Andrew Cohen - N°8 - LAST RETREAT - January 2025

So part of the uh practice of the evolution of consciousness beyond ego is becoming transparent. But we have nothing to fear. We express our authenticity. We become an open book. And when other people discover that we actually are an open book, we become trustworthy. There's no hidden corners that are important. Do you want to become transparent? Do you think it's a good idea for all of us? Is it a big part of our own spiritual development to become transparent? We should all feel at a certain point of maturity and development, we should feel an obligation to respond, to be as authentic as we're capable of and see what happens. Because as I said when I was speaking earlier this afternoon, being passively attentive is one thing, but being responsive is how we grow, how we grow. We need to respond in order to develop. to in order to become more conscious we have to respond take risk to step outside our comfort zone and find out who we are then and that's how we take a step forward if we just remain in the passive position of uh observing and absorbing we we can just stay in a static relationship to our own development we have to start taking risks and how we take risks in this context of the teaching is by responding even if we're not sure how to respond for example in this situation you say well I want to respond to How could I respond? And it's not a complex question. We break out of the mold and we create momentum between us and it starts developing. That's how it works. But nobody, this is true for all of us, can we develop spiritually at higher levels without responding, actively responding, even if we don't know exactly what we're doing, taking a risk to step beyond our comfort zone, beyond what we already know, beyond intellectual clarity and uh the status quo. That make sense? Part of my thinking is that um if we're free, if we're we're truly vulnerable and transparent, other people don't have to wonder what we're thinking. We don't need to tell people what we think all the time. Cuz I'm not always interested in what people think. I often don't want to know. But uh it means we're carrying any secrets about oursel or about what we really think. We're fundamentally who we appear to be. Put makes other people feel at ease. that if people are opaque, you kind of wonder. I wonder what they really think. I wonder what they really feel on a personal level in terms of the nature of their being. Creates a sense of insecurity. So part of being free is we want to learn how to put other people at ease, learn to put each other at ease through through being authentic and transparent. And it doesn't mean we have to say what we're thinking, but we want to be very unafraid. That's doable. Huh? Yeah, you're on a bad day. So, in this teaching, we put a lot of emphasis on the fact that choices are being made. We're all making choices consciously or unconsciously. We're all making choices. Some of them are conscious, some of them are unconscious. We're making choices. So, I'm trying to say is that part of you wants to wake up. That's why you're here. Part of you doesn't want to. But the solution is you dealing with the part of you that doesn't want to making it conscious. You have to use your higher intelligence. Start paying attention to yourself and find out what's what is this part of me that doesn't want to wake up because I think I want to wake up. I believe it's my destiny. So what one part of yourself is look working against you. You have to take responsibility for that part of yourself. Then you won't fall asleep. convince you. You need to convince yourself that you're capable of staying awake for an hour without falling into unconsciousness. It's a simple thing, but it it'll give you a lot of confidence. And if you believe that waking up is your destiny, if you convinced that you said that with a lot of passion, then you you need to prove that to yourself that it's true. We all do. So when we when we feel these things very passionately with a lot of uh spiritual conviction, it's very powerful and inspiring. But then we have to actualize these in these moments of inspiration because we feel these moments of inspiration doesn't mean the inspiration has been accomplished. Inspiration gives us confidence that it's possible. But then we need to actualize what's inspired us. That's that's what you can start to work on now. So there are personal emotions, personal ego connected to the ego's experience. They're transcendental emotions, higher higher emotions, different kinds of feelings. And and the only the way to experience these transcendental emotions is by stopping to personalize everything so much. So if you're having moments when you're stopping to personalize everything so much, you get a deeper much deeper experience of reality, you have your own potential to experience reality. Personalizing all of our experience is a very deeply ingrained habit for most of us. Everything becomes personal about the ego's experience. So when you stop doing that, your experience deepens in a profound way and you start feeling different kinds of feelings. It's very liberating. The true self is the what ramen refer to as the I am. The eye that exists as a foundation of consciousness itself. It feels like something to exist. Right. Have you heard the statement before? It feels like something to exist. It feels like me. It's a particular quality of consciousness. It feels like I Right? It's the eye at the center of creation. There's only one eye in the universe. So at the level of the true self, your true self, the feeling of your true self and my true self and the feeling my true self is the same true self. The same true self that Danielle's cat experiences even though not very consciously. The feeling of I but it's it's the eye is the ground of existence. The ground of the feeling of being is the most foundational feeling of existence. It's one. So we all experience it. But a lot of people in their unconscious think it's their own unique experience. But there's nothing unique about it. It's