Does Enlightenment Exist?

[Guest SCM]

I’ve been following Leo for about a year now and I learned some wonderful and useful things that I were able to put into practice and make life changes.

But! I’m struggling to believe that there is something like “enlightenment”. Isn’t enlightenment just another idea or concept of hoping for a better life just like religion?

Why is so difficult for people to accept that we might just be an organism with a brain that triggers thoughts and emotions?

I’ve been trying to research this topic further online in hopes that there is something that I’m just not understanding or missing, but all I’m finding is even less convincing.

Does anyone feel the same? 

[Nic]

Hi Stephanie,

I don't know if it exists, I just know that If you look for an answer, that will make the thing that you are trying to get rid of stronger. The question will make you spin until you find an answer that you like... and then come the next question.

Like "isn't it something good to be able to ask questions?" 

Step out of the running wheel. The question-answering process is making you believe that there is a right a wrong, this creates the (false) separation.

Silence is golden has never been so true. Watch your head looking for an answer, it runs on automatic. 

Understanding is not what will help you on this path. Doubts will help you much more! Not the answers to those doubts, only the feeling of doubts, watch it and embrace it!

Take care

Edited April 5, 2016 by Nic

[nbolt]

 

39 minutes ago, stephanie said:

I’ve been following Leo for about a year now and I learned some wonderful and useful things that I were able to put into practice and make life changes.

But! I’m struggling to believe that there is something like “enlightenment”. Isn’t enlightenment just another idea or concept of hoping for a better life just like religion?

Why is so difficult for people to accept that we might just be an organism with a brain that triggers thoughts and emotions?

I’ve been trying to research this topic further online in hopes that there is something that I’m just not understanding or missing, but all I’m finding is even less convincing.

Does anyone feel the same? 

 

Religions are irrational perversions of ancient philosophies that feed the ego, here is Leo's video on the subject.

Yes, human beings are just organisms with a brain, and that brain is responsible for generating what most of us experience as consciousness; it is responsible for the creation of the ego that you falsely identify yourself with, and is the origin of all suffering. This is what enlightenment is, discovering the reality of your existential nature. What's important here is to recognize just how practical this work actually is. We're not talking about some vague, armchair-style musings on religion or philosophy, we're talking about making very real, practical changes in your life through direct experience. I recommend checking out Leo's latest video on the benefits on enlightenment to get a better sense of what we're talking about:
 

We also have a thread going with our other favorite enlightenment videos, if hearing things from a different perspective helps at all: 

 

Edited April 5, 2016 by Neill Bolton

[jjer94]

Hi Stephanie,

Thank you for being skeptical! Talking about enlightenment is some of the trickiest, most esoteric sh*t and it can be very easy to dismiss it or be skeptical. I encourage you to continue being skeptical.

25 minutes ago, stephanie said:

But! I’m struggling to believe that there is something like “enlightenment”. Isn’t enlightenment just another idea or concept of hoping for a better life just like religion?

This is a very insightful thing to say. The short answer is no, the sort-of long answer is it can be.

No: A barebones definition of enlightenment I use is the realization of your true nature. Your true nature is right here, right now, and it is absolutely perfect. Hope is imagining something better for the future. How can something perfect be better in the future? After realizing your true nature, hope is no longer necessary. However, if you're just starting out, you'll at least need some hope to motivate you to pursue enlightenment.

It can be: Sometimes, people take enlightenment teachings that are only supposed to point to your true nature and spin them into a religion, i.e. a belief system. When that happens, "hoping for a better life" is usually included in the belief system.

34 minutes ago, stephanie said:

Why is so difficult for people to accept that we might just be an organism with a brain that triggers thoughts and emotions?

Why is it so difficult for you to accept that you may not be an organism with a brain that triggers thoughts and emotions?

Here are some thought experiments to get you started along this line of inquiry:

If I cut off your arm right now, would you still be you? 

Your cells apparently replace themselves every 10 years. Are you still you?

You can't experience your apparent brain. How do you know it's there?

Where does "Stephanie" fit in with the organism?

Cheers!

