Sunday, May 15, 2005

The Seeds Of Abuse Were In Place

A View On Andrew Cohen From 15 Years later

By Douglas Wallace


I left Andrew Cohen’s community in December of 1989. Unlike others who have written about their experiences here, I was involved with Andrew Cohen and his sangha for barely over a year. But, as many readers of this blog will understand, that time was extraordinarily powerful, and marked the most intense and profound commitment I had ever made to anyone or anything. I encountered Andrew weeks after I had begun a graduate school program, but quickly abandoned my studies, job, and home to follow him. Meeting Andrew felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and there was no choice but to give myself to it completely.

Falling in love was the easy part, because what Andrew offered was so astonishing and revolutionary. I had spent years as a Buddhist practitioner, but in a scant few days Andrew opened my eyes to more freedom than I had believed possible. I became convinced that Andrew was offering me a high-speed ride to liberation, and I was among the chosen few.

Within weeks, though, I also sensed some disturbing signs in the community and in Andrew’s behavior that would only intensify over time. There were strict, but unwritten rules that tripped up even the most experienced students. Violations resulted in public humiliation and crushing “house meetings” – two words that I would come to dread. Crossing Andrew, or even appearing to disagree with him, guaranteed swift retribution.

Reading through the various accounts that former students have posted here, on WHAT Enlightenment ??!, it’s clear that the seeds of the abuse and manipulation were in place long ago, probably from the start. The details are horrifying, but not surprising. Andrew is just reenacting a role that has been played by other gurus before him – one theme, many variations – and the drama always unfolds along the same lines.

My departure from the community also followed script. After enduring a number of men’s group meetings where faltering students were shouted at and brought to tears, I finally spoke up and suggested that maybe there was a better way to help people through their difficulties. Oddly, in the weeks leading up to these events, I had been feeling increasingly confident in my own experience and judgment. I must have known, in some way, that this challenge would bring their scrutiny directly on me and force the issue of my own skepticism about Andrew.

If this was an unconscious wish on my part, the men quickly gratified it and blasted me with criticism about my treachery and lack of gratitude toward Andrew. While I acted a little contrite, I quietly knew that I wasn’t about to tolerate weeks or months of abuse for my egoic crimes. After a day of reckoning with the consequences, I gathered my clothes and my courage, and left my group house without notice.

I did have one phone call a few days later with Andrew, during which he asked me if I would reconsider my decision and return to him. With my heart in my mouth, I said I couldn’t and explained why, feeling wrenched with anger and love for him. I later learned that Andrew had recounted that conversation to my fellow students with such fabulous distortion that I became an easy villain. Abusive phone calls from the community chased me until I left the area.

I embarked on a trip to Asia for lack of a better destination, already weary from loss and depression. My life took me to an improbable encounter with Poonjaji (Andrew’s teacher) in India, and a slow healing through a desolate mental landscape, back to a semblance of wholeness. Being with Poonjaji also brought back to life the beauty of Ramana’s teachings, which Andrew had offered me my first glimpse of, but little more.

While my time with Poonjaji was critical in helping me through my separation from Andrew and the community, I still simmered in a stew of outrage and reactivity for several years afterward. My bridges to Buddhism had been burned, and I felt mistrustful and negative toward other Advaita teachers, especially those who had anointed themselves after an awakening experience. Caught in a deep disillusionment, I was intensely critical if there were any question of their integrity or authenticity. As for Andrew, I found his lingering presence in Marin County, where I finally returned to live, a source of great agitation.

As with a brief affair, I ended up spending a lot more time processing my experience with Andrew than the months I actually spent with him. Of course, I thought long and hard about sending him a letter that would finally set him straight. But each time I considered it, I remembered Andrew’s bullet-proof defenses and self-justifications, and knew that there was no getting through.

The passing years have made a difference, and I’ve been fortunate to meet several fine teachers who offered their guidance without demanding my allegiance. They were all rooted in a dharma that transcended their personal interests, and it was a deep joy for me to return to the truest part of my spiritual calling. None of them claimed perfection, and I never asked it from them. All were human, and they knew it.

I look back, bemused now, at my hopes that I would finally be free of certain kinds of experiences, particularly difficult emotions. I wanted Andrew to help me escape my basic human predicament, and he seemed more than willing to accommodate me, for a price. It was a bad bargain for both of us. I’ve learned the hard way that my spiritual longings were complex: unfulfilled narcissistic drives were interwoven with a genuine love of truth, and revulsion toward the mess of the world joined with a deep contemplative nature.

Now when I think of Andrew, I appreciate the doors he opened for me, but his delusions and failings don’t keep me up at night. He’s just another guy.

16 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Doug, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experience. I find it all deeply helpful and encouraging.

