By Pete Bampton

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive”  Sir Walter Scott

“American Guru” by William Yenner is an appallingly distorted account of life as a close student of Andrew Cohen, clearly written with the intention to publicly discredit his former Teacher. Why do I say that? Because I, and many others, who were close students and therefore experienced directly, or had knowledge of, what actually happened in the events he describes, know that there is so much of the true picture that he has omitted or twisted or blatantly lied about.

That said it is not my intention in this article to attempt to fill out the entire missing context and correct the half-truths and falsehoods that abound on very page of this book (as that would take a book in itself!). However, I do want to lay out some factual context surrounding Yenner’s central allegations that revolve around the issue of alleged financial improprieties.

Yenner’s personal beef with his former Teacher issues from his sad story of being allegedly “coerced” out of his $80,000 inheritance by Andrew, and the subsequent “gag order” that was foisted upon him once he had left, and had asked for and received, his money back. Of course this all sounds very suspect and bizarre the way Yenner tells it, but if we back up a bit and put this whole controversial debacle in the wider context from which it came, a very different picture begins to emerge than the one Yenner has chosen to paint.

In 1997, while he was a senior student, Yenner wrote an article entitled “The Tangled Web”. With this article he sought to publicly discredit his siblings whom he was convinced had cheated him out of his father’s inheritance. I was actually involved in this project as Yenner asked me to draw a caricature of his brother to include in the finished product. When his attempt to get the article published in the local newspaper of his brother’s hometown failed, he continued to pursue ways to publicly discredit him.

While Andrew initially supported Yenner in writing the article, as it did appear that he had been cheated, at a certain point he felt that Yenner was becoming obsessed with his resentment and was operating out of greed in relationship to his inheritance. This was also my experience when Yenner recruited me to draw the cartoon. Yenner was in a leadership position at the time and I found his intensity around this matter disconcerting. In his role as Yenner’s chosen spiritual mentor Andrew began putting pressure on Yenner to face into this, but was only met with resistance. Eventually, after a protracted “battle” Yenner gave his inheritance of $80,000 to EnlightenNext as a gesture of “letting go” of his attachment to money.

Yenner distorts the truth by insisting that he (and a number of other people) were coerced into giving money due to “psychological pressure”. But in the context of a Teacher/Student relationship the experience of “psychological pressure” is par for the course, the questions to ask are: why is the pressure being experienced and what is the motivation of the one who is applying it? Being resistant in the face of one’s Teacher’s reflection and demand is definitely going to entail experiencing some “psychological pressure”, have no doubt about it! Of course Yenner and others, intent on rewriting history to shore up their victimized positions, insist that that pressure was only coming from Andrew (to satisfy his own unwholesome desire for power etc.), when the whole truth is that it was also issuing from their own desire to transcend their egoic attachments or re-engage their spiritual path after proving themselves to be untrustworthy. Hence the bottom line is that it was their own free choice to give or not to give. It was only on a few very rare occasions, when a student had badly betrayed their stated commitment which had usually resulted in them leaving, and they then wanted to return as a formal student within the communal body, that a financial token of their restated commitment was strongly suggested.

To imply that Andrew’s intent was to fleece money from his students for his own ends, as Yenner does in his chapter “The Currency of Forgiveness” is simply ridiculous, and a blatant self-serving distortion. In fact, Andrew refused money that was offered by students on many occasions because he did not deem it to be an appropriate gesture. Yenner also backs up his case for corruption by insisting that the female student, who donated a large sum of money to enable EnlightenNext to purchase its World Center in Massachusetts, was also similarly coerced. But again a key piece of factual information is omitted. If that was the case then why did she write a letter to Andrew Cohen sometime after she had left the community in which she stated that, despite leaving, she had no regrets regarding the donation she had made? Just because she has since seen fit to change her mind doesn’t change that fact.

Sometime after he had given the money, at a critical juncture in the evolutionary trajectory of the student body, Yenner “fell from grace” as a leader in the community. This had disastrous consequences at the time and what followed was a protracted period of unwillingness on his part to face and transcend the obstacles to his own stated intention. Eventually Yenner decided to leave Andrew and the community and then subsequently asked for his donation back. EnlightenNext consulted with their lawyer as to the legal obligation to return it. They were told that it was almost completely unheard of for a non-profit to return a donation, and even borderline illegal for a charity to do so. Hence EnlightenNext was under NO obligation at all to return the funds. But EnlightenNext did decide to return the money on condition that William sign a 5 year contract prohibiting him from public discourse regarding Andrew Cohen and EnlightenNext. There never was a “gag order” (as Yenner calls it) or, for that matter, any other court order issued. That would imply that there was some kind of order being issued by judge or jury, but that was never the case. So why did Andrew and EnlightenNext see fit to do this? Because they knew full well that Yenner would take the money (which he had no right to anyway!) and seek a very public and nasty revenge, just as he had done with his siblings. Unfortunately five years wasn’t long enough for Yenner to cool down and gain some perspective on what had happened, and so he is now finally taking his revenge…nine years later! Even after the publication of his book Yenner’s smear campaign continues. For example, he has seen fit to contact all contributors to EnlightenNext magazine and donors to EnlightenNext in an attempt to turn them against Andrew Cohen with his revelations of “the Truth”.

