Why would anyone want enlightenment?

[Guest]

Hi all,

A provocative post for you. The point of this is twofold: (1) to get feedback on a fresh perspective that I’ve been developing in the last few days, which is calling into question my search for enlightenment, and (2) to play devil’s advocate for anyone who may have found, as I have, a tendency within themselves to view the prospect of enlightenment through rose-tinted glasses (that is, as a subtly egoic aspiration). Enlightenment may well be, as Leo proposes, the end goal of self-actualisation, but I think it’s seriously worth challenging whether this is what we really wanted when we signed up for the project.

Let me preface this also with a note that in indigenous communities enlightenment is often considered a divine burden; they are confused by westerners’ desire to become shamans.

Let’s examine my current view of the pros and cons…

Pros

• You know the truth
• You suffer no more
• You’re free (from the game of life)

Cons

• You give up your life
  • (both in terms of actually dying, and of giving up attachment to all the content of your life. Leo has rightly emphasised this total annihilation)
• Existence becomes totally, 100% meaningless and empty
  • (strictly speaking, life is meaningless and empty anyway, at least from the perspective of truth, but from the worldly perspective we might currently operate from, life is rich, complex and meaningful)

So, enlightenment amounts basically to whether you want to end your life, either because you’re tired of the pain of living in the world, or because you just have to know the truth, at all costs (and I mean ALL costs - it will cost you everything). Of course, if you’re after happiness, mystical states, feelings of peace, love, joy, or contentment, then seeking enlightenment is a misguided effort. You can’t hold onto any of this if you’re going for enlightenment. You won’t gain anything. Your life will not improve, it will end. You will no longer be here on the material plane.

I think it’s particularly worth posting this question in this forum, because if any of you, like me, became excited about the idea of enlightenment within Leo’s original context of ‘creating an amazing life’, you may also find yourself realising that the two are not compatible. Enlightenment won’t give you an amazing life, it will extinguish your life.

I'm not criticising Leo here, he's said a lot of this himself. But I wonder if there are others among you who, like me, were drawn to spirituality, self-actualisation and actualized.org because we wanted a happy life, but have found ourselves instead moving towards death.

What do you guys think about all this?

Edited July 15, 2018 by Stretch

[Malelekakis]

@Stretch thank you for making this point clear. I have asked the same questions before but you articulated them much better. 

Here are some jed mckenna (enlightened as far as I believe)quotes :

-"Chasing enlightenement is as stupid as chasing death"

-"if you would choose between enlightenement and one million dollars, take the dollars because there will be someone there to enjoy them but there will be noone there to enjoy enlightenement"

-go for enlightenement only  if you must absolutely  go for it(or if you have no choice) 

-"my advise to everyone would be :don't chase awakening but spiritual adulthood. That is what everyone wants"

My opinion on this matter:you really have no choice. It will always be there waiting for you. Why bother for truth? Enjoy the ride while it lasts. Truth is truth. It cannot be destroyed.  You are it. When it's time it will come for you. 

OR you may come to a point in your life that you see that you do not exist and enlightenement cannot exist without you. This is the point where questions such as those are ungrounded and false. My advise is that you follow your authentic intention for life and everything will unfold 

Edited July 15, 2018 by Malelekakis

[Guest Quanty]

I think you don't know what Enlightenment is. 

[Guest Quanty]

Enlightenment won’t give you an amazing life, it will extinguish your life@Stretch

 

It is on the contrary. One discovers real meaning in meaningless, real happiness even in agony pain. 

[cirkussmile]

Know truth and no suffering...

is there anything more to life worth pursuing? 

[pluto]

There are no cons to Enlightenment. You guys should leave trying to understand Enlightenment because it is IMPOSSIBLE to do so with the physical mind. The more you get lost in these thoughts, the more Resistance from the natural state/self you create.

 

[Pure Imagination]

Enlightenment transcends the concept of pros and cons. Those words aren’t necessary anymore to describe what it means to be enlightened. You realize that language itself is just an egoic game.

[Emerald]

I've experienced ego transcendence, and I can't think of any cons to being that way... other than "losing it" and not knowing how to function thereafter. And knowing what you're missing out on because you've truly tasted freedom. That's the part that sucks. Being in a prison where you realize that you're in a prison because you once found a way out. And knowing that the key is right in front of you but you just can't see it. 

From your post, in accordance with my (limited) experiences of being beyond ego, it seems like you take the "losing your life" thing to mean something that it doesn't. When I lost "Emerald", it wasn't like reality actually changed. It was all the same, but I was 10,000 times more 'there.' Not only was I in life, I was connected with life itself. 

The main thing that happened, was that I was just freed from the chains of believing in an "Emerald" that didn't exist. So, I didn't have to act like an "Emerald", and I didn't have to preserve an "Emerald." I didn't need to do the bidding of "Emerald." "Emerald" was just an idea floating around in my head, and had never actually existed. "Emerald" was just an idea that I came up with, and it was a really heavy burden to carry around. I had built a prison out of "Emerald." 

After I let go of "Emerald", I could just be. And that was more than enough. I didn't need to be enslaved to ideas like "Emerald" that never had anything to do with anything. I was already unshakably valid; always had been and always would be. 

And I was more fully embodied than I had been in my entire life.

So, the only thing that ego transcendence makes you lose is something that was never there to begin with. But this "nothing" is a really heavy "nothing" that we feel like we need to protect at all costs. But it's literally nothing. You lose NOTHING when you transcend the ego. But in losing that "nothing", you set down that heavy invisible burden and become receptive to experiencing what you actually are. 

