Andrew Cohen - N°3 - LAST RETREAT - January 2025

So the idea with enlightenment is that the traditional enlightenment is that the egoic identity. This the ego mind that is conditioned by unenlightened culture and consciousness gets replaced by the revelation of enlightened awareness which is the revelation of the ina. I am that like I say the danta instead of I am the ego mind. I'm the separate personality. I was born in a particular time in history and suffered went through so many experiences and here I am as a flawed damaged traumatized human being. I'm I'm infinite. I've never been born, never been hurt, wounded or traumatized and I'm eternally free. That's the shift. The reason why we meditate every day so we can remind ourselves of this metaphysical distinction between the ego mind and what ramen maharshi calls the true self. So if you want to awaken to enlightened awareness permanently you have to constantly be asking yourself where am I coming from which identity am I coming from? Most of us are so deeply conditioned by the ego mind the small self that we don't think about our identity very much. We presume that's who we are. We come from we come from that small self with all of its agendas and all of it painful story. So if you meditate very deeply as some people do occasionally you keep discovering that that's not who you really are and who you are is inherently liberated already. And as I've been explaining, when you discover that inherently liberated part of yourself, you experience spontaneous joy, lightness of being, clarity of mind, and an infinite sense of self or I amness, which changes just about everything. Pretty simple, straightforward, right? Not complicated, not too esoteric, but it's profound. That's why we're meditating. So as I was saying yesterday, if we take this seriously, if we take our own potential for enlightenment seriously, if we take our own potential for enlightenment seriously, we actually might get there. And what that means is it's a permanent shift of identity. That's the idea. I'm not this body or this mind immortal soul or mind. So this is permanent shift of identity. If someone's enlightened, if they've experienced the permanent shift of identity, they're happy most of the time because they know who they are. It's very straightforward. It's very simple. But we have to do it. Since most of us aren't raari, we're not freaks of nature. Most most of us have to work at this process. If you work at it, you get the result if you believe in it. And forgive me for saying this, but people like me are supposed to be proof of that fact. Proof. You need proof. So you need realizers who can give you proof that enlightenment is real. You need objective living evidence to give you confidence that it's possible. You just read about it in a book. So in this teaching, we have a very simple way to look at this predicament. I have three simple steps to ask people to go through. So unenlightenment which is fundamental unconscious conditioned relationship with the ego mind yields a negative or we could say wrong relationship to life. If you're consciously or unconsciously identifying with the small self, your relationship to life is going to express fear and limitation and doubt and pain and suffering and it's painful story about your ego which usually feels pretty bad. Right? But I'm saying here we all all know everything I'm saying. It's just that we tend to forget it pretty quickly. >> [laughter] >> Unless we're living it spontaneously, effortlessly and naturally we we we forget it every day. So what kind of impression do people have about you as a person? They say this this seems to be a happy apparently spontaneously liberated soul or this person with a few problems. Doesn't seem very conscious, angry, frustrated, bitter. victimized, lost and confused. What question do you even give to other people about your own natural state? It's true for all of us. So from the enlightenment context, there's a right relationship to life and a wrong relationship to life. In the enlightenment context, very specific, it's very partial. So if enlightenment is the goal, the right relationship to life is enlightenment. That's the only right relationship to life from an enlightenment perspective. It's very goal oriented, very narrow. That's why the first tenant of the teaching, the first principle of this teaching says if I want to awaken to enlightened awareness, I have to make this aspiration a priority in my life, I have to put it first on my agenda. Whoever I am, I have to make it first on my agenda so I don't forget about it. I'm going to miss it. How does that sound? Reasonable, logical, rational. So, we want to go from a wrong relationship to life, which is unconscious and ego-based, to a right relationship to life, which is based upon the discovery of who I really am beyond the ego mind. You got to do it for real. So, that's why we're meditating. So I'm meditating to remember who I really am. So I can come out of this meditation as a liberated soul. I can come out of this meditation as my true self. Self liberated spontaneously, naturally, effortlessly right here and now. That's why I'm meditating. So we want to go from a wrong relationship to life, body, mind, world, universe to a right relationship to life, body, mind, universe. So please take this seriously. I could break this down for you and make it very simple. But you've got to put it into practice yourself. And you have to believe that an enlightenment is possible. Otherwise, if you don't believe it, when you go and you feel weak-minded and frightened and confused, you'll give into your ego. I don't give a damn. I've had a hard day. I've had a hard week. I've had a hard year. Leave me alone. I don't want to have to be any particular way. But I thought you wanted to be enlightened. Not today, baby. Leave me alone. So, the egoic self does not want to have to carry the burden of liberation. You follow? is if you carry the burden of liberation, you got to show up as if that's who you really are. So it requires a commitment or an attitude of commitment for the long haul. No matter what your experience may feel like. So what I call the old enlightenment and the traditional enlightenment, the right relationship to body, mind, personality, world, there's no relationship. I'm not this body or this mind immortal soul am I. So you want to practice having no relationship to your mind to your body to your personality to your story to this world as you see it through your conditioned mind and the whole evolving universe the creative process as a whole. You want to practice having no relationship to any of it. And if you do that, you will find sooner or later, I don't know when it's going to happen, but it will happen sooner or later that you're free. And then you go, "Oh my god, this is real. I didn't really believe it. I wanted to believe it, but I didn't really believe it. Oh my god, this is real. He wasn't making this up. They weren't making this up. They really meant it." when you feel so much gratitude and so much bliss but we got to do it baby has to become choices so in the teaching we say we go from what I call wrong relationship to no relationship to