Why Mysticism Matters
The transformative power of mystical experiences is that they can convey to us that no matter what happens to our bodies and personalities in the world of time and space, mysteriously, everything is always OK.
The transformative power of mystical experiences is that they can convey to us that no matter what happens to our bodies and personalities in the world of time and space, mysteriously, everything is always OK.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 05.16.2012
Highly educated, thoughtful, sensitive men and women are gradually becoming more and more aware of the fact nobody seems to know how human life is supposed to be lived in this second decade of the 21st century.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 05.01.2012
If 50 years ago you were to tell somebody that Americans would teach Enlightenment in India and that Asian seekers would come to California to learn about what the Buddha taught from an American Jew, they would never have believed you.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 04.25.2012
When it comes to telling us how to relate to some of our biggest global challenges, I wonder if the most spiritually enlightened among us might be missing the boat right now.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 04.12.2012
Are you thinking your own thoughts? Are you living your own lives?
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 05.16.2012
God is love. The reason the love that is God can set us free is because that unquatifiable peace was the very nature of existence before the universe was born.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 05.09.2012
Are we referring to our unique tastes and preferences? Are we referring to our experience of deep personal bonds and emotional attachments? Or are we referring to our connection to a higher spiritual Truth?
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 05.01.2012
If romantic ecstasy is what it appears to be, why does it, in almost every case, turn out to be transient, impermanent and ephemeral?
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 04.22.2012
Have you ever deeply thought about what love is? Have you ever considered where it comes from and why we feel drawn to be with certain people over others? Love is indeed a complex and multidimensional subject.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 04.14.2012
I'm not asking if we've had moments when we've experienced that which is infinite. That's one thing. I'm asking if our relationship to existence itself is infinite.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 03.17.2012
Visionaries are living for what has not yet occurred because their attention is riveted by the promise of the possible.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 03.14.2012
When human beings are in touch with this powerful creative positivity and inspiration it provides the boundless energy source from which we have historically been able to move mountains.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 01.07.2012
I believe the spiritual impulse today is calling us toward that big next step we need to take in our world. That next step will not emerge by itself -- it must be consciously created by human beings.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 12.25.2011
When you take the perennial meditative journey to the depths of your own self, you discover what it was like before the beginning.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 12.06.2011
I believe that it is possible to take responsibility for the entirety of who you are in such a profound way that you can consciously choose who you want to be.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 11.22.2011
This, in a nutshell, is the evolutionary predicament of the postmodern narcissist: We don't want to make the effort to change. And from a cultural perspective, this is a moral issue.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 10.15.2011
When time began, for an unknown reason, something came from nothing. Suddenly, an impulse emerged -- the impulse to become, to create, to evolve.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 10.08.2011
Unless we get over our ego-driven narcissism, the whole notion of intuition can become tangled up with our over-exaggerated sense of self-importance.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 09.26.2011
The path of transformation, reduced to its simplest terms, is the shift from the ego's negative relationship to life to the authentic self's positive relationship to life, which I call "plus one."
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 09.10.2011
Confidence can only be found through awakening to who you are and why you are here at the very deepest level of your being.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 08.27.2011
When you go deeply into the meditative state, your awareness detaches itself from the thought-stream. Then your identification with emotion, memory, time and body begins to fall away.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 07.18.2011
If you want to know what your values are, just look at your own life. Your life looks like your values. A lot of us think we have higher or spiritual values, but those values are not necessarily reflected in our so-called personal lives.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 11.17.2011
There are two ways that you can experience the intoxicating joy, profound peace and ecstatic wakefulness of the Ground of Being: spontaneously or through effort.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 05.25.2011
If Spirit, or God, is that which is always Highest, how does that affect our perspectives and our judgments? Are they always informed by the natural hierarchy inherent at every level of the very fabric of the cosmos?
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 05.25.2011
Here is a video from a seminar in London, in which I answer a participant's question about reincarnation.
Andrew Z. Cohen | Posted 05.23.2012