Andrew Cohen - N° 14 - LAST TEACHINGS - Dec. 24 _ Feb. 25

In the enlightenment philosophy, there's a distinction between what's called ego. It's considered to be the false self and the true self. The true self is pure joy, pure goodness, pure happiness. The true self has never been hurt, wounded, or traumatized at any point in history. It's never been victimized. It's not neurotic. It's not narcissistic. Doesn't doesn't experience self-hatred or self-loathing. It's inherently free. It's the expression of pure pure positivity. Pure positivity overwhelmingly pure positivity. It's not neurotic, not psychotic. It's not schizophrenic. It's not screwed up. It's clear, simple, very much at home in itself. And if the self is in the body, very much at home, it's in itself in the body also. So nothing the thing with the enlightenment approach, which is very different than the therapy approach, everything we we discover that from the perspective of the true self, everything's okay. If everything's okay from the perspective of the true self, doesn't mean everything's okay from the ego's perspective. This is where it gets tricky. So people can wake up to their true self, feel very much at home in themselves, free uncomp uncomplicated, mysteriously happy and content without unconlicted by the by the past, not obsessed with being wounded and traumatized and say, "Wow, this is amazing." And then then they start thinking about their ego again. And the ego starts comes back in and takes over takes over the driver's seat. All the problems seem to seem to come back. So with the enlightenment paradigm, we have to say which self do we want to be? We want to be the true self or the ego. If we want to be the ego, we're always going to have work to do. But I'm boldly declaring that the true self doesn't need any work because it's already free and happy. The tricky thing is people don't don't stay there. So I like to visualize the the body mind personality like a vehicle. It's a vehicle for consciousness. We could say, right? We could say the the body mind and personality is like a vehicle for consciousness. So I always say who's in the driver's seat of your car? If the true self is in the driver's seat, things are going to be pretty good. uncomplicated, fundamentally integrated. If the eagle's in the driver's seat, it's going to be endless problems because real traumas have happened. If real traumas have happened, they need to be dealt with. But the thing is that the true self, which is a deeper part of who you are, deeper part of who I am, has never been hurt or wounded or traumatized. So if you awaken in a natural and profound way to the true self, the the fundamental feeling of being traumatized is not there in in the true self. So we have to learn how to rest in our true self naturally, effortlessly, spontaneously, authentically with integrity without denying the ego's uh complex circumstances. But the enlightenment path requires renunciation of the ego's story. Not denial of it, not avoidance of it, but renunciation. I'm going to scratch that itch. I know I won't. I feel so much better. I'm going to scratch that itch. No, I won't. So even though a lot of people have heard of these distinctions before, not a lot of people I think actually understand them. This is my belief. So the true self has never ever been hurt, wounded, traumatized, or victimized, violated, betrayed, insulted, disrespected, ever. So it's always already okay. It's not in denial. There's no avoid. There's no denial. It's just being honest. And this can be this is so this is the case of the true self. But to repeat what I said, just because the true self is okay doesn't mean your ego is okay. The ego can still be traumatized, violated, angry, victimized, right? But what happens with the enlightenment approach? If you learn how to resist the temptation to scratch the wound, it starts to heal. just only because you're leaving it alone, not because you because you're not doing anything about it. You you have the heroic spiritual courage not to avoid it, not to deny it, and not not to try to fix it. And the reason things change is because you start falling more and more in alignment with your own true self. The true self is already in good shape. That's that's the this is a miraculous awakening. Enlightenment is a miraculous. It's awakening to a part of you that's never been hurt, wounded, or traumatized or victimized ever. So, it doesn't need any work. It's already liberated. So, people will have an enlightenment experience. They'll wake up and they'll realize, "Oh, I'm already free for a moment, for 30 seconds." Then, they'll mind start wandering. They'll fall back into their ego without even knowing it. And they're back in the problems again. So this is why the for example this meditation process is so and the enlightenment process is so important because it's a practice of paying attention to these different worlds these different possibilities that always exist within us. So the question is who's in the driver's seat and I know what I'm saying is audacious. I say because the ego and the authentic self true self live in different dimensions of reality and occupy the same dimensional space. So the therapeutic path path requires us to to remain in the ego's world space and work on it from within from within that world space which we can do. It's a different path. But the enlightenment path is very specifically a very different path. It's about self-trcendence, which takes a lot of courage to leave it alone. Can you leave the problem alone? Because your ego is saying, "You've got a really big problem, baby. You're a mess. You got a really big problem. You better fix it up. Try to scare you." But the enlightenment path is to be completely honest is only for very strong people. It's not for everybody. They say it's for everybody. In in theory it's for every but really it's only for very few. Very strong people can do this. Very only very strong people can stop to resist to the temptation to scratch. Just going to scratch a little bit and opens up a whole wound. And it's not just a wound. It's a world space. It's a whole multi-dimension. It's other dimension of reality that suddenly opens up and becomes real. Oh my god, it's real. So if you leave it alone and leave it alone and leave it alone, it starts to heal. Heal means it starts to become more bearable, not to scratch it. It's an absolute position because