I I think one of the most important questions to bring to this discussion is, “Maybe Andrew is fundamentally confused about what enlightenment actually is?” And, that he taught and created a community out of this confusion? And, that while he has sincerely engaged with clarifying his personal shadow and “impure” motivations to some degree, perhaps the foundational premise that he accurately understands enlightenment needs to be more sincerely taken up? He says he doesn’t doubt his enlightenment, but maybe we should.
Great comment. However, I don't think his prior community was subject to this confusion - which seems to be a new phenomenon. Andrew was not teaching anything about "shadow" before. I believe he was a great teacher who had a profound impact on his students. His teaching seems to have changed after the groups implosion. You can still find some of his old videos on RU-vid which are inspirational and uplifting. One of my faves: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-a0HwqGUkxbA.html
Definitely. He thinks it's something that happens when it just the nature of the self. He's very confused. The word enlightenment itself is unhelpful. It implies an event. If it is an event it will become a non-event one fine day. Which is what happened to Andrew. If you are whole and complete ever-present bliss/awareness, what do you have to gain by abusing people? He abused his "devotees," most of whom were good but gullible people, who were neglected or abused by mother and father figures. So that's what they learned was a family. What they gave and what he gave was not love. It was based on the idea that there is something wrong with you, when there is something right with you: you are pure and perfect child of God. Now we see a sad, needy person asking to be loved. Be very careful with this kind of person, not because they are evil, but because they are unable to love the ugly parts of themselves and others. This video reeks of shame.
@@JamesSwartzShiningworld This is a pretty hateful comment. Andrew made mistakes, but I don't think he was ever intentionally malicious. And I disagree - enlightenment IS an event. Just as is waking up each day. Going around thinking you are already perfect, while attacking others, isn't very enlightened.
Oh my. That’s rich, coming from the likes of you. A little shame might be a good thing sometimes… (For anyone unsure of what I mean, google James Swartz and the story of Heather.)
I'd like to hear Andrew speak about how his break with Papaji might have set the stage for the eventual fracturing of his own community. What, from his perspective now, really lead to this schism with his teacher? Has any of the process he has been on these past years affected a reparation with his lineage? In Buddhist lineages there are important practices built in to address breaks in samaya (vows). As much as the traditional emphasis on lineage has many potential dangers, and could serve to hide and excuse "bad behaviour", I wonder if it also can function to protect teachers, and hold them accountable, by keeping relationship and devotion in the foreground. So much of the time it is teachers who are functioning on their own who get into trouble. There is a real tragedy in this kind of isolation, and it can create the context for a lot of distorted behaviour in teachers who have nowhere to go for honest reflection from those they respect.
Sophrosyne is a strange thing. If temperance is the default mode for work or having difficult conversations, it can enrich aspects about the self and others but I think it can also cause suffering or a build up of unease if it were not managed well. Just clicked after watching your discussion with Robert and Bruce. Thank you Andrew. Kak dula Layman!
