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

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Hi Ramesh,

A private mail regarding these scoundrels. Did not want to discuss too
much on the list and didn't get the time to write it before.

Not sure why Sanjay says Cohen was a disciple of Gangaji. Cohen
usually says he met Papaji by himself in his books and he was also
proclaimed as enlightened by him. Later they had a falling out because
I think Papaji was jealous of Cohen setting up his own shop. Perhaps
Gangaji led him to Poonjaji. Sanjay Srivatsava is quite knowledgable
about these people, so I'd probably take his word for it. IMO Poonja
was a grade A rogue. He got "married" to some blonde Belgian woman.
Apparently he had also fathered a baby through her (not widely known).
Cohen says that he didn't know this and found about it later. He also
says that Poonja used to have a roving eye for the ladies and so he
finally repudiated his guru. It is clear to me at least that Poonja
was a quack who used his nonsense as a power trip and to seduce
gullible women.

Anyway Cohen now claims to be his own guru. No lineage stuff. BTW, his
own mother has written a critical book called "Mother of God" where
she says both Poonja and Cohen certfied her enlightened and it
ppuzzled her a bit because she felt the same as before :-). But she
says it took her a while to get out of her sons mental grip on her.

Rama

> 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. But I came across the link below which includes an
> interview with Sw. Dayananda Saraswati of Arshavidya Gurukulam in
> 1998.
>
> http://www.wie.org/j14/dayananda.asp