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@LoveandPurpose To answer the question in the title: Seemingly yes, but truly no.

Yes. The point is not to attain immortality through enlightenment. That is one of ego's clever little tricks to hide itself. The point rather, is to die well. Ironically, embracing your death has a much higher chance of resulting in ultimate liberation - but here language really fails at conveying the point.

@Identity Can you actually NOT let go? At what point in your life had you been able to truly hold onto something? To the extent that you swim with the current you are still. Trying to let go is a paradox, no? Can you intend to be spontaneous? Spontaneity is already your nature. If a wall is painted red, can you paint it the same shade of green and produce a different color? I think you could benefit if you shift your focus in meditation to observing your inherent spontaneity. Next time you sit to meditate and notice a thought arise, ask your self where has this thought come from? Is there an actual source you can follow to find the root of this thought or do the thoughts appear out of nowhere?

@Joseph Maynor All the dead, enlightened gurus of humanity agree with you.

@Buba Neither bad deeds or good deeds exist for the enlightened. The emphasis on abstaining form "bad" deeds is that they are potent distractions that might veil the Self. But the same is true with good deeds. That is why so many people fall in the spiritual trap of chasing good Karma. Good Karma is still Karma which is illusion. They key then is that deeds, good or bad, should not veil the truth of the Self. However, enlightened people may attain a great deal of emotional mastery. Interestingly, a person's emotional body is at rest when it abstains from bad deeds and loves fellow men and women. That is why many gurus are such gentle, good natured souls. It is not that they attained enlightenment through doing good deeds, but good deeds and grace flows out of their Self realization.

I've seen this exact thread a few times now. Not sure why people are interested.

Well... I had never seen prayer work that fast. Honestly guys I just received some good news regarding the matte... out of nowhere. Tomorrow I'll know for certain. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Please keep me in your prayers until the matter is fully resolved.

I wholeheartedly implore you to pray for me as I am in dire need. My personal name is Misagh,

@EvilAngel Because other people's direct experience is inaccessible to you, and all you know about them is through inference, some think this means that other people are nonexistence (because other people's direct experience does no really exist in your own direct experience). While this argument has logic to it, it's not the correct reasoning. To "get" the real reasoning you need to be enlightened or have a glimpse. It can very rudimentarily (yes it's not a word): When your own sense of being the false self falls away, the boundaries your perceive between things begins to fall away. Like Alan Watts said, your skin joins you with the world as much as it separates you.

@Aakash So... a zombie alien?

The idea is not to make a virtue out of emptiness. That would be just mere philosophy, and it's called nihilism. The emptiness that is attributed to the Self does not fully represent the truth of the matter. This idea predominantly comes from Nagarjuna's Doctorine of the Void, but somehow has been misinterpreted by many people to mean nothingness, or emptiness. It's more a recognition of the fact that awareness cannot know itself as an object. The void is supposed to teach us that no matter how much we try to ascribe meaning to reality, it will not be true. But you already know this yourself.

@solr Alan Watts supposedly died of alcohol poisoning. He was most certainly enlightened.

@Nahm Peace

@Aakash I think a total rejection of all beliefs would be helpful to a seeker. And I mean all beliefs. For example, most people believe that they are the one who is seeing through their eyes. I'm saying this is a belief.

@Key Elements Okay, but let's focus on the question I asked your just now. Just do me the favor

@Aakash Sorry friend, could you please reformat your post a bit

@Key Elements Say you are sitting in your room. Your room has walls. First question is: Are you aware of the wall, or are you aware of your perception of the wall? In other words, do you experience the wall, or do you experience how the wall looks like with your eyes? Also, be mindful that the word "wall" is not the same thing as the object itself.

@Key Elements First thing I would do is purge all beliefs about enlightenment. Specifically: All is not an illusion Saying that "all is an illusion" does not mean that reality itself is an illusion. It's anything but an illusion. Superimposing thoughts on reality, that is the illusion. This is more profound than just removing labels from objects and seeing them as they are. You must also purge more subtle psychological mechanisms. For example, space, time, distance, self, other etc. The emphasis on unity you see in various teachings is meant to show this. That there is no separation, or distinction within awareness. Initially, one might become aware of awareness. One then might somewhat erroneously believe that they are awareness and thus become aware of objects and actions. I'm saying that this separation must go. Awareness is the only thing that there ever was, is, and will be. It is only awareness that is becoming aware, and then only of awareness. Enlightenment does not mean the end of suffering. For there to be suffering, there needs to be a sufferer. This is not the case. There is only awareness. There is no such thing as suffering to become immune to to begin with. However don't get confused. If by this, you are chasing some supernaturally ability for the body to become insensitive to pain, well there are easier ways to achieve that than becoming enlightened. One could take a painkiller for example. I would say that if you are chasing this "ability", then stop doing so immediately. Just don't worry about it. Don't go search for suffering your experience and judge your enlightenment by this merit. Trust me it will do you good if you follow my advice. Enlightenment does not mean complete peace, no matter what happens. The explanation for this is similar to what's been said above. I know many sages and scriptures put a lot of emphasis on the "bliss" aspect of enlightenment, but that bliss is not for the mind. It's for awareness. In other words, you already possess this bliss. It is there all the time. However, do you know this? That is the question. The point again is to stop your constant search for bliss which ironically is the cause for bliss to be obfuscated. So allow me to reiterate: Enlightenment is not an event or happening in space or time. You say that "we" are "embodied" on the earth. I'm saying, are you sure this is the case? It's not the case. This is a belief. This is a superimposition on reality. Understand this.

