Andrew Cohen's Meeting with HWL Poonja

[Guest guest]

---

.....is part of Cohen's new book, from which a few paragraphs may be

found at:

http://www.andrewcohen.org/andrew/revelation.asp (statements

relevant to Cohen's meeting with HWL Poonja pasted in

below:)

 

 

I know that you met your last teacher in India. How did that meeting

take place?

 

A friend told me that there was a teacher still alive who was a

direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi. He said that this teacher's name

was H.W.L. Poonja, that he was a householder and very much like the

great teacher of Advaita Vedanta, Nisargadatta Maharaj, who had

recently died. Poonjaji was completely unknown at the time I went to

see him. I had no great expectations because at that point I had been

disillusioned in one way or another by all of my teachers. I wanted

to "be a light unto myself," to be free of the burden of having to

rely on anyone else.

 

I went to see Poonjaji for what I thought would be only three days.

When I told him that I had no expectations, his response was, "That's

good!" Then the next day, I asked him a question about making effort

on the spiritual path and he replied: "You don't have to make any

effort to be free." When he said that, something happened. For a

split second, it became apparent to me that I had never been unfree.

I saw it; I knew it. But then it was gone. And he smiled because he

knew what had happened.

 

A few days later, I described to him, as I had to all my teachers,

the experience of cosmic consciousness that had occurred when I was

sixteen. To my surprise, he said, "You knew everything then." A

powerful confidence in what had already happened began to emerge

within me. It was miraculous. Something released and just let go. And

I knew that my seeking had come to an end.

 

Over the next three weeks, there was an explosion inside me.

Tremendous energy, experienced as overwhelming bliss, was so intense

at times that I thought my body wouldn't be able to withstand it. I

felt like I was going to explode into a thousand pieces. A powerful

presence was slowly but surely consuming my entire being and I was

scared at times. Day by day I was literally being overtaken by this

conscious energy. Then, early one morning in a hotel room in Delhi, I

sat up on my bed and heard the words come out of my mouth: "I

surrender my life to You; do with me what You will."

 

After that I couldn't contain myself. When I went to meet with my

friends, I would tell them about what had happened, about the glory

of liberation here and now. And as I would speak to them, before my

eyes they would be drawn into a state of meditation and would find

themselves experiencing the same bliss that I was. They would feel

with their own hearts and recognize with their own minds exactly what

I was describing, as I was describing it. It was as if I was

literally on fire and anybody who got too close to me started

catching that same fire themselves.

 

When I went back to see Poonjaji, he said, "I knew this would

happenyou're the one I've been waiting for my whole life and now that

I've met you I can die." It was like a spiritual fairy tale. He also

made it clear that he wanted me to be independent, not to rely on him

in any way, because he feltat least this is what he said to me at the

timethat his work was over.

 

I went north and stayed in Rishikesh, a holy pilgrimage town on the

Ganges River, with old and new friends. We spent day and night

immersed in the bliss of Self-discovery, in the ecstasy and intimacy

of knowing that there's only One Self. That's when the teaching

began. Soon I was invited to England, and many people started

gathering around me. That was in 1986.

 

 

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--- End forwarded message ---