Andrew Cohen Quotes

[Ian]

As a follow-up to some of Hagar's recent posts, I thought I'd add a few quotes from a book by Andrew Cohen I read recently. Can't remember the title, but it was blue, and relatively recent.

 

Figure Mr Cohen is a wordy enough chap for the most avid discussion-head to take seriously.

 

As follows:

 

"The spiritual path is the search for, and discovery of, total insecurity."

 

"As long as the seeker wants to survive, so long as the seeker still wants to be somebody and be free, the result can only be a condition that continues to be fundamentally divided. Indeed the whole point of spiritual practice and experience is to finally come to the end of that division."

 

"The price that needs to be paid for the experience of true intimacy to become more than a brief interlude is real ego death."

 

 

Discuss.

[neimad]

"The price that needs to be paid for the experience of true intimacy to become more than a brief interlude is real ego death."

Discuss.

 

 

death of the 'I'.

we got heaps of these I's and they each relate to a particular personality we use in a given situation.

 

i have just become aware that i truly killed a part of myself this weekend. i just sent an email from work and i signed my "name" to it and found i have no attachment or identification with that name.... it's truly not me.

 

on the path we have to obliterate every single thing we thought we were.... all of it. the final death (leaping off the cliff) is the death of the final 'I', the ego.

 

then we can realise when we thought we were alive, we were actually dead.... and now that we have died, we can truly live.

 

finding the I's and destroying them is known as "stalking" per the teachings of Don Juan.

 

i've realised that this process is essential for true freedom to become available.

[Yoda]

Andrew is a great guy, but he doesn't offer the kind of step-by-step/how-to stuff that I get off on.

[sean]

Cohen's come a long way. I was very wary of him for many years (you are aware that his own mother wrote a scathing biography of him, as well as an ex long time student) but I think he is doing good work with his magazine. I think it's good that he has calmed down on the overbearing guru trip. And I think it's good he has people like Ken Wilber in his life to help him articulate a coherent spiritual philosophy.

 

Sean

[neimad]

you are aware that his own mother wrote a scathing biography of him

 

 

would that really be a bad thing?

 

 

i am realising that to truly be free, one has to give up attachment to everything and anything in ones life.... that includes parents.

 

anything you hold dear, is holding you stuck in the matrix.

 

a warrior can pretend to care.... but thats all it is, pretending or "controlled folly".

 

i think i'm well on the way... i couldn't care less about my parents. i'm currently just using them as a place to live cheaply. when i'm done using them i'll leave and probably not have another thought about them. perhaps my mother will be upset, but thats her issue.... i don't have the time to waste my energy on trying to help everyone feel good.

 

a warrior must be ruthless sometimes. that's the nature of the game.

"selflessly selfish" is what i have come up with.

to truly help everybody out, one has to be entirely self-focused. everything that detracts from a warriors impeccable nature and unwavering focus, is a trap of the matrix.

true freedom is scary and threatening to most people, and someone on that path of liberation will meet resistance from everyone not.

 

 

a scathing report from a mother could be just this..... indignation that her own son could care so little about her. for if he is truly a warrior, that is exactly what would have happened.

 

[sean]

The book isn't Cohen's mom being upset that he became free of his attachment to her. That would be a pretty silly thing to write a book about. The book is about Cohen's descent into narcissism and megalomania, from his mother's perspective.

 

a warrior can pretend to care.... but thats all it is, pretending or "controlled folly".

 

i think i'm well on the way... i couldn't care less about my parents. i'm currently just using them as a place to live cheaply. when i'm done using them i'll leave and probably not have another thought about them.

 

Sean

[mYTHmAKER]

.

anything you hold dear, is holding you stuck in the matrix.

 

 

This would include your life.

[GrandTrinity]

When I was first getting into mysicism I looked up books on enlightenment and found COhen, he helped me to stay determined and true, but his wordyness offered little body-centered enlightenment which I was looking for (on a gross level/sustainable, rather than just when I was reading his stuff.)

