Enlightenment

[1liamo78]

Hi, 

what are people’s ideas on enlightenment, do you believe it’s a real thing.?

i do not believe it’s a real phenomenon and people can quickly change their perspective on life after a big life event etc and people just gain knowledge and wisdom from life experiences etc, and enlightenment seems to suggest that a person has all the answers but in reality I think they are almost as ignorant as most of us.

thanks 

liam 

[Leo Gura]

Enlightenment is not an opinion or a belief.

Either do the self-inquiry work, or don't.

If you are interested in enlightenment, you do the work. You don't ask other people for their opinions about reality. Their opinions will not help you at all.

Just like if you wanted to become a millionaire, you never ask people, "What do you guys think of millionaires? Are they real?" You go do the work to become one.

[1liamo78]

Thanks, I believe at this moment that self inquiry and meditation and psychedelics can boost ones wisdom and knowledge and even gain a perspective and truth about reality that you could never have imagined previously but I feel that it’s always an ongoing process and one can never understand everything, so is enlightenment an end destination or a is there a certain point that one crosses in the journey of truth seeking that they can be considered enlightened.?

[1liamo78]

Sorry about my gramma, I hope it makes sense 

[Nahm]

@1liamo78 You are asking someone if you should discover what you are. 

Enlightenment is the absence of ideas and beliefs. 

[1liamo78]

Ok  Nahm,

that sort of puts a different perspective on the subject, using this way of thinking seems to suggest to me that enlightenment is a real attainable state of mind,

thanks 

[1liamo78]

I’ve been pondering this question for a long time and I think I’ve finally got it through my little brain that enlightenment is not about knowing everything and total knowledge, 

thank you, I think I can finally put this question to sleep and realise that anybody can become open to a higher truth no matter ones base IQ or experience 

ciow for now

liam

[Brent]

6 minutes ago, 1liamo78 said:

i do not believe it’s a real phenomenon and people can quickly change their perspective on life after a big life event etc and people just gain knowledge and wisdom from life experiences etc, and enlightenment seems to suggest that a person has all the answers but in reality I think they are almost as ignorant as most of us.

To gain enlightenment you must first search for truth above all else, but to see truth, we must first examine our instrument which is the mind. The mind has a bad habit of filling in gaps, you hear thunder and then the power goes out in your house, the mind uses past experiences to leap such a gap with its desire for cause and effect, but in truth, neither event may have anything to do with the other. 

The mind also perceives its own concepts, you see a river and think, "OK I know what that is", but then do you really know the river or simply what is in your mind. The mind also has set laws that we have placed within us when we were young, a classic illustration is Scarlett Ohara standing with her fist to the sky swearing "as God is my witness, I will never go hungry again" at which point her live was driven to manipulate her reality, losing even love in the process.

The search for truth takes a great deal of mental courage, most of which is the courage to be vulnerable as such a state in abhorrent to us. We generate many "stories" in our heads to explain, excuse, or justify, but stories, like lie, possess no Being and sooner or later evaporate into the nothingness from which they were created. 

But truth offers something and that is Being, it is reality, unfiltered, it is living and breathing. Abstract truths can be relative but what is truly true abides forever. 

Now as for Enlightenment, it is not an all or none principle, we might consider their are some milestones though, breakthroughs, but if you search for enlightenment, such a search encourages the self, to uplift the self, the search for truth is to uplift God as the source of all truth for He, as Infinite Being, IS truth just as He IS love. 

The inner teachings and stories of Buddhism and Zen are designed to help one understand the mind. Meditation can help one watch the mind, because truth is everywhere apparent, the problem is our inability to see it, but it is not hiding. 

One more thing, prepare to be lonely, truth is a mental exercise few master, but even if one does, it does not necessarily bring peace because people are still people, and most of us desire relationships. So if enlightenment means freedom from pain to you, you might be disappointed, that is an illusion many who claim enlightenment project, a good percent of the population do not feel emotions very deeply, the fact that they are steady does not necessarily mean they are truly enlightened, just some thought for you.

[1liamo78]

@Brent thank you for your thoughts 

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, 1liamo78 said:

Ok  Nahm,

that sort of puts a different perspective on the subject, using this way of thinking seems to suggest to me that enlightenment is a real attainable state of mind,

thanks 

It’s not a way of thinking, obtainable, or a state of mind. Analogies for this are a farce, but consider if you put thinking, beliefs, things that are obtainable, and states of mind in a vacuum. The vacuum would be enlightenment. 

Self inquiry is really the only way, no one can tell you what it really is, it’s ineffable. When you know, and I think you will, you won’t be able to tell anyone either. But you’ll laugh when prompted to. 

[Guest Quanty]

Enlightenment is not for everyone. It hurts as you would wanna die physically speaking, involving the rewiring of the natural in us. 

Edited July 2, 2018 by Quanty

[pluto]

You can have glimpses/phases of complete understanding as you embody infinite intelligence but you also choose not to for greater purposes that you soon forget as you disembody. You already understand everything by default. Your mission is to experience everything by not understanding everything and trusting the process of infinite intelligence at play.

Surrender to the natural flow

[Zweistein]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Just like if you wanted to become a millionaire, you never ask people, "What do you guys think of millionaires? Are they real?" You go do the work to become one.

And then the enlightened millionaires have parties on the "island of solid bullshit" while others keep drowning in the liquid bullshit?
But hey, thank you for trying to pull us out of the liquid bullshit, @Leo Gura!  

P.S. Yes, this triggers me badly, lol. I'm holding up the mirror to myself ;-)

Edited July 3, 2018 by Zweistein

[luckieluuke]

Im not sure what to think about Enlightenment. It seems like it´s some sort of on/off state, you are or you´re not. What makes it different is that the moment you become it changes you forever and it will never go away (but nothing ever does go away, in the same time everything is always changing)
Enlightenment seems different becaus any other area I practice I get an eureka moment, then i keep on practicing and I get an even deeper eureka moment. But is Enlightenment more than an ”eureka moment”? Seems like yes, but then people talk of different levels of enlightenment which makes it seems like an ”ordinary” eureka moment.

I don´t know. And I don´t need to know, its all concepts. All I need to do is practice and I will see for myself. Like Leo says, if I wanna prove that millionaires exist I can only do it by becoming one J