So in light of all this messy fall-out did Andrew make an error of judgement in how he dealt with the issue of Yenner’s money? In hindsight it is easy to say yes. But wasn’t he also in a no-win situation? I definitely think so. Yenner would have gone after Andrew publicly regardless. Should Andrew not have pressured Yenner about his obsessive resentment and attachment to money? Should he not have accepted Yenner’s inheritance as a donation to the cause that he freely had given his life to? However one might answer, the bottom line is that Andrew, as Yenner’s chosen Teacher, was doing his often thankless job: confronting unwholesome self-serving motivation in his student. Yenner, while stating his own case as one of coercion, also sees fit to omit the fact that he offered to give a significant donation three times over an eight month period. It was refused each time as it did not seem to the few individuals involved that the intent behind this offering was without misgivings.

The other “controversy” that I would like to illuminate further is an apparently open “interview” between EnlightenNext and an Israeli journalist from which Yenner draws all kinds of dubious conclusions. Again, the omission of the wider context in which the controversy occurred, enables Yenner to paint his distorted picture. A close former student who was involved with EnlightenNext at the time provided me with the following background…

EnlightenNext was asked to submit a fact verification for the editor in chief of NRG, an online portal owned by the large Israeli newspaper company Ma’ariv. These questions were submitted to determine whether a proposed article by journalist Jonathan Levy had a basis of fact. The article, as had been stated on the writer’s spiritual gossip column was positioned to discredit Andrew Cohen and his work, and the news agency wanted to confirm that what was going to be published was accurate. EnlightenNext’s lawyers advised that all responses be precise and directly respond to the questions asked. The issue at hand was representing EnlightenNext fairly and accurately in the media, and to prevent distortion, sensationalism, slander, and tabloid smears. EnlightenNext fully complied with the several sets of questions asked and offered to comment on and write a more broad response about the spiritual context of its work. But as the article was dropped, they were never given the opportunity to respond in this way.

Many of the questions asked by Levy/Ma’ariv Newspaper Company referred to specific events and individuals. They were not philosophical in nature. Because, as had previously been stated by author Levy on his online gossip column, a sensational and negative article about Andrew Cohen was being prepared, EnlightenNext understandably made every effort to conform with actual fact and common definition, not to a sensationalized caricature of its history. NRG chose not to run Levy’s article. EnlightenNext was never given a response, explanation, or description of the article or why it was not run. Sometime later, the fact verification questions, which were never intended for publication, were posted without permission from EnlightenNext, on a blog crafted by a handful of individuals on a negative campaign about Andrew Cohen and his work. Yenner then took this document and published it in his book.

Many ask, quite understandably, why did EnlightenNext answer according to the precise question and common definition and not to the general spirit of what Levy asked? The answer is simple. EnlightenNext was asked to provide factual responses. To that extent, every answer is factual. Had it been a freely conducted interview, I have no doubt EnlightenNext would have been happy to discuss other points around the questions asked, to explain why certain practices were often done, why there was a more traditional Eastern relationship to Andrew as a spiritual teacher or guru in the early years (as that was Andrew’s own lineage, as well as the spiritual background of many of his close early students), and why that evolved over time as EnlightenNext did. I have no doubt they would be happy to discuss why mantras, chanting, dips in a lake etc were practiced and taken in the spirit of time-honored Hindu and Buddhist practices. The practices, particularly in the early years of EnlightenNext, as a profound evolutionary structure was being developed, were neither misguided “crazy wisdom” nor erratic expressions of an individual ego. They were well intentioned spiritual responses, designed to support the highest aspirations of individuals deeply committed to their own spiritual evolution. In this light and to this end, all the individuals who embarked on this path were spiritual warriors, and the result of the efforts of these inspired souls can be seen as the fruits of the teaching, structure and leadership of EnlightenNext now, and in the lives of many former close students, some of whom are writing for Guru Talk.

All of the other stories that Yenner and his co-authors relate in the book are distorted in similar ways to create a very specific impression and there are a number of outright falsehoods. In the writing of “American Guru” Yenner went to great efforts to solicit former students who are now negatively disposed toward their former Teacher to contribute. Interestingly only a few of them agreed. I know for a fact that some of those solicited, who are close friends of his, refused because they did not trust his motivation. This is why a large portion of the book is made up of already published material, for example, from the previously mentioned blog. I also personally spoke to a former close student who told me that he had fallen out with Yenner after he forbade him to include his skewed interpretation of his personal story and Yenner ignored his request.

Addendum

William Yenner disputes some of the factual information presented here in a public response to this article. However, the former CEO and CFO of EnlightenNext, who witnessed the actual financial, practical details of what occurred, say otherwise. This article was carefully researched and checked for accuracy amongst many individuals.

What is most telling are the facts laid out here that Yenner does not dispute:

Yenner did seek to publicly discredit his siblings (and he went to greater lengths to do so than I have described)

Andrew did refuse to accept donations from students when he deemed them inappropriate

The woman who donated a large sum of money to enable the purchase of the Foxhollow property did write a letter saying she had no regrets sometime after she had left, regardless of the fact she has changed her mind since, i leave the question of her motivation for doing so open.

EnlightenNext was never under any obligation to return Yenners money

Yenner continues to contact contributors to EnlightenNext magazine and donors in an effort to turn them against Cohen

Yenner, while stating his own case as one of coercion, did omit the fact that he offered to give a significant donation three times over an eight month period. It was refused each time as it did not seem to the few individuals involved that the intent behind this offering was without misgivings.

The fact verification questions, which were never intended for publication, were posted without permission from EnlightenNext, on a blog crafted by a handful of individuals on a negative campaign about Andrew Cohen and his work. Yenner then took this document and published it in his book.

A number of those solicited by Yenner to contribute to his book refused because they did not trust his motivation.

Yenner ignored the request of former student who forbade him to include details of  his personal story in his book.