right relationship three steps we can all do it not very hard when you understand it's quite simple but there has to me a enormous uh emotional metaphysical conviction because otherwise if your e ego gets lazy and your ego doesn't care it's very hard to muster up the metaphysical and spiritual energy to do it the emotional energy to do this you have to be very you have to remain inspired enlightenment has to be a living inspiration to you and for most of us we get inspired once in a while when we read a good book about enlightenment when we go to India for a few weeks we meet an enlightened person we get we get reminded oh yeah I'm interested in that but then most people forget about it fall back into the small the consciousness of the small self so you have to remain inspired and remaining inspired is also part of spiritual practice you have to keep yourself inspired if you're not already naturally inspired we're all human weak frail weak minded I'm here to help you to inspire you that's part of my job is indeed being a teacher So we're going from wrong relationship to no relationship. That's why we're meditating. I'm going from no wrong relationship which is ego mind, ego world, ego culture, ego cosmos to no relationship. So no relationship means zero. And in this enlightenment context, zero is a metaphor for the infinite. Infinite means timeless, formless, beginningless, endless, and eternal. So zero doesn't mean zero. It's a metaphor for that which is infinite, which is timeless, formless, beginningless, and endless and eternal. That's what zero means to an enlightened mind. And that has to become your constant basic metaphysical reference point is zero. which doesn't mean zero. It means the infinite, inconceivable, unborn, un unimaginable, limitless. It's doable. If you do it, it all happens. Now, if we're going to do this, we have to give up all of our cynicism and our nihilism and our self-hatred and our doubt. We can't take self-hatred to heaven. If we're going to do the cynicism and the nihilism and the self-hatred have to go because we can't take self selfhatred with us to heaven, can we? You have to leave it at the door. God won't do that for you. You have to do it for yourself. He says come in but leave all your baggage outside. Your safe selfhate, your nihilism and your cynicism have to be left outside the door. So the ego says, "Oh without my self-hatred, my nihilism, my cynicism, I have to I won't have any way to protect myself from being happy, from being free." Correct. No way to protect myself. So most people are so screwed up and so crazy that they find that very frightening instead of very exhilarating and positive and profound, right? Have you ever met people like that? I meet them all the time. So when you're awaking to align awareness, start taking off your clothes and being naked all the time. You have to be willing to let people see your true self. You have to be willing to stand naked and all your naked authenticity and be allow yourself to be seen by others. Takes a lot of courage. If you're if you really attach to your ego, you'll never have the guts to do it. Cuz you say, "What if they find out I'm faking it?" But if you are faking it, it's good to be found out. You'll be grateful. And if you're not faking it, too bad for them. They've got to deal with it. You understand how this works? So, we want to go from wrong relationship to no relationship. At this point, wrong relationship to no relationship to right relationship. That's why we're meditating. And in this teaching, I make a distinction between being and becoming, the unmanifest and manifest dimensions of reality. So when we go from wrong relationship to no relationship, we're letting go into zeress or emptiness or nothingness. The big question I bring up all the time for years and years and years is let's say you've gone from wrong relationship to no relationship and you're sitting in consciousness of eternity. When you when you get up from your meditation posture, meditation position of no relationship, when you reenter the manifest world, the manifest reality, what kind of relationship to the world are you going to have? Because you can't be in the world and have no relationship to it. You cannot be in the world and have no relationship to it. You cannot be in this world and have no relationship to it. You if you're here, your body is here, your mind is here, your soul is here means now you're in the world. So a big metaphysical big spiritual question is well since I am already here what relationship do I have to being here? Well, I don't know. I've never thought about that. Start thinking about it. We want to become self- authors of our destiny, self- authors of our life. So what is your relationship to manifest reality at a fundamental level? It's between you and God. There's nobody else involved in this decision. What is your relationship? Yes, I realize that 95% of it is all very conditioned and unconscious. But the 5% that's not conditioned and unconscious that's available for freedom of choice, your choice. What are you doing with that choice? What is your conscious relationship to the 5% that God has given you to make sense out of life, to make sense out of reality? Father, what are you doing? You're doing nobody's doing it for you. So that's the question. So what's my relationship to manifest reality since my body, mind, and personality seem to be here now? What am I doing here? What's my relationship to this to the challenge of being human? What's my relationship to the challenge of being human? What's our relationship to the challenge of being human? Is being a human being is a big challenge, right? You want to know why it's so much more challenging for us relatively wealthy postmodern people? Because we have so many damn choices. You see these villagers here, they don't have any choice. They work like slaves, get married, have children, work like slaves, and die. It's a terrible life. They don't have any choice. Their life is based upon day-to-day survival. It's like slavery. But we for some reason have all of this choice. And most of us are not spiritually mature enough to be able to handle the burden of the freedom to choose that God has given us which is actually a great gift. Our karma has made it possible for us to be born with relatively wealthy context which gives us this opportunity for freedom of choice independence of mind. But most of us are so weak-minded that we find it very intimidating, overwhelming, frightening. I have so many choices. I don't know what to do. Mommy, please help me. I don't know if I should do this or if I should do that or I should do the other thing. I could do all three but I don't know what to do and it's emotionally so burdensome. Isn't that pathetic? Huh? We are can be. So instead of being exhilarated by all the choice that God has given us, we should be grateful and be warriors, pioneers. So we should be grateful. Thank you God for giving me an opportunity to be free. My parents never taught me to be grateful for anything. So like a lot of you, I was brought up to be a spoiled brat. They never taught me to be grateful for anything. So in the evolutionary part of the enlightenment, the