Andrew Cohen Interviewed in Israel part 1

hello good afternoon hi so this is not your first time in Israel right you've been here many been here many times countless times and your first time as a teacher was around 1987 in Jerusalem do you see any kind of changes well the only change that I see in people is the change I see all all around the you know the Western world is I think that more people are starting to get a little bit more serious because people are getting a little scared about the future not just not just in the Middle East but I just thinking I think people realize there's a global crisis and people realize that the good life's not going to go on forever and it's forcing them to ask deeper questions so I I I can tell when people are listening that they're bringing a deeper there's a deeper sense of seriousness in the way people are listening I think for for those reasons so that that I see okay because if you're talking about serious questions then you are the the the found ER and the editor of the magazine which deals with the most deepest questions and the name is what is Enlightenment m is there any way after 20 years or much of your uh teaching and studying can you sum it up for us is there an answer for that is there one answer for that uh well it's a complex question but the simple answer that Enlightenment traditionally means it's the experience of Consciousness beyond the ego mhm the concept of Enlightenment is an East Wind Concepts yes and when it went to the West it was westernized from my point of view it became a little bit like a prize like a a reward like a game show that if you stick onto it at the end you get the big car you get this big alignment well well Trad traditionally it's meant the reason for that is traditionally Enlightenment is meant to be the end of the path mhm so that means when someone quote unquote becomes enlightened it means that it it traditionally means their development has come to an end so they're like fully cooked and it's all over but actually it's not really true especially when I teach now I I I put the word evolutionary which means developmental before the word enlighten I call evolutionary Enlightenment so now the idea is to is to learn what it means to experience the self beyond the ego and then to learn what it means to to develop as a human being at the deepest and highest levels from Beyond the ego so it's it's an endless process there's there's not really an end to it and I think a lot of the problems in postmodern culture and definitely is the case here in Israel as it is in the west is that we there's a lot of very highly educated individuals who come from relatively wealthy backgrounds who are basically very spoiled who has more or less been given everything they've wanted more or less been able to do everything they've wanted to do and it's it's created a mentality where uh where we somehow been given the idea that life is for us like life is our oyster uh and and the way we think about everything from from money to to Human Relationships uh is is very self-serving it's very small-minded and we don't very few people have a really a a spiritually and philosophically big-m minded and big-hearted relationship to life itself and so the the leap that I think we need to take is to is to is to go from being teenagers no matter what age we are to adults to really embrace the level of maturity in relationship to life so we can outgrow this kind of narcissism and this materialism and this you know this pathological small-minded self-concern Israel as a society just about a month ago went through some kind of things that you're talking about because we were in a state of war and when one is in a state of War there's this kind of unity people um physically emotionally open their heart open their wallet and helped other people around sure are we talking about that same kind of unity no no it's different because human beings uh throughout history have always be always been able to come together in unselfish ways when they have been uh collectively physically threatened when the our lives are when we're part of a particular group or part of a particular tribe or a particular family or culture when we're collectively being threatened when our life is being threatened we find ways to work together mhm uh and we notice that when the threat goes away we usually go back to bickering into fighting uh so I don't think there's anything particularly miraculous about that but I mean of course it's it's always very heartening when you can see people come together for a higher reason but unfortunately human beings haven't progressed beyond the ability to come together for higher reasons uh only when they're being physically threatened in Wartime but but isn't it a bit difficult to tell the people especially the people in Israel uh you have to care about higher things when they have to deal with war just survival yeah it's about survival and it's not a cliche it really is about survival I I'm not going to argue with that point I agree with you but uh the point is that when the war When The War comes to an end and I'm sure it's I'm sure another war is going to start soon but nevertheless uh even when you when you take the the whole question of war and survival away you still you still see that the uh that the postmodern Israeli culture it seems to be it's it's very materialistic and it's very narcissistic it's just like American culture the values of secular Israeli culture stink I mean and it's it's it's not healthy and a lot of the uh you can tell a lot of the younger people are suffering suffering the consequences young people are are are arrogant and uh and they walk around with a sense of of entitlement and privilege and are very confused there's there they're existentially confused uh and so so as a as a culture I think a leap needs to be taken and and I know that a large segment of the Israeli population has rejected you know traditional Judaism as a place to look for Morality and it's a place to look for meaning so if that's the case we have to we have to look we have to we're going to have to find a way to recreate a moral ethical and philosophical framework for life we're going to have to do because without it we simply aren't doing very well you have your own Theory uh you want to people to go go up into grow up on the other hand you have all this very big marketing that goes uh that goes to being selfish being narcissistic getting your own stuff getting a bigger car getting better clothes that's from the culture how can you defeat something so big and so strong and so that something goes right into the culture I no well what we have to do is is is uh is we have to come together those of us who are waking up and create a cultural revolution mhm just like that happened in the' 60s we we need to make a cultural revolution uh in terms of Consciousness we have we have to make a revolution for for uh in the pursuit of meaning and higher value values because they they're not out there if you look out there all you see is materialism and narcissism those are the values yeah survival survival and when and and if you survive so you get a big car exactly exactly so that stinks and it's a mess live in a a cultural climate of irony you know what irony is irony and cynicism so uh we we don't believe in anything higher than our own egos so hopefully individuals like me who are kind of real like to are trying to challenge our tendency to reduce everything to irony and to challenge our cynicism and it's a very difficult thing to do and as long as we're cynical it's going to be very difficult for us to give us give ourselves anything wholeheartedly not just the spiritual life but anything in life because we're always going to be doubting whether something that is ultimately good is truly possible but doubting is also very Noble way of looking at it you have to doubt what people tell you you have to doubt it's in certain beliefs otherwise you know if you're openhearted into everything there's no I'm not talking about being naive and foolish I I I believe in being skeptical MH but being being cynic cynicism means there's there's inherent you we there's an inherent and profound doubt about a fundamental goodness in the life process itself that means we really don't believe in God because you see for someone who truly believes in God they know that that at the core of everything there's a basic and fundamental goodness that's inherent to the process and that so that gives you faith in life so even if things are very challenging and even if you meet evil people you still know that the process is good and it gives you your soul a lot of strength