Monday, 16 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Doug, I also thank you for sharing your story and especially the truth in your ending stating that Andrew is just another guy. Like all of us Andrew is a fellow traveller on this path of life, nothing more nor less.
Blessings

Monday, 16 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you Doug for sharing your experiences and you seem content following your own spiritual path now. In a way Andrew is a catalyst that attracts and then catapults you students away from him so that you are forced to find the true path within yourselves. This, of course, is unintentional and not desired by Andrew, but is nevertheless a true gift of the Divine God. Many of you thank Andrew for the freedom you have found away from him and his teachings, and to pursue true religion.

Continue all you former students in your courageous search for truth and instead of sacrificing yourselves on an altar of perfection, which Andrew claims to have, pursue love, transformation, wisdom and God within yourselves instead.

Love you all
Freebird

Tuesday, 17 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Calan, maybe I should clarify that nothing in my account was meant to exonerate Andrew in any way. Of course he is responsible for all the considerable harm he's done.

Part of what I wanted to share was
my own struggle with just the destructive impacts you mention. After working for some time with my own rage toward Andrew, I was forced to conclude that the best revenge would be to live a good life.

Ultimately, Andrew has only as much power as people give him. I became free from him only when his relevance to my spiritual journey ended.

Wednesday, 18 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was reading that the last phase of a cult is called the 'apocolyptic phase'. This is where the leader realizes that his tenure as ruler is close to the end and he causes major problems to the world. This phase was when Applegate had everyone take poison and wait for the 'spaceship' to take them away to a better place. This was when Jim Jones had his people drink the poison Kool Aid in Guyana. This was when Koresh held up in Waco Texas and the FBI shot, and burned up many of his devotees. I hope this doesn't happen to Andrew's present group.
Andrew should be tried in criminal court and civil court and do some time and pay some money to those he abused.

Thursday, 19 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Calan I appreciate your comments. I agree Cohen is likely reading this and those loopy and nasty comments could be his.

Here is something available in the public record - check out guidestar.org which posts info on IRS returns of non-profits. There you can learn a lot about Cohen's organization (which Guidestar still has listed as "Moksha" which Cohen changed to "Impersonal Enlightenment Fellowship" a few years ago.) Here you can find that the net assets of the organization have grown some $2 million recently (from $6 million to $8 million approximately). This raises your question, which is how are these considerable funds being used?

Your suggestion of a psychological profile of psychopath is something I've recently been reflecting on in Cohen's case. I've talked at length with a psychologist friend about Cohen and particularly about why some ex-students have so much difficulty in breaking free emotionally from their Cohen past. Part of his answer to me was a suggestion of an excellent book: "Without Conscience - The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us" by Robert Hare.

To break free of this authoritarian group, and avoid the next one, we need to have an understanding of how it works.

Thursday, 19 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In response to Calan and above anonymous:

I absolutely agree that Andrew Cohen is extremely dangerous and unbalanced in his mental and emotional concepts. I pray for all the students that are with him now.

All former students mention how they fell in love with him in the beginning. Andrew is a Master in using the libido to the fullest extent in attracting his students. This is his greatest strength, but also will be his downfall. Like a magnet he pulls people to him and then holds them within the vortex of the libido, but his power holding has lessened and become less efectual these last 10 years. More and more students are breaking through, leaving and seeing the man clearly behind the image and the mask. The power he appears to possess is the power everyone gives over to him. With an increased tenacity and fierceness he now ccontinues to enslave spiritual seekers who are unaware of this phenonema of power holding.

The tide has definitely changed. Eventually he will suffer a total breakdown since power abused will be taken away by the Divine. He is not so sexual sin free as he claims. To evoke longins of love and desires that cannot be consummated is a powerful strategy that he employs to perfection.

He is also a Master mesmerist using the same libido power through his eyes to attract and enslave.

Many students who have left him suffer withdrawals like any lover leaving a beloved due to unrequited love.

Thank the good Lord for starting to see this man clearly for what he is doing, and celebrate your freedom from him.

Thursday, 19 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I might be wrong but I would not agree with all those who see Andrew as an evil incarnate who is only after the power and his own egoic goals.
I think he has a lot to offer to some people, at least on the preliminary level of self-knowledge, or rather ego-knowledge, which are not the whole story of the spiritual life but an important first step.

He just needs to clean up his act… and that's a serious job, is he up to it? will he do it? Who knows?
People like him will be around as long as there is a need for that kind of “teachers” and the need is created by some unquestioned collective beliefs like; "Only someone else can show me the way to God", or "other people are more spiritual then I", etc.
or just people who think they need this kind of thing as they cannot find it anywhere else or in themselves or in existing churches or religions.
It’s a spiritual market gap he fills to cater to some of the unexamined human "wants & needs & beliefs".
As long as there is a demand for something the service will be provided sooner or later by Andrew or someone else.

