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@Barna Enlightenment is the next stage in natural human evolution. Enlightenment as we refer to it is the realization of something that most are just blind to as of now. The big picture of unification that is missing from our everyday mindset as a civilization. Maybe someday we will look back on these days and see it as the coming out of the dark ages of understanding and into realization that everything is one unified field. That change in thinking will in itself change the way our brains are wired and profound insights could than flourish and multiply upon themselves. Physical changes to the brain structure may happen by shrinking certain parts of the brain that are remnants of our caveman ancestors and the activation of higher thought areas could become awakened. I didn't know about trinfinity before but it sounds great to me. I really hope it catches on in a big way. Thanks for sharing that.

I believe that an awakened/enlightened person can still have 'leftover' desires, like sexual desires, a normal human love of money. Or even have somewhat of an ego (the key word here is somewhat). But I highly doubt that Adi Da is enlightened. Once the Wikipedia article read 'Adi Da declared that he was a uniquely historic avatar', my doubt/inner cynic came up. Because I had an awakening experience a year, and a half ago, and I realized that enlightenment isn't about being 'unique', or 'special'. Because there is no shape/self to be unique. I do believe that you, Leo Gura, are awakened/enlightened, but not that Adi guy. As for personal development, yes for me!!

Was the monk that punched Shinzen awakened/enlightened? Maybe he wasn't. As for the teacher, maybe he was just showing tough love. I mean, enlightenment is all about being ego less. What a better way to shed the ego then hit someone in the head with a stick, or yell at them?

How does a spiritual awakened person or a spiritual aware person deal with this modern society? If it has already been agreed that attachment to external sources disappears, then how does one survive in this current day culture? We cannot change humanity or how it behaves on the whole so how does the enlightened person live their life today? If we need nothing to be fulfilled, then what happens to the goal setting & personal achievements such as developing a successful business. Also what happens to our external appearance if we realise that other people’s opinions of us do not matter. Would we become overweight, unemployed & living in poor conditions? If this is the case, then why do we see spiritual teachers looking rather well dressed & running successful business? Is this not an aspect of the ego? I believe that when one is awakened all their beliefs about materialistic things fall away & this realisation can result in going through the dark night of the soul? If been awakened is the end of all suffering then if there was a magic pill that could awaken everyone, would that mean the end of civilization as we know it? Would we all start to live meaningless life’s? Is it not possible to live a modern day life as a spiritual plumber or a spiritual computer engineer? Look forward to your comments. Thanks, Tony.

hey , for people who don't understand as much try this article... https://lonerwolf.com/awakened-soul-reincarnation/

@Elzhi Who said enlightenment can't be realized during a sleep state? It sounds like you tapped into something. Perhaps a glimpse of the ox's tail as the saying goes. Consider the dream story part as just a story from within you. An experience no different from any other experience. But look beyond the visuals of it and ask yourself, "how did it make me feel?" Did it feel like truth that you totally trust in? When you did wake something remained. Your perception was shifted beyond the usual "me" as an observer. That's real. Usually when we wake in the morning, we assume we are fully awake. That's not necessarily always the case. Often we awake into just another dream state of self and start our day. Most do that their entire lives. It's sounds like when you awoke this time, you truly awakened.

This is an awesome thread Zane. I have been wanting the same thing more and more on my journey; a circle of creative, awakened, like-minded individuals (with a real "community" vibe). I have also found some niche events/activities that allow me to meet people on a similar frequency.... even though I am somewhat bold and eccentric, I am also quite introverted...so the new connections I've been making are often limited to the initial meeting...unless I make the effort to connect online, or see them in person again soon...or the universe intervenes with another synchronistic chance encounter... I know what it's like to be eccentric; I may not come off as creepy, but I do inadvertently offend &/or annoy people with my honesty (because I often see more than people want to outwardly show, and speak boisterously with no filter). I have a large circle of friends, but I've been connected with them for decades (pre-brain-injury)...and most have no interest in personal evolution, even if they are rad and creative. Recently, I thought it was just a neurosis, that I felt uncomfortable connecting with mainstream less-creative types; now I understand that although that is also true, I simply do not resonate with non-eccentrics in the same way. How do you interact with your new friends ....to the extent of establishing a whole new circle? I suppose this would mean spending more time with all of them, plus trying to connect them with the other new friends in the hopes that they would also bond?...What do you suggest? Is it better to just find an already formed circle that you'd fit into? Also, I love my current friends, dysfunctions and all, how would one transition circles (while keeping some ties to the old friends)?

