Andrew Cohen & Lee Lozowick in Dialogue

[Music] so uh so how you know now you how long have you been teaching for now how long has it been since you're Awakening 30 years so so in terms of it's kind of embarrassing to hear it called an Awakening but thanks for the vote of confidence anyway uh so I mean it seems like there's been a A lot's happened in in in in the last 30 years in the evolution and development of the east meets west uh movement tremendous and and and obviously it's still happening now so I I I would be interested to to hear how you how you see that time from you know from the vantage point you have now and how you see where we are now in relationship to what happened then and how you see the future well I think I was very naive in those days so I view the whole process of Spiritual Development as a kind of a um um almost parallel process to you know being born and growing up MH so I see the last 30 years as having had a birth in a childhood and a teenage period an adolesence okay in terms of your in ter is it in terms of yourself or in terms of the movement itself terms of myself okay you know I think in terms of so now in terms of yourself you feel you're coming into some some degree of maturity well in the sense that I have a whole different I mean in in you know in the early days it was here's the truth hear the truth LIF the truth wake up end of story well ideally that's how it works after 20 years when you know I looked around for all these awakened disciples I was supposed to have and there weren't I started to look at things a little differently and so both you know both with a whole different degree of patience and forbearance and also a whole different degree of impatience so so uh in the beginning I was very aggressive but also very tolerant and now I'm nonaggressive and intolerant so things really shifted for me personally in my teaching work so you know I'm willing to allow people to make a tremendous amount of mistakes understanding that no matter how many times I correct people's mistakes people are only going to learn when they learn and you know I'll be as much help as people want so what what what what do you think what because to me that's the Magic Bullet is when any given individual yeah is going to get to that point in their own yeah developmental line when when for whatever reason they are going to decide that I can't go on Absol way happen anymore and I must make a decision absolutely to change absolutely and irrevocably and and I've also noticed that there's there's nothing that anybody else no matter who they are can can do about that that's the frustrating part that's $64,000 Question isn't it that's right yeah but also in terms of the world I think that I think that uh people have really been distracted from the path by I think the world is much more of a Wonderland now than it was then Wonderland in which Sense Technology you know computers computer games the internet um the the opportunity for for free and open um sexual perversion I mean you know we were just in Las Vegas last week and and now the the official name of Las Vegas is Sin City I mean 30 years ago could never you know nobody would even consider that and now it's celebrated I mean you know we were there and the place was packed I mean every Casino every restaurant packed because it's Sin City so I think you know in the in the 70s there was a real kind of innocent expectation you know the hippies were really making you know in the news and people were standing up for their political views even if it meant being hit on the head by a policeman or sent to jail and that's those days are I mean you know there's still obviously there's still a lot of people who are very committed to their ideals and willing to stand for them but that kind of Innocence it's so rare these days and so but also I think that the whole um phenomena of people um being willing to seek serious help from a teacher is coming back so I think you know was like in the 70s and it really peaked and then took a nose dive with the you know the gurus within kind of a business but I think it's going to come back I can feel we're sort of on the to me it feels like we're on the edge of a return to maybe smaller numbers of people but a serious commitment to but what you're talking about would have to be hierarchy really right absolutely yeah yeah so so I mean when I think about it it seems that at that time there was for those people who were who were who who discovered Consciousness and discovered the potential for enlightenment the whole notion of the evolution of Consciousness uh there was uh there was a tremendous amount of idealism MH and of course in retrospect maybe some of it was an expression of naive of a lack of experience and a lack of maturity a lack of understanding uh so what was so enthralling and wonderful about it was the was was the was the passionate idealism and and and and the uh seeing the the the postmodern you know uh young adult M uh finding belief and conviction in in well not only in a higher principle but I mean in in in a in a spiritual principle mhm but but but also uh but inherent in that is would would be you know a philosophical an awakened philosophical context just not there in secular culture sure um and you know and to me the uh it seems that the most important thing for for the postmodern uh well young adults and and adults is the is the lack of conviction in uh in in the inherent goodness of life of the life process sure I think people are very cynical these days right but but of course that that would but when when when there is a when one is when there's a fundamental cynicism in a sense of doubt you know at a deep existential level the that has a very big effect on the way one Ori orients oneself in relationship to life itself of course yeah so there's so that there's that there's this so that switch from from from being full of cynicism and doubt a deep existential level to to one of of faith and conviction is really the is is the big switch because I don't actually think that without a highly developed faith and conviction without strong faith and conviction it's not possible to really develop I mean I almost think that that the faith in conviction is what makes it possible for really develop so anyway so it's I think that that in the in the 70s at that time when a lot of people were discovering Enlightenment and the