[Emerald]

For what it's worth, I've had two experiences of dis-identification with my self concept (enlightenment). My level of consciousness was artificially expanded through taking Ayahuasca which made it easy to see how much I had been sacrificing to carry around, exalt, damn, protect, and perserve an empty thought story that I thought was me. Enlightenment is nothing more than a realization that the self-concept is nothing more than a thought story, and as a result a deep realization of the perfection in everything that produces deep feelings of unconditional love and acceptance for all that is.

[Guest SCM]

Thank you for all your kind replies. I think I'm trying to put too much definition to the word "enlightenment". 

[cetus]

10 hours ago, stephanie said:

eI’ve been following Leo for about a year now and I learned some wonderful and useful things that I were able to put into practice and make life changes.

But! I’m struggling to believe that there is something like “enlightenment”. Isn’t enlightenment just another idea or concept of hoping for a better life just like religion?

Why is so difficult for people to accept that we might just be an organism with a brain that triggers thoughts and emotions?

I’ve been trying to research this topic further online in hopes that there is something that I’m just not understanding or missing, but all I’m finding is even less convincing.

Does anyone feel the same? 

 

@stephanie Hi, I understand enlightenment as simply the lifting of a vail from the eyes. Everything is seen in it's true light and accepted for how it is. Think of a very wise old woman. She has seen it all in her life time. The good, the bad, war, peace, hunger, plenty, love , hate, sickness, birth, death. All of it. And what she has not seen yet, would never surprise her. She is unshakable. She accepts everything for what it is and understands that everything is exactly as it is for a reason. She is long past asking herself "Why?" She has no desires for what she does not have already. She has made peace with her ultimate destiny and welcomes it when her time comes. She has become neutral and silent in thought through the lesson of life.  Would that be called enlightenment? Not by her.

[Ben]

Yes, it exists. It's just utterly different from anything you could ever imagine, because everything you imagine is within the confines of your illusory sense of self. 

Enlightenment is the absense of everything you know, so of course it's unimaginable while you're living within the confines of the illusory self. There's only one way to find out for yourself, and I'm sure you can guess what that is. 

[SkyPanther]

19 hours ago, stephanie said:

Thank you for all your kind replies. I think I'm trying to put too much definition to the word "enlightenment". 

Here is a completely secular point of view of "enlightenment".

 

 

The word itself is just loaded now.  The real meaning is just seeing reality as it is. Without the concepts we wrap around everything we see.

And this includes the concept of your ego, or self.

For example, what is a "car"?  If you looked at a car, could you find the thing that is the car?  Or is it a concept of things in a certain pattern that create it?  The wheels, the body, the chassis, the engine?   There is no inherent "car" in a car, that is just a concept. And all the other parts of the car are also concepts.

Ditto for things like "cat".  A cat is not a thing, it is an organism (which is also a concept) that acts and looks a certain way that we call "cat". 

And now if you look at your ego, it is memories, habitual tendencies, interests, and projections that you have identified with, but in reality all you are is "matter" and energy that is a certain pattern.  How you act is conditioned on your life experiences, and your genetic predispositions. If you see this clearly, the sense of a static "self" disappears and reality becomes a lot more clear, and stress free because you realize that your emotions, and all the problems you have are all conditioned, and not "self". 

 

Edited April 6, 2016 by SkyPanther

[cetus]

@SkyPanther This makes me wonder if what we interpret as experiencing a state of bliss, pure self, true self, soul, pure being, what ever you choose to call it, could that be the shutting down of the part of the brain that is responsible for the self conscious (the monkey mind). I experienced a silent ocean of pure being twice and both times there was a distinct shift in Conscionsceness. It felt like awareness came to a point of focus right before it happened. Than the mind became void of all thoughts. All that remained was consciousness and a total stillness and a feeling of bliss. Could that experience be caused by the shutting down of a certain part of the brain?  I guess that gets into bio-feedback.  Who knows, maybe someday we will have the technology to be able to induce a state of bliss through electrodes that swich off the "monkey mind". Bliss on demand. There could be franchises. "The Bliss bar"  "The Bliss-tro".  Imagine that, everybody hanging out with electrodes on their heads half blissed. Very cool!

