What Does It Mean That Everybody Is Already Enlightened?

[Viking]

isnt enlightenment a realization? therefore has to be realized, therefore not everybody is enlightened?

or do people mean it in a certain other context? if so, in which one?

[AleksM]

@Ilya Everybody is aware but the awarness varies from individual to individual, you can be more or less aware. If you wouldn't be aware you wouldn't have any experience at all, you would be in a coma like state. Enlightenment is just the realization that you already are that which you are.     

[Prabhaker]

2 hours ago, Ilya said:

What Does It Mean That Everybody Is Already Enlightened?

YOU ARE already enlightened. You need not be enlightened. You have simply forgotten; it is a kind of forgetfulness. Not that you have to become -- you ARE that. Just a recognition, just a turning in, just a deep look inside yourself... and you will start laughing. You have always been there! You had never left i n the first place. Enlightenment is your nature.

Enlightenment is a joke because it is not something that you have to achieve, yet you have to make all possible efforts to achieve it. It is already the case: you are born enlightened.

The word "enlightenment" is beautiful. We come from the source, the ultimate source of light. We are small rays of that sun, and howsoever far away we may have gone, our nature remains the same. Nobody can go against his real nature: you can forget about it, but you cannot lose it. Hence attaining it is not the right expression; it is not attained, it is only remembered. That's why Buddha called his method SAMMASATI.

Sammasati means right remembrance of that which is already there. Nanak, Kabir, Raidas, they have all called it SURATI. Surati means remembering the forgotten, but not the lost. Whether you remember or not, it is there -- it is there exactly the same. You can keep your eyes closed to it -- it is there. You can open your eyes -- it is there. You can keep it behind your back -- it is there. You can take a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and see it -- it is there. It is the same.

George Gurdjieff used to call his method self-remembering. Nothing has to be achieved, nothing at all, but only to be discovered. And the discovery is needed because we go on gathering dust on our mirrors. The mirror is there covered by the dust. Remove the dust, and the mirror starts reflecting the stars, the beyond. Krishnamurti calls it awareness, alertness, attentiveness. These are different expressions for the same phenomenon. They are to remind you that you are not to go anywhere, not to be somebody else. You just have to find out who you are, and the finding is not difficult because it is your nature -- just a little reshuffling inside, a little cleaning.

Osho- Come, Come, Yet Again Come, Chapter #14

[DoubleYou]

This is the first thing you'll notice during an awakening, and it's going to make you laugh out loud. Words can be confusing though. If enlightenment means a permanent waking up from ego, then you can definitely lose it again. Still, when you've seen it, you'll know that it's only the ego that loses it, and if ego isn't real to begin with (which you've just realised), how can you not be enlightened anymore? 

It's kind of a mind-fuck, literally. When I saw it, I was convinced it would stay forever, because from the point of view of Awareness, there is nothing that can be lost. Still, ego takes back control. But you have to understand that from the point of view of Awareness, ego is also a part of itself, so it can't really take back control at all. That's what you are already enlightened means. Everything has always been seen from this point of view of Awareness. Ego just convinces itself that that's not the case. 

[Naturalist]

Naturally, we do know things and happenings exist because it can be known and felt by our senses.  And our minds interpret event or happening as a condition that one has to go through, to persevere with, to soldier on with, to carry on with or to undertake with, inevitably.  In other words, what exists is defined as that which can be known.  If it cannot be known by the mind consciousness, then it does not exist and things can exist as in fallacy or in reality.  Since things and happenings existed long before we have a slightest opportunity to recognise and understand it well, we are bound to suffer (bear with) ignorantly.  However, as human beings, we have the wisdom to make recognition on the entire cycle of events or happenings in Mother Nature. 

In the realm of subject-object duality, our mind consciousness could observe the fluctuating vibrational frequencies arising because everything in the material Universe is made up of energy.  Atoms and molecules are made up of energy.  Our bodies, our clothes, our cars, our houses are all made up of energy but what makes them different is their vibration.  Energy is always vibrating at a different frequency under the influence of conditional phenomena.  In other words, energy is the underlying element that exists everywhere within Mother Nature because every single thing or happening would involve with it, without exception.

In fact, energy is an expression that emptiness exists.  When one sees into energy, one sees into emptiness; when one sees into emptiness, one sees into energy.  This is the rationale for the saying, ‘Form is Emptiness.’  The principle in effect: seeing into form is seeing into matter, seeing into matter is seeing into energy and seeing into energy is seeing into emptiness.  At the same time, emptiness is a necessary prerequisite for any objects to exist; without it, the object would be impossible and this hypothesis attributes to the saying, ‘Emptiness is Form.’

