Preface

From Darkness unto Light by His Holiness Swami Chidananda President, Divine Life Society Ouch has been the hoary tradition through millennia, through countless generations down the corridor of centuries, the blazing light flaming bright has been handed down. Illumined souls have shared and transmitted their light to sincere seeking souls, illumining their hearts by a new understanding and a higher vision. Transforming this vision into experience is the seeker's responsibility, duty and privi- lege. In some rare cases the fullest illumination occurs spontaneously to some fortunate being. Such a being blesses the generation in which he or she happens to live and act. Andrew Cohen is one such being. He is a modem Western mystic who shines like a light in darkness. Attaining Enlightenment, his ego vanished. Whatever Awareness was left behind was Cosmic in its nature and dimension. It embraced all. It became all and it was vibrant with the feeling of identification and empathy with each and everything that existed within this all. You may call it a cosmic state of consciousness springing out of deepest personal Preface ix experience. As there was no ego it was at once impersonal experience also. The sensitive understanding that resulted gave rise to a great compassion. From this understanding and compassion arose a great wave of Love in the oceanwide heart. This understanding and compassionate love encompasses all existence and therefore it, as it were, embraces everything, as the title suggests, in all the earth and heaven too. It is a sharing of a rare insight accompanied by a firm and uncompromising stand for the need for absolute and total dedication of ones entire being if one were to aspire after such experience. Sivananda Ashram Rishikesh, India April 2000

Embracing Heaven & Earth