When you are dying, it is not only fear that makes you unconscious; you already have too much unconsciousness – fear only takes away the thin layer of consciousness and you are drowned in your own unconsciousness. In meditation, when you are witnessing, you are by and by, without your knowing it, dispelling unconsciousness. You are becoming more and more conscious and a moment comes when your whole being is full of consciousness. This is witnessing. So when death comes, you witness death. When life was there, you witnessed life. Meditation is a kind of metaphysical dying. Through our becoming familiar with that inner passage, we can relax when it extends into our physical dying. In meditating as in dying we close our eyes (generally); we drop the effort to control and instead relax. In doing that we are leave the outer world for the interior one. We leave the world of ‘the other’ for a state of aloneness. Our identity as a body, a persona – created by the various positions we may have held, the relationships we are in, by what we have achieved and so on – becomes irrelevant when we move into our inner world. So meditating provides a natural and a simple way to consciously ‘die before you die’ – to rehearse dying. And of course the more familiar you are with entering meditation the easier it will become and the deeper will be the effect. The fear has reasons. The fear arises because it is always somebody else who dies. You always see death from the outside, and death is an experience of the innermost being. It is just like watching love from the outside. You may watch for years, but you will not come to know anything of what love is. You may come to know the manifestations of love, but not love itself. We know the same about death. Just the manifestations on the surface – the breathing has stopped, the heart has stopped, the man as he used to talk and walk is no more there: just a corpse is lying there instead of a living body. These are only outer symptoms. Death is the transfer of the soul from one body to another body, or in cases when a man is fully awakened, from one body to the body of the whole universe. It is a great journey, but you cannot know it from the outside. From outside, only symptoms are available; and those symptoms have made people afraid. Death happens to you involuntarily: you do not want to die but you have to die. That is why death is a sorrow, a pain, an anguish. And the pain of death is so intense that the only way to bear it is to become unconscious. A meditator can die consciously. A man who has been going deeper into meditation passes the door of death many times.

In the night you dream. While dreaming you start believing in the dream, that it is true. Your senses are reporting the dream - your eyes are seeing it, your ears are hearing it, you may be touching it. Your senses are reporting to you; that?s why you fall under the illusion that it is real. Every dream is true while you dream. You cannot rely on the senses. In the dream they deceive you. If you take a drug, LSD or something, your senses start deceiving you; you start seeing things which are not there. Even without drugs we have illusions. You are passing through a dark street, and suddenly you get scared - a snake is there. You start running, and later on you come to know that there was no snake, just a rope was Lying there. But when you felt that there was a snake, there was a snake. Your eyes were reporting that the snake is there and you behaved accordingly-you escaped from the place. Senses cannot be believed. The inner experience is immediate, Once you are rooted in that inner experience then many things will start happening to you. It will not be possible to understand them right now. One is rooted in his center, in his inner being, one has come to feel it as a direct experience, then senses cannot deceive him. He is awakened.

But... for the sake of trying to guess what is it, I think awaken is when you intellectually see there's no self, when you begin to understand and look for enlightenment, etc... when you know in your head but not in your experience all the things we talk here in the forum. In my opinion, everyone here in the forum (not 100% but all those who are seeking) are awakened, but that's the first step to enlightenment. Enlightenment is when you drop completely all believes systems.

@Orange The video explains it well. I would also like to add that when ego is no longer there to hold on to the awakened state enlightenment has occured. A.k.a ego death.

