Enlightenment Blues. Andre van der Braak

sitting on the couch watching a Batman rerun when the doorbell rings. I open the door, and Harry storms into the room full of enthusiasm. Happily, we fall into each other’s arms. The knot in my stomach recedes into the background. Harry’s looking so good, he’s radiant and self-assured. Not like the old Harry that I knew. Even before he sits down on the couch, he has already plunged into the first of a long collection of stories about Jerusalem, about Andrew, and about the revolution. He is completely thrilled about Andrew and his message, and in fact he can’t imagine what else in life could possibly be worthwhile. Harry clearly has found his destination in life.

      Sitting opposite him on the couch, I reflect on the image that I have of Harry. He grew up in Schiedam, had a distant and dominant father and a sweet but submissive mother. He was supposed to take over his father’s business, a chain of optical stores. He rebelled by becoming a macho biker, and then at twenty-one by travel to India, looking for peace, love and happiness. While there he meditated a lot but became very ill, nearly dying. In 1983, he had come back to Holland a wreck, and that’s when I met him, when he joined our meditation group. A wreck is the last thing that Harry looks like now.

      “Do you remember Sariputra and Mogallana, Andre?” Harry suddenly asks. I know what he means. Harry and I have grown to be Buddhist companions over the past years, and we always liked to compare ourselves to the famous Buddhist monks from the Pali scriptures, the intellectual Sariputra and the power person Mogallana. They were two friends looking for enlightenment, and went from one teacher to the other. They had an agreement that if one would discover the true teacher, he would warn the other right away. In this way they both joined the Buddha, and grew into the most venerated monks of the Buddhist Sangha (community). This is the story that Harry reminds me of now. As Mogallana Harry it is his spiritual duty to inform me, Sariputra Andre that the true teacher has no doubt come into our life. His name is Andrew Cohen.

      1.4. Clarity of Intention Resolved: I Want to be Free

      The satsangs start up again. I speak with Andrew about my experience in Dayton, the hotels and restaurants that were meaningless to me, the loneliness. He seems to understand it all.

      “When you have a longing for liberation,” he says, “you won’t feel at home in the world of materialism. When everyone only thinks about chasing their own advantage, and is trying to become someone in the world, it’s understandable that you don’t feel at home there. Maybe it’s a good idea to spend more time with like-minded people.”

      He asks me whether I’ve ever just “hung out” in my life. No, I haven’t. He encourages me to consider that idea.

      There’s so much I have to ask Andrew about: enlightenment, Buddhism, spiritual practice. And what about having to make an effort to become enlightened? In answering this last question, Andrew looks at me directly with his penetrating brown eyes. After a few seconds of silence, he repeats to me what his own teacher told him, slowly stressing every word and the spaces between, “You – do – not – have – to – make – any – effort – to – be—free.” He almost whispers. We continue to look into each other’s eyes. My mind is racing. Can this be true? Suddenly all movement stops, and the moment seems to Suddenly all movement stops, and the moment seems to expand into eternity. In this vast space that has suddenly opened up a thought presents itself: enlightenment is not an object. You can’t strive after it or attain it. It is the very source of being itself, the source of my own existence. It’s actually impossible not to be enlightened. It’s only the stubborn arrogance of my mind that prevents me from seeing this simple truth. Andrew smiles at me then moves on to the next questioner. I sit as if in a daze. My mind stays empty for what seems like an eternity.

      When the evening ends I ride home quietly on my bicycle. I feel a very new emotion arising within me. I am falling in love with Andrew. I have always respected my teachers, even to the point of veneration, but it was never love. When I look into Andrew’s eyes I feel myself melt. My resistances are fading away, and I feel the way people usually feel about lovers – I want to be with him all the time.

      When I’m with Andrew in satsang, I feel myself melt in a pool of absolute bliss, a place beyond good and evil, beyond conception itself. I feel he is in direct contact with the source of all being, the source prior to thought and feeling. It is the source in which I recognize myself, my own true face. Andrew takes me to this place where I no longer experience any separation or boundary between myself and others, between past, present or future, between pain and ecstasy. Andrew seems to radiate something that can counter all that is evil; that can put the mind to rest. To sit still together with Andrew brings a spontaneous meditation, no fight with thoughts and feelings; just a slow, irreversible absorption into the depths of consciousness. It all seems so spontaneous, so easy, and yet there is something powerful emanating from Andrew. I feel that higher forces are at work here.

      Is this enlightenment that I’m experiencing? I hardly dare think so. Me, enlightened? But I can’t deny that my whole being is shouting, “This is it.” I feel completely at home with myself and with life. I feel an unbearable intimacy with the people around me in this room, an intimacy that I can only call love. I am not worried, deep inside in my guts I know that life is good, that there is no problem, there is peace. What more could I want? What else could there be to strive after? I only see perfection wherever I look. All the questions that I had in Dayton have been answered.

      I tell Andrew that I’m considering following him to Devon. Does he think that’s a good idea? “If that’s what you want to do, that’s fine,” he says. “I’m not stopping you.” I tell him about the fear that I’m also experiencing, the fear of leaving behind my house and my job, the fear of losing my life basically. “Don’t expect the fear to go away” he says, laughing, “It will get a lot worse”.

      The next few days are agonizing. I keep asking, “Why would I give up my whole life in Amsterdam? What do I have to gain?” But the answer wells up in my heart with increasing clarity: “Happiness, peace, deep contentment; the answer to all my questions. Everything I’ve always looked for in my search for enlightenment.

      I write Andrew a note:

      “After all my years of spiritual practice I feel that enlightenment was never the number one priority in my life. Thank you for helping me to finally get my priorities straight. I have resolved my clarity of intention. I am looking forward to seeing you in Devon in September.”

      With the note I put a hundred guilders as a gift to help cover Andrew’s expenses in Amsterdam. The next evening in satsang, on his way out, Andrew stops next to me, and shakes my hand, without saying anything. Then he walks on. We see eye to eye now. A few days later I invite Andrew to have dinner together, and he accepts. We go to an Indian restaurant and talk freely together. I tell him about my background in psychology and philosophy, he tells me about how he never got good grades in school and had always envied people that had those intellectual capacities. We have a lot of fun; there is a tangible intimacy, no trace of pretense or any hierarchical difference between us. It is like a date between two lovers. I am over the moon. If Andrew is truly the Buddha of our time, then I am now having a bowl of rice with the Buddha! What good fortune that I’ve met Andrew. What good fortune that he and I can be such good friends. What good fortune that the secret of enlightenment has finally been revealed to me.

      1.5. Revolution in Devon, Amsterdam and Rome

      In September 1987, Andrew leaves Amsterdam to go back to Devon. I take an unpaid leave from my job and go with him. Andrew teaches in the small town of Totnes, the center of a local new age scene. He lives in a small cottage belonging to a larger farmhouse called Beenleigh. Because the living room of the cottage is too small, a neighboring barn has been built into a satsang hall. There Andrew gives satsang six times a week. Soon, upwards of one hundred and fifty people are coming to hear him teach. We have to line up every night to get a good seat.

      Life around Andrew in Devon is exciting. We feel like spiritual revolutionaries, shaking up the fossilized spiritual scene, especially the western Buddhist scene. Andrew challenges its complacency and corruption, speaking out against a certain status quo that has set in. It’s as if the western meditation teachers no longer consider enlightenment an attainable goal. Some of them are now advocating psychotherapy