andrew cohen's quote

[Adam Blatner]

RE Andrew Cohen's Quote of the Week with a response by Adam... 
A Very Big Picture

For too many of us, the spiritual path is only about the drama of the separate self�our personal hopes and fears, highs and lows, triumphs and failures. And that's understandable, but sooner or later, we have to realize that that's simply not the point. In an evolutionary context, the personal dimension of our own experience is just a very small part of a very big picture, and the real point is always the evolution of the process itself. In that context, how much time does any one of us have to get over our immaturity and relentless self-concern and step forward? From a merely personal perspective it will always seem like we have all the time in the world to struggle with our ambivalence and selfishness, to choose to live up to our highest potential or not. But from an impersonal, evolutionary perspective we never have more time, because the situation is always urgent. Whenever we allow ourselves to get stuck in a personal crisis, the real loser is God, not us.

Adam: Ah that urgency. What to do? Sign up for his classes? Pay him money? Get worried, get urgent. God is losing!  Time is limited!
       I find Cohen's writings mainly annoying because of his tendencies to drift into hyperbole and urgency. What is the bias implicit in his theorizing?

What if it were equally true as an alternative theory that humanity is evolving, we've gotten technically ahead of our social maturity, and that as a result, we are endangering our existence. The metaphor I've used is that someone has given loaded guns to the kindergarteners. But guns is only one element; there's also the problem of the "right to reproduce." Dare we question this? Can we begin to say things like, "Sorry, we can't afford it" about all sorts of things that presently are treated as core ethical themes (or should I say, sentimental themes)? 

Fear-based thinking, as I have said, and others, also, can overload the circuits and while some are driven into avoidance, denial, distraction, others are driven into fanaticism, the sense that drastic steps must be taken---and fall prey to any passing demagogue. 

warmly, Adam

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