 

Still I think he has a good message in his stuff and has reached a decent degree of enlightenment. Enlightenment does not exist in time, that is what I learned from him.

 

He is a very wordy chap.

 

That thing about his mother is crazy, our mothers are deadly important! dont see them as attachments, but cosms of our relationship with enlightenment, the earth, the mystery and sacred/feminine. On the other hand all that is an attachment too! uuuhh

[neimad]

This would include your life.

 

exactly.

 

and everything you associate with that life too.

 

it's all fake and is all binding.

 

 

 

sean - roll your eyes at me as much as you desire. i'm getting out of this matrix, and to do so i will be as ruthless as i need to be (and i'll laugh the whole way hahahaha). i have no other purpose any longer than to seek freedom by whatever means necessary.

it wont be long before i will be considered a schizophrenic.... but to be entirely unpredictable is the way out. i received so much verification this past weekend that i know i am on the right path. a big part of me died on the weekend.

 

GT - on the path one must give up ALL attachment. all of it.... all attachments to beliefs, ideals, to energy, to sex, to money, to food, to friends, to family, to dreams and desires. it's all just a hypnotic illusion.

 

choose the blue pill, or choose the red pill.

[sean]

GT - on the path one must give up ALL attachment. all of it.... all attachments to beliefs, ideals, to energy, to sex, to money, to food, to friends, to family, to dreams and desires. it's all just a hypnotic illusion.

What about attachment to neurotically giving up all attachment without any concern for others? In particular others that invested their life Qi into birthing us, loving us, raising us, working to feed us and give us shelter.

 

Sean

[neimad]

What about attachment to neurotically giving up all attachment without any concern for others? In particular others that invested their life Qi into birthing us, loving us, raising us, working to feed us and give us shelter.

 

Sean

 

giving up attachment does not mean giving up respect or gratitude.

 

i honour and thank my parents for the energy they invested into me. i love them in the same way i love everything and everyone else. but i want out of the matrix, so when it's time for me (soon) to leave their house i will wish them all the best and be gone without another thought about them unless i need to take of their services yet again. to spend my time worrying or thinking about them is to invest energy i don't have to spare.

every speckle of energy is precious, every thought is valuable and there is no time.... death is upon us.

 

i am aware that i am now becoming quite mad, but ive never felt so lucid.... ahhhhh.... like a breath of fresh air.

 

it's utterly selfish and self-centred... but to be truly selfless thats just the way it's got to be.

the answer is always a paradox.

 

The price that needs to be paid for the experience of true intimacy to become more than a brief interlude is real ego death.

 

to make it relevant, i feel like i am still discussing this quote.

[sean]

but i want out of the matrix

Where do you want to go, neimad? What do you expect this destination you are seeking to have and what will it lack?

 

Sean

[neimad]

Where do you want to go, neimad? What do you expect this destination you are seeking to have and what will it lack?

 

Sean

 

 

i want to go to exactly the same place as you.

freedom, liberation.

 

escaping the insiduous holds the matrix has on me, the preprogammed paths set out for me.... this pathetic life we hold so dearly.

 

i don't know where this destination is, i don't know what it will have and i don't know what it will lack.... all i know is that it exists (or does it?). all i know is that i have no choice but to seek and continue on this path that i now realise i chose a long long time ago. the path of a warrior. it's all i have left and it's all so totally and utterly useless.

 

i have been amassing the resources needed to get there though, i see that now. i have been accumulating knowledge and now i must begin the hard work of turning that knowledge into power.

 

 

i who have nothing but the comfort of my sins.