universal. So that's through true self. And that's why everybody meditates so much because they want to get beyond their mind and ego so they can experience the universal nature of their true self. And I explained that the true self the experience of the true self true self existed before the universe. There was a thought in the mind of God. The true self was constantly present. True self as the Buddha said and as they say also in has never been born never entered the stream of time you never died true self there's no birth and there's no death it's just eternal existence or non-existence what however you want to put it the true self is immortal unborn and undying that's why it's so important so before the universe was a thought in the mind of God the true self was and after this universe disappears the true self will also be your true self. The true self doesn't have a story. There's no there's no story attached to it. Nothing from the perspective of the true self, nothing ever happened. There's no birth. There's no death. There's no becoming. Nothing ever happens. Nothing ever happened. Nothing ever happens there. It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's what the Buddha call the uncreated. It's where we experience the deepest experience of liberation and inner freedom because nothing ever happened there. So as I've been repeating, I want everybody to start paying attention for this particular unique feeling of nothing ever happened. That's why there's no karma there because nothing ever happened. Karma begins to appear when things start happening when we start doing things. But if nothing ever happened, there's no karma. So when you experience your true self that's free from karma. It's like a rebirth. That's the awakening to enlightenment. The traditional enlightenment. It's subtle. It's very subtle. There's no ego there. There's no world. There's no time. There's no future. But that's where we discover this feeling of eternity. That's why it's so important to kind of spend time every day meditating through awakening to this eternal dimension of reality. But we don't want to get hung up on it either. Just want to work on it every day. Let go of everything you can see is a separate object. It's got to go. There's no duality in the true self. So, there's really nothing to let go of anyway in the true self. But if the ego is trying to pay attention to the true self, there'll be a lot to let go of, which is what most people actually doing most of the time is just trying to pay attention, trying to awaken to the true self from the perspective of the ego. And what I keep saying is if you let go of the ego, the true self, you'll realize has always been there. It's always there. You're asking good questions, but this stuff is actually very there's a lot of subtlety in all this and we the ego doesn't make room for the amount of the kind of subtlety involved in this kind of practice. So we have to have a lot of uh compassion for our own ignorance, our own clumpiness with our own mind because we lose touch with the subtlety. But when you begin to wake up, you start to feel the subtlety more. You have become more refined in your capacity for paying attention. So the simple way to awaken to the true self is by letting go of everything else. Very simple. So I don't personally believe we should try and hold on to anything. It's much easier to let go of everything. Sometimes when people have some kind of awakening or they have some feeling of depth, they want to hold on to it and that's dubious. So just let go and see what happens. Yeah. Just to repeat this, there's so much subtlety involved. And if we let the ego be the master, be the seeker, it messes the whole thing up. So when you're meditating, the ego's got to go. That's why I say no relationship. No relationship, no ego. And it doesn't matter what. Don't be preoccupied with what it feels like or what it seems is happening. Just be concerned with letting go because letting go you can do. The rest of it's out of your hands. So be responsible for the letting go part and let the rest take care of itself. We don't know what's going to happen or how it's going to happen, but we want to just make room inside ourselves for for what needs to happen to happen. So, we all can be responsible for the letting go part. The dharma is self-existing in another dimension of reality. I believe that. So when you start to wake up, you start to this dimension of reality suddenly starts appearing to our conscious awareness and our conscious awareness. We start to see this these metaphysical truths. Enlightenment is a very big project. We're all afraid of dependency. None of us want to be ripped off or betrayed or cheated or taken advantage of or abused. all of us. But those fears have to be confronted in one way or the other because whether someone's going to be become dependent in an unhealthy way is their problem. It's their ignorance. It's their stupidity. It's their ignorance in the end. It's what we do, man. It's what we do. People do that. See, the other side of it is very few people have the courage to be truly auous and independent for the right reasons. The ego says, "Nobody tells me what to do. I do what I want whenever I want to do it. Nobody tells me what to do." That's not That's not autonomy. That's egoic. That's egoic independence. It's not It's not It's not spiritual autonomy. But it seems like it's the same thing, but it's not. So, you'll hear me when I'm teaching. I'm calling everyone every day, every day different ways to be responsible for your own karma. It's been a big theme every day I've been teaching here. I can't protect someone from their own ignorance. That's what they have to do themselves. I can tell them how they can protect themselves from their own ignorance, but they have to do the hard work. It's not my job to protect people from their ego. And to repeat, the the ego thinks the the the egoic aspiration for autonomy is not the same thing as spiritual autonomy as enlightened autonomy. It's not the same thing everybody. Looks the same for people