possibility of Enlightenment uh there there was there was a lot of uh excitement and conviction about the possibility of of of of people really evolving and really really changing and as as you know and as I was saying as you agreed a lot of the idealism was coming from a naive because because of a lack of experience and then there was of course I think part of the problem had to do with the fact that many of the teachers that we being looked to as examples were coming to us from premodern cultural context right and and we were in a postmodern cultural context and there was a real CL what that means Well it Well it Well it means it mean it means in in many in many ways that we that we we that we were more developed in many ways and knew a lot you know and in terms of our perspectives t tended to be a lot more inclusive and less less rigid and maybe more enlightened in many ways and yet what we lacked was was the was the knowledge and experience of this miraculous depth at the level of Consciousness uh and then of course though we because many of these these teachers uh possess the experience of this depth with this higher consciousness of course we assumed because they were enlightened that they're supposed to know everything be omniscient be perfect and of course where where we were at culturally in terms of our in terms of our development was this time of transition the old way of living you know it was one that we had all stepped out of or we in the process of stepping out of right and so basically we're in New Territory how you know I don't want to live the way my parents did but there weren't any Maps right there weren't any maps and so and so then many people began to look to a lot of the Eastern teachers for the maps of how to live a human life because they were supposed to be enlightened supposed to know everything and all the eastern most e all most of the Eastern teachers had were were premodern Notions are really about how to live and many of them whether they were individuals who had renounced the world and become you know uh you know monks or not their Notions of how to live and make sense out of The Human Experience was still very traditional okay but but for many of us we have we have and I think we're still at that point we've reached a point where the next leap is is going to it's a it's a post-traditional it's some kind of post-traditional alternative in terms of how to live and how to make sense Out The Human Experience and the easterners of course uh couldn't help us with that because in there often because often when they when it came to thinking about how how do I make sense at a human experience and how do I actually live it a lot of the ideas about a lot of their own ideas and beliefs were very premodern and absolutely inappropriate for a for a postmodern culture for those individuals in a postmodern culture who who were truly looking to embrace the future and and uh and I think there was a real there was a real Clash there because uh because as we're we were speaking about before in order to step forward we can't step back and uh and of course we also found out that that what even what it means to be enlightened what it means to have access to higher Consciousness what that actually means in relationship to being a human being and the whole Mis uh misunderstood notion of what what Perfection is all about MH you know became became a big issue because we've discovered that a lot of the Masters were you know had had enormous failings on a human level even in terms of basic B you know basic moral issues and so I think I think for several of these reasons uh there was a lot of the the the the fervent passion and Fa and conviction that many people had oh my God this enormous change is possible I think began to disintegrate you know and and it began to disintegrate you know in in a lot of important people and then unmas I think the the conviction and the belief of this higher potential began to disintegrate in the 80s and into the 90s and it and it didn't mean people stopped seeking but but the the the passionate idealism the fervent idealism that was so much alive when you started uh was very much uh dampened by that same cynicism which with the cynicism means it's it's not POS possible or and I don't believe it and uh and at the same time at the same time development has continued you know in in in this whole East Meets West um uh stew it's been cooking the the de the the the development has continued and is and and is continuing up until this very moment right now even in terms of fun even in terms of fundamental convictions about what what what it even means to evolve you know what Consciousness is all about and uh and so even for example what you were just saying that there was a certain point when many many many uh gurus or Masters or people who believe to be Masters were found were found to have major uh flaws when it when it to you know morality and ethics people began to doubt the whole thing and then people people became very unwilling to to put that much Faith or that much trust in any human being you know and then they basically just resumed their uh their um narcissistic well well with the narcissist I mean that's that's basically that that's but that's what we're rooted in but but the the the egalitarian position of basically we're equal nobody tells me what to do we're all on the same level nobody's higher than me but as you've obviously found out and discovered you know and as I have too that as as long as we're unwilling to admit hierarchy you know at in relationship to Consciousness which means some people you know we're not all at the same place some people have have actually evolved to a higher level of development than others if we're not willing to acknowledge that and grapple with that uh in a very real way ourselves uh we're not even going to be we're not even going to be begin to be able to see uh what's possible because because if it's if it's an egalitarian worldview is what we're fundamentally attached to we're going to insist on everything being flat and everything being on the same level no no matter what's happen everything's going to be reduced we're going to reduce everything to the same level and when of course when we're willing to to to resist the temptation to do that then we then we're then we're willing to admit hierarchy and beginning to make make distinctions see