stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

162 STRIPPING THE GURUS
As Pavlov himself again discovered in having animals try to
distinguish between flattened circles and fairly round ellipses, initially
excitable dogs could easily feel constant panic, in not knowing
how to please their “master,” when pleasing the master, however
little he may have merited that respect, is all that matters. Obviously
then, when spiritual disciples are driven to such literal
panic and madness, that breakdown has nothing whatsoever to do
with their own alleged “psychological immaturity.” Nor does it
have anything to do with the phenomenological nonsense of supposedly
being “unable to face up to the fact that naked Reality,
which reveals itself when our conceptual grids are removed, is an
unimaginable richness of actualities and possibilities” (Feuerstein,
1992).
And what was Cohen’s reported “non-idiot compassion”-based
response to all of that?
“Enlightenment and madness are very close.” Then he
laughed, and added, spookily, “It could happen to any one of
you” (Tarlo, 1997).
* * *
Aside from attempting to spread his teachings through his books
and personal counsel within his spiritual community, in 1992
Cohen founded What Is Enlightenment? magazine. That bi-annual
(now quarterly) periodical has been praised by Wilber (in Cohen,
2002) as follows:
Andrew’s magazine ... is the only [one] I know that is ... asking
the hard questions, slaughtering [needlessly violent macho
imagery, again] the sacred cows, and dealing with the
Truth no matter what the consequences.
The avant-garde biologist Rupert Sheldrake likewise opines
(in Cohen, 2005):
What Is Enlightenment? magazine is a unique forum for inquiry
that goes deeper and reaches further than any other
spiritual magazine I know.
Other former residents of Cohen’s spiritual community, however,
have voiced far less complimentary opinions of that same