way that I teach is there's a very there's a big creative dimension to it which has to what's the most consciously creative life I can choose to live I can give rise to through this body mind and personality as deeply flawed and conditioned as it is what's the most deeply creative relationship to this life that I can cultivate the big question it's like your life then becomes your artwork comes your life and the way you live it and our life and the way that we live it is an expression of what we know what we've learned what we know about reality is is your life what does your life look like what does your life look like from the outside does it look beautiful intelligent enlightened grateful beautiful does it express beauty truth and goodness express fear doubt and confusion victimiz ization. So, we have a lot of work to do, babies, folks, don't we? Because we don't come from a mythic conditioned cultural background. We've been given all this opportunity to create on our own. I get to do what I want to do. We all been given the gift of being able to do what we want to do, not be trapped in what other people's ideas are. Isn't that good? It's a burden for the small self, but who cares? It's a great gift. If you think about the creative process and think about how mysterious it is and you realize you've ended up in this very lucky situation to be able to have this opportunity, you'll feel very grateful. Grateful to the higher power that created all this in the first place. There's a higher power at work. So it seems. No, I like to call it the energy and intelligence that created the universe and is creating universe right now. And we're intelligent enough to be able to analyze the process that made it possible for us to be here in this form. We're all smart enough to be able to begin to make sense out of our karma. That's part of the self- authoring process. I know who I am and I know why I'm here. Isn't that beautiful? But we've got to do it. Not just know it, understand it, but we have to do it. acted like we do. So, we're going from wrong relationship to no relationship. Going from wrong relationship to no relationship is a huge metaphysical leap. It's going from something to nothing. So if you think about it from a certain point of view, having the time to practice the dharma, being given an opportunity to practice the dharma with all this focused attention is the greatest gift from God. Most people are very busy working, procreating, living up to their worldly responsibilities. They don't have time to think deeply about anything. I feel sorry for them. They're so busy. They're so lost. And I'm sorry they can't. They don't have time to think deeply about anything. So they're always trapped in a world of illusions. That makes me feel very sad for them. This is normal though. So when I get up and meditate every day, I feel very grateful every single day. I have the opportunity to meditate freely. I live in this beautiful place. All I do is think about liberation all the time. Talk about it. I feel so lucky. Yeah. I'm not making it up. So a big part of learning about the dharma and learning about the dharma, practicing the dharma, it has to do with learning how to make the right choices and that takes time. Everybody wants to be in such a hurry. Practicing the dharma and learning how to practice the dharma takes time, takes years, lifetimes. lifetimes. So practicing the dharma is learning how to make the right choices. Learning how to make the right choices. Most of us taught don't know how to make the right choices. Not our fault, but nobody's taught us how to make the right choices. Nobody's told us what's more important than anything else. So we want to very be very humble about this. So, it means something serious when a grown, intelligent adult realizes, "Oh, I have to learn how to make the right choices. I don't know. I don't know how to make the right choices." Does your life look like you made the right choices? Are you happy with the choices that you've made? Are they clear expression of your heart's desire, your highest values, or not? So this leap from something to nothing is an absolute reference point. And if you're serious is something you're going to contemplate every single day because the nature of the absolute is that it's ever new. Being conscious bliss is ever new being consciousness bliss. So that which is called absolute or God, the God principle, it's always like the first time. You're always a virgin relationship to God consciousness. It's always the first time. So part of this teaching is I'm trying to help everybody to learn how to think about life and about meaning and purpose and value, how to make sense out of life. If you know how to make sense out of life, you'll be able to make sense out of your own life. And the more you make sense out of your own life, the happier you're going to feel. You're going to be more confident, spiritually self-confident, feel selfrespect and dignity and uh like you're not wasting your time here. So many lucky people are just wasting their time. They're aware they're wasting their time, but they don't know how to not waste time. It's kind of a tragic existence being the luckiest people in the world and not knowing what to do with the time that God has given us. So think about going from something somebody to nobody to nothing first thing every morning after you have your coffee or before your coffee. [laughter] You want to return to an absolute reference point every single day. So, I like to call it going back to before the beginning. If you have the time to meditate, go back to before the beginning in your own consciousness. Start all over again. Go back to before the beginning. And before the beginning, everything is perfect. Before the beginning, everything is perfect. Why? There's nothing happened yet. If you go back to before the beginning, everything is perfect because nothing ever happened yet. So you want to return to that inner space, that inner dimension where nothing ever happened yet. Not within yourself, but in reality itself. You want to go back to before the beginning of time. That's where you experience samati or the liberated state of enlightened awareness is before time began. Everything was perfect. There's nothing happened yet. All things are possible, but nothing happened yet. You didn't screw things up yet. >> [laughter] >> Right? So before the beginning of time all things are possible but nothing happened yet. So there's a state of suspension. Everything could be but nothing is. Everything could be but nothing is. You want to spend hours and hours and hours and hours of your time in that space where nothing happened yet but everything is possible. That's how you untie your mind from your karmas. You want to meditate on the presence of the infinite within the context of infinite possibility without doing anything without lifting a finger just paying attention resting there resting there resting there your karmas will start to burn away if you just if you can sit still for hours and hours and hours and hours and have no relationship to anything karmas will begin to untie themselves but you have to be very careful very very patient very determined