differences and then I think the the possibility for real development opens up opens up then and I think what you what you might have been indicating before was May maybe that's what's beginning to happen now well I think I'm you know I'm having having had a master who's who died five years ago and having been deeply and profoundly committed to him as my master and in the beginning when I first met him you know I looked at him egalitarian in an egalitarian way well you know he's Indian he's a good Yogi but you know in terms of the actual understanding of Consciousness well we're all the same but that radically shifted in my relationship to him over the years and specifically in relationship to he was just in a different place than I was it was Rel the notion of hierarchy absolutely that he was that he was a in a higher Place absolutely absolutely no question about it which meant for you that well which meant for me that um that um what I a lot of what I thought was coming from me was really coming from him through me so my relationship to him became more one of becoming more and more transparent to his wisdom so that my lack of wisdom didn't get in the way and and without that relationship to in a hierarch system I'm firmly I firmly believe in the need for a hierarchical system and and without that you know I probably would have gone off the deep end like many otheres so but so but what you're saying I think is very important especially in terms of what you brought up before in terms of you thinking that that um that people may some people some more serious people may be may be Beginnings to become interested in the I think very much so teacher student relationship now um but also you know also I'm a firm believer in Tradition in in the essence of tradition because I think that the laws of Consciousness are the same now as they ever were but the the world we live in is not the same as it ever was so I'm a firm believer in the need for a a response to um universal laws but not necessarily trying to recreate the old times and the old forms and the old we have to create new ones necessarily I mean I at least I believe that we need to create new ones because the old ones I don't think uh are are going are are able to really meet the needs many of us actually have as evolving human beings at the beginning of the 21st century because the world has changed and is changing so fast yeah that in other words I think I think what you're saying correct me if I'm wrong is that we need structure absolutely right so we so we need firm believer in structure okay but to say that to saying we need structure you that that that that's a that's a that's taking a big step away from the uh the the postmodern Boomer's position that you know that that what's good for me is what's right sure of course right and and and and the uh and the indicator of what's right good and true or appropriate has to do with how the self feels about it well okay who know who knows what the self is well whatever it is I mean but but but for the postmodern you know highly developed narcissistic separate self sense you know this strongly individuated separate self sense that that that really is the is the um is is is is the fulcrum or the prime you know central location to which everything you know everything goes and in in which and from which we determine just about everything but but in in a in a structure where there's in a in a in a conceptual Matrix or framework where there where there's hierarchy we you know we realize well there's something higher deeper more true more meaningful more significant than me which is what changes everything sure and what you're saying is at every level of development uh I suppose as long as we're going to be in human form this is probably always going to be the case there's always going to be that so for example when you met your teacher he he he at least potentially enabled you to continue continue your development absolutely because he he helped you to orient yourself in relationship to something higher in a way that was tangible that was that that was obviously very helpful for you well that that was one of the things that was so so great about him was he didn't was he set a context for my own process without trying to Define that context with a particular form that was his form you know he was Indian he was a renunciate and he lived in a very U very Stark environment and wore the same clothes for a year and uh he under under no in no way demanded that of anyone that found him and wanted to um use his use him as a reference point for you know for a higher point in the hierarchy so he understood I was American he understood I was educated in a different way and that I led a different life and he was willing to to influence my life as it was in the west to um to reach to to reach higher without demanding that I follow a specific set of guidelines that he set up that followed his particular process and that was one of the things I appreciated tremendously about him is he never told me what to do or defined anything and yet his his Blessing Force his Blessing influence completely permeated my life but did in no way triy to turn me into an Indian turn me into in fact one of my students suggested he'd give me an Indian name and he absolutely ridiculed it he said you know liasa is your name that's your name so what's the problem and uh he was very clear he didn't want us wearing Indian clothes and taking on Indian affectations and uh so he allowed us to progress or transform in our environment and our time and place as was relevant for our circumstances and and there was a very clear hierarchy you know so if you in in so if anyone which certainly I experienced at times stepped out of the hierarchical system and became a little too familiar or a little too pretentious he would absolutely stop it instantly and I very much appreciated that [Music] so one uh one thing I would like to talk about with you which is something I'm very interested in uh which is something that uh Ken it's a phrase that Ken wilberg I think came up with which is called the guru principle and I wrote a little I a small little booklet about that I wrote about that so um so I Define this Guru Principle as uh in a certain way something I'd like to speak to you about because I know it's obviously something that you that you obviously uh would know about now there's a