[Dodo]

10 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

@SkyPanther This makes me wonder if what we interpret as experiencing a state of bliss, pure self, true self, soul, pure being, what ever you choose to call it, could that be the shutting down of the part of the brain that is responsible for the self conscious (the monkey mind). I experienced a silent ocean of pure being twice and both times there was a distinct shift in Conscionsceness. It felt like awareness came to a point of focus right before it happened. Than the mind became void of all thoughts. All that remained was consciousness and a total stillness and a feeling of bliss. Could that experience be caused by the shutting down of a certain part of the brain?  I guess that gets into bio-feedback.  Who knows, maybe someday we will have the technology to be able to induce a state of bliss through electrodes that swich off the "monkey mind". Bliss on demand. There could be franchises. "The Bliss bar"  "The Bliss-tro".  Imagine that, everybody hanging out with electrodes on their heads half blissed. Very cool!

2 words: Mary Juana

[cetus]

@Dodoster I'm caught!  Hehe

[SkyPanther]

49 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

@SkyPanther This makes me wonder if what we interpret as experiencing a state of bliss, pure self, true self, soul, pure being, what ever you choose to call it, could that be the shutting down of the part of the brain that is responsible for the self conscious (the monkey mind). I experienced a silent ocean of pure being twice and both times there was a distinct shift in Conscionsceness. It felt like awareness came to a point of focus right before it happened. Than the mind became void of all thoughts. All that remained was consciousness and a total stillness and a feeling of bliss. Could that experience be caused by the shutting down of a certain part of the brain?  I guess that gets into bio-feedback.  Who knows, maybe someday we will have the technology to be able to induce a state of bliss through electrodes that swich off the "monkey mind". Bliss on demand. There could be franchises. "The Bliss bar"  "The Bliss-tro".  Imagine that, everybody hanging out with electrodes on their heads half blissed. Very cool!

I do not know;  Sam Harris would be a good person to ask though, heh...

I can say that from my reading and experience (during meditation) the default state of the mind is "equanimity", or "sublime bliss".  And it is because your mind, for those moments that you are being mindful, is free of "conceptual proliferation".

If you have the interest there is a booklet that is very interesting in that it points to exactly this when talking about "nibbana" or enlightenment(It is also what is mentioned in the the Wikilink above):

Concept and Reality

http://www.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/concept_and_reality.pdf

It is also interesting to note, that a lot of people that have near death experience, also state that they experience bliss. And this could also be because their consciousness is being freed from the "mind", because they are slowly dying, and parts of the brain are shutting down.

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2016 by SkyPanther

[cetus]

@SkyPanther Yes, NDE is very similar an awakening experience of bliss or pure self or soul.  I became interested in nde's after my first experience and many reports are identical. Many also interpret that experience it in their own personal way to too. Religious or whatever. In that type of sudden near death experience, ( when you let go of the body/ self) I would think that the mind would cling to whatever is available to believe in. Fall back on the faith, so to speak. Sharon Stone had a NDE. She said one thing that I can really relate to, "where we go when we pass, is right here!" And she puts out her hand showing Opra Winfree the empty space next to her. I had that same exact impression after my first experience.  I don't know if that's just how the mind interprets itself when no thoughts arise?

[SkyPanther]

1 hour ago, cetus56 said:

@SkyPanther Yes, NDE is very similar an awakening experience of bliss or pure self or soul.  I became interested in nde's after my first experience and many reports are identical. Many also interpret that experience it in their own personal way to too. Religious or whatever. In that type of sudden near death experience, ( when you let go of the body/ self) I would think that the mind would cling to whatever is available to believe in. Fall back on the faith, so to speak. Sharon Stone had a NDE. She said one thing that I can really relate to, "where we go when we pass, is right here!" And she puts out her hand showing Opra Winfree the empty space next to her. I had that same exact impression after my first experience.  I don't know if that's just how the mind interprets itself when no thoughts arise?

It could be.  Maybe you shift back to pure awareness?  I can make conjectures of the different theories put out by various faiths, for instance in Buddhism there is the idea of the mind-stream, which is what is actually "rebirthed"... but is just really the communal habits of all your past lives.