very trusting. The reason why a few people succeed in this is because we're always reacting. We're always reacting before thought. We don't allow time for the karmas to untie themselves. We're always reacting and condition responses in fear. So the the karma can only untie itself when you when you stand back. Let everything be as as it is without reacting without reacting. without reacting. But you have to give it time, a lot of time. This stuff doesn't happen overnight. You can have a big experience overnight. That's not what's going to do it for you. It's like um the body knows how to be healthy. If you create the right conditions for the body to sort itself out, it will it will heal itself. You stop doing the wrong things to start doing the right things. You create the conditions for the body to heal. It will heal. It's the same thing about your soul and the conditioned personality. All this stuff will heal itself. You create the right conditions for it to heal, to become whole, become liberated. But you have to be very patient, very determined. Everybody's in a hurry to get this over with. I think you got to be kidding. You don't know what you're dealing with. That's why when I teach and what a lot of other teachers teach, they always like to invoke the context of the whole evolving un universe to give a sense of how big the context is in which we're working here. Awaken some humility. So in evolutionary dharma we say the universe is trying to evolve through me through this body, mind and personality. So if the universe is trying to evolve through me, that's a big big big big big big big responsibility, right? If the universe is trying to evolve through you, little old little old me. So if it's true, and it is true, we have to create the conditions that would make it possible for the whole universe to evolve through little old me. Sounds audacious, outrageous, and conceivable, but it's true. But you, if these things, you got to step back. Step back. Step back. that that take a very strong position and be very patient. Allow the process to unfold, bear witness to it all without forcing anything to happen. The trusting in the process and being very patient. If you don't know how long this is going to take, if you're in a hurry, it's not going to work. we skip over important things. So for us unenlightened westerners and this I'm practicing what I'm preaching here it's very good to think about karma. Karma is very difficult to understand. It's easy to have a superficial understanding of it but it's very difficult to have a very deep and profound understanding the meaning of karmic currents. So when you begin to awaken to the truth about karma and karmic currents, you start to realize you're operating within a very vast framework. We hardly exist. We're so tiny. But we're operating in a vast oceanic network of karma. So we need to teach ourselves how to be receptive to these currents. Not trying to guide them or to correct them or to change them, but to become conscious of them. If you become conscious of these cosmic currents of karma, you'll you'll know how to get yourself out of trouble. And the way the way you get yourself out of trouble is through practicing no relationship. Stop take your hand away. Stop doing stop scratching the itch. Stop thinking about the past. Stop insisting that you're right. Stop complaining. Stop being a victim. It just digs you in deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper to the hell that we created in the first place. So we have to learn how to be very patient and a step back and pay attention with full faith in the cosmic order which really means getting out of the way. We have to be very humble about this. We don't know how long it's going to take. But then it doesn't really matter because once your enlightenment is taken care of, the project is not over because what the supreme power seems to have in mind is the enlightenment of the whole universe of the whole multiverse. So your enlightenment is a small part of a very big project that's going to take forever to happen. So you want to get very comfortable being [laughter] You want to get very comfortable being here for the right reasons because you're going to be here for a long time anyway. Either you're going to be here in ignorance and pain and suffering, unconsciousness or unconsciousness and great delight in consciously contributing to the cosmic process. So wrong relationship to no relationship that has to be your main practice. Through practicing our relationship, we discover the infinite space in which all things are possible. Going back to before the beginning of everything, every single day again and again and again and again and again. And when you arrive back to before the beginning, you feel free. Feels good to go back to before the beginning. I could stay here forever. That's what it feels like. That's why Ramari was sitting for hours and hours and days and weeks and months and years on the mountain. He wasn't doing a damn thing. Just sitting there because it felt so good to do nothing. Having nothing, knowing nothing, being no one. So wrong relationship to no relationship. That's the teaching. So, I've been teaching it for 35 years, and it's still as new to me as it was 35 years ago. Doesn't get old. So, think to yourself, what would it be like to go back to before the beginning of everything? Not just inside your own mind, but inside the depth of reality itself. That's what we're talking about. And when you take enlightenment seriously, don't think in terms of short periods of time. Don't be in a hurry. You don't know how long it's going to take. It doesn't matter how long it's going to take it. What matters is your attitude, your commitment, your determination to succeed against all the odds, no matter what. Sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's easy. You're experiencing negative feelings, negative thoughts. Do you have any choice whether you can have a relationship with them or not? Is there do you have any choice or no choice? Because they're because they're present. Are you forced to have a relationship with them? You have to see them. They're like demons. You know the negative forces trying to capture your attention. If they capture your attention, you give them energy. But if you have no relationship with them, you don't give them any energy and they can't harm you. If you choose to have no relationship, you can destroy them. But if you're afraid of them, if they can intimidate you, they can also destroy you in time by helping you to destroy yourself. See how it works? I'm not exaggerating. So, you have to be very stoic, very committed that you're not going to harm me. I know who you are. You're a demon. You can't touch me. You don't let the demon touch you by having no relationship with it. But you have to understand that sometimes it's going to be hard. It's the nature of the karma, right? So if you're not afraid of it being hard, you're in good shape. Because the thing is, if we're going to be free, spiritually free, we can't allow our thoughts to intimidate us. Right? How do you go to the root of a thought? It's karmic momentum. >> Whatever >> never ending. That's why