difference would hope so at this point yeah so there's a difference between being a teacher MH and a guru MH so so a teacher is someone who has learned a lot about a particular subject and who and who can teach you about it but they have not become the very thing that they're teaching okay and I would say for someone who who you know within whom this Guru principle had authentically or genuinely been awakened which it would mean to some degree and how to what degree is another disc would be another discussion but to some degree that individual had literally become one with the very thing that they were teaching now if if if if what we're speaking about is the is is higher Consciousness itself or the actual evolution of Consciousness uh it would mean that that individual in in a very profound way had become one with the force or the impulse the spiritual impulse or the impulse towards Evolution at the highest level the level of Consciousness itself they literally become non- separate from that evolutionary developmental impulse the impulse towards Consciousness the spiritual impulse um now it's a delicate subject because a lot of people don't understand this but my understanding of what we're calling the guru principle is I understand it to be a teaching function so a teaching function it means that uh that once that that if this principle has been awakened in an individual and it and it there even people are who are awakened and have some degree of Enlightenment in whom this function has not necessarily been awakened sure okay yeah but but in an individual in whom or with whom it has been awakened uh they discover that there is a part of them that uh uh that is beyond their conscious control or even knowing it's impossible to have a dualistic relationship or even knowledge of this part of oneself that that cares passion passionately fervently and passionately about the evolution of Consciousness because that is the nature of that function that's what that function is it is the The evolutionary principle uh uh uh functioning in human consciousness because of course it can't function outside human conscious there's no way it could express itself MH but but but when but when it's become awakened this this dysfunction uh uh um dysfunction but is is who is what is doing the teaching right mhm it's not the it's not the historical individual as much as it is this teaching function that that is using the vehicle of the awakened individual for its own its own purposes and the guru principle can is uh is a inspiring because it because because in a sense it that's it's that's God speaking that's God speaking to all of us right through through whoever it is and uh you know and how and and of course the degree of profundity and the degree of of clarity of course is going to also be depend is going to depend upon the evolution and development of the vehicle itself but but that kind of uh that kind of fervent awakened passion for the evolution of Consciousness for its own sake is something to behold it's obviously something that you saw in your own teacher MH that that's what you drew you to him I'm sure draw people to you um well yeah that's very generous of you I would well I I would say the way I would language it is that it's my um um it's the degree to which my teacher has taken me over that attracts people to me yeah the same thing I would reference it I would always reference it through my teacher not through myself okay that's ultimately it's the same thing it's the same thing okay but so but but the interesting thing about this this Guru principle or this teaching function is that in Western culture you see there is absolutely no context for understanding The Awakening of a teaching function or a guru principle or in other words so it's because because the gur principle gur principes is a function of consciousness that has its own will and so in a and so in a western cultural context there's there's there's almost no reference point for this or one one one that we can understand how can we understand that kind of that kind of passion that kind of care that kind of impersonal uh passion well I think that's one of the things that that enamors people so much of the yes is that they they feel that and they sense it and and then you know a lot of the a lot of the process is an educational one because we sense it and we feel it and we're drawn towards it but we don't have context and not having context we project upon it we misunderstand it we interpret it we try and translate it into you know our own flat world view and which doesn't work it can't possibly work so so now so in terms of speaking about the evolution of Consciousness I I I think that it's it's that it's the it's the it's the presence of this kind of teaching function in the world that creates what I call anyway evolutionary tension mhm the the um The Awakening of the teaching function in the guru or the teacher is not separate from that which causes the Seeker to seek MH it's the same it's the same principle sure that's that's seeking itself so what the what the what the student recognizes in the teacher is not any different than what the teacher recognizes in the student it's self attracted to itself and in and and in that Dynamic there you know there's an evolutionary tension there an evolutionary Dynamic there there a a this is this a evolutionary friction that um where there is a incessant demand for more deeper higher more and deeper higher more deeper higher perpetually and forever well I would say in in contemporary in our contemporary world it's it's a kind of a parallel principle to when when uh PMA SFA went to Tibet and the way it's described in those days PMA Safa went to Tibet Tibet was full of um demons and and you know rasas who had no no sense of the truth or of any you know spirituality and he he converted them all to to Buddhism and then they began to help help perpetuate the Dharma and protect the Dharma and so in our day and age it's like what we're having to do is convert the Demons of what you call called you know postmodern narcissism like we're having to actually do the same thing that PMA Samba did except you know it's not it's not wild nature spirits and and you know um multi-armed demon and you know red red and blue demons it's the world of business the you know it's the seductions of money and power and sex and fame and those are the demons that