The inner world cannot be expressed literally, but symbolically -- only symbolically. Books like the Vedas, the Geeta, the Bible, the Upanishads -- they are not written by people who are asleep, they are not written as beautiful poetry or prose; they are written by people who know what truth is, who have awakened themselves to truth. Then whatsoever they write is almost like a map. You have to decipher it, you have to decode it, otherwise you will go on missing it. As we become more awakened, more we understand the hidden meaning.

The best I can describe it, it was like a stillness you get from meditating and acceptance, but there was still slight anxiety arising at times. Anyways that stillness state lasted for most of the day and I really don't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, it just was what it was. I don't think it was an awakened state, or maybe it was and I had been expecting something more from it.

I can only guess but it sounds like an awakened state. There is calmness and a peacefulness, and you are fine with just being still. Mind can translate that into a sadness or depression. Was there a sense of detachment to everything around you?

I’m not enlightened so all I can do is conceptualize it. Someone please let me know if I’m way off base, but I believe if everyone is enlightened, they’d be detached from their identity and stories. It’s a high level of consciousness, so everyone would be aware of the dangers of judgments, hatred, ego, materialism, harming the environment on a significant scale, pursuit of power, dogma, and addictions. Sounds like a nice Utopian society, but humanity will be wiped out before we reach that level of awareness, considering the extremely low percentage of spiritually awakened people. We're on the conveyor belt to extinction, and it's a tragic reality. The end times are nigh.

This is none of the enlightened persons business. The "world" is a perfectly balanced system and karma is being facilitated fairly and justly. Sure but again, you cannot clear another persons karmic account, so it does not matter in the least what effects you have. The only reason you have an effect is because they judge you to be either positive or negative according to their own illusions, the fact is awakened people are just in harmony with life, there not special nor do they actually have those effects on others, it only seems like they do from the dualistic perspective. I dont know what this means.

It's a world wide zombie apocalypse out there of people sleep walking in a dream state of self, destroying this planet and each other. There is such a thing as detached action. Awakened people can have a very positive effect on those who are not yet awake. It takes no force, when a person shines with higher truth people recognize something special about them. When oneness is present, others naturally align themselves with that. Let it shine brother, let it shine through you!

You're trying to conceptualise something that you don't know will ever happen.. You don't know the future, it's an idea. So to become aware of ego? It's a task for now and the next few months. To forget about all else for a moment (you can become awakened quickly) and just focus on what you are doing. Conceit? Looking for things to make you something? If you can stick with the process and dis-identify then you will find a motivation that is coming from formlessness, your true nature. You shouldn't conceptualise that because that is more ego, more making spontaneous boundlessness into another "I". It's scary I know to relaize there is a void, that you have to admit you don't know who you are. But if you trust enough to enter the process you will see that it's not really a void This is where I'm at right now . I hope it rubs off on you.

I don't say this negatively, but I knew life on earth was meaningless before this video, and I had come to terms with it; Coming to the conclusion that, its better to come up with your own meaning for life, and create your own purpose anyway. And so I've built a purpose, and a grand reality in my 'ego' to look forward to but if everything is infinite, and ultimately nothing. then quite frankly, what is the fucking point of anything we can do in our ego NOW? Why am I(god) endlessly creating these realities to live in as egos or other different things? Have people who want enlightenment ever thought that maybe if I created these realities for myself to live in, that It could be myself entertaining myself in this form, and distracting myself from the meaninglessness of being a complete and utter void? why am I so eager to become re-awakened of the lonely, and empty truth of what I am? What do I gain from pursuing this 'enlightenment' or 'awakening' of what I actually am IF i'm already the infinite itself? And consequently then, why is it not just as valid to live into THIS reality, and forget about the higher existential truth of my ultimate being? Its not like its going anywhere? Apologies if this doesn't make sense; I'm very puzzled myself.

Dude, the whole game here is to play that you are not god and that what happens in your life could really be bad. We are as humans a dream that the ever-present I that we arise out of is not perfect and that we are really separate. And if you don't awaken before you die, probably in the last split-second you get that. And that's beautiful. Because, you live the most real dream that there could be and you really don't know before you have awakened whether this here is real or not. So have fun!

