The Mother of God

By Luna Tarlo

Book Overview

This is a mother's account of her experience as a disciple of her own son - Andrew Cohen, a well-known American guru - and of her struggle to free herself from his control. What had been a close,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 098245306X
• ISBN13: 9780982453063
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: Epigraph Publishing
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

excellent

The world of eastern spirituality in the USA is a small world and, if you're a member, you really owe it to yourself to read this book. Whether you buy it new, used, or even interlibrary loan it, I humbly urge you to do so.First of all it is very, very well written. It is also painfully self-revealing, almost agonizingly so. I'd like to point out that although this book deals with an aspect of eastern civilization, we have a tradition in western civilization, too, a tradition of written history and biography, going back thousands of years (e.g. Plutarch), a tradition that says we tell the truth--no matter where that truth leads--the unvarnished, unexaggerated truth. And the fine lady who wrote this book about her son has, by doing so, placed herself squarely in that tradition. If I ever met her, I would offer her a bouquet of flowers. There is absolutely no self-aggrandizement to be found here anywhere. It is a really fine piece of work.I read the book in less than two days, I found it so interesting. It recounts the story of how her son, well known guru andrew cohen, was "enlightened" through eastern "holy man" h.w.l. poonja. (I'd heard about this by word of mouth years ago). However, what I hadn't heard was that upon her son's return to america, like so many westerners who play guru, he became a power-mad tyrant, bully, and monster. (The book this most reminded me of was "Mildred Pierce" by James M. Cain, another story about a woman whose child grew up to be a selfish monster).As someone else pointed out, no one in this story looks good. To give you a taste of the goofiness at large here--poonja claimed that several other westerners were enlightened through him, INCLUDING THE WOMAN WHO WROTE THIS BOOK. Yes! He told her she, too, was enlightened and proceeded to try to convince her of it. Having some grain of sanity lodged firmly in her psyche (like the pearl inside the oyster), she rejected this madness but did, however, become her son's "disciple." That is, until his gargantuan ego, disgusting self-centeredness and cruelty finally forced her return to reality. (Actually, and ironically, it was her meeting with U.G. Krishnamurti who triggered a mass defection from the power-mad cohen of which she was a part). This is really a trip down the rabbit hole. Residing in andrew-cohen world is like having tea with the mad hatter. Don't miss it! Surely, Cohen is the only guru at large with the questionable honor of having had his own mother write an expose' of him! p.s. We have something important to learn from eastern spirituality, we just haven't figured out how to do it yet. Don't give up, we'll get there somehow.

A Must Read for Spiritual Seekers

This is a riveting book by an insider of a spiritual group - the mother of the guru no less! Her emotional roller coaster, her self-deprecation, her confusion, her altered perceptions and understanding, all attest to a direct experience of what it is to be a "disciple" within any spiritual group, either New Age, or Fundamentalist mainstream religion. It is a stark picture of the slippery slope a disciple climbs in an effort to achieve vicarious power through a spiritual master, and the delusions and deceptions one goes through in order to maintain one's connection to that source of power. The fact that the author was conflicted with, and complicated by, her relationship to her teacher by her motherhood of that teacher only makes her struggle more heart wrenching, difficult, and tragic. Despite this complication, her diary of her efforts to please her teacher (or to please God, in the form of Andrew Cohen - you can substitute any name of any leader of any religion here and still get the picture), to placate his displeasure with her efforts to do so, to follow his instructions to achieve enlightenment and understanding, reveals the extreme swings between sadness and euphoria, anxiety, and outright fear that a disciple will experience within a small, isolated, and defined group. Particularly, as in this case, when the teacher claims to be God.While Cohen often comes across as a petulant, immature, narcissistic adolescent, in spite of the beauty of his words, and the basic wisdom of his teachings, the more appalling aspect to this book is the nazi-like fear tactics of those closest to Cohen, apparently condoned, and encouraged, by Cohen himself. This should not surprise us, absolute power does that in all areas of life, but somehow seeing it so blatant within the cloak of spirituality is sickening.Anyone who reads this book without an agenda, has to come away enlightened, at least, about group dynamics and the ease with which we give away our authority and instinctive good sense and our ability to discriminate, our efforts to escape our human condition, and our self destructive inclination to hide within the herd. Luna Tarlo took a huge risk in exposing her experience in such a public way; she should be congratulated and applauded for doing so. I could not put the book down until I finished it.