Hi Andrew, this is the first time I've really watched you speak. I subscribe to your newsletter but have never attended one of your online discussions. I'm not sure why that is but I'll be sure to catch more of you in the future. I enjoyed the interview very much and hope to get to know more about your ideas. Thank you to Laymen as well, this is the first time I've watched you and this was very well done. -Aaron
I spent two decades practicing kundalini and then theravadan buddhism. I went to live as a buddhist nun. I ended up possessed as a result of these practices. Luckily Jesus saved me and then in exiorcism things like green Tara, Ganesh and some female hindu godess had to leave screming. Only then they showed their real face. Until then it was all hiding not letting me know they were attached to me and when they knew they would loose me to only real God they showed their real face and it wasn´t spiritual or nice or awakened... Unconditional compassion is not according to God´s law - love according to God is loving what God loves, hating what God hates. He loves sinners, he hates sin. I had demons holding to my false compassion because I was trained to love and pray for everyone even demons. So I did. Which gave them permission to enter. Lot of things sounds nice on paper but when it´s disordered it creates entarance for evil. Also buddhism is all tricky becasue it uses very nice concepts but your goal is non personal non state. Even Satanists follow better goal because the opposite of God and love and life is not evil, but nothing. Your end game is nothing. All buddhist teachers and monks were saying my neither nothing nor something states and sidhis were results of deepening practice. Wrong it was syptoms of demonic possession. It had to show it´s true face but it won´t do it until it has you nice and safe believing the opposite of God is better than evil. You are meditating yourself straight to demonic oppression and possession using nice spiritual terms describing it. And your teachers will affirm you that it´s the correct development. Then you die and these things will try to claim you. Because surprise surprise there is no impersonal no nothing - demons can manipulate your mind to create these illusions of states like they did with me when I was buddhist monastic. There is personal God and you are and for ever will be personal self - but you can be normal healthy God serving personal self or more and more oppressed and dissociated self heading towards eternal damnation all embracing compassion or not. This world doesn´t need any bodhisattvas it has it´s savior - Jesus. If you try to fake Jesus yourself - bye bye God, hello demonic. Of course you can name it spiritual progress. But one day you may realize : no matter how many hours per day I sit in meditation I am dissociated - yes, but everything is still really same. The moment the dissociation subsides litle bit it´s the same again. Or cease to exist as self and exist like infinite consciousness - aka demonic manipulation of already compliant mind - and then I am still the same. There is freedom. Real freedom. In humility of not becoming bodhisattva, not becoming fake enlightned, humbling yourself accepting you are a sinner and allow Jesus to save you. This is all fake. It´s demonic deception. You will not believe me now as I wouldn´t not believe myself before Jesus saved me. I would have thought: these poor ignorant negative dualistic christians hopefully they will get less unskilfull thought communication with my boundless compassion. But mark my word - one day you will be ready for freedom, your will be ready for healing you will be ready to no longer committing cosmic suicide into nothingness hidded in words of life and love and freedom but for life. For normal good life in accordance with god´s law. Nothing special nthing spiritual just good..... Your heart will be ready. Then remember this and call out to Jesus. Even if you went through christianity and gave it a go - try again. Just call Him he knows when people are ready to let go and when they are ready to accept Him. Jesus please break all deominc bondage over these people you know they are sincere and believe fully they follow what is good and holy. Let them see what is the true face of what they follow so that they can be set free of enslaving themselves in false spiritualities and can be saved. Amen. It doesn´t matter you don´t believe it just remember it for the moment when you need to break free. Not just trying to attain freedom for ever like you are striving now.
Still seems to be about one-zillionth of the amount of love and compassion that is necessary to have any significant bearing or effect on humanity or life whatsoever. Sorry, Andrew, but a heart does not come across. Maybe you can usurp the same passion in which you say you are driven to evolve to actually discover a new frontier - allowing everything you do and say to be infused with love. Not transcendent presence, not the freedom of personal enlightenment, but rather a deep sense of caring for others. Good luck
4:45 Andrew is correct that the “enlightenment” he knows about has nothing to do with moral purity - he proved that if nothing else. But the enlightenment he had and knows about is only about experience and states, both of which are subject to change, unreliable, and most importantly completely dualistic. “I’ am the one who “has” this experience or understanding. That complete, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of non-duality (which is what he purports to understand), is the root of his failure as a teacher. His words and actions prove again, and again that his “identity” is fundamentally with his idea of himself as a separate (and if you read the book, neurotic “loser”) mortal character, rather than as the non-dual, unchanging, unborn self - existence, awareness, limitless fullness. That’s Vedanta 101. And the main point of all this is that he is still going on about how “morality” (or the lack of it) and “enlightenment” (which is a vague word that requires defining if it’s going to be used) can “coexist.” Yes, he’s right, in a Neo advaita/Advaita shuffle/completely ignorant version they can, but non-dual self knowledge is after all, non-dual! There is no “other” and someone like Andrew , who readily admits to having multiple “identities,” has it just about as backwards as possible. This has been, and still is being, proven by his words and deeds.
