Earthlight Magazine / Books / Home
Copyright © 1996 by Joanne Brandt
All rights reserved. Inquiries should be addressed to
Twelve Star Publishing, P.O. Box 123, Jefferson, MD 21755
Earthlight Magazine / Books
/ Home
Copyright © 1996 by Joanne Brandt
All rights reserved. Inquiries should be addressed to
Twelve Star Publishing, P.O. Box 123, Jefferson, MD 21755
Alan Cohen is one of the best loved spiritual teachers
of our age, appreciated for his down-to-earth advice and heart-centered
philosophy. He is the author of the bestselling The Dragon
Doesn't Live Here Anymore. His recent book, I Had It All
The Time, is billed as "The last self-improvement book
you may ever need." Having written himself out of the market,
his latest book is a slim volume of cartoon wisdom, Are You
as Happy as Your Dog?
Earthlight: I Had It All the Time opened with a poem which said,
"Our greatest sin is our fear to exist in the knowledge that
God lives within us." What caused you to pick that poem?
Alan Cohen: I think that we hurt ourselves by denying our divinity,
and we buy into feeling small. The spiritual path is about bringing
our power back home so it rests inside of us. We have to own our
power as divine beings, otherwise we're at the whim of what the
world tells us and that's just not true.
EL: One of the techniques you use to express the truth is to tell
simple stories.
AC: Yes. Stories are a way to get to people's hearts through imagery,
and everybody loves a good story. Stories get to people in a way
that philosophy or pure intellect doesn't. People laugh, they
can relate. Stories get us back into our hearts and out of our
heads.
EL: Did you always have this ability to "intuitively see
the obvious"?
AC: Well, yes and no. I think I always did but it was covered
over for a long time. When I began to speak and teach, people
would compliment me on saying simple things that moved them. I
realized that that's where the greatest power lies, in what's
right before you. Werner Erhart, said, "If you can't tell
your whole story in a sentence you can't tell it."
EL: What's your whole story in a sentence?
AC: Oh, let's see. I came from Love, I forgot for awhile, I'm
remembering it, and that's where I'll end up. (Laughs) And occasionally
I still forget.
EL: When I read your books, the Love is jumping off the pages.
AC: Well, I'm delighted to hear that. I remember when I first
read Yogananda's book, Autobiography of a Yogi, I saw that
the pages were sizzling, there was so much divine energy in them.
EL: You have said that things we think are wrong with us might
actually be what's right with us.
AC: Exactly. I gave the example in the book of a guy who came
up to me and said, "I've been very shy my whole life. How
can that be a good thing.?" I said, "People are usually
shy because they're sensitive and they're easily hurt and life
is kind of overwhelming. But, instead of just running away, if
you honor your sensitivity, and protect yourself, and draw some
boundaries, and nurture yourself, you can use that sensitivity
to heal." Very often the shyest people are the best counselors
and healers because they have the most compassion. Sometimes they
go on to reverse it and become great poets and writers, or even
media people because in dealing with the overwhelming sensitivity
they become strong. Really any trait that seems to be negative
can also be an asset
EL: So what "negative" thing about yourself have you've
realized is right?
AC: That's a good question. I think my intuition. I would often
have intuitions about people, and I would be drawn to someone
or away from someone. And my intellect would analyze it to death.
"Oh, you should really be with this person. You're judging
them. You should work with them. You should have compassion for
them." (Of course you should have compassion.) But then I
would force myself to go against my intuition. I realized that
if I listened to that still, small voice earlier in the game I
would have turned out better in the long run. So now what I'm
learning to do is honor those intuitions and imagine that they're
coming from God and if I'm still moved to say something to somebody
for a reason, I just do it. It turns out that quite often that's
what they needed to hear and it leads to something beautiful that
can be shared. What I thought was my weakness was actually my
strength.
EL: You appear to have a very personal relationship with God.
How does one give up doubting the existence of God?
AC: You offer your disbelief up and you say, "Okay God, I
see that I'm stuck here, that I have doubts and fears, and I don't
want to be separate from you. Would you please remove these from
me, show me unequivocally that you are here, and you are Love."
The Course in Miracles says "Doubts will come and
go and go to come again." So I don't know if you ever stop
having some form of doubt. It's the nature of the mind to do that.
