Andrew Cohen's Second Apology

Cult Leader Andrew Cohen apologised to his disciples and has been on "sabattical" for the last two years. He has now written another apology: An open letter to all my former students upon return from my sabbatical. The comments section has erupted into a big cycle of critique, blame, spiritual advice, and all kinds of irrelevant stuff, IMO.

FWIW, I posted a comment that wasn't accepted, so I just now posted a second simplified comment:

Andrew is Perfectly Innocent

Andrew, his critics, his defenders, and everybody else in the world are all perfectly innocent. So all the blaming and judging that's cycling around is a complete waste of time and energy and it distracts us away from the real issues.

Except in the case of psychopaths, the reason why we harm ourselves and each other is that we become distracted away from the innate happiness and goodwill of being. 

We become distracted because the world has brainwashed us into believing that reliable happiness is in: 

• objects, 
• achievements, 
• relationships, 
• spiritual states, 
• evolution, 
• punishment, 
• sex, 
• power, 
• money, or 
• whatever*. 

Yet, as Ramana Maharshi and many others have said, these things are all fleeting, so they are unreliable. Pursuing them works only if we simultaneously stay tuned in to the innate happiness of being.

Therefore, the resolution of this Andrew-centred melodrama is to get everybody tuned into the innate happiness and goodwill of being. Apparently, Andrew was good at that back in the 80s, so he should just travel the world to get everyone tuned into being ASAP.

No self-flagellation or introspection is required. The world is the problem, not individuals. If we were all born into a wise world, none of these pains and problems would have happened.

Can it be any clearer than that?

*Note: I'd add "healing" to the list above since ex-disciples seem to be emphasising the importance of that.