[sean]

I think your perspective, a very dichotomous one with a hard line in the sand between a pathetic present moment self and an imagined enlightened Self in the future, is certaintly one perspective. It appears to be helping to raise your motivation for your path. However I think this perspective, without temperament with other wisdom perspectives, is very unbalanced. It's also equally true that the present moment, which includes our self, is already completely, unimaginably Perfect in every possible way. And the only obstacle to an experience of this truth is actually the very fact that we think the lie that our self is pathetic and that we think the lie that this moment is flawed and that we think the lie that we are stuck in an terrible illusionary matrix and that someday in the imagined lie called the future we will find salvation. And from this perspective even this "fall" is Perfect. From this end of the paradox, the path out of the matrix is in dissolving the illusion that there is a path out of the matrix. Every step of the way is Perfect. Then you yourself the illusion the truth the way out are not separate. My suggestion is to hold both, and more, and no perspectives all at once.

 

Also, particularly from a Taoist perspective, our incarnational form is intimately intimately bound up with our ancestry and our community. Inseparable really. Their qi is our qi. Leaving home, moving 10k miles away, saying you couldn't care less about your parents ... doesn't really matter. You can't escape them. You and the matrix are not separate. You will always carry aspects of your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents patterns. It's funny, this very idea of an individual path distinct from one's family and community is completely foreign to Chinese Taoism, it was introducted by Indian Buddhists and was debated for centuries. So if you really want to transcend what I've heard you remark as the limited Buddhist views of your parents, you can start by embracing a more alchemical, nondual cosmology.

 

Just my two humble cents as always, brother.

 

Sean

[neimad]

sean,

 

thank you for your concern, but i am in more conviction than i have ever been that i am a warrior. nothing more, nothing less.

 

there is, as always, a misunderstanding.

 

impeccability is that state of living the moment. a warriors path is entirely driven by the moment and nothing else. to continuously refine the moment until there is nothing less. to do so knowing that it is utterly and totally useless (as you put "the path out of the matrix is itself an illusion"). a state of presence is the only place to be....

 

we agree on that perspective.

 

 

 

however we will just have to agree to disagree on the whole concept of "every body is perfect and unique" cos quite frankly.... that's just matrix-talk and i aint buying it for a second.... (remember fight club? you are not special, you are not unique, you are nothing but a piece of shit.... and so on, that's it).

 

every person i have ever met holds a pattern on me as i do on others. this is a process of liberation, to chase down those cords and sever them completely. to become myth and imaginary. this includes the parents and the grandparents, friends and enemies, lovers and casual fucks..... even children when/if i have any... and i would expect they would do the same to me (provided of course that they choose to live the warriors life).

 

 

it sounds so cold and ruthless..... so opposite to that state of love we are all trying to foster, but it's not. real love is both cold and warm, unquestioning.... do you think the sun has any second thoughts about burning us? and yet with it's intensity it provides life for us out of love.

 

one interesting thing...... consider this, lucid ... lucifer.

why?

 

the road out of the matrix is so hideous that it threatens everything a humaton holds dear, it threatens them with the pettiness of their lives so much so that it is deemed as evil and on the path to being a warrior will be threatened with revoltion and adoration both.

 

..... lucifer the light bringer.

 

hmmmm.

[sean]

however we will just have to agree to disagree on the whole concept of "every body is perfect and unique" cos quite frankly.... that's just matrix-talk and i aint buying it for a second.... (remember fight club? you are not special, you are not unique, you are nothing but a piece of shit.... and so on, that's it).

I hold both perspectives.

 

Sean

[neimad]

I hold both perspectives.

 

 

good point.

[freeform]

I'd like to reply to Neimad, but it has nothing to do with Andrew Cohen... maybe we should split this into another thread? (the warrior's path).

 

I've been reading Jack Elias' book Finding True Magic, and since he's one of our new members I thought I should reference back to him.

 

Jack mentions how he does not think of mind as a noun but a verb: minding ... because minding is a process... in the same way you could have egoing...

 

Neimad, I think you're on the right track about one thing, and that's noticing and removing the layers of illusion that are padding and protecting you from 'NOW'... I think that using the warrior archetype at this time is the right thing for you. We both know that the warrior is also an illusion, it might be just the right illusion for you now, but be prepared to adopt a new one to develop further. You may one day discover your connection to the Joker/prankster, another time with the wiseman etc.