It's not eliminating or reducing the ego, is understanding what it is and reacting in the correct way, not being controlled by the ego. When you are unconscious you think you have control over your ego, but that's not real. The ego is controlling you by making you "think" that you are the body, the mind, whatever... What we have to do is explained well in Zen teachings, here I copy something from the book "Instant Zen" " One of the peculiarities of Zen Buddhism is the idea that awakening can take place instantaneously. Zen training, from this point o f view, does not mean learning doctrines, rituals, and postures, but preparing the (ego) mind to accept this awakening and integrate it constructively with daily life in the world." So, the idea is to get awakened so the mind accepts that and the ego-mind integrate it to the new consciousness. The ego doesn't disappear, it is understood from a wider and wiser perspective.

Haha I've reread my answer and I realized that there was no point to write it. It's a fun thing to attempt to rationalize, but it is an ineffable thing to explain. You will not understand it by reading explanations, even from those who are truly awakened, and it's pointless to seek definitions to explain it because nothingness is a very abstract thing. It's like attempting to recreate the feeling one has in a new country they visited for another person. It simply won't work until they have been there and experienced it for themselves.

@Matthew Lamot "At this point everything stops and there is a subtle shift in awareness in which the foreground becomes the background, and the background the foreground" - from 'What is Advaita Vedanta'. This describes the shift I had a few months ago (before this forum even existed and before I was familiar with any teaching at all). It just happened one day and it's permanent. I never claimed to be enlightened, though... perhaps just awakened Thank you for the James Swartz/ Neo Advaita link. Will read it shortly.

Natasha, another thing you are misinformed on is that your "other sources" are not even accurate either. This is what I did not make clear to you personally in this thread. The surface "ideas" are correct, even in Neo Advaita is in harmony with what the Vedas say. But they are not teachings, and just because a person themselves could be enlightened (even awakened) does not mean that they have a teaching or are qualified to teach. Most of the questions i see on here can be dealt with in one session with a Vedanta teacher, and be out of the way immediately. What you are not getting is there are crucial aspects of the teaching that need to be realized before a student can move on. So the path of knowledge is unpacked in a sequence, and the realized teacher administers correct practices for the student at the correct times. Its not just one big free for all and memorize a video or two. Thats not how it works. Emphasis in the theraputic side is also a misconception. In the path of knowledge, if followed correctly the student realizes enlightenment and that is a permanent thing. There is no going back into ego or its "shadow". Shadow is a therapy thing, there is no therapy for the Self, once realized completely that is it. What you are being taught, not only here, but in the whole spiritual community is just nonsesne, because when you understand Vedanta you will see its completely opposite. So this is why I do not understand where you think that what is being taught today is the path that leads to enlightenment, this just puzzles the fuck out of me quite frankly, because its obvious when you read the material, that what you know is nothing to do with enlightenment, at all! So, have a third read, and also read what Swartz has to say about Neo Advaita, because when you understand what this Neo Adavita is, you will just drop all association with it. http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/james_swartz/neoAdvaita.htm And to be honest, anybody who leaves 2 sentence messages on the forum, and expects people to believe it is just fucking stupid in my opinion, no mature person looks at a one line piece of advice and makes something of it. Where are your links? Where is your critical thinking? Where is your credibility beyond some person talking on youtube about one thing that can and is taken out of context? This is not a spiritual path, its just entertainment. Swartz mentions a guy who was in Samadhi for 4 years, he thought he was enlightened! But he came out of it and none of his programming had changed. So what makes you think your experiences translate to enlightenment? These methods being taught do nothing more than relax the body. In light of the truth about what enlightenment is and how it is brought about, none of your ideas even make logical sense.

@Leo Gura well he says enlightenment is really to disidentify from your mind. To be the watcher of your mind. The realization that you are not your mind is to be awakened or enlightened "Enlightenment means rising above thought" he also says: "a desire to become enlightened is just another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future. So don't seek to become enlightened. Become present" Lol