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Title: Living Enlightenment: A Call for Evolution Beyond Ego by Andrew Cohen, Ken Wilber ISBN: 188392930X Publisher: Moksha Press Pub. Date: April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 Amazon Price(USD): $14.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.66667

Rating: 5
Summary: Ego Evisceration 101
Comment: ... 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."

Rating: 1
Summary: I'm still dreaming
Comment: After Ken Wilber's powerful forward telling us how Andrew Cohen is a "rude boy" of enlightenment who's just going around and ripping the rug out from under people and smashing all their ego houses built on sand, I expected to be really roughed up by this book. Instead after reading it twice I feel very unchallenged. I have never read Cohen before so maybe his other books have some sting. The whole book is in question and answer format which in itself is not bad, but the questioner is just so squeamish and polite that the book never gets kicking.
Check out this quote from page 19,

Question- For someone qualified to give all these answers about enlightenment, obviously they must believe that they're enlightened. So Andrew, are you enlightened?
Answer- I never answer that kind of question.
Question-Why not?
Answer- It's not the politically correct thing to do!

He goes on to say that he doesn't want to give the wrong impression and that people might misunderstand. Now compare Cohen's response to a truly awakened Stephen Jourdain's response to essentially the same question.

Jourdain- If one were to ask me point blank, "Are you God?" I am not going to dodge the question. I'll answer, "Yes, I'm God, that's obvious."

Cohen as many other spiritual writers talk about the compassion that naturally descends upon a person as they begin to contact that Higher Self or begin to Awake. People talk about love and mercy. My own experiences with Awakening did not reflect this and I was shaking my head in knowing agreement as I read this passage from Stephen Jourdain's book Radical Awakening,

"In what people term "fact," I see the face of Satan and I run him through with my sword! I have no respect for my organs(body), no respect for the five billion mortal and vulnerable humans, the little Chinese and all the rest. I have no respect for the cosmos. As far as I'm concerned, it can go to [heck]! The only thing that strikes me as legitimate is the earthly landscape in which I find myself in this very instant. All the rest is mere nothingness, a trumped up fable produced by the wrong source."

Now those are the words of a "rude boy!" If you want to learn about being Awakened buy Stephen Jourdain's Radical Awaking, it is literally the most shocking and incredible book I have ever read. He is truly awakened. But if you don't like the feel of a bamboo rod across your shoulders then forget about Enlightenment and stick to some New Age crystal meditation books.

Rating: 5
Summary: A frank and informative discussion of the soul's division
Comment: 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.

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