Living Enlightenment: A Call for Evolution Beyond Ego [Paperback]

Andrew Cohen (Author), Ken Wilber (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2002

In "Living Enlightenment" revolutionary spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen explores the mystery and mechanics of radical transformation. Bringing together the transcendent wisdom of the East with the Western understanding of evolution, Cohen offers a vision of the purpose of enlightenment to challenge and inspire even the most disillusioned of seekers. Simple yet audacious, his claim is that the spiritual evolution of each one of us is not separate from the evolution of the whole human race. For Cohen, the path to individual liberation could never be a personal matter, but rather is 'the first step toward becoming a conscious participant in the evolutionary process'. In the miraculous experiential discovery of the enlightened perspective', he writes, 'our humanity is finally set free to manifest its evolutionary potential without inhibition'. Presented as far-reaching dialogue over twenty chapters, the book echoes an ancient form of spiritual discourse while engaging with some of the most complex questions facing modern seekers. What is enlightenment? And what does this profound attainment have to do with the reality of our human existence? Is it possible to be enlightened and still have a family, be in a sexual relationship, live an ordinary life? What is ego? And ultimately, what is the purpose of enlightenment? This is not a book that can be read from a safe distance. As the dynamic and unpredictable dialogue unfolds, "Living Enlightenment" offers a rare and intimate portrait of Cohen himself - his wisdom, spontaneity, and unquenchable passion for truth. And the reader finds him or herself pulled into the depths of our shared human experience as Cohen deconstructs the mind's objections with precision, insight, and humour, always calling on the heart to embrace the living possibility of liberation here and now.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Guru of enlightenment Andrew Cohen has a radical message of evolutionary advancement. In Living Enlightenment, Cohen continues the work of his previous books and his magazine on the same topic--that enlightenment is available here and now but involves a radical transformation of both outlook and behavior. Like Krishnamurti, Cohen is relentless in his commonsense approach to spirituality, insisting that enlightenment means a complete relinquishment of the ego. This naturally leads to nonattachment, humility, responsibility, and love. In enlightenment, one's perspective shifts from the personal to the impersonal, and this means a deepening of, rather than a distancing from, constructive relationships. Although Cohen comes out of the Indian tradition, his language is thoroughly modern, with very little jargon and no references to world religions. He has a tendency to be vague on the details, but his invitation to enlightenment is clear and his challenge refreshing. --Brian Bruya

From Publishers Weekly

Good student of Eastern mysticism that he is, Cohen is one-pointed in his concentration. All his work, including a dozen books, focuses on the teaching of enlightenment, which he also calls liberation. He does not give enough attention to the elaborate context of teachings, and teachers, from which he comes; much of the meat has been sliced away to expose a stark inner core. The result is a slender book that explains enlightenment at a conceptual level, promises a reward, warns of difficulties and speaks conversationally to Westerners. Another quirky teacher in a tradition replete with them, Cohen is a guru who is a slayer of gurus and other sacred cows. The book's Q&A format reinforces his authority, but it's also irksome that the voice posing the questions is unidentified yet personalized, serving ultimately as a straw man (asking, for example, Everything you're saying seems to make sense, but why do I still feel so strongly that I need more time?). Readers may feel as though they are caught in a closed sophistic system, where elements that appear to be argued are actually already assumed. The book's vocabulary after a while tends to sound limited and hyperbolic: perfect, profound, revolutionary and absolute begin to have familiar rings. A foreword by philosopher Ken Wilber adds fuel to the somewhat fevered rhetoric. Abstract and passionate, invoking the transcendent and tangible and free with paradox, Cohen is hard to argue with. Certainly consistent, his work is either intriguing in its simplicity or too elliptical for a beginner.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 124 pages
• Publisher: EnlightenNext Inc. (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188392930X
• ISBN-13: 978-1883929305
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #722,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher, cultural visionary, and founder of the global nonprofit EnlightenNext and its award-winning publication EnlightenNext magazine. His original teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment redefines spiritual awakening within the context of cosmic evolution and highlights a new understanding of God or Spirit as the creative impulse toward change in both self and culture. After a transformative meeting with the renowned Advaita Vedanta master H.W.L. Poonja in 1986, Cohen began teaching internationally and almost immediately started reshaping the larger cultural conversation about the purpose and significance of enlightenment in our time. He founded EnlightenNext magazine almost twenty years ago as a forum for serious spiritual and philosophical inquiry, and has since become known for his unique capacity to foster culture-changing dialogues among leading thinkers from a wide array of traditions and disciplines. 

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ego Evisceration 101, August 16, 2002

By 

Tom Huston (Lenox, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living Enlightenment: A Call for Evolution Beyond Ego (Paperback)

... Andrew Cohen has been guiding spiritual seekers to the Answer to life's biggest questions for over 16 years, ever since he attained a permanent realization of such enlightenment through his relationship with an Indian guru when he was 30 years old. ... This book, his latest (and more widely accessible volume than his thoroughly detailed manual of enlightenment, "Embracing Heaven & Earth"), is simultaneously a refined, cohesive summary of his previous writings and also something quite new: for the first time, Andrew's full presence seems to seep through the pages with both the passionate urgency of his God-engendered message and the passionate _humor_ of his very human self. This is likely a result of the book being written in conversational Q & A format, transcribed from actual dialogues, and similar to his most popular book, the transcendent "Enlightenment Is a Secret," but it's been done in a way that is, in every sense of the expression, more "fleshed out."

