By Marc Pell
At a young age, around 13 years old, I discovered what it was like to live free of fundamental confusion, self-consciousness and neurotic self-concern. In that I discovered my ‘natural self’, as I thought of it at the time. For an extended period I was living a different life, very different. I had been freed up, unburdened by a lot of unnecessary, conscious and unconscious self-imposed life-denying restrictions. I realised that up until that point in time, I had only been living at something like 10% of who I could be. I had discovered a part of myself that has an inherent integrity and an independent moral sensitivity. I discovered spontaneity of being, clarity of mind and a confidence in Life. The quality of every relationship that I had and the connection with other people was dramatically different. There was a joyous liberated intimacy always available that previously I had no idea existed. Somehow I had been shocked into letting go of my ideas and investments in my own future and I started to discover a sense of purpose in being alive of a kind I had never experienced before. Read the rest of this entry »
by Enzo Badolado
A few years ago I started reading some of the negative reports about Andrew that were circulating on the web. These were written by ex-students who, for some reason that I found difficult to fathom, had decided to publicly portray Andrew in the most negative light possible. One particularly disgruntled individual continues the pattern in a recent book.
I was/am more than surprised how far from my own experience these reports were/are. While some of the things that are described in these writings are technically true as “facts”, most are distorted to create a very specific impression. All of them are obviously taken out of context, hiding crucial information from those readers who would have no way of knowing the whole import and meaning of any given situation. All of the accusations are described as if Andrew’s sometimes strong and challenging responses were coming from the “void”, with little logical reason to justify them. Hence the only explanation left, because of what these commentators would like us to believe, was that he was indeed out to satisfy his own thirst for power over his students. Read the rest of this entry »
By Eb Schmidt
I am writing this article because of my past involvement with EnlightenNext and Andrew Cohen. Although I left the inner core of students a few years ago, I was part of the evolution of Cohen’s teachings and organization for more than 10 years. When I heard that some of his former students were speaking out publicly in a negative way about their time as Andrew’s students, I felt compelled to share my own experience. I want to tell my story not only because I feel that a number of ex-students have misrepresented and even distorted the facts of their time with
By Rod Stanbrook
When I met Andrew Cohen in Seattle in 1990, I was elated and tremendously relieved at seeing myself and those around me brought to such clarity through the lucid transmission from Andrew. Over the subsequent years of being a student and living in the community, those experiences – being transported to higher states of consciousness, the levels of trust between people, wanting like nuts to finally be free, and gratitude – were put to the test like nothing I’d ever experienced or could have imagined. Read the rest of this entry »
By Eva Schuster
I would like to begin telling my story about my work over nineteen years as a student of Andrew Cohen by describing a public retreat with Andrew in Massachusetts in February of 2008 which I, and a number of other students and friends attended. This retreat began with many of us speaking about the values we had inherited from our various cultural backgrounds. Read the rest of this entry »
By Barbara Waldorf
Walking down the road in Stockbridge MA, my head is buzzing after talking with everyone. Something is burning through my nervous system, wanting to come through. Something is emerging that has its own life and force. This emergence happens in apparent spaces between us that don’t really exist: in the living paradox of autonomy and communion and a palpable energetic field that can only be Love. Read the rest of this entry »
By Steve Brett
I met Andrew in England in November 1986 soon after he began teaching. Even though I am not an ex-student as such, as I am currently running his EnlightenNext Centre in Rishikesh, I am very much on the periphery of what is happening around Andrew at this point.
The first time I met Andrew was in a small cottage in Devon, England where he was living with his soon to be wife Alka and a few close friends. We sat together in his room upstairs and he asked me about my spiritual life. In the middle of our conversation my mind stopped completely. I was suddenly overtaken by the realization that Life was One Whole undifferentiated Being that was Alive and its nature was Love. Andrew said to me at the time, “You have jumped in the river and now you are standing on the shore. Now you have to decide if this is what you want. But you may not have any choice.” Read the rest of this entry »
By Rivka Attal
I met Andrew when I was 25 years old through a school friend whom I respected a lot. I was studying accountancy in Israel. He had then been a student of Andrew for two years and even though I thought one day he might return to ‘being normal’ (leaving behind his spiritual teacher), I appreciated some of the views he shared with me regarding the true nature of thoughts and feelings, which later I learned were coming from his association with Andrew. Read the rest of this entry »
By Pete Bampton
I think it is significant that most ex-students who have chosen to publicly portray Andrew Cohen as a dangerous and abusive Guru, left before (and have heard from hearsay), or during, the period around 1999-2001, when all of the women formal students, and then later the men, went through a collective “dark night of the soul” ordeal of epic proportions. Read the rest of this entry »
By Stuart Dunbar
A Leap of Logic
I currently work as an IT specialist in the health insurance industry. It’s not a particularly inspiring profession. In fact these days, with all the debate about health care going on in America, I sometimes feel like I’m working against progress. Most people I know well think it’s a strange choice of trade for someone who studied philosophy at Yale and spent fifteen years as a close student of spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen. And I agree. Read the rest of this entry »