you have no relationship with the eternal nature of darkness. [laughter] How about that? You choose to have no relationship with the eternal world of darkness. Like my guru said, as Nirvana has no beginning and no end, samsara has no beginning and no end. That's why it's dangerous to play around with it. So the minute you give it power, you're enter into an eternal world space of darkness. The demon wants your attention. And the demon thrives on your attention. That's that's its food. You're going to starve it to death by being unresponsive. And you have to be convinced that the demon can't hurt you if you don't allow it to hurt you. If you're afraid the demon has the power to hurt you, it's only true because you believe it, not because it's objectively true. You keep ask questions until you have no doubt. Because connected with the doubt is fear, right? So I don't want you to have any fear about this. I want you to believe in yourself. Like I said, sometimes it's hard, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. So, like I said, this only works if you believe in enlightenment as objectively existing as a higher state of consciousness. You have to believe it in it. It's like believing in God. You have to believe in yourself. If you believe in enlightenment, but you don't believe in yourself, it won't help you. You have to believe in your own worthiness, your own worthiness, your own dignity, your own self-respect. You have to believe in your own power to liberate yourself. So the all the egoic conditioning disempowers itself. It takes away our power. You have to be very careful what you believe from your ego's point of view. The ego is not trustworthy. Ego has a good story, but it's not trustworthy because it doesn't have good motives. The ego can be very rational. It can tell you a very good story. And if you're weak-minded, you'll believe it. But look, it's true. I don't care. I don't believe it. And also it's important that we really do this kind of work now because we don't have an infinite amount of time in this life to do this because we want to get through this challenging period so we can use the rest of our life to be an expression of victory over the ego constantly battling with it. So you have to believe in yourself, believe in your own power just to liberate yourself from fear and illusion. So be stoic. So remember as Nirvana has no beginning and no end, so samsara has no beginning and no end. So the minute you let in a little bit of it, you enter into a whole world space of hell. It's not just one thought. It's not just one memory. It's a whole world space of victimization and powerlessness. And also you want to do do this battle for everybody else. You're going to be a warrior. You don't do just do it for yourself. You do it for humanity. Because if you can liberate yourself from these kinds of fears, so can other people. You become an example of what's possible. You save humanity without saving yourself. Isn't that a good motive to do it? It's a much better motive than just not wanting to suffer. So that means sometimes it'll be frightening, confusing, overwhelming, doesn't matter. Be very stoic. And sooner or later when you stop listening to the ego, it gives up. It's desperate to get your attention. Gets desperate to get your attention. Desperate to get your attention. But sooner or later if it finds I can't get her attention as hard as I try. Ego gets tired and takes a nap doesn't have infinite energy but it's always watching. The minute you you fall right to weakness it gets excited again. So what I'm teaching you is not this is not a psychological approach is my understanding of the enlightenment approach to the mind. I I have a very extreme views on this. So I don't believe in psychological healing. I believe when you let go of the problem and at the deepest level of your being, you'll feel a lot better. It's not because any healing has happened if you let go of the problem. Because one problem leads to another problem leads to another problem leads to another problem. People who are working on psychological issues are always busy with psychological issues because there's always another one to deal with. We deal with one another one pops up. Right? So one psychological problem and emotional trauma leads to another. One leads to another leads to another. It's like flowers bloom. So I believe the only way to solve this problem is to step back from the whole mess. Not out of ignorance but in in awareness paying full attention to what's going on to the forces at work. Not avoiding anything. facing everything but choosing to disidentify with the problem. Not to escape or to deny or to avoid but to be free. A lot of people disagree with me. So I'm very alone in this kind of thinking. But what I know what I'm saying is true. So to repeat I'm just I know I don't want to bore you but I'm just repeating the phrase as Nirvana has no beginning and no end. I'm sorry has no beginning, no end. We have to be careful when we start believing in not just one thought. It's a whole world view. It's a whole it's a whole uh emotional and psychological world space, a continuum in which we can get trapped very easily if we're not careful. So if you're emotionally free or not, people can tell if you're emotionally free. You're not aborting anything. Your fundamental emotional, psychological and bodily attitude will be relaxation and openness. You can't pretend to be free. So if you're really facing everything and avoiding nothing having no relationship with darkness your emotional and psychological and bodily attitude posture will reveal it because you'll which you'll transmit is relaxation ease of being spontaneous joy natural happiness it's proof of your state of your relationship to your body mind and personality follow you can't pretend to be free and freedom can be attained. So I don't believe we can work out our problems and can become free my opinion. to letting go of attachment to the problem. That's the my understanding of the metaphysical the enlightenment solutions. Letting go of our attachment to having a problem to there being a problem. That's where the door to liberation opens. In psychological work, often how the therapist can help the patient by giving them their attention is by giving them loving compassionate attention, which often is very healing. It doesn't necessarily solve the problem in the end because when you believe you have a problem, it's very difficult. You feel very alone, very isolated. So when someone gives you their compassionate and loving attention with kindness, it's very healing. It gives emotional relief. Doesn't necessarily solve the problem, but it gives a lot but it gives temporary relief from the tyranny of the problem. What troubled me very much is I started to notice that most of the psychotherapists who are coming to me for liberation were still struggling with their fundamental neurosis. I'm not saying they weren't good therapists but in their personal lives they were still suffering and struggling very much with their psychological issues. Even though they had been dealing with it for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, they were still suffering, feeling