|
Enlightenment Blues: My Years with an
American Guru
Andre Van der Braak
Monkfish Book
Company, 27 Lamoree Rd., Rhinebeck, NY 12572, 2003, 228 pages, ISBN
0-9726357-1-8 (pbk) spirituality/memoir
Reviewed by:
Joseph P. Szimhart
Enlightenment Blues
is the second significant memoir I have read by a former student/disciple of the
American guru Andrew Cohen—the first was by Cohen’s mother, Luna Tarlo, who
published Mother of God in 1997.
Andre van der Braak knew Tarlo as they were “students” together and shared a
house briefly. He read Tarlo’s book during his final struggles to defect after
eleven years of devotion to Cohen’s unnerving spiritual leadership and the
idiosyncratic cult of enlightenment focused on the guru. Van der Braak currently
is a Ph.D. candidate and teaches philosophy in Amsterdam. During his hiatus with
Cohen, van der Braak rose and fell in the community ranks and became one of
Cohen’s chief editors, in one case reading over 4,000 pages of transcripts from
Cohen’s talks, then pruning and shaping them into the book,
Enlightenment is a Secret.
Curiously, for his dissertation subject he chose Nietzsche.
Cohen, now
around fifty years old, apparently has held sway over a core of one hundred
fifty students, a number that has not significantly changed over the past
fifteen years despite the continual turnover. Nevertheless, he has continued to
teach that his enlightenment is a “revolution” that would change the face of
planetary spirituality. Van der Braak describes his early years as a young
Catholic with a romantic, idealistic bent. He was a good athlete but his
stuttering disorder contributed to his shyness. Early on he was attracted to
Transcendental Meditation, the J. Krishnamurti teachings, and Buddhism. He
encountered the writings of the prolific transpersonal philosopher, Ken Wilber.
Van der Braak did his Masters thesis on Wilber. [Ken Wilber who is still writing
and developing remains influential among intellectually sophisticated New Age
seekers. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were both reading Wilber during
Clinton’s second term. Wilber was once a disciple of the
teachings of Da Free John, a.k.a. Da Love Ananda, if not a supporter of that
American guru’s controversial behavior and cult following.]
According to
van der Braak, Andrew Cohen once entertained having Wilber as his disciple (not
that Wilber ever reciprocated). I mention this because the reader of van der
Braak’s book might easily react with disdain or pity for the devotees described
in the book, who for all intents and purposes follow an immature trust fund
hippie with a cocky self image. I know a part of me did, namely that part that
works hard for a living and tires to be a good husband and father. One has to
wonder how anyone could fall for such a transparently overvalued cause. Cohen
had absolutely no training as a monk or a leader in the mystical tradition he
claimed to embody. Until members gave significant donations (One former female
student complained of succumbing to pressure from Cohen to give two million
dollars.), Cohen reportedly lived mainly from a trust he inherited from his
grandmother around 1985, when he left on his spiritual quest to India. In short
order after some superficial seeking (a.k.a. guru hopping), he met Poonja, a
then little known follower of Ramana Maharshi, who was an Indian “saint” in the
Advaita tradition. Poonja somehow recognized that Andrew was special and
“transmitted” or sparked feelings of “enlightenment” in him. This epiphany
transformed Cohen into a driven man. He appeared to some of his friends to exude
the enlightenment he claimed to have received.
Cohen’s group
evolved over time from one of a free-wheeling band of devotees who had personal
access to the guru and directly felt both his charm and his intensity. Within
the first few years it had become, according to Cohen’s mother Luna Tarlo, just
another fascist enterprise. Not unlike so many new religious movements, this one
flourished initially due to the enthusiasm of these first students who
advertised Cohen’s cause. The message was that there is a new messiah, a
revolutionary avatar, or an emerging Buddha among us now—come and see! The bulk
of this book engages the reader in the intimate world of the devotees, what they
were thinking and feeling and how they struggled with an increasingly irrational
if demanding leader. Cohen convinces a male student to have his twenty
thousand-dollar Saab crushed to end his attachment.
We follow the
author through group events and relocations from
Amsterdam to India and from Massachusetts to Marin County. He describes his
ascent to key editor and sub-leader as well as his demotion to common student.
Along with all students of the inner circle, Cohen micro-managed van der Braak’s
sexual relationships and whether any close student had sex at all. Celibates
were required to shave their heads. Van der Braak’s roller coaster journey was
not unique in the group. To anyone familiar with ex-cult member autobiography
[I’ve read at least 100 accounts in published books and unpublished
manuscripts], van der Braak inadvertently exposes the tragic pattern common to
authoritarian groups that have poor checks and balances. One feature is a leader
who manages by perceiving constant, often bizarre crises while demanding
unquestioning loyalty, not unlike a hapless military campaign trapped in an
amusement park. Cohen reportedly threw temper tantrums, if he felt criticized in
the news media, for example. This is one unfortunate result of radical dualism
in action or groups that devalue the “world” as an illusion while obsessing over
a mysterious something or ideal they call gnosis or enlightenment.
As van der
Braak so skillfully relates in his narrative, Cohen may have been immature but
he was no idiot. The guru’s utter confidence in his new spiritual status was
contagious to many seekers he met, and he was clever enough to reduce the
experience of enlightenment to simple, radical notions that at least could
attract and impress the novice. Van der Braak does help us appreciate the human
need for spiritual resolution, and the need for most of us to believe that some
saints or gurus have somehow managed to tap into communion with transcendental
mysteries. It certainly was his need, and like so many who end up in spiritual
pits instead of a path our author
found many like-minded seekers who shared in his struggle to make sense of
Cohen’s selfish style.
In the end he
expounds to another student why he rejects Cohen: “But in Andrew’s case he
actually managed to realize all his youthful fantasies, make them into a
permanent lifestyle. And he managed to convince all of us to live in this way
too.” Van der Braak basically describes Cohen as a narcissist stuck in his
adolescence and out of control. Van der Braak holds no hostile agenda to destroy
Cohen—his stated intent was to honestly describe his experience and to offer
assistance to anyone else struggling to break with or understand a group like
Cohen’s. This book fulfills its stated purpose well—it is more about caution and
the seeker’s quest than it is about social or historical analysis, though the
author does some appropriate pontificating. However, van der Braak almost lost
my respect in his opening intro: “All religions point to the same transpersonal
truth.” I clench my teeth whenever I hear absolute statements by someone I sense
has no or little more insight into “transpersonal truth” than I do. But the book
redeemed itself for me by the end, and I felt I learned something intimate about
a man who matured in his humility and found strength enough to reveal his way of
getting there.
Related
|