If you go deeper into meditation, and hit "Cessation" (the result of getting to the 8th immaterial Jhana), you are not aware of actually being conscious, and only know you were there when you regain consciousness.   (I have only gotten to the 4th Jhana/pre-5th thus far, so cannot collaborate the higher ones.)

I did get a device that displays your brainwaves: http://store.neurosky.com/pages/mindwave

But have not hooked it up yet to see what happens when I start bumping against the 5th Jhana while in the 4th. Should be interesting though. 

Edited April 6, 2016 by SkyPanther

[cetus]

Just now, SkyPanther said:

 

If you go deeper into meditation, and hit "Cessation" (the 9th immaterial Jhana), you are not aware of actually being conscious, and only know you were there when you regain consciousness.   (I have only gotten to the 4th Jhana/pre-5th thus far, so cannot collaborate the higher ones.)

 

Oh, I did that. Once. I did not exist at all when it happened. It is total void within awareness. I only realized it of course after I came back to a state of floating in pure being. In meditation pure being was floating in an ocean, and there was just an essence of self awareness. Than pure being let go and into the ocean it disappeared. It merged with it. All gone! Awareness totally vanished at that point. Pure emptiness. And the funny thing was, I was thinking after that "that should be really scary ". But it wasn't at all.   I understood that was just my thinking mind producing that thought. When you don't exist, you don't exist! The most amazing experience I never had.

[SkyPanther]

5 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

Oh, I did that. Once. I did not exist at all when it happened. It is total void within awareness. I only realized it of course after I came back to a state of floating in pure being. In meditation pure being was floating in an ocean, and there was just an essence of self awareness. Than pure being let go and into the ocean it disappeared. It merged with it. All gone! Awareness totally vanished at that point. Pure emptiness. And the funny thing was, I was thinking after that "that should be really scary ". But it wasn't at all.   I understood that was just my thinking mind producing that thought. When you don't exist, you don't exist! The most amazing experience I never had.

That sounds pretty interesting.  Apparently really experienced meditators can stay in that state for up to seven days without eating, drinking or going to the bathroom, etc.  

Supposedly, the breath is also very shallow and slow, and the heartbeat is also a lot slower.

I've had something like that, but it was not really during meditation, it was after partially waking up, and being in between sleep and being awake, and then there was a "hole" that I only realized after I came back...  but I have never been able to get to this state when meditating. But, I have only been meditating for about a year.

And that may not be the same thing as "Cessation".

Edited April 6, 2016 by SkyPanther

[cetus]

1 hour ago, SkyPanther said:

Supposedly, the breath is also very shallow and slow, and the heartbeat is also a lot slower.

Did you ever hear that Christ may have achieved this? Where was he from the age of 13-31?

Edited April 6, 2016 by cetus56

[SkyPanther]

25 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

Did you ever hear that Christ may have achieved this? Where was he from the age of 13-31?

No, But I have heard stories that Christ traveled the world collecting different teachings in his missing years... which is why "I am the son of god" is not so "crazy" when you look at if from the Eastern point of view (because in their POV so is everyone else, you just have to realize this), but is a big "departure" from the Judaic roots that support Christianity.   I know the Early Christian Gnostics were also very similar to yogies. 

And Early Judaism and Christianity had threads of reincarnation in it:

--

Judaism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgul

Gilgul/Gilgul neshamot/Gilgulei describes a Kabbalistic concept of reincarnation. In Hebrew, the word gilgul means "cycle" or "wheel" and neshamot is the plural for "souls." Souls are seen to "cycle" through "lives" or "incarnations", being attached to different human bodies over time. 

Christianity:

http://www.near-death.com/reincarnation/history/early-christianity.html

These writings affirmed the existence of the doctrine of reincarnation being taught among the early Jews and Christians. These Christian mystics, referred to as Christian Gnostics, were ultimately destroyed by the orthodox Church for being heretics. 

--

 Most people that follow either religion ignore these because it does not fit the egoic sense of self they want to go on after death. 

Edited April 6, 2016 by SkyPanther

[cetus]

@SkyPanther Please, keep us informed about the neurosky. The last time I looked into it, they were still trying to perfect the reusable sensors. Saline free..