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andrew cohen
May 2008 
Having a Teacher and Finding Independence
Arjan
It took many years and a lot of love, compassion, pressure and help for me to be willing to live in reality and express what I have recognized to be ultimately true and important. Now I don't want to go back to sleep, the momentum to do so is there, for sure, but I don't want to and more importantly, I feel I have no choice. If I was on my own, if my actions would have no effect on others, if where I stand would not help create a field, for better or for worse, between us all, than, sure, I would have a choice. But since that is all not true, since I am not just me but we, I feel I have an obligation to you who is reading this, to be happy and sane.
A real teacher does not only show us reality, they embody it; a relationship with a real teacher or guru, enables us to have a relationship with reality that is beyond our perception and comprehension. We recognize that the teacher is in touch with a dimension that we want to know or have known once or twice in the past, and through our relationship with him or her we can relate to that deepest part of ourselves that otherwise eludes us.
The surrender to that relationship, I found, is what makes everything possible. By giving ourselves unconditionally to the relationship with a teacher of liberation, we loose the burden of choice, the torture of doubting reality and wondering if we should follow our True Heart. If we surrender in such a way, the heart wins and the mind becomes a tool of the heart.
The gratitude that my teacher, Andrew Cohen, feels for his teacher, I feel for him, because he was always there, like a mountain rising up out of an often rough sea, wanting nothing from me, but offering a relationship in time and space that enabled me to become a vehicle for infinity myself. In one way it is a very simple human connection, yet at the same time it is a door to God from which there is no way back into the darkness of ignorance and selfishness that I always wanted to see beyond.
And finally, it seems to me that this kind of surrender and heartfelt gratitude is what makes a human being truly independent. Suddenly, I found, you stop relying on knowledge and other external sources and a river of wisdom, that is always available to all of us when we dare to let go of the ego's compulsive, illusory grasp on life, starts flowing though us. I discovered that it is only then, and not before, that we find the guru inside of us...
Andrew Cohen will be teaching in Amsterdam Monday night April 16 at 19.00. You are warmly invited to come.
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Hello Arjan, it's really a beautiful piece of writing and indeed in the end we all discover that we need to be our own Guru inside ourselfs.
On the 26 of December 2006 I added something to Andrew's blog on 'Something to Celebrate'.
It is a very short Jewish story but full of wisdom and so fabulously to the point.
Inside ourselfs we Know it All but many of us need living Guru's to help us peel all these layers away again.
And others, like myself, took lessons from larger body's of Spiritual Wisdom like Kabbalah in my case.
With joining EnlightenNext I for the first time in my life have let in a Guru beacuse where Kabbalah stops Andrew Cohen takes over. There was no other way for me.
I Knew that Andrew Knows how to proceed from that point.
With love from your Practicing Member
That's a great piece Arjan - thanks.
There is a great authority, strength and independence which is transmitted, which must come from the decision to make an absolute choice.
Love,
Justin
………this kind of surrender and heartfelt gratitude is what makes a human being truly independent. Yes, this surrender and heartfelt gratitude makes us human! I've only started to explore what it truly means to be a human being a couple of months ago (and am still in shock) but I feel more real then I've felt for all those years before.
Thank you for this beautiful piece and love,
Yolanda
for the dutch only:
het werkwoord realiseren dat zich in het engels laat kennen als “realize” …
dient te worden gecombineerd met het woord “zich” :: “zich realiseren”
de vertaling zegt (bijv. hierover:
1. beseffen, zich bewust zijn/worden, zich realiseren
2. realiseren, verwezenlijken, uitvoeren
3. realiseren, verkopen, te gelde maken
volgens mij is realiseren in combinatie met ik of jij veelal optie 1.
in een zakelijke of cooperationele verhandeling komen ook 2 en 3 voor.
wij realiseren ons … kan ook, maar is vaak bedrieglijke taal …
“wij, collectief verbonden individuen, realiseren ons …” kan wel, maar wie kan dit nu echt beweren? het is vooral aansporend bedoeld, veronderstel ik.
ik achtte het redelijk dit hier te delen vanuit mijn besef.
namasté
There is a huge mystery we participate in, and to some extend we co-create it - it is called reality but we can't really say what it is or what it isn't. I/we would say that once we're 'ravished' by 'it' (it certainly isn't an “it” either) it takes on a whole new characteristic.
And from what you write the mystery has blessed you thus.
So when I/we speak about reality it is always a shorthand for “the mystery called reality”…
A real teacher embodies reality, you say. So the real teacher is everywhere, as reality embodies reality perfectly! And I/we guess that through your adoration/surrender (or whatever it was exactly) for A. Cohen you could open to this in such a way that it became transparent to you. But surely this is all for you! Nobody had anything to do with this - I mean, nobody can have any claim on this…
As far as I/we can see, when one has the idea of “finally getting it” - whatever the 'it' stands for - there is still an error in thinking active: the idea that it is 'I' who gets someting that 'I' didn't have before. And, maybe I/we are mistaken, this is how we understand when you write:
”By giving ourselves unconditionally to the relationship with a teacher of liberation, we loose the burden of choice, the torture of doubting reality and wondering if we should follow our True Heart. If we surrender in such a way, the heart wins and the mind becomes a tool of the heart.”
The only one that ever cherishes the idea of having a choice is the “I”, and I/we are glad for you that your relationship has given you the sense of being unbound by this now.
You end your blogpost beautifully with saying that after we ”dare to let go of the ego's compulsive, illusory grasp on life, starts flowing though us. I discovered that it is only then, and not before, that we find the guru inside of us…”
I/we do agree, and very much disagree on this.
There is no need for a guru inside or outside - navigating the ocean of life is never done by any-one; it is always we (the we that using the “I/we-term” points to) that share this psyche of the individual: ego is one voice, the heart another, the guru still another, and then there is the controller, the enlightened one, the navigator, the seeker, the non-seeking free-floater, and so on…
If one voice starts dominating - as usually in this day and age the ego is doing - and be it the Inner Master, then the We that can become manifest cannot. This is the emerging archetype I/we have been speaking about elsewhere.
So let us take the “true communication” further and expand it inward so that the “between-us” can take root inside and outside and everyside…
Thanks for this, Arjan, it is totally beautiful. I feel so lucky to be in a relationship with Andrew as my teacher, with you as my spiritual brother (older and wiser), and so many other inspired and developing souls. Here's to the future!
Love,
Steve