 

I think of these shifts as phases, just like minding, you are now warrioring, because that is what is needed at this time, but I feel the wrong thing to do would be to start to identify with this identity and grab it and keep it still, like a noun, because then it becomes stationary (nothing is stationary in the universe, including that nothing is stationary) like an illusion.

 

If I was in your situation, I would try to find out why it is appropriate for me to adopt this role at this time in my life. This may be a way of healing or resolving some part of yourself... or it may actually be a part of yourself that is finally being recognised... but as always the part is not you, having discovered it you need to let it dance with your other parts to help you discover other ones you've lost. I would get down to the energetics (kinesthetic experience) of this part. Make a passionate and vivid speech about the warrior's journey, but use only 'blah' as your words - where do you feel it? When I do it I can feel my liver and a connection to my heart - when I give this energy-movement a colour and take it out of my body (and turn it so it is facing me) I can communicate with it. And the communication I get from my warrior part is flashes of pictures of my ancestors, of where I was born and the deep connection that I have with them.

 

That's why I find the "couldn't care less about my parents" thing so hard to digest. In the Huna tradition your parents and the line of ancestry is what gives a warrior hir power - it's the earthy side of power and your 'Higher Self' is the heavenly side of power and your heart and love-connection to other humans is your individual expression of power. As a warrior-kahuna, you act from your deep heart (not the organ - more the middle dan tien) supported by your ancestral chi (including the earth, and earthly-elemental cycles) and inspired by your higher self (or whatever you like to call it) from above.

 

The warrior can attempt to kill off illusion, but in my mind this sets him into a bigger trap of his own illusion, rather than integrating the other archetypal energies that have their own stories to tell.

[cloud recluse]

Neimad

Just gotta say I agree totally with Freeform.It seems pretty clear that the Warrior archetype is an energy you need to draw on right now in your life,totally appropriate & Im all for it.But you run the risk of exclusively identifying with it & so excluding other aspects of your freedom.

 

Of course, that is a pretty presumptious thing to say to someone Ive never met face to face.But just going by your language (all I can go by really),you may be risking falling into the same sterile space Castaneda was trapped in.REAL freedom,Detachment from the Lie,is actually FULL CONTACT with the Real,the ongoing Truth that outdistances any attempt to contain it. Castanedas "Warrior"is an isolated unit,a victim of a more subtle deception,a kind of coward even!Be wary of Castanedas weaknesses if you go looking to his examples for strength (if that is what your actually doing).

 

Or mabye Ive misread where your coming from & got all concerned just over your choice of words,in which case I allready apologise This may just be me seeing only my own mistakes in exactly the same area.

 

Hope I havent intruded Regards,Cloud.

 

I'd like to reply to Neimad, but it has nothing to do with Andrew Cohen... maybe we should split this into another thread? (the warrior's path).

 

 

Freeform,I think that would be a good move.I would hazard a guess that Warriorship is a topic very relevant to a lot of the Bums,that there would be quite a bit of response to it.Anyone agree?

 

Regards,Cloud.

[cloud recluse]

When I was first getting into mysicism I looked up books on enlightenment and found COhen, he helped me to stay determined and true, but his wordyness offered little body-centered enlightenment ...

 

 

Grand Trinity,I think youve put the finger on my major concern with Cohen.I got the impression that hes someone who had a phenomenal transpersonal breakthrough & lived in its afterglow for a while.But when it came to intergrating the personal,the emotional,the instinctual etc into that,he was a bit lost,a bit perplexed even.So he came to see the personal as a obstruction to enlightenment & tried to mortify it with all the diligence of any medieval monk!I particularly get this from van der Braak's ENLIGHTENMENT BLUES.

