Does Enlightenment Exist?

[mk0998]

This is from BeiYin's book the secret key: http://falconblanco.com/key.pdf

 

Does it really exist? Then where are these people? Or is it just a sales argument, giving people something to go for.

BeiYin: This question indicates that there is a lack of understanding what enlightenment really is. Or there is a misunderstanding. Probably because the last thirty years this conception became overloaded with religious and mystical luggage. Let us see what the Longman Dictionary tells: Enlightenment = the act of enlightening: This law is so difficult to understand that only a lawyer can provide enlightenment. 2: the state of having been enlightened: The family owed a great deal to the enlightenment of their mother's opinions about the bringing up of children. Enlightenment = the period in the 18th century in Europe, when certain thinkers taught that science and the free use of reason would improve the human condition. So far it doesn't say much to enlighten the subject. So let's continue to read: enlighten = to cause to understand; free from false beliefs: Peter thought the world was flat until I enlightened him! Aha! "Free from false beliefs" This makes it a little bit clearer: If one is free from false beliefs then one is 'enlightened', at least in this specific part, but not totally of course. So to follow the 'use of reason' it would mean if somebody is free of ALL false beliefs then this person would be 'enlightened'! It seems to me that this is still not enough. I am convinced that it doesn't matter if a belief is false or true, - as long the belief is just a belief and not realized in one's personal growing process. I even want to go further: A person is not really 'enlightened' if there are still remaining beliefs and concepts and as long one's existence is based in confirmations of one's self image. Resume: 'Enlightenment' is possible, but it doesn't mean that there exist or had ever exist any humans with a complete realized state of this being

[Brimstone]

It is very healthy to question absolutely everything @mk0998 , even the concept of Enlightenment.

Namaste

[LaucherJunge]

For me the word enlightenment is just the word for one main stage of the infinite growth process. 

[Max_V]

It’s the moment one realizes he is the Truth.

Do you know who or what you are?

Is what you are a bundle of bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts, and perceptions? 

[Blissout]

Why not ask an enlightenment being? if he is honestly enlightened he will surely tell you what it is like without mambo jumbo neo-advaita crap

[Brimstone]

Lol @Captain Flint , so true, but the problem is as @Blissout points out is that there are a lot of us who latch on to concepts and ideas that have been bastardised and abused so we just throw them out to try and portray the image that we are enlightened. An example, "we are all enlightened already" which is why at this time it is good to question if it is real or not. Worse still our ego convinces us that we have had a realisation, or become enlightened without direct experience.

Enlightenment in a traditional sense is recognition through direct experience of the formless source of all this that we see that has a profound and transformative effect on 'your' being that results in the enlightened one, without effort, naturally becoming a reflection of absolute loving and humble purity in everything that they do as they see That in everything.

Yes everything has its place in the divine order but the ego is a tough egg to crack. 

Edited October 16, 2017 by Brimstone

[Highest]

Experience is all that truly exists, enlightenment is a concept like all other concepts created by the mind. The experience of getting enlightened exists, but it is rare and difficult to explain with words. The Source is One - I would say experiences of the existence of the Soul/Self is what leads to enlighment - but it is not God. That's blasphemy, very common in Hindu tradition due. 

[cetus]

@mk0998 The word 'enlightenment' basically means to be illuminated by truth. When all false beliefs fall away all that remains is truth (enlightenment). The problem is when people add mystical experiences and such to what enlightenment really is than it's meaning becomes distorted into something fantastical.

[Nahm]

@cetus56 I could never have imagined or believed in anything as mystical as the truth. I truly can’t directly describe it, and if I try, the effort is perceived by an individual’s collection of beliefs that shape the information into a projection of my beliefs, and filter out the truth. All the while I and the person I’m talking to don’t exist and are the same entity, and yet still, I am alone, and so are you, in the most literal possible sense. The experience itself is so far beyond mystical, such a supremely powerful absolute pure infinite love, that the thought “fantastical” just evaporates into laughter and love.