we're having to convert to to a context of um of a hierarchical view of evolution and and you know process so I see it res relatively different and yet the same which is why I call myself a a lover of tradition because the principle is the same the form and content is radically different but the principle is the same the way I see it yeah and and do you agree that that and I agree with you 100% that that now therefore we need to reconfigure uh a a new a new structure which is what tradition represents which is a structure another words in other words this is what life's all about this is a context in which to interpret your experience in which to relate to what it means to be alive which is of course what we all desperately need sure which is what of course you know your generation My Generation didn't want it we wanted to be free we don't want we want to be free from structure but of course we've we' we've all found out the hard way that without structure we we simply can't move forward and of course there's always going to be a rare individual that somehow manages to but basically without structure we will flounder yeah and and the likely and we and what's most likely to happen is that we're not going to develop at all well I agree with you yeah so in so so in terms of this whole notion of tradition I wish I didn't you know I'd like to have a really good argument with you but I have to agree with you but in terms I'd lose of course but you know it would be fun anyway but no but in ter in terms of the whole notion of tradition though do you does it it make sense to you that that we that we we agree that we the tradition is essential but but in this context we're going to have to reconfigure and reinterpret and reinvent what tradition means well I think relative to to any description of it absolutely yeah because the essence of it no but no the essence of it which is which is structure in which to interpret you know the human to language it in in our time and place absolutely well of course well more than language it literally to re to re redevelop because we going to have to think from the ground up if we really think about the world's totally different and as we remember we speaking over lunch it's changing faster and faster and faster so so we we need to then reconfigure or think or think about or develop together a a a a structure that would be most appropriate for the time we're living in and that and that would involve a lot of discussion a lot of inquiry because you because it what's the most appropriate the most sane the most meaningful way to live a human life at the beginning of the 21st century in a in a context that uh that you know is is based on the the the submission to the sacred dimension of Life yeah in a way that that that in in a way that completely Embraces the the actuality of the time we're living in this is what I'm very very interested in but but you know I think this this this in order for this to happen I think many of us need to really discuss a lot of the fundamental issues because these are they're all open questions I don't think anybody has has the answers to these questions a lot of the fundamental questions of how what's the most most appropriate way to live a human life I don't nobody has the answers and I think and I think in order to be able to come to some of the answers a lot of people who are really pushing the edge and interested need to just speak about it together more and more and I think slowly we need to really come to some kind of agreement some kind of understanding of what what what that kind of structure would look like you know in this context because it I don't even I have no idea what it would be but I know that it's absolutely necessary and I also know consciously or unconsciously everybody is dying for it sure well I think uh AR no deer D Master swy panod said that he used two two uh phrases which were intrinsic dignity intrinsic nobility and he said that that every human being at the level of intrinsic dignity and intrinsic nobility um automatically knows how to live and if we're intelligent we're educated we know how to how to adjust to the circumstances that we find ourselves in so obviously different than the circumstan s is 50 years ago so so my whole emphasis is on a kind of instinctual an instinctual search for that intrinsic dignity and that intrinsic nobility and from that I mean by definition to be Noble and to be dignified is to to um have integrity to practice with impeccability to to live rightly and justly and so like that and who you know I mean I mean who knows how to uh I think as you said before people find that you know when they if people don't make an absolutely fundamental decision an irrevocable radical decision then you know they play around the edges they discuss it but and how to you know is not even how to is there any way to to optimize the possibility that people can can make that radical decision that's sort of you know the way I would language the whole situation yeah and you I think it even makes sense that if that if that if some kind of structure can be can can be collectively uh created together it it I think it will serve the The evolutionary process in in ways that we can't even yet see because I think the structure itself will will will be a catalyst for uh for for a kind of development that that that will it will probably start becom a self self-generating container that that that that might make um a movement for a lot of people possible in ways that wouldn't otherwise happen sure and well that was Tibetan Buddhism for a thousand years and I think the Tibetan Buddhists are hoping that it goes on for another thousand years but may well not well no because that that's kind of a medieval worldview there it's not going to it's not going to work it's not going to work but um I think a lot a lot of what we're speaking about is something that that westerners I think it's really in our hands to do because what's happening in the east of course the East are are beginning to become interested in many things that we that we were interested in you know for the for the 20th you know in the whole 20th century and many of us now in a position where we can really look beyond that yeah I also feel that that the primary uh evolution of spirituality will be in the west yeah so I guess we got got a lot of work to do boy thanks Lee pleasure [Music]