The Mother of God

Rating:
Summary: But will God ever listen?
Review: A good book by a brave mother who dares to pours her heart out about an insane predicament of being a disciple of her own son-turned-guru Andrew Cohen. Having had an opportunity to have an insight into Cohen's community I was amazed by how little has changed in his attitude to his disciples since the late 80's. Severe punishments, mind control and blind obedience to the "master" keep his followers in a constant state of submission and fear. I witnessed some frightening events similar to those decribed by Mrs Tarlo in her book and I applaud her on a brave and in-depth account of what had happened.

I was also moved by pictures of her and Cohen together as there seem to be a strong sense of love and harmony between them. It would be poignant and moving to see the realisation of Mrs Tarlo's heart desire one day - that her son throws away his guru robes and comes back home. If nothing else I guess he may have a real enlightening insight into a woman who still loves him for what he has always been to her - her dear son.

Rating:
Summary: "You have to delude yourself before you can delude others."
Review: It took courage for Luna Tarlo to write a frank book like this, with no attempt at making herself look good. In reality, nobody looked good at all, including her son the guru, Andrew, and all the other assorted characters in this true story. But if the goal was to show how the original "delusion" (the delusion that someone can achieve something special, some so-called permanent "enlightened state", and that that "something" can be transmitted to others through some practice, some following) can grow inevitably into a cult, it has more than succeeded. "Mother of God" serves a step by step inside look at this phenomenon, a phenomenon which proliferates daily as more and more people claim enlightened states and set themselves up in the holy business, wresting huge sums of money and devotion from their willing disciples. People will always be looking for permanent happiness and a way out of suffering, and as long as people are afraid, there will always be the Andrews to milk them. It will never change. Andrew's little "experience" has been blown out of all proportion by himself and his followers and turned into the basis for a way of life and practice. From the outside it seems childish and silly, but from the standpoint of the insider, which the author was certainly at one time, it is a deadly earnest affair. It is a helpful service that she has exposed both her own foibles as well as those of her son. It serves as a cautionary tale.

Rating:
Summary: But will God ever listen?
Review: Luna tells the common struggle for one who wants to be free, but has a little problem in the way: insecurity kept alive by the ego and tangling love for the teacher. What makes things more difficult, is the clearest and most powerful teacher she had ever known turns out to be her son, Andrew Cohen. Andrew's struggles to let go of his own ego are complicated by his sudden and powerful awakening to the right path and many hairs are sizzled from the heat. Luna writes a great account of a struggling student with a new-born master. I have just returned from a 2-week retreat with Andrew Cohen and found he has grown up a lot from what Luna's book describes as his rough beginning as a teacher. He admits now that nobody "holds enlightenment," but anybody can choose to live the enlightened path if they are truly serious about freedom. I believe Andrew now better lives what he teaches and is still growing in his knowledge of how to be a guide for others. Now, it's more about the message; less about the messenger.

I found Luna's rich descriptions of travel to India to be accurate and helpful to my travels there this month.

Rating:
Summary: Inside tale of the throes and traps of awakening
Review: Luna tells the common struggle for one who wants to be free, but has a little problem in the way: insecurity kept alive by the ego and tangling love for the teacher. What makes things more difficult, is the clearest and most powerful teacher she had ever known turns out to be her son, Andrew Cohen. Andrew's struggles to let go of his own ego are complicated by his sudden and powerful awakening to the right path and many hairs are sizzled from the heat. Luna writes a great account of a struggling student with a new-born master. I have just returned from a 2-week retreat with Andrew Cohen and found he has grown up a lot from what Luna's book describes as his rough beginning as a teacher. He admits now that nobody "holds enlightenment," but anybody can choose to live the enlightened path if they are truly serious about freedom. I believe Andrew now better lives what he teaches and is still growing in his knowledge of how to be a guide for others. Now, it's more about the message; less about the messenger.

I found Luna's rich descriptions of travel to India to be accurate and helpful to my travels there this month.

Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: The world of eastern spirituality in the USA is a small world and, if you're a member, you really owe it to yourself to read this book. Whether you buy it new, used, or even interlibrary loan it, I humbly urge you to do so.

First of all it is very, very well written. It is also painfully self-revealing, almost agonizingly so. I'd like to point out that although this book deals with an aspect of eastern civilization, we have a tradition in western civilization, too, a tradition of written history and biography, going back thousands of years (e.g. Plutarch), a tradition that says we tell the truth--no matter where that truth leads--the unvarnished, unexaggerated truth. And the fine lady who wrote this book about her son has, by doing so, placed herself squarely in that tradition. If I ever met her, I would offer her a bouquet of flowers. There is absolutely no self-aggrandizement to be found here anywhere. It is a really fine piece of work.

I read the book in less than two days, I found it so interesting. It recounts the story of how her son, well known guru andrew cohen, was "enlightened" through eastern "holy man" h.w.l. poonja. (I'd heard about this by word of mouth years ago).