Which of course does not excuse his barbaric behaviour towards the people around him a one bit.
Prostitution is also a problem, the prostitutes too provide a kind of service cataring to human needs and will be here as long as the demand exists.

So whom do we blame? The prostitutes? Or the guys who go to prostitutes for service and keep them in business?
Or just Human Ignorance?

If the guys stop going there, the prostitution would die, same with people like Andrew, as long as there is a demand for people like him, he will be in business…spiritual Sado-Masochism?...spiritual exstazy mixed with a hudge dose of existential and emotional pain, it's a volitale mixture.

I'd like to believe, although I do not know for sure, that initially AC motivation has been pure, perhaps still is and he has not set himself up to rip people off financially, emotionally and spiritually.
Yet obviously he got seriously corrupted somewhere on the way as the people around him allowed themselves to be mesmerised by him and hand him more and more power and control over their lives in the hope of getting from him whatever that was they projected,that they will get.

His financial status, over the years, also has become very powerful and perhaps being there on top, it’s extremely difficult to stay innocent and uncorrupted. Again say all that, this does not excuse his behaviour one dot.
It is the responsibility of the spiritual teacher to find skilful ways to deal with such unholy temptations, it is his own private yoga.

I think that half of the time he does not have a clue what he is doing, he is just groping in the dark, and he often said this himself that he “makes things up as he goes along”.

This is not surprising, as often noticed and expressed on this blog, he has no spiritual teacher himself, he never lived in highly structured spiritual community, he also never had normal job, family, kids, etc.
His circumstances and lifestyle is just so very uncommon, so it is understood that he might lack the understanding and wisdom to relate to people who actually have full-time jobs, family life, kids, normal friends, etc.

His only pseudo “spiritual teachers” since about year 2000 seems to be people like Ken Wilber and Don Beck, as even the language in which he present his current teaching is borrowed from the ideas and expressions from those two men, I hope that they are aware of it.
As I did not known him earlier I’m not sure who were his favourite “idols” before that.

It is all OK, as long as he himself believes in what he is saying about his teaching, that it is “made up and changed as he goes along” and do not behave as if it is the "final and absolute" teaching and imposes it cruelly on his students with no room for challenge, true free dialogue, questioning or deep inquiry.
The only possible “dialogues and deep inquiry” are usually only limited to contemplate his five tenets.

On one hand he is asking people on his retreats to “have guts, courage, think deeply” on the other hand, closer to home, he is punitively discouraging any challenge, discussions or questioning of the validity of any part of his teaching or himself as a teacher.

Again this is a very tricky and dangerous situation for any human being to be in, because if he is wrong, he will fall from a very high place and might not survive it as a spiritual teacher or even a person. His castle already started to crumble.

I think that even this very sorry situation is still remediable with a huge dose of true conscience and humility on his part.
I do assume of course that he has it.
Again, “true conscience and humility” are at the very top of his favourite topics at the retreats.

It seems that now he needs a dose of his own medicine in homoeopathic form; “Likes Cures Likes”
Lets just imagine that we all heard a story called "Andrew walks his talk":

“Andrew did decide to get a dose of his own homeopathic medicine and for the sake of all, for the sake of peace and harmony in this world, and for the sake of his own conscience and soul he decided to face everything and avoid nothing;
He quickly and extensively apologised to all the many students that have been abused while trying on them his “ever changeable, new and improved spiritual formulas” and failed.

He deeply acknowledged his responsibility and wrong doings.
He soon after sold both of his lavish estates, in Foxhollow and London, and gave all the money back to the people that over the years have been emotionally blackmailed to give it to him.
He also gave the magazine away as a Spiritual Gift to all those people who actually do all the hard work for the Magazine and to all those who have been doing it for years and left.

The rest of the money he donated to charities plus all the expensive designer clothes to go with it. He also sold his expensive cars and uses public transport, as now he feels one with the universe and started to care about the environment, experiencing it a part of his own body, mind & spirit.
As a daily spiritual practice he and his wife have chosen “service to others” and now visit all those who for years have been serving them. Now Andrew and his wife for a change do their cooking, cleaning, ironing, gardening, etc for free and are grateful for the opportunity to serve and deepen their own humility.

Afterwards he has gone into seclusion for a couple of years to reflect deeply on his actions and to find out if he still has a calling to be a spiritual teacher.
Eventually he has returned into the world, with free conscience, ever-present humility and the restored sense of purity and innocence, he has changed, and became less ignorant, more enlightened, more sensitive and aware, more compassionate.

He now supports himself as most people do in this world, as not to be regarded as “special or better”, by working as a musician and lives in a small two-bedroom house somewhere.

He and his wife share the domestic duties and responsibilities together, again as not to be regarded as “special, different or better”; they no longer have free servants.