And it covers _everything_, just about everything one could imagine oneself asking an enlightened master if given the opportunity. Over 100 questions are asked, and fully answered, in 20 chapters, with topics ranging from the perennial classics of surrender, humility, and karma, to less familiar ones such as the role of gender differences in the pursuit of enlightenment, or the question of awakening to "the consciousness of absolute zero" beyond time and how that relates to the evolution of manifest consciousness in time. Throughout it all, though, Andrew is insistent on one point above all others: the ego--which is the "emotional and psychological knot in consciousness that is the fundamental cause of the sense of separation from all of life"--must be killed or unraveled, transgressed or transcended, if true Freedom is to be attained. In fact, even though this is something most teachers of enlightenment comment on in some way or another (and historically always have), Andrew takes it deadly seriously, like a classic Zen master, taking an absolute stand against all the games of Narcissus in a way that few teachers in the modern spiritual marketplace--especially those of the Neo-Advaitin brand--seem to approve of. He likens the ego's persistent obsession with its personal melodrama, for example, to constantly sticking one's head in a garbage can and marveling at all the putrid junk inside. "How harsh and cruel, with such an unpleasant tone!" the offended cry. "Just let the ego be, perfect as it is--including everything it does, since it's all pure consciousness anyway--and be free!" they implore. Yet Andrew has been around too long and worked too closely with too many human beings to buy into such shallow, nontransformative nonsense. "Anybody who says the ego isn't a big deal," he has said, "doesn't know what they're talking about." It is this, in part, that has earned him his "rude boy" status, as eloquently described in Ken Wilber's vigorous foreword to the book.

So if you're looking for a candy-coated, sweetness-and-light handbook to spiritual awakening, this definitely ain't it. It is impossible to take what Andrew says in this book seriously--deeply seriously, to the depths of your very soul--and not feel your ego climbing up the walls of your skull, clawing to get away from the overwhelming implications of his message. But if you're genuinely interested in a radical transformation that will shake you to the core, bring to light the heinous nature of the devil inside us all, and ultimately liberate you into an ecstatically alive infinity of Love that is one with the cosmic force of evolution itself--and grounded in the awesome depth of ever-present Mystery--then, as Mr. Wilber concurs, "you have come to the right place."

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "if you knew what it was..., January 12, 2004

By 

"kjblazes" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living Enlightenment: A Call for Evolution Beyond Ego (Paperback)

...you wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole."

that famous quote from J. Krishnamurti is used by the author of "Living Enlightenment," Andrew Cohen (who is also the editor of "What Is Enlightenment?" magazine), to emphasize the enormity of the task of ego-transcendence, and seems to be the basic theme of this incredible book. despite what people like Eckhart Tolle are leading thousands of seekers to believe these days, it is Mr. Cohen's contention that attaining the goal of spiritual life--i.e., enlightenment, awakening, liberation--is much more than a matter of finding "portals to the now" or remaining "mindful." why? because according to him, "true freedom is an all-or-nothing deal. that's just the way it is--it's a spiritual law." (p. 56) and furthermore, he spells out in a remarkably inspiring way the logical fact that the attainment of an ego-transcended state is NOT for the person who attains it. if the individual claimed enlightenment just for themselves and their personal happiness and freedom, there'd obviously still be ego there. rather, the whole point of attaining enlightenment is only for the service of the "evolution of consciousness itself." (p. 123)

i don't know about you, but this stuff gets me excited. Cohen is describing life on the spiritual path as a truly cosmic pursuit--something bigger than our post-modern world could possibly handle (as some of the more cynical reviews posted here testify to). "the whole point," he says, "is that the realization of enlightenment completely destroys the status quo. it blows it to pieces. if you are lucky enough to actually succeed in your quest for liberation in this life then you will become a completely transformed human being and, believe me, you will be seeing things very differently." (pp. 23-24) this stuff is the real deal, folks. even the way the words are written on the page has a simplicity and authority about them that gives a direct transmission of Cohen's enlightened vision and passion. so read it. and live it. because if you don't make the effort to wake up and obliterate the status quo of this world to create a new possibility, who will?

26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A frank and informative discussion of the soul's division, July 8, 2002

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living Enlightenment: A Call for Evolution Beyond Ego (Paperback)

Living Enlightenment: A Call For Evolution Beyond Ego by spiritual mentor and teacher of enlightenment Andrew Cohen, is a frank and informative discussion of the soul's division between the selfish inner essence that is the ego and the pull of that which lies outside the self, including divinity and God. Profound, steady in its exhortations to open up and listen, and emphatic in its embrace for spiritual wholeness, Living Enlightenment is a thought-provoking advocacy and recommended reading for students of human spirituality and metaphysics.