iamom | Interview excerpt with Andrew Cohen (Reply)

My mom sent me some tapes of interviews with Andrew Cohen, the founder of the magazine What Is Enlightenment? If you've never read the magazine I thoroughly recommend it.

While listening to the first tape, I was struck but the following exchange regarding how to recognize our true Self.

Andrew Cohen: We have to get to a point where we recognize that how we feel is not all that important; the only thing that matters is what we do... And we'll only be able to respond in that way when we realize ourselves to be that which was never born.

Interviewer: Help me to understand what it means to realize that "we have never been born." I've heard that phrase a lot, and I've seen it in texts, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

AC: Yes, of course. Well, if you and I suddenly were perfectly undistracted by any and every emotion of a personal self; if somehow, in the present moment, we could not remember who we were (as individual personalities), and yet at the same time we were utterly present, and thoroughly interested; unusually awake; alive in a way that very few people are, but there was no distraction whatsoever by any need to locate ourselves in any particular place (and I mean any need whatsoever), what we would both begin to experience would be something that was identical.

We would begin to experience the very same sense of self, and that sense of self would be one where we recognized that who and what we were had no gender, had no age, had no memory; was perfectly innocent, was untouched by anything that had ever happened, and had no sense of limitation whatsoever... Was not identified in any way with any particular form, any particular memory, any particular place.

That's the state of consciousness that reveals itself within any human being at any time in history when they are able and willing to allow the fixed notion of self to fall away. What they recognize themselves to be is always that one same self that has no face.

So the reason that we say that "Self was never born" is because the birth and death of any individual seems to have absolutely no effect whatsoever on That -- that is, the realization and discovery of that one Self seems to be available to any human being who's willing to forget who they thought they were when they were born. Do you understand what I mean?

I: Yeah, and in this moment, sitting with you, it's easy for me to sense that...

AC: Why? Because you have some experiential sense of it?

I: Sure, or even sitting by myself, if I said, "Forget any sense of identity, forget any sense of memory, of who you are, of all thoughts about the self..." You know, I could sit in that vast condition for a period of time; however, my experience is that then I re-engage in my life, and have to go and pick up my phone messages, take my kid to... whatever -- thoughts, tasks, feelings, experiences, and that there is in fact an individual body-mind that does in fact have these self-concerns. So, there's in fact an enlightened state that one can access, but it's not continuous.

AC: Right, but the difference is that within this whole experience that you are having even now, you still haven't questioned fundamentally what your relationship to your own experience really is. Because something has become intangible to you now, but in spite of the fact that something has become intangible, you still think that you are the person who was born; that you are the personality, instead of questioning, "Is it really true?" Because obviously, if we were anything at all, we would have to be that which never changes.

Because what it is that we're speaking about is always present. When our attention on the personality fades, It's always there. And the more deeply we go into this, we become aware that This is always there, even though the personality and all its memories seems to be present. We realize that it's always there underneath, at the very core and essence of who it is. Except that most of the time we're unaware of it because we're allowing all of our attention to be distracted by all the ideas and concepts and beliefs about who we are, and that we simply allow ourselves not to be aware of what our true identity is, even though it is always there and it never goes anywhere!

But it is this belief that we are a separate personality, that comes and goes. The Self that we truly are never goes anywhere, and the kind of experiences that we've been speaking about really are a living proof of that because underneath, right underneath, there's these very strong beliefs that we're a separate personality -- this true Self that we always are is present. Because if we look deeply enough at the core of our being to see Who Am I really, the Self that we're speaking about is always there. It's just that our attention is not really that deep, it's simply directed at the thoughts about who we think we are, or who we think we have been.

But when those thoughts fall into abeyance, what's left is the truth of our own Self. And what's interesting is that anybody who allows the identification with fixed notions of self to fall away will be able to experience this very same Self that we're speaking about. And that very same Self is one and the same for all of us. There's no difference whatsoever, between your Self and my Self. And that's what's so intriguing, and what's so liberating, and so miraculous... Because if that's true, then what is this business of the personality really mean? What does it really mean?

If you and I really are not different in any way; if we really are that One without a Second, and if that can be experientially proven to us to our own experience, then the question really is who or what is this personality that appears to be a separate individual? If we find, through repeated experiential enquiry that's not who we really are.

I: Okay, I'd like to know your answer to that question. Who are we, really?

AC: (laughing) Okay, well, it goes both ways: if we are able to abide in the realization of the Self, of who we really are, then our human personality can become a dynamic vehicle for the expression of that one Self that has no opposite. The personality then becomes infused with and empowered by the realization of that one Self, and then that personality becomes an expression, synonymous with that which is nondual and absolute; that which is utterly full... does not want.

This jumped out at me because of some specific things I've been considering recently about how to live in the world with a nondual disposition. Discussions with Jerry and Cee have pushed me to a point where I could understand and agree with everything Andrew said here.

One way this occurs to me is that you don't live in the world with a nondual disposition; rather, the nondual lives you. But that's not a complicated, esoteric concept to understand -- it just happens that way, and all we have to do to remain in touch with it is to remain aware of it.

This is extremely heartening news to me. I'm not sure why I didn't see that before, but it's very clear to me right now.