emotionally overwhelmed and defeated. Even though they understand, even they had a good understanding of psychological processes. They were good. They were nice people. I saw that too many times. And there was one therapist I had who helped me very much. He was very he helped me because he's very kind to me. His kindness was very healing for me. And uh at a certain point he invited me out for dinner. He said, "Andrew, I usually don't do this with my clients, but I'm going to I do it with you." And he took me out to dinner and he was very unhappy. He kept telling me about his problems that he'd been working on since he was a young man. And he was still emotionally struggling in a very painful way. And I found it unbearable. He's a very good person. But I I was thinking there's something wrong with this picture because the dharma has to bring us to an end to the suffering. It reveals us the light of liberation which inherited the light of liberation is joy and happiness and inner freedom. Victory over darkness. Right. Victory over darkness. What? A lot of people don't believe it's possible for there to be victory over darkness. But enlightenment, the real thing, transmits victory over darkness. It's actually possible. Most people think it's not possible. It is possible. So another thing that I found um very troubling, the unenlightened ego in most of us thrives on suffering, thrives on victimization, become empowered by being the victim, being able to complain and feel weak and feel victimized and feel tormented. There's a dark part of the ego that enjoys that position. And I think this to me is very dangerous. I want to tell you a funny story. There's a lot of discussion in psychosspiritual circles in the west and in India, especially in the western America and Europe about spiritual bypassing. So the general thinking goes that the traditional approach to enlightenment tells us we should transcend the mind, transcend our emotions. And they said it seems that these people who do focus on transcending their mind, transcending their emotions are avoiding real issues of neurosis, psychosis, narcissism, unhealthy power, power needs, all kinds of big problems. So they don't know themselves psychologically. So the enlightenment becomes dangerous. unless you're psychologically educated. So there's truth in it. It's relatively true about a lot of people. I admit that. But it's not absolutely true. It's not an absolute truth. It's a partial truth. It has some relevant. But it's changed the whole discussion in the west to the point that people don't believe in enlightenment anymore. Most people don't believe it. They think it's a joke. So my guru a punja gi was a very profound expression of being a transcender for him. He didn't just speak about transcendence like a lot of gurus and a lot of teachers speak about transcendence and spiritual freedom. He didn't just speak about it from his mind. He was transmitting the force of liberation in a way that was overwhelming. He actually was a authentic transcender. He was the real thing. So when people started speaking to him about their psychological issues, he said that's all samsara. He meant it. So I found in my own life, it's a rare seeker after enlightenment that can achieve radical transcendence of the mind in in such a way that we're not avoiding anything. We've achieved genuine transcendence. At the same time, we're not avoiding anything. But it's possible to reach that. And without the transcendence of the mind, the deep transcendence of the mind, the personal story, all the ego story, there's no genuine liberation. It's always going to be liberation with a butt. And liberation should have no butts in it. Needs to be absolute. a lot of whom were with my guru but they're feeling troubled because he didn't give them the space to work out their emotional problems and and I say well yeah he didn't but that was his gift he was telling you to transcend your emotional problem which it's very hard to do you have to be very s very serious and very awake to be able to do that he did it so the thing is the awakening to enlightened awareness. We have to be willing to let to go beyond our history which means you all of your personal karmas this lifetime and all the other lifetimes. There has to be a part of you that wants to wants to transcend all of it once and for all. You have to be willing to let go of all of it. Your attachment to all of it consciously and unconsciously. It has to be enough to make all the difference. Jumping out of an airplane without a parachute means you have no intention to come back anymore. to the old world. They're seeking for rebirth without compromises. You want to be whole and strong, self-confident, loving, independent, and free without making excuses. That's got to be possible, right? Don't let anybody give you an excuse to be broken. Oh, I'm broken. Sorry. We all have we have been broken, but there's a meaning to always be broken. You can put yourself back together and take responsibility for your own potential for liberation. You can do you can do so in a way that is very profound. What do you mean not being broken? So, are you saying you're a superhuman? No. I'm just saying it's possible to be a whole integrated human being who has who has what I call spiritual self-confidence who's not avoiding and denying anything, not pretending to be anything other than they truly are. Doesn't that sound like a good idea? But giving ourselves the option to also be broken is a copout. Should terrible things happen in your life, you have a period of time when you're broken, that's fine. We're only human. But we don't want to drag this concept of brokenness along with us as an excuse to be emotionally self-indulgent in the ego. You follow my point. If you fall down and break yourself and stand up and heal yourself, not very popular these days, right? It's more popular to be recovering from woundedness. So, I know what I'm saying sounds very radical, but it's to me it's very straightforward. We've got to believe it's possible to to be whole, healthy, and happy without any excuses. It's possible to be fully human and vulnerable and also profoundly liberated at the same time. A lot of people can't believe because of the challenges that I personally been through which are enormous. I made mistakes. The fact that I reemerged with so much spiritual self-confidence, people think is a sign haven't changed. It's a sign that the deepest recognition in me hasn't wavered one bit. I haven't moved an inch. A lot of people, they don't even know that they're doing this, but they want me to give up my proclamation that freedom is possible and that liberation is possible. Even if you've made mistakes, it doesn't matter. Doesn't make any difference. You can return to wholeness at any point if you believe in liberation. The fact that I reemerged with so much passion for liberation, I've always been very passionate, which if they really care about liberation, they should that should fill them with confidence. That's a good thing. For a sane person, that would have to be a good thing. They say, "Oh, he hasn't changed cuz they want me to come down for my liberation posture and join them in