Living Enlightenment: A Call for Evolution Beyond Ego

From the moment you read the straight-shooting introduction by Ken Wilber, you will get why the perspective Andrew Cohen so clearly and beautifully delineates in this book will open your eyes and heart to a totally captivating inquiry into truth, and one that has the ability to take you as far as you can go in its exact and precise exploration of modern spiritual life. All the questions you could possibly think of asking about how to live an enlightened existence are responded to not only in the words on the pages but in the awakened mind and spirit that is inevitably going to be drawn out by this compelling call to wake up forever. I highly recommend this straightforward dialogue with the soul...

...you wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole." that famous quote from J. Krishnamurti is used by the author of "Living Enlightenment," Andrew Cohen (who is also the editor of "What Is Enlightenment?" magazine), to emphasize the enormity of the task of ego-transcendence, and seems to be the basic theme of this incredible book. despite what people like Eckhart Tolle are leading thousands of seekers to believe these days, it is Mr. Cohen's contention that attaining the goal of spiritual life--i.e., enlightenment, awakening, liberation--is much more than a matter of finding "portals to the now" or remaining "mindful." why? because according to him, "true freedom is an all-or-nothing deal. that's just the way it is--it's a spiritual law." (p. 56) and furthermore, he spells out in a remarkably inspiring way the logical fact that the attainment of an ego-transcended state is NOT for the person who attains it. if the individual claimed enlightenment just for themselves and their personal happiness and freedom, there'd obviously still be ego there. rather, the whole point of attaining enlightenment is only for the service of the "evolution of consciousness itself." (p. 123) i don't know about you, but this stuff gets me excited. Cohen is describing life on the spiritual path as a truly cosmic pursuit--something bigger than our post-modern world could possibly handle (as some of the more cynical reviews posted here testify to). "the whole point," he says, "is that the realization of enlightenment completely destroys the status quo. it blows it to pieces. if you are lucky enough to actually succeed in your quest for liberation in this life then you will become a completely transformed human being and, believe me, you will be seeing things very differently." (pp. 23-24) this stuff is the real deal, folks. even the way the words are written on the page has a simplicity and authority about them that gives a direct transmission of Cohen's enlightened vision and passion. so read it. and live it. because if you don't make the effort to wake up and obliterate the status quo of this world to create a new possibility, who will?

I have read many spiritual books, yet I don't know of any other that has affected me the way this one has. Andrew Cohen communicates with simplicity and precision, yet also with suprising depth and subtlety. I found myself disturbed and intrigued reading this - as many (most!)of my ideas about enlightenment were deeply shaken, replaced by a growing seriousness and demand to live a different and extraordinary human life. The fact that this was the result of reading this book should not have suprised me after reading the foreword by Ken Wilber,in which he warns us that Andrew Cohen is a serious teacher, but what did suprise me is how it seemed to happened. Just reading it, did it. By the time I realized I was intrigued, it was already too late - this book is that experiental. It has actually changed the way I view and think about life,and I find myself deeply grateful. I look forward to reading more from this man.

... Andrew Cohen has been guiding spiritual seekers to the Answer to life's biggest questions for over 16 years, ever since he attained a permanent realization of such enlightenment through his relationship with an Indian guru when he was 30 years old. ... This book, his latest (and more widely accessible volume than his thoroughly detailed manual of enlightenment, "Embracing Heaven & Earth"), is simultaneously a refined, cohesive summary of his previous writings and also something quite new: for the first time, Andrew's full presence seems to seep through the pages with both the passionate urgency of his God-engendered message and the passionate _humor_ of his very human self. This is likely a result of the book being written in conversational Q & A format, transcribed from actual dialogues, and similar to his most popular book, the transcendent "Enlightenment Is a Secret," but it's been done in a way that is, in every sense of the expression, more "fleshed out." And it covers _everything_, just about everything one could imagine oneself asking an enlightened master if given the opportunity. Over 100 questions are asked, and fully answered, in 20 chapters, with topics ranging from the perennial classics of surrender, humility, and karma, to less familiar ones such as the role of gender differences in the pursuit of enlightenment, or the question of awakening to "the consciousness of absolute zero" beyond time and how that relates to the evolution of manifest consciousness in time. Throughout it all, though, Andrew is insistent on one point above all others: the ego--which is the "emotional and psychological knot in consciousness that is the fundamental cause of the sense of separation from all of life"--must be killed or unraveled, transgressed or transcended, if true Freedom is to be attained. In fact, even though this is something most teachers of enlightenment comment on in some way or another (and historically always have), Andrew takes it deadly seriously, like a classic Zen master, taking an absolute stand against all the games of Narcissus in a way that few teachers in the modern spiritual marketplace--especially those of the Neo-Advaitin brand--seem to approve of. He likens the ego's persistent obsession with its personal melodrama, for example, to constantly sticking one's head in a garbage can and marveling at all the putrid junk inside. "How harsh and cruel, with such an unpleasant tone!" the offended cry. "Just let the ego be, perfect as it is--including everything it does, since it's all pure consciousness anyway--and be free!" they implore. Yet Andrew has been around too long and worked too closely with too many human beings to buy into such shallow, nontransformative nonsense. "Anybody who says the ego isn't a big deal," he has said, "doesn't know what they're talking about." It is this, in part, that has earned him his "rude boy" status, as eloquently described in Ken Wilber's vigorous foreword to the book. So if

Living Enlightenment: A Call For Evolution Beyond Ego by spiritual mentor and teacher of enlightenment Andrew Cohen, is a frank and informative discussion of the soul's division between the selfish inner essence that is the ego and the pull of that which lies outside the self, including divinity and God. Profound, steady in its exhortations to open up and listen, and emphatic in its embrace for spiritual wholeness, Living Enlightenment is a thought-provoking advocacy and recommended reading for students of human spirituality and metaphysics.