When we examine into Mother Nature, its intricacy is negated, what is left is emptiness that is portrayed as in a uniformed translational motion i.e. a bare becoming process.  When the two opposing translational forces clash against one another, vibrational forces arise concurrently.  The arised vibrational forces would appear in a regular pattern of waves i.e. standing and traveling and this in turn would give rise to deflective forces.  The traveling waves would involve with higher vibrational frequencies and the standing waves would involve with lower vibrational frequencies.  Subsequently, the conditions of duality and multiplicity would arise out of the combination of deflective, translational, vibrational and rotational forces as the becoming processes moved into an advanced level of complexity. 

And only when there is a balanced circumstance, there is a chance for the integrating process i.e. under a balanced phenomenon, one could witness shapes or forms arising; under an imbalanced phenomenon, one could witness no shapes or forms arising - and the cycle of conditional phenomena continues endlessly. This scenario can be portrayed in the cycle of dependent origination shown as below: -

Balance leads to stability. Stability leads to aggregation. Aggregation leads to agitation. Agitation leads to information. Information leads to knowledge. Knowledge leads to representation. Representation leads to memory. Memory leads to compulsion. Compulsion leads to ignorance. Ignorance leads to blindness. Blindness leads to disorientation. Disorientation leads to confusion. Confusion leads to irrationality. Irrationality leads to impulse. Impulse leads to sparkling. Sparkling leads to inkling. Inkling leads to volition. Volition leads to awareness. Awareness leads to consciousness. Consciousness leads to mind and body. Mind and body lead to sensation. Sensation leads to six sense bases. Six sense bases lead to conductivity. Conductivity leads to contact. Contact leads to stimulation. Stimulation leads to feeling. Feeling leads to experience. Experience leads to craving. Craving leads to grasping. Grasping leads to clinging. Clinging leads to unsettling. Unsettling leads to becoming. Becoming leads to creation. Creation leads to birth. Birth leads to energising. Energising leads to mobility. Mobility leads to hauling. Hauling leads to aging. Aging leads to draining. Draining leads to death. Death leads to fragility. Fragility leads to segregation. Segregation leads to diffusion. Diffusion leads to imbalance. Imbalance leads to adjustment. Adjustment leads to alignment. Alignment leads to new balance. 

As depicted above, the elements of awareness would begin to discern some simple varying frequencies that consecutively give rise to consciousness - that basically arises out of awareness.  This is the soul thing that we talk about all the time.  Consciousness would then progress and expand into a manipulative typecast i.e. mind or also known as consciousness in individuality.  Therefore, soul is referring to a blueprint of endless evolving mind consciousnesses.  Such a blueprint would serve as a steering wheel and is often mistakenly deemed as a permanent entity.  In fact, soul is dependent arising and anything that is dependent arising would involve change and therefore, it cannot inherently exist in Mother Nature. 

In summary, we could mention that firstly there is the arising of preliminary awareness, and then there is the arising of consciousness-cum-intermediary awareness, thereafter the arising of consciousness-cum-advanced awareness, and lastly the arising of ultimate or full awareness.  This means every existence would contain with the elements of awareness that is known as the seeds of emptiness.  And when we talk about seeing into emptiness, we talk about the progressive realisation of the mind on the reality of things.  Therefore, emptiness can be realised into stages as below: -

Stages of Enlightenment

Stage 1        Elementary Realisation

·        All things and phenomena are lack of core essence.

·        Nothing is unchanging and permanent.

·        Everything is inter-related.

Stage 2        Intermediary Realisation

·        Ability to differentiate the way things are perceived to exist and the way things really exist.

·        Only seeing without believing.

Stage 3        Advanced Realisation

·        No dualism of the subject and object, and no appearance of multiplicity.

·        All things and phenomena rise and fall within a singular condition.

·        Only uniformity exists.

Stage 4        Ultimate Realisation

·        All dependent arising are completely blown off or extinguished.

·        No string attached, and nothing is left remaining.

·        Infinite, unchanging, permanent, and unconditional.

·        Exists beyond all conventional phenomena.

The ultimate realisation of emptiness would mean a phase of perfect intermediation being accomplished by the mind consciousness (a.k.a. full enlightenment).  A perfect intermediation would mean a comprehensive absence of any or all units under consideration.  It is also known as a complete neutralisation of conditional phenomena.  But an absence of any or all units under consideration is not equivalent to nothingness of any or all units under consideration.  Therefore, absence is not about nothingness but instead it is about no-thing-ness.  No thing means no becoming or no changing.  No changing means no suffering.  No suffering means no mind.  Mind is the forerunner of all states.  No mind means a completely neutralised state of affairs - that is nibbāna.  The state of nibbāna is inexplicable in conventional terms but still, it can be tasted by the enlightened ones during deep meditation.  At the end of the day, the cyclic processes of so-called seed and fruit would continue ad infinitum until upon uprooting ignorance from the mind consciousness.  This is the ceasing moment of rebirth i.e. the evolving consciousness or stream of consciousness of a person in Mother Nature.

 

 

 

[Nahm]

@Ilya everyone is already enlightened when you become enlightened because you then are aware that everyone is you