who don't know the difference. Transcending the small self is dangerous. Doing this kind of spiritual work where it becomes so silent is dangerous. That's the the territory. It's not for the faint of heart. And I think there's a famous statement that we're all aware of which goes something like it's better never to start on a spiritual path and to start and not to finish. And too many people start but then they give up at a certain point. But once you start this for real, you can't really give up because you opened a door that you can't really close anymore. I believe strongly that if you working with a real guide who can reveal the truth to you and the truth is revealed to you and you say yes to the truth. I think a door has been opened there that you need to walk through it and keep going. And I think what we're calling the soul then we'll never forget what it saw. It creates kind of an eternal memory. And after that, if we don't follow through on our own, yes, we'll be haunted by what we've seen and the fact that we turned away from it. So it becomes like a curse that we can't escape from as long as there's no coercion. But we freely said yes. And it creates an impression on our soul because this kind of spiritual work is not just for this life. It's getting out of the whole illusion of a separate existence altogether. That's a big deal. Most people are not prepared for it. It's not a game. It's a forever game for all of us at a level of the soul. The stakes are high. If we know that, take responsibility for that. All is good. But if we pretend, I don't really know what the stakes are, but I want to try and do this. It's dangerous. The way you keep the connection is by never doubting it. I'm so glad you found a friend you'll never be able to see. How can I keep the connection by never doubting that the connection is there? Duality comes from doubt. There's no doubt. There's no duality. Because if you're looking for a connection and a certain feeling, it's very dualistic. I'm here. I'm having a particular experience and feeling in relationship to whether something that I'm imagining is there or not. That's very dualistic stuff. There's no freedom in that. I'm so glad you found a friend you'll never be able to see. Before I met my guru, I was a very disciplined meditator. I gave up everything in my life except meditation. That's was my one discipline. I literally gave up everything. I came to India. I had no future. I just wanted enlightenment. But I was very good at meditating and I was very disciplined. So people told me if you go to see this guy, he'll steal your meditation away from you. I said, "Oh my god." I was terrified of being without my practice. That was my relationship to reality was based upon my sitting practice. So I went to see him and I had a very big experience within 10 minutes of sitting in front of him. He said, "You don't have to make any effort to be free." He told me, "You don't have to make any effort to be free." And then had an experience of non-duality that was very powerful. It happened in an instant and I didn't know what was going on. So I went back to my hotel room and I sat on my bed and crossed my legs. That's what I used to do. I went back and started meditating in my hotel. And then I got a terrible headache, very painful headache. And I wondered what the hell was going on. And I realized when I was thinking about it that I was being disobedient cuz he told me, "It doesn't take any effort to be free." And I went back to my hotel room and started making spiritual effort, which is the very opposite of the message he gave me. I burst out laughing. I stopped meditating out that day and I was very disciplined when I started teaching never to prepare for what I was going to do. I didn't want any ego to get in the way any ignorance or illusion. So I just I always just showed up without giving myself any sense of preparation. I didn't spend 10 minutes sitting quietly or focusing my attention or relaxing. I just showed up and sat down totally vulnerable and absolutely unprepared. It never failed me. It still never fails me. You don't have to do anything. If you have no doubt, you don't have to do anything anymore. That's a glorious truth. If you have no doubt, you don't have to do anything. You just have to be yourself. Just to be have to be authentic. You don't seem to get it. What I'm saying is very simple. It's very beautiful. He was an expression of this realization of non-duality. He was an absolute realizer. He said there's no distance between you and who you are always are. He said there's no gap. He would often say if you think you need to do something to transcend time, you're trapped already. We're always creating duality when none exists. So think the ego think I need to do something is creating the problem that we want to transcend when we begin to really understand it. So that the way then is finding how to be completely vulnerable and totally authentic and undefended. So this idea I need to do something. It's come usually comes from the ego and sometimes we do need to do something but I'm just making a making a bigger point. I'm just telling I met him for a few minutes 45 minutes. He said you don't have to make any effort and he was a big man. He had a huge presence. He wasn't an ordinary person. So when I went into his room and I went to see him, I was under his influence. His metaphysical influence suddenly was all around me. So me thinking in say I have to go back to my room and meditate. It was the old me. Why go see a master if you're going to do it your own way? And his influence was so strong that I got a screaming headache. But I started making effort when he told me not to make any effort. Isn't that amazing? So let letting go of the effort was letting go of duality and I was ready to do it. Not everybody's ready to do it but I was ready apparently it's so profound you can hardly keep it in your mind. No because all the great realizers tell us it's already done. I'm trying to get enlightened. The great realiz it's already accomplished. You don't have to do anything. It's