this is the problem is at this is just my way of thinking. So just take it or leave it. But at a certain point so a certain point we have to make up our minds how much time we've got here. What are we going to do with this? What do we want to accomplish with the time we've got? At a certain point we have to decide where to where is our allegiance to is our allegiance to the the story of our ego or allegiance to the the story of the Buddha the story of Ram Maharshi the story of the real greatness realizers it's a completely different story line they don't go together so the the what's so difficult about the enlightenment path is it requires us to let let the personal story go. But really let it go. And most people aren't prepared to do that, which is just too big an ask, which is understandable. Most people won't do it. They may understand it theoretically, but they don't have the courage to do it. And also, there has to be there has to be a mysterious kind of a mysterious aspiration to let go of the story. That's what I was we were repeating at the beginning. Having nothing, knowing nothing, and being no one is the call of emptiness as you call of emptiness, the call of non-duality, this call of nothingness. Most people don't experience that. But some people do. They feel this this mysterious calling from within of emptiness, of zeress. And it's a mysterious. It's just it's a mysterious call, the true seeker to let go of everything for God. So at a certain point we have to make up our mind what we want at the time we've got do we want to be is it enlightenment or is it egoic integration emotional integration at a certain point I did some work with Robert Masters have you heard of him Robert Augustus Masters he's considered to be one of the best spiritual psychologists in America and I was going through a very hard time so I flew out to see him for a week I did I did like five hours of therapy with him every day and he's a very smart guy. He's a very very smart, very intense and he was I was doing working with him and his wife and at a certain point I started to realize that we don't want the same thing. They're very aware of the relationship between our emotional experience and repression and avoidance and denial and self delusion and all that. But I I realized that they wanted they wanted to process everything to make everything conscious. Process everything to make everything conscious. To process everything to make everything conscious. And I realized I could never that to me that would be like a life of torture having to process everything. Much prefer to let go of everything. Oh, it sounds like avoidance, Andrew. But I don't think it's true. So, so to just put this in a radical context, remember that the I would say that the true seeker for liberation has to risk spiritual bypassing. That might happen inadvertently for all the reasons that you're aware of, but it might not. But it's a risk worth taking if enlightenment is to be gained. You follow? So I think that people need to do enough therapy so they to get to the point where they know themselves pretty well. Nobody knows themselves perfectly. Nobody sees all the shadow. This nobody's ever gotten that far. But we can get to the point where we can know ourselves pretty well better than most people know us know ourselves. And at that point you can begin to take responsibility for your own for yourself. How much is enough? What how much is enough is whatever it takes to get to that point. And it gets easier for me because as I get older and meet more people, I start to gain more confidence because I start seeing more other people much more clearly than I used to. The other thing is that the ego is very attached to its own story. It's a lot to give up. And have you noticed in your work that these difficult periods people go through tend to keep repeating themselves? That's the problem. So it can seem often in a therapeutic context that we're going through something. We're going to get to the other side of it. We get to the other side of that then after a certain period of time the next thing comes the next struggle comes up. So with the enlightenment dharma, we want to get to the bottom of everything. That's the idea to get to the bottom of everything. At least we want to try to do that. In that context, we see the human condition as our self. I am the human condition in all its glory, all its positivity and negativity and the whole mess. the potential for liberation and love potential for evil and darkness. It's all in me. So you want to take on yourself as the human condition. The human the human the challenge of the human condition is me doesn't exist outside me. It all exists within me. So then you see all the challenges you're facing on a human level as the challenges that that we're facing as as a human species. So we start to see the the challenge of life in a very big noble context that awakens self-compassion and then you start seeing how how hard it is to be conscious human being. If you're serious and you're sincere, you realize it's difficult. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean it can't be done. It can be done if you really want it. Most people are looking for happiness in other places. That's the thing. People think meditation will help them feel a little calmer. So what what I'm saying is very radical. It's very absolute. It's not for everybody. I'm aware of that. It's because the the renunciation of ignorance and stupidity and selfishness and narcissism, self-hatred, paranoia, desire for power and dominance, and all these other crazy things. It's hard to give it up. Making sense? That's why you're in trouble. your therapeutic passion is in trouble then because everything I'm saying is making sense to you. You can see both sides. I mean you're smart. So you should wrestle with this with this paradox and see what you come up with. You should also try to experiment with yourself. When you start to face big emotional challenges, you can feel the intensity building up. See if you can get through it without having to try anything except relying on your own awareness. Not making a problem out of it. Not making a problem out of it. We always have the opportunity to not make a problem out of it. Then this then went past it. I got through that one. Nothing happened. I'm still alive. I saved some money, too. Are you wrestling with the uh paradox? Good. It's a big paradox.