However, what I hadn't heard was that upon her son's return to america, like so many westerners who play guru, he became a power-mad tyrant, bully, and monster.

(The book this most reminded me of was "Mildred Pierce" by James M. Cain, another story about a woman whose child grew up to be a selfish monster).

As someone else pointed out, no one in this story looks good. To give you a taste of the goofiness at large here--poonja claimed that several other westerners were enlightened through him, INCLUDING THE WOMAN WHO WROTE THIS BOOK. Yes! He told her she, too, was enlightened and proceeded to try to convince her of it. Having some grain of sanity lodged firmly in her psyche (like the pearl inside the oyster), she rejected this madness but did, however, become her son's "disciple." That is, until his gargantuan ego, disgusting self-centeredness and cruelty finally forced her return to reality. (Actually, and ironically, it was her meeting with U.G. Krishnamurti who triggered a mass defection from the power-mad cohen of which she was a part). This is really a trip down the rabbit hole. Residing in andrew-cohen world is like having tea with the mad hatter. Don't miss it!

Surely, Cohen is the only guru at large with the questionable honor of having had his own mother write an expose' of him!

p.s. We have something important to learn from eastern spirituality, we just haven't figured out how to do it yet. Don't give up, we'll get there somehow.

Rating:
Summary: It's all about Responsibility !
Review: This book and others about "killing the father figure" of the Guru are really really bad books ! What should be a step on their way toward freedom, enlightment or whatever you may name it, is given to everybody as a meaningful event. It is as if every person undergoing a psychoanalysis was writing a "book" to recount the relationship between patient and shrink !
Please, publishers, no more of those ! It is a waste of paper (trees !), a waste of time for readers, bad publicity for yourselves, a proof of your greedy policy.
And please, former disciples, future and present ones, be mature when you start that kind of journey to Your Self. Be intelligent enough to live events as they are and not to complain because they are not the way you would like them to be. The Guru seems cruel...? LEAVE ! Do not stay and whim afterwards. Be responsible for yourself, for God's sake !
Your inability to live up to the Guru's standards is your own. He did not come to get you. You choose to follow him. What made you change your mind ?
No sex scandal ! No money scandal ! Just people (in the Cohen case) complaining about being bullied. People crying about to much discipline for their egos (weak or strong).
Andrew Cohen, please beware of your power. Do not let it make a real tyrant of yourself. And watch your staff for it is often their behaviour that corrupts your message and work.
Mother of God : let your son be ! And try to be a woman of your own.

Rating:
Summary: What motivates a would-be disciple of her own son?
Review: This is a fascinating book. All the more so for what it leaves unexplained. Probably the biggest question: how does a controlling, childish, narcissistic guy with really nothing interesting to say continually attract followers? The first part of Luna Tarlo's book is about a mother who steps into the fledgling world of her son's spiritual quest by meeting up with him in India just before he becomes "enlightened" by a teacher named Poonja. (My use of quotes is meant to put into question not so much the concept but Cohen's self-defined relationship to it.) One of the first things I felt were left unanswered is what Luna really wants from her journey and from her son. It's made clear by inference that Luna has her own spiritual needs left unfulfilled before the trip, but it would have helped a little more to know what it was she was seeking out, and how her son Andrew became part of the answer. There is more to this story than a mother-son story.
That second question sheds light on the first. Luna feels herself to be mal-constructed or "all wrong" in some broad characterological way. And that seems to be precisely the kind of person who gets drawn into the Andrew Cohen circle. It is fair to say, as some observers point out, that Cohen behaves sadistically towards his followers, justifying such behavior by claiming that he is using "skillful means" to destroy their egos and thus help them remove their defensive posture towards the unknown or the infinite. But observing the maxim (which I tend to believe) that such leaders with an ineffable magnetism are successful in gaining acolytes because they tell people what they want to hear, we can conclude that Cohen's people enjoy the abuse they get, at least for a time. Luna relates an incident early on where Cohen aims a flurry of invective against a woman named Orit, alleging her self-absorption and promiscuity, in front of a room of seekers. Orit later becomes one of his closest acolytes. Did she in fact believe this to be true about herself, and find herself grateful to Cohen for cutting through her denials?
In return for such "gifts" of supposed clarity to his individual followers, Cohen demands absolute surrender to his will. Cohen interprets his enlightenment to mean that his earthly whims are of divine origin. I'm not trying to excuse Cohen and blame his psychologically and spiritually vulnerable followers, but I suspect there is something about Cohen's cruelty itself that keeps people hanging on. Or so it seems to me, since the more affirmative part of his spiritual teachings has an inoffensive, but kind of sophomoric, bumpersticker quality that I don't think could intrigue a seeker for very long on its own.
It's no giveaway to reveal that Luna and others eventually make a break from Andrew. But I could not help, as a reader, to wonder how that happened, too. The break stems from a visit with an Indian critic of other revered new age figures. But the process seems so quick that a picture begins to reveal itself of a whole group of people who seem to drift from spiritual adventure to adventure. Knowing a little more about what motivates them (and Luna continues to be evasive, or perhaps unsure herself, about this) would have helped a bit in placing the reader empathetically in the shoes of the acolytes. Overall, a fascinating and unique book.

