this section. There is no doubt that he represents a pure jnani path of transcendence, and for anyone who identifies with the goal of that path it would be absurd not to seek him out and hear him firsthand. What we can do here is locate him amongst the teachers and teachings so far presented, perhaps quite simply by saying that he he comes closest to Ramana Maharshi in his teachings and to the Buddha in his personality. He clearly does not represent the bhakti temperament found in Ramakrishna or Rumi, nor the divine Mother principle found in Mother Meera, nor has he the analytical power of Harding's teaching. Neither is he a 'rascal Guru' like Osho or Gurdjieff, nor possessed of that immense acceptance and expansivity of Whitman. Many have suggested that he is a 'younger Krishnamurti', but the difference in temperament is too profound: Cohen has not the refinement which made teaching such a delicate ordeal and Nature so aesthetically present for Krishnamurti.

The mark of a great teacher of course is that they are like no other, but the comparisons with Maharshi and the Buddha are instructive. The similarity with Maharshi lies in the emphasis on 'who am I?', while the point of departure is Cohen's insistence on also pursuing 'how shall I live?' This makes the appeal of his teachings much wider than Maharshi's, because many more people are interested in the second question than the first, simply because their lives are unhappy. In fact, if one were to come to the question 'how shall I live?' because of one's concerns for others, then the question is already answered. Few are prepared to really ask the question 'who am I?' because it seems in the first instance to offer no solution to one's own suffering. (The paradox is that it provides the only solution to everyone's suffering.) It is the 'how shall I live' that brings Cohen closer to the Buddha, in that both set up spiritual communities or sanghas, and both were interested in rules of conduct and moral standards. Cohen shares with the Buddha another trait, that of the warrior personality. The boldness of their teaching and interaction and the unwillingness to consider any other teacher or teaching as valid are common to both men, though Cohen may well be the more abrasive of the two.

'It is the 'how shall I live' that brings Cohen closer to the Buddha, in that both set up spiritual communities or sanghas, and both were interested in rules of conduct and moral standards. Cohen shares with the Buddha another trait, that of the warrior personality'.

Cohen's teachings on enlightenment are profound, and for those who have experienced him first hand there is no doubt of his impact on them. The issue of moral values in the spiritual life is a thorny one however. One of the very reasons that individuals reject the religion of their birth, by definition usually geared to the social dimension of the spiritual life and not the transcendent, is because of prescriptive morality. Cohen's willingness to make moral judgements on the spiritual teachers of our time is no doubt based on his convictions, but has the effect of encouraging this attitude amongst those in his sangha. This can lead to taking too much interest in the behaviour of others, always an easier route than to bring the light of awareness to one's own behaviour. The other effect of Cohen's preoccupation with standards of behaviour in the spiritual life is that he has set himself up as a target or this kind of scrutiny and created a climate where people want to believe the worst. His mother has provided the very fuel for this speculation.

The Buddha in The Sutta-Nipata seems clear that liberation means relinquishing all views, telling Magandiya that because he held fast to his views that he could not perceive the least sense. To make moral judgements on other is not just to hold a view, but to set the other person as separate, an act that contradicts the heart of Cohen's teaching, the loss of the separate sense of self.