This is exactly what I've been thinking since Andrew's re-emergence. I was a big advocate of Andrew's, and saw him speak in person several times. He certainly has changed - and I hope for him personally, it's for the better. But I really question his teaching now. If he is offering us an enlightenment "with a shadow", then is that really enlightenment? It really sounds like he's talking about morality - "nobody's perfect, just be the best you can be". That's not enlightenment. He had a newsletter that I used to read called "What is Enlightenment?". It was a question that was never answered succinctly - and I think it should be, especially if you plan on teaching it. As I understand it, enlightenment is the realization that ego or personality is a construct. Being enlightened means you are no longer subject to the whims of that ego (aka, the "shadow"). So even if we assume that everyone has a "shadow", it would have no power over a truly enlightened person. In other words, they would have achieved "perfection". Don't settle for anything less! ;)
@@antoniomarine1567 in my opinion a lot of problems lay in language that we use to describe these deep transformations. 'Enlightenment' tends to generate the fantasy of this one time shift after which the person somehow jumps outside of process of life. If i had to choose, i would go for the 'Awakening', which indicates that there is a some kind of process involved. In my experience these transformations are quite paradoxical. For me it felt that they changed everything and nothing. This opening to the depth of reality kind of restructured how i relate to life forever. But then i still remained the same moron i always was. In other words this transformation did not touch all my karmic emotional patterns and entanglements i was involved. Then this ability to connect to the absolute reality maybe helps to disolve these patterns around me quicker. And thats about it. In general for years I prefered to drop this language alltogether and just focus on action instead. But this talk with Andrew challenged my attitude. Maybe its worth it to start clarifying these things.
@@antoniomarine1567 beautifully said! And haha yes that’s exactly what he’s offering - dualistic non-enlightenment while still calling it evolutionary enlightenment. Um, what?? In Vedanta there are so many beautiful teaching metaphors. Two which elucidate your insights nicely are: The blades of a fan. Even when the power is turned off the blades continue to turn for a while. The metaphor refers to the fact that one’s “karma” (momentum of habit) doesn’t vanish when self knowledge obtains, despite the recognition that the karma such as it is is not and never was one’s own nor was it “real.” Still, the blades of a powered off fan come to rest in their own time only, and have no power despite appearances. This dovetails into the second metaphor which is the burnt seed. Like the blades of a powered off fan, the burnt seed “exists” but can no longer produce results. Check out the traditional Vedanta teacher James Swartz if this logic appeals to you. His website and RU-vid videos are a goldmine, as is he 🕉
@@daigtas2203 I think your experience is common to a lot of people - you can have some amazing insights, but still be a flawed human being. And that's fine, and is probably part of "growth", but I don't think that's what Enlightenment is. Your comment shows the real problem with seeking - you can have real moments of insight, but they can be fleeting. You can be enlightened for an hour, or a day, but the real challenge is staying there. I think it's possible. Bhagwan (aka Osho), says that being enlightened is just like a habit - the more you practice, the easier it gets. I guess I need to practice more. lol
What is with the Integral Stage repeatedly 'offering' back to back vids of Cohen and Gafni with zero push back? As if they aren't bad enough singularly haven't they also joined forces now lol? Their combined world tour of 'The Erotic & Evolutionary 2nd Tier Beauty of Gaslighting & Evading Jail Time" or some shit. Here's some suitable pushback - Ask Cohen to admit specifically what he has and hasn't actually done in regard to his past behavior. Then ask him if he thinks any of it could've seen him jail time had anyone took him to task. Layman and Pascal are such weak sauce when it comes to grappling with abuse.
Cohen hasn’t done a thing deserving of jail time. Far from it. His students’ participation in his particular brand of yoga was beyond consensual (wholly volitional and devotional), despite the public perception created by the very vocal rantings of a few disgruntled ex-students (one in particular) who apparently forgot what they signed up for. Rumor has it that that most vocal detractor, the one who created the critical blog sites, etc., is simply enraged that Cohen fired him from his editor position on the community magazine around 1995. He can’t accept he did a poor job, so he’s made it his life’s main purpose to get revenge. He also positions himself as an enlightened teacher of nonduality, yet revels in his dualistic opposition to his opponent. Go figure. But then, humans are basically just relatively hairless apes, so nitpicking is what we do best.
