[Advaita-l] RE: Advaita-l Digest, Vol 36, Issue 19

[Sanjay Srivastava]

On 4/20/06, Ramesh Krishnamurthy <rkmurthy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  ----------
>
> Anybody here heard of a person named Andrew Cohen? I think he is a
> "grand-disciple" of Ramana Maharshi. It is not clear what his present
> views are.


Andrew Cohen should actually be called "great-grand disciple" of ramana
rather than "grand-disciple".

Andrew traces his lineage to ramana through Punja-ji. However, Punja-ji
never acknowledged him "enlightened". He was declared "enlightened" by
Punja-ji's "acknowledged enlightened" student Ganga-ji. Later, Ganga-ji
found some shortcomings in Andrew Cohen's enlightenment and withdrew her
acknowledgement of his enlightenment. Andrew Cohen in turn retaliated by
declaring Ganga-ji as "un-enlightened". Today they do not see eye-to-eye to
each other.


>
> He clearly misinterprets the traditional position and even makes a
> factual error - he says that the Shankaraacharya-s do not recognize
> RM's enlightenment.


I met Andrew in Mumbai in 2003. He had come to "Cross Word" bookshop near
maha-lakshmi temple to release his new book. I asked his views about
traditional method of teaching advaita vedanta. He explained that
traditional method had failed to make any mass impact. Its methods were
outdated.

This however did not prevent him from getting the foreword of his book
endorsed by Swami Chidananda (paramarth niketan, rishikesh). Why, he even
has his branch office in rishikesh near Ram Jhula. It is named as
EnlighteNext. Haven't we seen financial start-ups renting a one room
tenement in manhattan and showing it as their headquarters? Address sure
adds respectability!

praNAm