@Nahm Maybe I jumped the gun a little, and now that you've explained the context, I can understand why you included that passage. I should have mentioned in my initial comment that I very much agree with the rest of your writing. This is more a critique of the concession approach than your post: I personally advocate sharing the truth as directly as possible, without concessions to 'eastern' or 'western' minds, no matter how complex and inaccessible it may be. This stuff is already confusing enough and it is not our place to judge the ability of others to comprehend enlightenment. Enlightenment is deeply rooted in every single one of us. There is not a single being on this planet or anywhere else that is not enlightened. It is only a question of whether or not they know this themselves or not. By conceding to existing philosophical understandings people have, it is very unlikely that we can help them. More likely it will lead to their present confusions deepening. You can see this yourself when reading English translations of Sanskrit texts for example. Historically translators were more than willing to draw parallels between Hinduism and Christianity, and not just between the truth of Jesus's teachings, but also with the lies and fictions of the bible. So, if one was to read the Gita with the perspective of its classical translators, one would completely miss the point. That's why I always tell people to ignore the translator's notes and introductions in this kinds of situations.

I completely understand where you are coming from because I was there myself at some point. But you might have come across the idea that there is in truth no such thing as a "path to enlightenment". Well this turns out to be true, and i'd say it's very important to understand this as soon as possible. Not paying attention to subtle things like that is why some people spend years and decades searching for enlightenment and never attaining it. They don't "attain" it because it's nothing to be attained. So here's how I would put it: Enlightenment is not an event, or occurrence in time. It is always fully present. The mind is not an obstacle to this understanding in of itself, so chasing an experience of no-mind is pointless in regards to enlightenment. The mind can be completely silent, but as long as you believe it to be "your" mind then the point has not been understood. There is no such thing as 'mind'. If you say that there is a mind that is not quiet, then you are admitting that there is a perceiver (you) who is becoming aware of an object (the mind). I'm saying that this is not true. Enlightenment, for lack of a better word, is the understanding of this.

@ivankiss Heh. You are alright kid.

If i were you i'd be more interested in going to class than dropping acid on a weekly basis. It's honestly waste of good chemicals with all the tolerance you'd be building. As long as you are chasing enlightenment as an event in future (read time) that is supposed to dawn on you, you are going to miss it. Enlightenment does not require even a single nanogram of psychedelics. I'd say the first step for you should be basic thought-witnessing, followed by emotion/body witnessing. I've done LSD myself. Quite a bit actually, and also when I was 22. Yesterday I went to a dentist to pull out a tooth. I'd say that experience was more enlightened than anything i'd seen while tripping. Why? Because it displayed how awareness cannot suffer even when the body is in pain. Rarely anyone is going to have enough mental fortitude to remain mindful while tripping.

@ivankiss Good for you.

@Key Elements I'd say that diagram was drawn by someone who is in the "learning" stage. Interestingly this prompted me to look up the term bodhisatva. It seems to mean someone who is able to attain nirvana but chooses not to out of compassion for the suffering of others. All this seems like utter nonesense to me. You are either aware of your enlightenment or you are not. There is no such thing as someone who is not enlightened.

@Nahm This doesn't seem right. Ignoring the fact that there is actually no evidence for an event called the big bang ever having occurred, it seems highly erroneous to say consciousness was produced as a result of it. Additionally, you seem to be implying that there is a universe, which is made of a substance called consciousness, which is the same as the sense of being. Anybody worth their salt with regards to enlightenment will tell you that the ultimate ground of being, or consciousness, has not been created. There is some truth to your writing if you intended to imply that consciousness, the world, and the universe are actually in truth just consciousness. Where you lose me is where you say that an event has caused this ground of being itself being created. Sure, maybe the big bang keyed the creation of certain appearances, but how could it create the absolute?