He is still filled with spiritual enthusiasm, with grace, deep humility and he realises that the True Purpose of Enlightenment really is to serve the world and fellow human beings, to help to alleviate their suffering, rather then make fellow human beings serve him in the name of Enlightenment and contribute to world suffering.

He fulfils that purpose by running occasional retreats, renting the premises elsewhere already made for that purpose.
He keeps the cost to bare minimum and offers free places, so as many people as possible can participate, as he deeply realised that after all spiritual teaching is his true vocation in life”.

Miracles do happened.
If that were to happen I’d be the first to book myself on his retreat.

AD

Thursday, 19 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Calan, to answer your question, here is one example out of many why Andrew is not as pure as he claims. Even a celibate person can be impure by their actions and thoughts. One does not need to be sexually promiscuous to be impure.

Here we go. Andrew and Stash are sitting in Andrew's sports car, this comes from Stash's story. Andrew calls a former student telling her, " you are my heart, my love, you belong to me, return to me my beloved". Mary, the student sobs with longing and love for her Master as on the car stereo Andrew plays for her, are you ready people, "body and soul". The emotions are high, the sexual tension flowing at a fever pitch. What a feeding frenzy for Andrew as he pulls it all in and up together with the adoration and love of Stash. Andrew set the scene for a perfect meal, most likely ready to return to Foxhollow and have his wife for dessert as he plays for her "body and soul" as well. Tell me people is this behavior for a married man?. Would I be the wife I would kick his butt out of Foxhollow and keep the millions for myself.

When we fall in love with someone, may it be a teacher or a beloved other, we long to embrace this love fully on every level in our expression of it. We are incapable to love on a pure level which some call "the higher" right of the bat. The desires of a sexual union needs to be sacrificed first. This is no easy task. Sexual energy is power and it can free us or enslave us. In any relationship of love before having reached this pure plateau the sexual tensions are high. Sexual energy is a pervading flowing energy that can flow from one person to another. Some spiritual gurus thrive on this energy, and many deliberately evoke it in others for their own benefit and increase of spiritual power and holding of their students.

This deliberate behavior by a spiritual guru is an impure act by itself, and as mentioned just one example of many.

Friday, 20 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The reply to Calan re: impure act by Andrew Cohen was written by me Freebird in case you want to respond.
Thank you
Freebird

Friday, 20 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Calin--Your 5/20 post prior to sailing is very interesting. Are there facts and sources backing up the identification of Brad Roth as Shaolin Monk who was apparently running the Uncesored site?

Friday, 20 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

to anonymous responder to Calan:
I think it's safer to say that the urges that drove Andrew Cohen to entice one of his female students back by playing "Body and Soul" to her was probably more a narcissistic need for that student's lost love and adoration than sexual gratification. Although, the sexual thing may also be part of his underground and hidden narcissistic agenda.

Friday, 20 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A quote from another site about the circumstantial evidence that Brad Roth is running the Uncensored site;-

"This Enlightenment" was a blog featuring re-hashed "defense of the guru" type articles, managed by Brad Roth. (Brad expertly using the "advaita shuffle" --a term, ironically, he invented--to dance the "guru shuffle" on behalf of Cohen!)

"uncensored" blog came into being on the exact same day that the "This Enlightenment?" blog-- Cohen's previous anti- What Enlightenment ??! blog--was removed , never to be seen again? Interesting "coincidence", isn't it?

Brad is apparently an ex senior student who fell from grace and is obviously trying to re enter Cohens inner circle.

As soon as these allegations were made on the Uncensored site they were removed without trace, the blog has halted completely since that posting.

Friday, 20 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What I find most exciting about the former students on this blog is that no one has been suckered into another Master-slave relationship with another guru. How refreshing to learn that people are awakening to true religion within themselves without the need of human idols, and are starting to think clearly without taking on the mind set of another.

Andrew Cohen bores me to tears. He certainly has built up many worldly treasures for himself, millions, etc. I prefer spiritual treasures inside the Kingdom of God centered within myself.

I agree with Bruce that Andrew is like so many TV preachers that have come and gone.

Saturday, 21 May, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A friend has a list of signs indicating that one's spiritual practice is maturing.

One of the signs is:

'Loss of interest in the usual roles of domination and submission on offer in various theatres of cruelty.'

Saturday, 21 May, 2005  
Anonymous Rebecca Saxon said...

I was a serious student of Andrew's for approximately 1.5 years.

I can see for myself that the pull of Andrew's attention was (despite his saying he was "killing" the ego) actually lifting UP THE EGO. He was MAKING PEOPLE SPECIAL, AND SPECIALNESS IS EGO.

Ego is what knocked people down when they were "wrong" and it propped them up when they were "right" in Andrew's eyes. I could have given up my own life for him if he had stroked my ego MORE IN THE NAME OF KILLING THE EGO.

He is doing the exact opposite of what he says he is doing. He is walking ego.

Wednesday, 11 August, 2010  

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