But I think we can make some pretty good inroads into establishing
a foundation of faith from which we live, rather than a foundation
of fear. Faith is like a muscle. You practice and it gets stronger.
If you're in a scary situation and you tend to freak out, you
can say, "Now wait a minute. Here's my chance to practice
faith." You use your faith muscle, and it works. And you
go, "Wow, that's pretty good." So the next time something
comes up, it's a little easier to practice faith. Then sooner
or later you find yourself having faith in situations that years
ago would have knocked you off your rocker. Faith's an action
thing. It means you act as if it's gonna work out.
EL: In keeping with that, you have said, "We should tell
the truth quicker." It takes a lot of courage to do that.
AC: It does. Because we live in a culture where delusions and
hiding and lies are actually accepted. Somebody who comes out
and tells the truth, they don't know what to do with them. That's
what happened to Jesus. It's a discipline to do that, to be the
first one to tell the truth.
EL: Do you see more people behaving that way today?
AC: I do. I think it's happening in our media with so many of
our cultural icons falling. You can trace it back: there's OJ
and Michael Jackson; televangelists; and Nixon and Kennedy; and
all these people who we thought were these wonderful heroes. When
the truth about them is exposed they turn out to be equal to us.
So I think there is a cultural mood toward less and less hiding.
You know, people coming out about their child sexual abuse, and
AIDS and homosexuality. The truth is coming forth by natural,
organic means, people telling it out of choice; or by the sh*t
hitting the fan.
EL: About goal setting, you have said, "We are not proceeding
towards the goal but living from it. Holding the vision behind
the project is the all important key that makes the mundane steps
bearable."
AC: I once heard that the definition of character is, "The
ability to follow through on a project after the initial enthusiasm
has past." I think a lot of us have great visions. Then we
hit some roadblocks and get discouraged and we think, maybe God
doesn't want me to do that. But it really takes a high vision
to bring you from point A to point B. When you see a movie, 70,
80 or 90% of the time was spent preparing the scene. The director,
in the midst of dealing with huge technicalities, and obstacles,
and personalities, has to have the vision of what this movie is
going to turn out to be.
EL: And we are the director of the movie of our own life.
AC: Yes. We're all parts of it. One part of us has to say, "Don't
walk off the set man just because you had a bad day."
EL: If I Had It All the Time is "The last self-improvement
book you may ever need," what will you do now?
AC: I'm having fun with other things. I've written a novel, and
I'm gonna do a book called Meta-Cinema: Movies that Changed
Lives.
EL: What are some of the movies you will include?
AC: It's a long list: Field of Dreams, Dead Poets Society, all
the extra-terrestrial movies like ET and Starman and Star Wars,
and there's a whole slew of transfer-of soul movies, Ghost, Heart
and Souls. In Ghost, there's one scene where Whoopie Goldberg
is channeling Patrick Swayze and she dances with Demi Moore. The
only way that would work was if you absolutely believed she could
do that. And they pulled it off. Things that used to be totally
esoteric and weird are now in the media.
EL: What goals do you have for yourself?
AC: My goal is to simplify, and to have quality relationships,
and to keep my heart alive, and to be at peace in my body, and
to harmonize with the universe. I seek to be more creative, and
to get myself out of the administrative mode, and to really channel
my gifts that I came to channel. To be more of who I am and less
of who I'm not.
EL: What is your wish for the world?
AC: Self-appreciation, and self-love and self-honoring. Quit fighting
with each other (laughs), in all forms. To feed each other, not
just on a material level, but on a spiritual level. I think it
would be totally outrageous if we developed a belief system that
people don't have to starve, and people don't have to fight. I'd
love to see our minds accept only peace on earth.
EL: If there's one thing you'd like the world to give to you,
what would that be?
AC: (Laughs) Let's see. I would say, the continuing confirmation
of the presence of God. I don't expect the world to give it to
me, but I would like God to give it to me through the world. I
would like to feel God in every interaction with a person, to
feel the beauty of God in Nature. I'd like to remember God all
through the day, not just at certain times.
EL: Do you have a closing message?
AC: Yes, the quote from a character by playwright Arthur Miller
that I included in I Had It All the Time. I'm just paraphrasing
now. "I couldn't sleep. Every time I looked at myself all
I saw was ugliness. It was like a little child that kept creeping
into my arms. Finally I just embraced it, and looked at it, and
it was beautiful."
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