Andrew Cohen (spiritual teacher)
Andrew Cohen ( born October 23, 1955 in New York City ) is an American guru, spiritual teacher, author, magazine editor and musician. He has developed his own spiritual journey, which he calls Evolutionary Enlightenment. Together with other thinkers and visionaries he sees his task to contribute to the development of a new stage of human consciousness and culture. To this end, Cohen and his students with a variety of other spiritual teachers, philosophers, activists, and cultural workers in the dialog. Many interviews and reports of these meetings, as well as texts by Andrew Cohen, will be published in the magazine EnlightenNext, which is published quarterly (also with a German edition ).
Life
Cohen has an older brother, Joshua. Raised in a nonreligious Jewish family, Cohen had at the age of 16 years, a deep experience " cosmic consciousness ", which changed his life forever. Since he could not forget this experience, he gave up his ambition to become a jazz drummer and instead went on a search to rediscover the experience permanently. He worked intensively with martial arts, Kriya Yoga and aged 22 to 30 years with Buddhism until 1986 HWL Poonja Advaita Vedanta master met. After two weeks with Poonja Cohen had an experience which he described as a profound spiritual awakening and began initially with the support of his guru to teach until later due to philosophical disputes came to the break between the two.
In 1988, Cohen, EnlightenNext, a nonprofit spiritual network whose goal is the creation of a new global culture. In addition to students who live in different parts of the world, there are public EnlightenNext centers in New York, Boston, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv and in the Indian Rishikesh. The headquarters of the organization EnlightenNext is the 890,000 square meter retreat center in Lennox, Massachusetts, where Cohen currently lives.
Shortly after Cohen began to teach, he met with other spiritual teachers to share experiences and dialogue on the fundamental nature of spiritual enlightenment. In 1991 he founded the magazine EnlightenNext ( under its former title What Is Enlightenment? ) To the discussions and studies on the subject to make it publicly accessible and they continue thus. As editor of the magazine EnlightenNext he believes that " it is our responsibility [ is ] to participate in the shaping of the future " and sees the magazine and its further offers as a contemporary forum for dialogue and in-depth study of the importance of the spiritual life in postmodernism. EnlightenNext developed a series of events with international speakers, entitled Voices from the Edge, an online multimedia Forum HOW unbound and a partnership with the TGI ( Graduate Institute ), in which a master 's degree program in Conscious Evolution ( conscious evolution ) was offered. In the years 2006 and 2007, the website of the magazine What Is Enlightenment was? (now EnlightenNext ) awarded www.WIE.org of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences with the Webby People's Voice Award in the category of religion and spirituality.
In 2000, Cohen was a co-founder of Ken Wilber's Integral Institute. 2004 and 2009 he was one of the speakers at the Parliament of the World 's Religions in 2006 and the Humanitarian Price Kashi, he was awarded.
Ideas
Evolutionary Enlightenment is a spiritual teaching that, as Cohen says, is in an independent manner the traditional understanding of enlightenment in the context of cosmic evolution. When people wake up to the timeless " Ground of Being ", according to Cohen, they can free themselves from self-centered motives and ego and learn to manifest the " Authentic Self ". This self beyond ego is the highest expression of our humanity: creative, compassionate and motivated by an evolutionary impulse " is one with the big bang ." According to Cohen, people who opt out of the authentic self to live, realize their inseparability from the universe and thereby find a deep sense of life that transcends egoism. This sense consists in the unique human ability to actively participate in the evolution of consciousness.
Cohen distinguishes Evolutionary Enlightenment of traditional " personal " enlightenment. In Evolutionary Enlightenment Enlightenment is not a matter of an individual, but is connected to the foundation of human relationships on which a new culture can be created. Cohen stressed that the development of a new consciousness and a new culture is essentially important for the survival of humanity and represents the opinion, especially people who live in highly developed, rich countries and thus are " at the forefront of development ", have the responsibility to do this next stage of development. To support all those who want to develop in this way, Cohen has developed a comprehensive theory, the main elements of " The Five Principles" and " The six principles " of Evolutionary Enlightenment are. An interactive model of teaching summarizes the perspective that is described therein.
Music
In 2001, Cohen turned back to playing drums and formed the jazz-funk fusion band Unfulfilled Desires. The band plays original compositions and standards, and occurs in Europe and the United States. They have three CDs released: Live at the Iron Horse (2002 ) Enlightened Dog ( 2004) and Punk Funk (2008).
Criticism
Some of his former students, including his mother, Luna Tarlo, Cohen described as charismatic, manipulative spiritual teacher. Tarlo wrote about her experience as his student, the book Mother of God. She accuses Cohen is cruelty, arrogance and abuse of her and other students, and describes what they called their struggle to free themselves from his control.
In his book pushup to enlightenment. Apprenticeship with an American Guru says Dr. André van der Braak, Cohen had demanded large sums of money and extreme, uncritical devotion of his students.
The American journalist John Horgan, the existence " of the totally enlightened guru " in question, particularly in relation to Cohen and others.
The Blog What enlightment? ! contains reports of ex-students, including some of the former co-editor of the magazine What Is Enlightenment? (now EnlightenNext ), Andrew Cohen accused of manipulation and psychological and physical abuse.
American Guru: A Story of Love, Betrayal and Healing by William Yenner and contributed by former student Andrew Cohen ( with a foreword by Stephen Batchelor ) documented allegations of authoritarian behavior, financial manipulation and psychological and physical abuse in Andrew Cohen's community and discussed the challenges of healing after leaving the community.
Different points of view
At a meeting with his mother in 1996, Cohen described his concern as follows: "Among all, very deep, at the bottom of it all, there where no thought and no emotion is, most people believe that the world is not in order that nothing is true ... I try to convey the opposite, namely that basically everything is good ... This is a new attitude towards life "Luna Tarlo describes her reaction as follows: ". , How can you towards life a have entertainment without thoughts and emotions? ' I asked., In my opinion there are no thoughts and emotions only original consciousness and in this original consciousness there is no right or wrong and therefore no life concepts. There is actually nothing that would change. ' "
Writings
- Enlightenment is a Secret (1994 ), ISBN 978-3-9241618-9-7
- Frei Sein (1998), Param, ISBN 3-88755-009-9
- Embracing Heaven & Earth (2000), Param, ISBN 3-88755-011-0
- Living Enlightenment (2003), Via Nova Publishing, ISBN 3-936486-26-3
- My Master is My Self (1989 ), ISBN 1-883929-07-5
- Autobiography of an Awakening ( 1992), ISBN 0-9622678-4-8
- An Unconditional Relationship to Life (1995 ), ISBN 1-883929-04-0
- The Challenge of Enlightenment (1996 ), ISBN 1-883929-14-8
- In Defense of the Guru Principle (1999), ISBN 1-883929-27- X
- Who Am I? and How Shall I Live? (1998), ISBN 1-883929-24-5
Cohen online
- Andrew Cohen's official German website
- The website of the German edition of the magazine EnlightenNext
- An explanation of integrity 18 October, 2006
- Andrew Cohen's New Year's Day address, January 1, 2009