the wounded soldiers department." If you see in some of these war movies, they take you to the to the places where all the wounded soldiers are being healed. They want me to join the the rest of the human race in the hospital and say, "Now he's finally got the message and he's joined the human race. I'll never going to do that. I'd rather die. Everything I've been living for is what is what I'm talking to you about. I will just take my life on what I'm telling you." without empty words for me. It's everything I live for. The fact that that would disappoint so many people instead of inspire them is what I find horrifying. But I don't care what anybody says and I know what I'm saying is true. I've lived this with great intensity for a long time. You see the thing is you have to understand that what I'm preaching here, you listen to what I'm preaching is it's nothing new. It's I'm teaching you traditional enlightenment. As the retreat goes on, I'll speak more about evolutionary enlightenment. But the essence of what I'm sharing is not new. It's a liberation that the Buddha discovered that Ram Maharshi was living that was talking about. I'm sharing the same truth. There's nothing that I knew about what I'm sharing, but it's alive in me. It's real. And most people can't bear the real thing. scares the out of them. Because as I've been saying, if you realize that it's possible for an apparently imperfect person to attain liberation, then we all have to deal with the implications of that for ourselves. Because no matter what your personal problems are, it doesn't matter. You can still be free. I say if you want it and if once you accept liberation once we in all our imperfection accept liberation as a fundamental truth it's a grounded by being we get stronger if you continue to live you get stronger and stronger and stronger even if you make mistakes it doesn't matter the ground of your conviction gets stronger and stronger your spiritual strength gets stronger and stronger It's amazing. I met my guru 35 years ago, whatever it is, 36 years ago, and he gave me this gift in 10 minutes. Gift is still alive. It's not I'm not doing the teaching here. It's not Andrew Cohen doing the teaching. The gift he gave me is doing all the teaching. So, it's a demonstration of what I'm talking about. It's a demonstration of the fact that there's a metaphysical forces in the universe that are ready to come through us if we make room for them. And then you don't care about your ego anymore and your ego's problems don't suddenly becomes irrelevant. Who gives a damn none of it all becomes irrelevant in light of the light of enlightened awareness. Paula, it's so much more beautiful, so much more meaningful, so much more purposeful, so much more radical, so much more real. Why would anybody want less if they could have that? I can't imagine. What's true for me is that my guru is enlightenment and the power of his enlightenment is enlightened me and I have him to thank for that. So I can't repay him that debt. The transmission is very pure. Did he have severe flaws as a human being? Yes, he did. So what? That fact does not mean that his gift was not as valuable as it always was. His gift stands independently of his human flaws. Was I'm more grateful than anything else. His problems are his problems. They're not mine. I was very self-righteous and arrogant when I was a little teacher. I was very self-righteous. I was very arrogant. I thought I was better than everybody else. Very attached to my own ideas of purity. I had no idea how challenging it is to be an enlightened human being. So I was overconfident and arrogant and I paid the price for it. I was not on a quest for purity but I was demanding this from all my teachers. They have to be exemplars of the perfection of human perfection. You know we have no intention of meeting him even halfway. So if they demonstrate some kind of weakness or some kind of human flaw, they're phonies are not real, which is usually not true. Muslim usually have a lot to offer. So we have to focus our learn how to focus our lenses a little bit differently. And also even in terms of these human flaws, how much is acceptable, how much is not acceptable? And so we have to make up our own mind about these things. All I feel towards my guru is gratitude because his personal flaws are his problem, not mine. And uh nobody's perfect. That's what I learned. Being human beings, we're inherently imperfect. If he if he was alive, I don't know what kind of relationship I would have with him. I don't know what would be possible. But I don't have to worry about it cuz he's not here right now. But strange things keep happening to me. Like I told a lot of you. I was having a conversation with you about 3 months ago. I was having a conversation with Danielle. I was ging day and we were having a conversation about Punji. had a glass of ice water next to her and I said the words was not an ordinary man and when I said he was an ordinary man the glass with ice in it which you know who nobody was touching Saturn just exploded when I mentioned his name and things like that keep happening to me in relationship to who he really was. So as flawed or not as he may have been on a human level as any of us may be on a human level. If you awaken this deeply to the ultimate miracle and mystery of enlightened awareness, you're connected with different dimensions of reality that most people are and strange and beautiful things happen which will affirm and confirm the mystery of creation of the deep and unspeakable beauty of consciousness. And the gift of the guru is incomparable if you understand what it is and if you perceived it. It awakens deep humility because you can't it it it transcends the rational mind. And so he was crying. He was a tough man. He was a bastard. But he was very devotional. He was always breaking down in tears because he was so in touch with the purity of his own transmission and seeing the effect it was having on people. That's beautiful. And they're very rare people with that kind of power. Even if the human dimension of who he was is a mess, doesn't change what I'm saying one bit. So what a lot of people have done is throw out the baby with the bath water. That's why my reputation is in shatters because people throw out the baby with the bath water. Most people don't know how to think about this complex subject. Very pedestrian. So, I'm happy that I still had time to live my life. I hope we can live another 30 years, clean up this mess a little bit. But the point is that perfection is unattainable. So, what I like to remind people is it's possible to experience perfection as a state of consciousness. You can experience perfection as a state of consciousness. I can experience perfection as a state of consciousness. But that doesn't make me Andrew the person perfect. So we don't want to confuse the state with the person. We can experience perfection but we can't be perfection. Paradoxically we want to always strive to be better because we're all works in progress from an evolutionary point of view. We're all a work in progress. So are we improving from year to year? Are we smarter, more sensitive, more awake, more enlightened, more