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by
Charles Carreon
Quite a lot, if you
take his magazine, What is Enlightenment?, at face value. The title of the
magazine of course begs the question of whether there IS enlightenment,
which is a skillful marketing device. As a teacher once pointed out to me,
Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors in order to overcome the first question --
whether to eat ice cream at all? By rushing right past "Is there
enlightenment?" and speeding ahead to tell us what it is, Cohen is just
doing what most New Agers do, which is to take "the great spiritual
traditions of mankind" as an implied backdrop for the strivings of modern
day miracle men like himself.
If Descartes was being
overly modest when he claimed he saw farther because he "stood on the
shoulders of giants," Cohen suffers from no such restraint when placing
himself in the pantheon of the world's spiritual heroes. And if you think
about it, why should he?
The Ascended Masters,
widely advertised, but never seen, could hardly hold a candle to Cohen's
magnificence, blaring from a thousand newsstands. Jesus died unknown in
Jerusalem, barely displacing a pebble in the world capital of Rome.
Mohammed probably never got the sand out of his bed, no matter how many
infidels he'd put to the sword, and new converts he took to wife. Buddha
made a splash in his day, but nothing Cohen hasn't replicated already with
his bright, incisive, up-to-date version of the wisdom of the ages.
Let's just look at it
in terms of sheer numbers. You may not be a Christian or mark time on
Nostradamus' calendar, but you've got to agree there's a hell of a lot of
us crammed on this planet and enough weapons to make us all quiet for a
long time. It is at times like these that a great leader arises, one
capable of holding up the sky with muscles of brass, one who will comfort
and shelter within his vast arms, the lonely, terrified multitudes. The
mission is so vast.
Since the big question
is resolved first -- there is enlightenment! -- we can move right on to
the fun stuff, defusing the bomb of ordinary consciousness that seeks its
own destruction in mindless, materialistic self-annihilation. Who of noble
heart would not be drawn to this venture, who would not lengthen their
footsteps, lift their chin, feeling strength returning to their heart as
they close the distance between themselves and this great man? Who would
not say, "Where do I join? How can I serve? What is this enlightenment of
which you speak? Give it to me, that I may conquer evil, within and
without, put my heel on the head of the snake of egotism, lift my sword in
heroism to still the threatening sky."
So you see, it's like
Funky Winker Bean said, "Should I deny myself a delicious hot pepperoni
pizza? No!" It's all a matter of asking the right question.
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