 

Cohen had no vision of Intergration,so he fell back on puritanism & authoritarianism.Fortunately,his group seems to have had enough commercial success to prevent it going Apocalyptic in some form,a typical respone guru-types have when the world wont acknowledge their ego-image of "perfection".

 

A good chearleader perhaps,but not a lot of embodied wisdom.

 

Regards,Cloud.

[Ian]

Grand Trinity,I think youve put the finger on my major concern with Cohen.I got the impression that hes someone who had a phenomenal transpersonal breakthrough & lived in its afterglow for a while.But when it came to intergrating the personal,the emotional,the instinctual etc into that,he was a bit lost,a bit perplexed even.So he came to see the personal as a obstruction to enlightenment & tried to mortify it with all the diligence of any medieval monk!I particularly get this from van der Braak's ENLIGHTENMENT BLUES.

 

Cohen had no vision of Intergration,so he fell back on puritanism & authoritarianism.Fortunately,his group seems to have had enough commercial success to prevent it going Apocalyptic in some form,a typical respone guru-types have when the world wont acknowledge their ego-image of "perfection".

 

A good chearleader perhaps,but not a lot of embodied wisdom.

 

Regards,Cloud.

 

A friend of mine, who practices an entirely body-centred meditation (and does it much better than I do) went to a weekend with Cohen about a month ago. He reported a strong clear transmission, which definitely helped his very physical practice. So there's an alternative view.

 

And frankly, every serious tradition insists that the personal is an obstruction to enlightenment. Maybe the only one. It's not just something Cohen made up. A lot of personalities have worked very hard, and continue to do so, to try and prove otherwise. Their survival is at stake, after all.

[cloud recluse]

 

And frankly, every serious tradition insists that the personal is an obstruction to enlightenment. Maybe the only one...

 

Ian,I want to make sure we are actually using the same terms here before semantic confusion ensues

 

By 'personal',Im looking to the intergration of manifest energies initially conceptualised as bodymind.If ones "enlightenment" has to shut these out,its really another attempt at immunity from direct experience & thus another form of "ego",another act of recoil,another dualism.Alternatively,if one accepts them fully into experience,thay arise as wisdom qualities.A good example of this is the being moved by the Hara,Hara undistorted by egoic agenda,that you see in the Aikido of Wendy Palmer & Richard Strozzi Heckler.

 

The opposite of this is to try & erase the Personal instead of intergrating it,an impossible project brought about by the confusing of bodymind energies with "the Ego",the project/strategy of dualistic speration,immunity from experince,rejection of contact etc.When a tradition makes this error,an error very attractive to the "spiritual" ego,you usually get asceticism & self -hate,things easily mistaken as focus & psychological insight into oneself.

 

So the only obstruction IS the 'ego',I wholeheartedly agree with that.BUT thats NOT the same as "personal" energy or Hara.At least in the period described in van der Braaks book,Cohen couldnt deal with personal energy,confused its distorted arising with the Ego per se,and attempted to erase the personal,with the usual cultic behaviour that follows from that.

 

Perhaps if I just used "Hara" instead of "personal" that might be more straightforward.

 

Anyhow,Im not actually denying Cohen can have a transpersonal impact or a capacity for transmission,but at least earlier on he seems to have fallen into a Hara=ego leading to a cultish situation.Many a "serious tradition" has made that blunder,especially as large scale movements.

 

If you cant allow Hara,youve set up another obstruction against the inevitable arising,a fairly standard ego tactic.Youve rejected wisdom.

 

Ian,I hope you have the patience to read this longwinded post,coz I really want to clear up communication

Regards,Cloud

[Ian]

Ian,I want to make sure we are actually using the same terms here before semantic confusion ensues

 

By 'personal',Im looking to the intergration of manifest energies initially conceptualised as bodymind.If ones "enlightenment" has to shut these out,its really another attempt at immunity from direct experience & thus another form of "ego",another act of recoil,another dualism.Alternatively,if one accepts them fully into experience,thay arise as wisdom qualities.A good example of this is the being moved by the Hara,Hara undistorted by egoic agenda,that you see in the Aikido of Wendy Palmer & Richard Strozzi Heckler.