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Emerald

[Guest]

@Mikael89 @pluto @Pure Imagination You guys have all missed my point. We're taking it as a given here that the world = illusion and enlightenment = truth. The question remains: is it worth giving up everything to know the truth?

@Malelekakis 'enjoy the ride while it lasts', 'when it's time [truth] will find you' - these statements perfectly describe where I'm currently at.

@Guest Quanty You think you're gonna be able to hold onto life when you die. You're not going to have your cake and eat it. There will be no one to be happy.

@cirkussmile  That's the 'truth at all costs' position I alluded to. Fair enough. But it's not an obvious choice, I hope you can see that.

@Emerald A thought-provoking counter-argument. I, too, have experienced non-duality, so I know that reality doesn't disappear. But it seems that what's required to achieve the permanent transcending of illusion is to let go of everything. You don't just let go of your false sense of self, you let go of duality, the relationship between subject and object. So you not only lose the 'i', but everything it relates to, and therefore the meaning and purpose of having a life. What, then, would be the point in doing anything? I'm still testing this theory out. What do you think?

Edited July 17, 2018 by Stretch

[pluto]

@Stretch The thing is when you give up everything and know truth you become connected to everything so you actually gain everything by giving up the idea/illusion of everything. You find all by losing all.

[Guest]

@pluto Well, yeah, because nothing and infinity are the same thing. Doesn't change the fact that you traded everything you know and care about to get it, or that what you have in return is empty and meaningless. It's like a blank canvas - it has infinite possibilities, granted, but it's no fun to look at.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Stretch

[Highest]

It is worth giving up your life for Truth, that's when true life begins, in pure emptiness. The con may be that you become insane like what happened to me, but it is in that insanity that you experience the most extraordinary and surreal things, in many ways insanity made me sane.

[Guest]

A couple of you have proposed it's worth giving your life up for 'truth for truths sake'. Fair enough. A couple weeks ago I was saying the same thing. But I was kidding myself. Why, if that was really my position, didn't I just say 'Ok. I'm trading life for truth. I'm going to sit here motionless until I'm enlightened, and if my body starves and dies, fine'. I feel that letting go would be easy given true conviction, but people don't have it. Why? Because people don't want to die.

[SoonHei]

@Highest do enlighten us briefly on your sane to insane to sane journey - focusing on how/what happened when you say you were insane?

lose job/family/friends? do share...

[astrokeen]

1 hour ago, Stretch said:

@Emerald A thought-provoking counter-argument. I, too, have experienced non-duality, so I know that reality doesn't disappear. But it seems that what's required to achieve the permanent transcending of illusion is to let go of everything. You don't just let go of your false sense of self, you let go of duality, the relationship between subject and object. So you not only lose the 'i', but everything it relates to, and therefore the meaning and purpose of having a life. What, then, would be the point in doing anything? I'm still testing this theory out. What do you think?

I have come very close to experiencing the sense of a void and meaninglessness. I tried to see the positive in this and it seemed  to me that letting go of any aspirations to construct meaning frees one to live for the moment, i.e., be fully present in the moment. One could simply marvel at the beauty or the complexities of life and be conscious of simple sensations and pleasures. 

Edited July 16, 2018 by astrokeen

[Highest]

1 hour ago, SoonHei said:

@Highest do enlighten us briefly on your sane to insane to sane journey - focusing on how/what happened when you say you were insane?

lose job/family/friends? do share...

It began with smoking a lot of weed, then I began meditating which opened me to the other side, a lot of energy were absorbed inside me, too much. After a couple of months I arrived at what they call psychosis, which in truth was just the other side apsolutely. I tought for example everyone on the hospital were angels from God. The delusion was real, but what they did and what I saw was real, which made me believe that even my mother was an angel and not my real mother. Energy was pouring out of all humans, from everything, and directly into me. But I was not ready for this radical change, my mind were not ready. That's where you have the delusions of the mind. 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Highest

[AxelK]

Why is meaninglessness a con?

[Guest]

@astrokeen Right, you just watch the world go by. But you have no stake in it, therefore nothing has any value. It literally makes no difference whether you're living a normal life, live in a cave, or have all your senses and mind permanently shut off tomorrow. What sort of existence is that? Before I was introduced to the idea of enlightenment, the equivalent suggestion would have been 'life sucks. Why don't you shoot yourself in the head so it's all over?'. What's the difference?

@AxelK Why would I want my life to have any meaning? Gee, you stumped me. I guess because otherwise, why not just shoot myself in the head right now? What's the difference?

Edited July 16, 2018 by Stretch

[cirkussmile]

3 hours ago, Stretch said:

 

@Guest Quanty

@cirkussmile  That's the 'truth at all costs' position I alluded to. Fair enough. But it's not an obvious choice, I hope you can see that.

 

 

Hey Stretch!

No suffering is no personal suffering. Life will always bring opposites but when realization happen the suffering is no longer personal.

??

[SoonHei]

1 hour ago, Highest said:

It began with smoking a lot of weed, then I began meditating which opened me to the other side, a lot of energy were absorbed inside me, too much. After a couple of months I arrived at what they call psychosis, which in truth was just the other side apsolutely. I tought for example everyone on the hospital were angels from God. The delusion was real, but what they did and what I saw was real, which made me believe that even my mother was an angel and not my real mother. Energy was pouring out of all humans, from everything, and directly into me. But I was not ready for this radical change, my mind were not ready. That's where you have the delusions of the mind. 

damn

 

that's next level

 

and i guess being mindful in the deepest of depression/times of delusion is the way out... hopefully you're now on stable ground