Rating:
Summary: What motivates a would-be disciple of her own son?
Review: This is a fascinating book. All the more so for what it leaves unexplained. Probably the biggest question: how does a controlling, childish, narcissistic guy with really nothing interesting to say continually attract followers? The first part of Luna Tarlo's book is about a mother who steps into the fledgling world of her son's spiritual quest by meeting up with him in India just before he becomes "enlightened" by a teacher named Poonja. (My use of quotes is meant to put into question not so much the concept but Cohen's self-defined relationship to it.) One of the first things I felt were left unanswered is what Luna really wants from her journey and from her son. It's made clear by inference that Luna has her own spiritual needs left unfulfilled before the trip, but it would have helped a little more to know what it was she was seeking out, and how her son Andrew became part of the answer. There is more to this story than a mother-son story.
That second question sheds light on the first. Luna feels herself to be mal-constructed or "all wrong" in some broad characterological way. And that seems to be precisely the kind of person who gets drawn into the Andrew Cohen circle. It is fair to say, as some observers point out, that Cohen behaves sadistically towards his followers, justifying such behavior by claiming that he is using "skillful means" to destroy their egos and thus help them remove their defensive posture towards the unknown or the infinite. But observing the maxim (which I tend to believe) that such leaders with an ineffable magnetism are successful in gaining acolytes because they tell people what they want to hear, we can conclude that Cohen's people enjoy the abuse they get, at least for a time. Luna relates an incident early on where Cohen aims a flurry of invective against a woman named Orit, alleging her self-absorption and promiscuity, in front of a room of seekers. Orit later becomes one of his closest acolytes. Did she in fact believe this to be true about herself, and find herself grateful to Cohen for cutting through her denials?
In return for such "gifts" of supposed clarity to his individual followers, Cohen demands absolute surrender to his will. Cohen interprets his enlightenment to mean that his earthly whims are of divine origin. I'm not trying to excuse Cohen and blame his psychologically and spiritually vulnerable followers, but I suspect there is something about Cohen's cruelty itself that keeps people hanging on. Or so it seems to me, since the more affirmative part of his spiritual teachings has an inoffensive, but kind of sophomoric, bumpersticker quality that I don't think could intrigue a seeker for very long on its own.
It's no giveaway to reveal that Luna and others eventually make a break from Andrew. But I could not help, as a reader, to wonder how that happened, too. The break stems from a visit with an Indian critic of other revered new age figures. But the process seems so quick that a picture begins to reveal itself of a whole group of people who seem to drift from spiritual adventure to adventure. Knowing a little more about what motivates them (and Luna continues to be evasive, or perhaps unsure herself, about this) would have helped a bit in placing the reader empathetically in the shoes of the acolytes. Overall, a fascinating and unique book.

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for Spiritual Seekers
Review: This is a riveting book by an insider of a spiritual group - the mother of the guru no less! Her emotional roller coaster, her self-deprecation, her confusion, her altered perceptions and understanding, all attest to a direct experience of what it is to be a "disciple" within any spiritual group, either New Age, or Fundamentalist mainstream religion. It is a stark picture of the slippery slope a disciple climbs in an effort to achieve vicarious power through a spiritual master, and the delusions and deceptions one goes through in order to maintain one's connection to that source of power. The fact that the author was conflicted with, and complicated by, her relationship to her teacher by her motherhood of that teacher only makes her struggle more heart wrenching, difficult, and tragic.

Despite this complication, her diary of her efforts to please her teacher (or to please God, in the form of Andrew Cohen - you can substitute any name of any leader of any religion here and still get the picture), to placate his displeasure with her efforts to do so, to follow his instructions to achieve enlightenment and understanding, reveals the extreme swings between sadness and euphoria, anxiety, and outright fear that a disciple will experience within a small, isolated, and defined group. Particularly, as in this case, when the teacher claims to be God.

While Cohen often comes across as a petulant, immature, narcissistic adolescent, in spite of the beauty of his words, and the basic wisdom of his teachings, the more appalling aspect to this book is the nazi-like fear tactics of those closest to Cohen, apparently condoned, and encouraged, by Cohen himself. This should not surprise us, absolute power does that in all areas of life, but somehow seeing it so blatant within the cloak of spirituality is sickening.