 

The opposite of this is to try & erase the Personal instead of intergrating it,an impossible project brought about by the confusing of bodymind energies with "the Ego",the project/strategy of dualistic speration,immunity from experince,rejection of contact etc.When a tradition makes this error,an error very attractive to the "spiritual" ego,you usually get asceticism & self -hate,things easily mistaken as focus & psychological insight into oneself.

 

So the only obstruction IS the 'ego',I wholeheartedly agree with that.BUT thats NOT the same as "personal" energy or Hara.At least in the period described in van der Braaks book,Cohen couldnt deal with personal energy,confused its distorted arising with the Ego per se,and attempted to erase the personal,with the usual cultic behaviour that follows from that.

 

Perhaps if I just used "Hara" instead of "personal" that might be more straightforward.

 

Anyhow,Im not actually denying Cohen can have a transpersonal impact or a capacity for transmission,but at least earlier on he seems to have fallen into a Hara=ego leading to a cultish situation.Many a "serious tradition" has made that blunder,especially as large scale movements.

 

If you cant allow Hara,youve set up another obstruction against the inevitable arising,a fairly standard ego tactic.Youve rejected wisdom.

 

Ian,I hope you have the patience to read this longwinded post,coz I really want to clear up communication

Regards,Cloud

 

Thank you, I'm all for clarity.

 

I'm not, however, familiar enough with your terms above to be sure of the distinction you're making, so I will try to define mine and see if it helps.

 

From what I can glean, I would describe the enlightened state, or the type of enlightened state I would care to achieve, at least, as being one of no "personal" reactions to what is. No preferences. Full openness to what arises from without, nothing arising from within.

 

And I believe that getting there (and I know in one sense there's nowhere to get to, but that's irrelevant until we make it real,) involves, as Hagar has been saying, mostly surrender. Especially surrender of all our little ideas of how to go about surrendering.

 

And it requires being intensely present to what is, and entirely unattached to it. Not shutting anything out, but considering less and less of it to be "me".

 

And I'm very wary when people talk about integration, because I often find that what they seem to me to be saying is "I have selected parts of my experience and my expectations and my personality and deemed them ok and I am looking for a version of enlightenment which allows me to keep them."

 

I believe that often, when people talk about integrating their x, y, or z, they are aiming to integrate them with What Exactly? With all the "me" stuff they want to keep!

 

What else do we have that we can integrate things with?

 

So..... if all you're talking about in the first place is the need to be open and present, in the senses and body, without being obstructed by thoughts and attachments and emotions, then we are in complete agreement. Otherwise maybe not.

 

Does that help?

[cloud recluse]

.....

From what I can glean, I would describe the enlightened state, or the type of enlightened state I would care to achieve, at least, as being one of no "personal" reactions to what is. No preferences. Full openness to what arises from without, nothing arising from within.

 

And I believe that getting there (and I know in one sense there's nowhere to get to, but that's irrelevant until we make it real,) involves, as Hagar has been saying, mostly surrender. Especially surrender of all our little ideas of how to go about surrendering.

 

And it requires being intensely present to what is, and entirely unattached to it. Not shutting anything out, but considering less and less of it to be "me".

.....

So..... if all you're talking about in the first place is the need to be open and present, in the senses and body, without being obstructed by thoughts and attachments and emotions, then we are in complete agreement....

 

 

Ian,it seems we are in complete agreement

 

I guess Im just really fussy about language that leads to a possible exclusion of the senses & the body,language that denigrates the embodied experience (this is why Im so fond of Adyashanti & so wary of Cohen),and so much "Spirituality" is prone to exactly that.

And I really dig your point about using "intergration" as an excuse to retain an ego-stance

 

Regards,Cloud.