beautiful, more generous, more kind, more compassionate, more wise? Are we as unconscious as we were 20 years ago? So you want we want to see progress in ourselves and in in each other. It's very inspiring to see progress in other people because people can change. People really can change. There's no such thing as perfection in terms of human behavior. There's good and better and even better and even better and amazing, spectacular, extraordinary, profound, miraculous, but there's not there's nothing called perfect. All we can do is the best we can. So, you can tell if somebody's trying to do their best and if they're not trying to do their best, if they don't care. If someone tries to do their best, you'll feel a certain kind of sensitivity getting paying extra attention to what they're doing. They're being careful. They're alert and awake. Because a lot of people aren't even trying. They just go on automatic because it takes effort to pay attention. It takes effort to care. So all we can do is the best we can. And as long as we're doing the best we can, God is happy. I think everything I'm talking about is attainable if we do the work. Can you let go of the judgment completely, absolutely, unconditionally, radically? That's the kiss the ticket. Because otherwise your ego is in there saying, "Uh, that was pretty good, but you could do better or not, I'm not good enough. I think you should skip lunch and meditate instead." Don't That's the inner demon taking over the divy. So no, there's no judgment. As long as you're trying your best, it's all that's good enough. No judgment, no self judgment. When you finish meditating, just let drop the whole thing and let go. You just keep walking. Forget about it. If something important happens in the meditation, you'll know it. You don't have to try and remember anything. Let it all go. When it's finished, let it go. Doesn't matter. It's all finished now. But it's the no judgment. Don't let your ego be the master. So, as you'll notice, there's a big emphasis in my teaching on not knowing, not already knowing because emptiness is not a thing. It's not a thing you can see. So you want to try and have no relationship to your experience while paying very close attention to it at the same time. It's constantly like cleaning the blackboard, erasing everything again and again and again and again and again going back to zero. Emptiness is not an object. Truth is not an object. So the way to know these things, the way to know what emptiness is by having no relationship to it. Then you'll find you begin to understand what it is because you've let go of it because the metaphysical knowledge comes from a different place. It doesn't come through the mind. So if you let go of the mind trying to understand everything, the information comes through a different portal. You will begin to understand what emptiness is without the mind having any idea what you're talking about. I'm serious. It's very mysterious. So remember I keep saying it's this the practice of renunciation is I don't know. The ultimate metaposition is I don't already know which means zero but I want to know. So because you want to know you're if you say I don't already know you clean the blackboard. And he said, "But I want to know you're attracting information to you." So to repeat what I just said, there's there's different kinds of access to metaphysical information. It doesn't come through the mind. So if we're always looking through the ego and the mind, we won't miss it because it's coming through a different doorway. So we want to be available through the different doorway through not already knowing. So for example, if I say what's the distance between two thoughts in space. So you don't know what that we don't know what that means. It just just represents everything. So it's through just to repeat what I'm saying. It's through letting go of the mind that we will start to understand things that we didn't know before. It comes from a different portal of the self. That's not that's the ordinary part of the mind and the personality and historical experience and historical knowledge. It's a different direction. So the more we can rest in not already knowing we said these things start to just come to the surface of our conscious experience and just how did I know that? My guru said to me when I met him after some time I'm so glad you found a friend you'll never be able to see. So how is that possible? How do you have a relationship with a friend that you can't see? Through having no relationship with a friend, the friend is there. By h by you having no relationship with a friend, the friend appears. It's counterintuitive. We have to we go against our cultivated mental egoic habits, which means in the enlightenment context letting go. So the more we let go of the idea of relationship, the other portals, other dimensions of reality open up to us. When it happens, you're going to know it. But it's through letting go of everything, let continuing to let go. And we have to continue to let go continuously. That's the practice of purification. So that's why going to the zero point is so important in this process in the enlightenment process. Always going back to before the beginning. That's our practices going back to before the beginning. I don't I don't know. I want to know but I don't know. And then it keeps us vulnerable and open. All the thoughts about the experiences and what they mean. I had this experience. I had this vision. This is what I think it means about where I'm at. Forget it. Always go back to zero. Go back to before the beginning. Keep us fresh, innocent. Always go back to before the beginning. And if if anything important is learned and gained, it won't disappear. It'll be still be there. So, we don't have to worry about any of the good stuff disappearing if we let go because it won't go anywhere. Truth won't abandon us. that which is most important will stay with you. So then what you're left with is just trust. I had a big experience when I was 16, a big experience of cosmic love. I thought it was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me. When I met my guru, I told him what happened. He said, "Andrew, you know everything. Now forget it. Let it go. It's like a ball of chain around your leg. If you want if you want to wake up, you have to let go of this your attachment to this experience." My attachment to this experience was the most important thing in my life at that time. So he was asking me to let go of that which is most important to me. I said, "What? Let go of that? It's the most real thing that's ever happened to me." He said, "I know, but unless you let go of it, it's just a concept. It's not what happened. You have to let go of it. I didn't want to. But I did. It's important that when a liberation becomes real, we're not always speaking from memory. I had this experience. I guess I guess it's over then, huh? Right. If the enlightenment is real, it's living now, right? So experiences are good as long as we let go of them. Otherwise, we're trapped between one experience and another prison. So the secret is no beginnings and no endings. That's the space of freedom. No beginning and no ending.