already done. So if it's already done it's already done. If we can accept it, can we accept it without proof? Unconditionally, radically, absolutely, completely. So that's how you transcend duality was with trust in the friend you can't see. Very profound. Most of my guru's, disciples, and students couldn't do it. There's a lot of aging baby boomers that are in this town that went to see him had a profound awakening in his presence, but it changed their lives temporarily. And then after that they got lost because he all he taught was the highest teaching, the highest dharma, the highest truth. Embrace absolute non-duality now without time now. Most people can't do that. They won't do it. They say, "Give me a path. Give me a practice. Give me a technique. Give me a give me a teaching." He said, "Now let go of everything now. Erase the totality of reality." Now, most people, they're just not spiritually mature enough, developed enough to do it. So my guru's gift was that he taught the highest truth to anybody and everybody that showed up. But it it was careless in a way because most people couldn't hold on to it. They could they weren't prepared for it. They had a big experience at first, but they didn't know how to stay connected. They could they didn't know how to embrace non-duality. A few did. They became teachers, but most of them couldn't do it. I'm not so radical because I I want all of you to succeed. And if I tell a good dish to do nothing and let go and trust, most of you won't do it. You're not ready yet. This comes after you do the spiritual work and gain a lot of spiritual self-confidence, then maybe you can begin to let go that way. Most people just it doesn't work. There's a lot of people in this town. He took them so high, so quick, so much joy and so much ecstasy and they love and they fell out of heaven and they couldn't bear it. So he was indiscriminate in ways that weren't I think healthy. I believe that we have all been on this path for a long time. What made it possible for me to become the kind of teacher that I am overnight? Nobody prepared me to be a teacher. Nobody taught me how to be a teacher. I was ready in an instant. So it's inexplicable. So I must have been involved in this work before. It's called Baraba karma. There's no other explanation. So what prepares us is experience. And if this process exists beyond one lifetime, it involves many lifetimes. It's part of a much larger process. If we awaken, then all the gifts of our spiritual work and spiritual practice will be with us. But if you throw people into water that's too deep too quickly, they're going to drown. Lots of stuff to work on. If you want to get busy, we are all works in progress. You know, if you're gifted spiritually, then you'll manifest that giftedness. The gifts will manifest themselves in spite of your ego. If not, you're not there yet. You need to do the work. It's pretty straightforward. But um when I started teaching in 1986, a lot of people at the beginning were having a similar experience to the one that I did with my guru, which is after I was with him for 3 weeks and after I left it for 3 weeks, I under I was undergoing a metaphysical process of the release of a tremendous amount of spiritual energy in my body, in my being. So I was I entered into another dimension beyond time and I could see and I could feel it. I thought I was dying. Strange things were happening to me. It started vibrating through my whole being. And I entered into another dimension where I was I was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And then it would go then it would leave me and I would say is it gone? So let me go about and then it would return. It would start up again. It was like a vibration. It would absorb my whole being. It would just dissipate rise like rising and falling for 3 weeks and at the end of the 3 weeks I was a different person but the process the metaphysical process stopped I was on the other side of it that's something a lot of people who were with me at the beginning had a similar entered into a similar state and for about 3 weeks they go through this process very similar to what I experienced but the end result wasn't the same because when the three weeks were over they weren't on the other died. They were having the same kind of feelings, same kind of vibration that I was. So they were aware of the same presence coming and going, but they didn't end up on the other side of it. So obviously on some deep metaphysical level, they weren't ready to accept their own freedom yet. So the only way we can understand these things is seeing all this as part of a developmental process beyond one lifetime. There's no other way to explain it than it makes sense. So all we can do is all we can do. All we can do is everything we can do. You do everything we can, we'll be in good shape. So if you do everything you're capable of doing and you know it, you can be happy. And also with the with the enlightenment that comes so suddenly called sudden enlightenment versus gradual enlightenment. With the sudden enlightenment that we're speaking about here, it seems very magical and very extraordinary. But the after effect we have to be willing to take responsibility for it if it's going to stick. It's not an easy thing to do. So we don't need to be in that kind of hurry. In the way that I teach this this first principle, the first tenant I'm teaching can take you all the way home if you take it seriously works. And the first principle in the way that I teach it is much more user friendly. It's much more user friendly because now you're doing something that you can do. Accepting that liberation is always already the case is much more challenging than being able to take responsibility for the totality of your being and wanting to be free. That's something you can do. You can do that. It's doable. Anybody can do it. And it's very demanding as it is. Very good. So, we'll stop with that. Let's take for two minutes even though we don't need to. I started meditating again a few years ago, by the way, and I'm very happy I did.