Evolutionary Enlightenment? I Don’t Think So

Spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen's latest book, Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening, has received rave reviews from numerous New Age luminaries, including  Deepak Chopra, Ken Wilber, Howard Bloom, Michael Murphy, and Barbara Marx Hubbard. But as you'll see from my review, which follows, I hardly think it deserves kudos.

Anyone with a deep and profound understanding of both spiritual and sociopolitical philosophy would classify Andrew Cohen's "Evolutionary Enlightenment" as Eastern mysticism-New Age pabulum on about the Eckhart Tolle level. But if you dig Tolle's New Earth, NOW Age babble, you'll probably enjoy the superficial spiritual-sociocultural "licks" played by jazz musician-"guru" Andrew Cohen.

I'll begin my analysis of the book with Andrew Cohen's spiritual Dharma, which is essentially exoteric Daism (Adi Da's Teachings). Da's essential teaching is that the ego is the avoidance of relationship (or relatedness), and when this egoic activity is obviated, the always already Condition of Being-Consciousness is realized. Cohen's spiritual guru was Papaji, whose guru was Ramana Maharshi; but Cohen, perhaps due to the influence of his bud Pandit Ken Wilber, has opted to express his spiritual teachings in "Da-speak." There is nothing wrong with this--I do it in my own books--but Cohen, unlike Da or me, doesn't broach the esoteric dimension of spiritual awakening. There isn't a single word about the Heart, Amrita Nadi, Shatipat, etc., in this book. In other words, if you want to find out how "egoless relatedness" translates into full Heart (or Self)-awakening, read Adi Da, not Cohen's warmed-over version of his Dharma.

It's beyond the scope of this review for me to deconstruct all of Cohen's nonsense, so I'll just touch on some key points. On page 108, Cohen declares, "It's the ongoing revelation that anything is possible." Of course it is: Pigs will soon fly; and expect to see midgets dunking over Lebron James in the upcoming NBA play-offs. If Cohen were a little sharper, he'd understand that the Law of Causality limits possibility, meaning that no entity can act in a way that is contrary to its nature. But so-called "visionaries" like Cohen never let reality stand in the way of their fantasies.

Andrew Cohen envisions an "egoless culture" as the ultimate goal of "evolutionary enlightenment." I've been around numerous big-name spiritual gurus over the past forty years, and, in my opinion, not a single one of them was even close to egolessness, and I'm not about to wager on Cohen's being the first. The fact is, the ego is not going anywhere in humans, because it is a biological necessity. What's necessary is to en-Light-en the ego, so it becomes a positive and rational, rather than a negative and irrational, force in one's life and in society.

Cohen writes: "The shift of motive is the key to everything. It's amazing what profound transformations can occur when human beings awaken to a larger context and a higher motive than the fears and desires of their own egos. We are all capable of greatness when we feel directly connected to a higher purpose." Yes, I'm sure that's what Germans in Nazi Germany, Maoists in Communist China, and Marxists in Russia all felt, as they sought to achieve a higher socialist (really fascist) order. The common man sacrifices himself (and his ego) to the ever-nebulous "higher purpose" or "common good," which Cohen, like other Progressives, is incapable of clearly defining. But somehow the "greater good" these Progressive "visionaries" allude to always seems to ends up totalitarian, whether in the form of a hierarchical spiritual cult or a Big Brother Mafia State.

The key question to ask regarding any "evolutionary" spiritual-political order is: Where does it stand on the "poles" of capitalism vs. socialism and individualism vs. statism? Cohen never answers this all-important question. As an ex-Marxist long ago converted to Objectivist and libertarian thinking, I'm totally in favor of capitalism and individualism and utterly opposed to socialism and statism (which are euphemistic terms for Marxist fascism). But how can anyone jump on Cohen's "evolutionary bandwagon" without knowing which "poles" he favors and why? My guess is that Cohen is a left-wing New World Order globalist, like his buds Ken Wilber and Don Beck (author of Spiral Dynamics, who gives props to this book), but Cohen remains too lost in futuristic vagueness to let us know for sure. Like Eckhart Tolle, he knows that the less specific he is, the greater is his opportunity to recruit followers.

Cohen's Tenets of Evolutionary Enlightenment are old fodder, right out of a Tony Robbins personal growth course. The first one, Clarity of Intention, characterizes all achievers--including ones who "achieve" terrible things. Hitler's clear intentions led to his control of Germany and annihilation of six million Jews. Luckily, my father and his family escaped the Holocaust.

The second one, The Power of Volition, simply means the will to make one's intention, or dreams, a reality. But from a spiritual perspective this simply fuels becoming (samsara) and minimizes Being (Nirvana). Spirituality is about surrender to the Divine Power (or Will), not about imposing one's own will, or volitional intent, on the spontaneously arising Absolute.

Cohen, in his third Tenet, tells us to "Face Everything and Avoid Nothing." But he hardly takes his own advice. All he does is sidestep hard questions, one's with potentially polarizing answers. For example, a few years ago, I addressed his online website with a specific question asking where Cohen stood on the capitalism-socialism and individualism-statism "poles," and, predictably, I received no response. If Cohen wants to face everything, he should answer this question, because without an answer to it, any New Age cultural vision is flat.

The Process Perspective, Cohen's fourth Tenet, is about recontextualizing your outlook, so as to see the spiritual unfoldment process from a universal, rather than just personal, perspective. There is nothing new here, just a hyping, New Agey restatement of the impersonal life in cosmic "evolutionary" terms.

Cohen's fifth and final Tenet is Cosmic Conscience. In this Tenet, Cohen simply restates the Bodhisattava ideal. He says your motive as a practitioner of evolutionary enlightenment becomes: "I want to be free not for my own sake but for the sake of the whole." Wonderful, but, unfortunately, meaningless. If Cohen can point to a single follower of his who has totally transcended his ego and is utterly free of craving, I'll likely die from shock. Even if one embraces the Bodhisattva ideal (and many spiritual gurus do not, labeling it peripheral and distracting), Cohen's restatement of it can hardly be classified as "A New Path to Spiritual Awakening"; it's simply a recycled New Agey version of the Mahayana Buddhist vow to work to liberate all sentient beings from samsara before you yourself take the "leap" into Nirvana.

To summarize, Andrew Cohen has unearthed no new or deep ground in this book, and his arguments lack coherence and specifics. I still have no idea what kind of "evolutionary" socioeconomic (capitalist or socialist) or political (libertarian or statist) system he favors. My college degree is in sociology, and as a sociologist, Cohen is laughable. And as a spiritual guru, Cohen is unoriginal and exoteric. I wish I could find a single reason to recommend "Evolutionary Enlightenment," but I can't.