"Enlightenment" is a four-letter word.

This is a truly courageous book! This book is far from a vengeful diatribe, but a sincere portrait of a woman caught up in the whirlwind of her son's sudden guru-dom. Andrew Cohen's teachings are a kind of radical eastern fundamentalism, that rejects(to the point of ridicule) the Personal/ego/suffering for absolute surrender to the Impersonal. As a result, any attempt of Luna to relate to Andrew as a mother to a son is swiftly quashed by Andrew. It becomes apparent that Andrew's own sense of security as a guru is dependent on his mother's willingness to see him as Master and not son. When she falters, he becomes possessed with a rage and impatience. Such outbursts(which were not exclusive to Luna alone) were often glossed-over as "skillful means"(teaching methods) by his disciples. Luna watches her son fall prey to the seductions of absolute power(unconditional adulation, a life free of financial worry, the freedom to not be held accountable for your actions), and wonders how such a "perfect being" could be so imperfect. On more than one occasion does he refer to himself as a "god" to his mother! In addition, his commune of disciples unravels into a sort of nazi camp where conformity and fear run amuck."The True Teacher knocks down the Idol that the Student makes of him." - RumiAndrew Cohen claims that Enlightenment is a PERMANENT state of consciousness that results in an end to suffering. When I was in college, I held similar premature beliefs of enlightenment as a sort of mystical "finish-line", that once crossed, you are forever free from self-doubt, self-delusion. At the time, I sought out numerous guru-types and Andrew Cohen was the first I met. He impressed me with his fierce unflinching views on Liberation, and how it demands total objectivity, absolute seriousness to go "all the way". During his talk, he even turned a young woman away sobbing, because it disturbed her to think that "she"(in an ego sense) did not matter. Andrew radiated that kind of beatific glow and his eyes were suffused with a knowing luster. I spoke with him and an indian woman(who I later identified as his wife, Alka) after the talk casually, and he complimented me on my genuine curiosity of "high matters" at such a young age. I purchased his book, "Autobiography of an Awakening," and though I found his adventures titillating, his teachings always seemed vague and unoriginal. Nevertheless I chalked him up as a "spiritual master", just one not for me.Now some seven years later, I know that "enlightenment" is a kind of 4-letter word. In truth, complete ego-death(something Andrew claims) is self-delusion, a fairy-tale. Luna quotes from Joel Kramer's book The Guru Papers, that a guru feels that he/she has "arrived at a place where self-delusion is no longer possible, but this is in fact the most treacherous form of self-delusion of all, and the foundation for all the others." No matter to what spiritual heights your spirit has soared,

Riveting and Impacting after a slow start

I found the first half or so of the book tough going. Luna seemed whiney, negative and self-involved to a degree that made me wonder about how accurate her perceptions could be. But I am very glad I stuck with it because in the second half, the book became surprisingly engaging, even riveting. And when her big insights come, I felt impacted to a remarkable degree. I really believe she found the truth in the end, and expressed uncommon courage in facing her son. It's hard to put into words exactly why this book affected me so much, but it did, in a very positive way. I highly recommend it as a must-read in the face of the current spiritual arena the seeker in our society is faced with. The prospective reader should not be swayed by the one star critical reviews here, which are thinly veiled attempts by her son's students to discourage you.

"You have to delude yourself before you can delude others."

It took courage for Luna Tarlo to write a frank book like this, with no attempt at making herself look good. In reality, nobody looked good at all, including her son the guru, Andrew, and all the other assorted characters in this true story. But if the goal was to show how the original "delusion" (the delusion that someone can achieve something special, some so-called permanent "enlightened state", and that that "something" can be transmitted to others through some practice, some following) can grow inevitably into a cult, it has more than succeeded. "Mother of God" serves a step by step inside look at this phenomenon, a phenomenon which proliferates daily as more and more people claim enlightened states and set themselves up in the holy business, wresting huge sums of money and devotion from their willing disciples. People will always be looking for permanent happiness and a way out of suffering, and as long as people are afraid, there will always be the Andrews to milk them. It will never change. Andrew's little "experience" has been blown out of all proportion by himself and his followers and turned into the basis for a way of life and practice. From the outside it seems childish and silly, but from the standpoint of the insider, which the author was certainly at one time, it is a deadly earnest affair. It is a helpful service that she has exposed both her own foibles as well as those of her son. It serves as a cautionary tale.