Enlightenment is a Secret: Teachings of Liberation

As a person who has bought and read thousands of books, I think that this may be the last book I'll ever need. Andrew challanges the reader, rather forcefully, to climb to the mountain top and then.....take that next step. The book is set with each page being the subject of a days/weeks meditation.

In all of Andrew Cohen's teachings he is giving us the basic fundamentals for living our life according to Divine Laws. He teaches practical steps in freeing the person from the ever persistant ego. His number one goal is to help humanity gain freedom. Because he is so focused on this one main principle I recommend this book and all of his work as the basic bedrock of achieving mastery and immortality. Although he does not teach the concept of immortality never-the-less you cannot achieve this unless you first go through his teachings on freeing the soul of ego control and taking responsiblity for your own actions. I highly recommend all of Andrew's books he is a very remarkable and determind man

In late December 1998, after many months of intensive shopping around for the perfect enlightened teacher to help lead me out of this agonizing dream of ignorance, I was standing in a Borders bookstore in Tacoma, Washington, looking in the Eastern Philosophy/Religion shelves, when I turned around and noticed an unusual orange book gleaming from the New Age shelves. Expecting nothing but New Age drivel under the name of "Enlightenment," but ever curious, I picked up the book, read the excerpt on the back cover . . . and knew immediately that I had stumbled onto something extremely profound.Unlike the vast majority of modern American teachings of nondual enlightenment, Andrew's approach transcends mindless "dualistic nonduality" by recognizing absolutely perfectly that Maya and Reality, Samsara and Nirvana, Form and Emptiness are really not separate in any way at all--and that doesn't mean that one haphazardly cancels out the other. All is Consciousness, yes, but that absolute Truth does _not_ translate into relative existence. Rather, it completely obliterates it! Teachers of nonduality who fail to grasp this point--who fail to see that perfect middle place wherein Samsara and Reality seamlessly merge--are teaching a rather dualistic view of the nondual. A teaching of Absolute Nonduality, however, would not make a firm distinction between the relative and the absolute, earth and heaven, the human being and God. It would not espouse that human beings are nothing but conditioned body-mind machines, with no real volition behind one's actions, while the real self is a distinct and passive witness of this activity (and therefore one claims no moral accountability for the body-mind's actions). No, an Absolute Nonduality would see that there is an absolute realm of pure Emptiness with no distinctions, and a relative realm of name and form with many distinctions--and it would see how to perfectly integrate the two, _not_ by mindlessly trying to turn the relative world into the nondual (which is impossible and always ends up sounding absurd), but by finding a way of standing firmly grounded in the abyss of nonduality and _bringing that vision of Wholeness into the world of relativity_, speaking to it in its own terms, with its own logic, but always communicating something far deeper.Andrew Cohen succeeds amazingly well in this sacred task, and this particular text of his illuminates spiritual mysteries like none I've ever encountered. It's a crystal-clear road map to the Awakening from our dream of separation, time, and mind-identification, always speaking straight to the Heart, from the Heart, but with the thoroughly razor-sharp discrimination of a classic Zen master. "Pierce the illusion of separation," he says. "Realize and know the timeless. Know the presence of the uncreated. . . . Separation is only an idea, pure imagination." His passionate urgency is a constant reminder of the depth and seriousness of this pursuit into the true nature of exist

I first read this book 5 years ago, and still read bits and pieces of it often. I came across it at a time when I was ardently searching the spiritual landscape for something that made sense of the yearning I felt inside me. I devoured this book in 2 days, hardly understanding a word of it, and yet feeling like the answers to every unformed question in my heart had been revealed to me. The book is set up in short, one-page teachings from Andrew Cohen. Some are dialogues between him and others.I heartily recommend this book to anyone who is seeking, who is trying to find their way on the spiritual path. The depth of Andrew Cohen's understanding not only of the path's goal, but also of all the pitfalls and detours along the way, has saved me what I can only imagine would be lifetimes of work.