Anyone who reads this book without an agenda, has to come away enlightened, at least, about group dynamics and the ease with which we give away our authority and instinctive good sense and our ability to discriminate, our efforts to escape our human condition, and our self destructive inclination to hide within the herd.

Luna Tarlo took a huge risk in exposing her experience in such a public way; she should be congratulated and applauded for doing so. I could not put the book down until I finished it.

Rating:
Summary: "Enlightenment" is a four-letter word.
Review: This is a truly courageous book! This book is far from a vengeful diatribe, but a sincere portrait of a woman caught up in the whirlwind of her son's sudden guru-dom. Andrew Cohen's teachings are a kind of radical eastern fundamentalism, that rejects(to the point of ridicule) the Personal/ego/suffering for absolute surrender to the Impersonal. As a result, any attempt of Luna to relate to Andrew as a mother to a son is swiftly quashed by Andrew. It becomes apparent that Andrew's own sense of security as a guru is dependent on his mother's willingness to see him as Master and not son. When she falters, he becomes possessed with a rage and impatience. Such outbursts(which were not exclusive to Luna alone) were often glossed-over as "skillful means"(teaching methods) by his disciples. Luna watches her son fall prey to the seductions of absolute power(unconditional adulation, a life free of financial worry, the freedom to not be held accountable for your actions), and wonders how such a "perfect being" could be so imperfect. On more than one occasion does he refer to himself as a "god" to his mother! In addition, his commune of disciples unravels into a sort of nazi camp where conformity and fear run amuck.

"The True Teacher knocks down the Idol that the Student makes of him." - Rumi

Andrew Cohen claims that Enlightenment is a PERMANENT state of consciousness that results in an end to suffering. When I was in college, I held similar premature beliefs of enlightenment as a sort of mystical "finish-line", that once crossed, you are forever free from self-doubt, self-delusion. At the time, I sought out numerous guru-types and Andrew Cohen was the first I met. He impressed me with his fierce unflinching views on Liberation, and how it demands total objectivity, absolute seriousness to go "all the way". During his talk, he even turned a young woman away sobbing, because it disturbed her to think that "she"(in an ego sense) did not matter. Andrew radiated that kind of beatific glow and his eyes were suffused with a knowing luster. I spoke with him and an indian woman(who I later identified as his wife, Alka) after the talk casually, and he complimented me on my genuine curiosity of "high matters" at such a young age. I purchased his book, "Autobiography of an Awakening," and though I found his adventures titillating, his teachings always seemed vague and unoriginal. Nevertheless I chalked him up as a "spiritual master", just one not for me.

Now some seven years later, I know that "enlightenment" is a kind of 4-letter word. In truth, complete ego-death(something Andrew claims) is self-delusion, a fairy-tale. Luna quotes from Joel Kramer's book The Guru Papers, that a guru feels that he/she has "arrived at a place where self-delusion is no longer possible, but this is in fact the most treacherous form of self-delusion of all, and the foundation for all the others." No matter to what spiritual heights your spirit has soared, the ego never really goes away;it all boils down to your humility, vigilance, your degree of attachment.

Andrew's precriptive means are also precocious. He believes that Liberation can be had Now, if you are truly serious in going all the way. He says that you will never really be "ready," so why not now? He preaches that the goal of ego-death demands letting go of your personal history. His method in dealing with the Ego: sever it in one swift chop!

But the only way people are REALLY going to change, is if they experience real catharsis. And the only way that they can get catharsis, is if they work through their own individual problems. You have to work THROUGH the Personal in order to realize the Impersonal/Universal. Rare is the person who is ready to be "beheaded" right now! You need to work through the kinks of your Ego, iron them out, before you can be its Master. It is an on-going process, to which there is no end. You either get better or worse at it, that's just the way it is...And that is just the problem with ACohen, he rejects any sort of existential relationship with life; he thinks you can just throw your personal thoughts and emotions into the gutter and re-start your life, tabula rasa.

I am not saying that Andrew is a complete fraud. It is obvious that his initial meeting with Poonja(his guru) that precipitated his transformation, was a very powerful experience. However the events leading up to his "enlightenment" reveal an unattached young man fragile, somewhat desparate and entangled in a highly unstable romantic relationship. It is evident that Andrew lacked the maturity or emotional health that such a powerful transmission should require. He completely identified with his "enlightenment" experience, and this led to his messianic convictions....There are other incidents that reveal Andrew as highly narcissistic. His brother Joshua relates, much to Luna's surprise, that Joshua once took Andrew to see his therapist, and his therapist later confided that Andrew was the most judgemental person she had ever met.

Towards the close of her book, Luna states, "Impossible as it may appear, unattainable as it may seem, it is my opinion that only acceptance, a deep inmost consent to life in all its contradictions and complexity, can dispel suffering." Andrew could only hope to be so enlightened! I hope that he someday does come clean, and reconciles with his mother, someone who miraculously hasn't given up on him and still loves him!