Confusion About Seeking Enlightenment

[Huz]

I am confused about this matter:

So many people tell me not to seek enlightenment as a goal because you defeating the purpose of it, as you are it now and always. They say by you trying to attain it is your ego grasping it because it's not happy with itself and will get you nowhere. 

On the other hand people tell me not to suppress my ego on this journey. But by me thinking of enlightenment as a target is a egoic thing, so should I not suppress it and let it just play out?

[Rodrigo]

10 minutes ago, Huz88 said:

I am confused about this matter:

So many people tell me not to seek enlightenment as a goal because you defeating the purpose of it, as you are it now and always. They say by you trying to attain it is your ego grasping it because it's not happy with itself and will get you nowhere. 

On the other hand people tell me not to suppress my ego on this journey. But by me thinking of enlightenment as a target is a egoic thing, so should I not suppress it and let it just play out?

 All you have is thought. You can think whatever it is that your perceptions make you think but you will never get anything more than your thoughts. You can think someone is enlightened or even that you are enlightened but it will always be thought....and thoughts are not real hence,...

 

[Huz]

Hence,... what I am saying is pointless 

 

[SkyPanther]

1 hour ago, Huz88 said:

I am confused about this matter:

So many people tell me not to seek enlightenment as a goal because you defeating the purpose of it, as you are it now and always. They say by you trying to attain it is your ego grasping it because it's not happy with itself and will get you nowhere. 

On the other hand people tell me not to suppress my ego on this journey. But by me thinking of enlightenment as a target is a egoic thing, so should I not suppress it and let it just play out?

The thing is not so much the seeking, but the seriousness of it(there should be no seriousness in it at all, it should be sincerity).  And further, the understanding that your ego will be with you till the end of enlightenment.

Some lucky people get what is called "spontaneous" first stage of enlightenment.  People like Tolle, etc. And there are others that have to work toward it.

You can work toward it so long as you stick(or realize) with seeing the ego for what it is (a compounded entity), and slowly chipping away at it, till it becomes so thin it pops, or fades away.  When that happens you get "full awakening", and along the path you will go through various stages of awakening that technically also mean you are "enlightened" but not fully.

Why does this sound so contradictory? On one hand you have always been enlightened, on the other hand you have to work toward it.  This is because you are removing the conditioning of society, parents, nature from your ego, slowly unraveling it. Till at the end you see nothing. 

In essence you forget (then bury)what you were, and the work is to remember (and remove all the cruft) again, but you do that by removing the concepts that bind your ego together as an "I".  "This is who I am!".

Edited April 14, 2016 by SkyPanther

[Huz]

Ok, I understand thank you for that. Helped put a lot of things into perspective 

Is realisation really that random and doesn't depend on the state of the ego? Wasn't Tolle suffering from severe depression, meaning his sense of self and ego was very strong. But yet it took so little work...

have you had any enlightenment experiences?

[SkyPanther]

26 minutes ago, Huz88 said:

Ok, I understand thank you for that. Helped put a lot of things into perspective 

Is realisation really that random and doesn't depend on the state of the ego? Wasn't Tolle suffering from severe depression, meaning his sense of self and ego was very strong. But yet it took so little work...

have you had any enlightenment experiences?

I had a spontaneous awakening (or at least the description of what I experienced matches other peoples experiences that have gotten the first step of awakening)

Tolle explains it here:

 

 

But be mindful that this is just the "first" phase of four (though it depends on the tradition, in Buddhism it is four).

We actually had a discussion about this video here:

 

 

[Leo Gura]

Covered here:

http://www.actualized.org/articles/being-a-spiritual-seeker-good-or-bad

[Huz]

Thanks I love all you guys for helping me out thanks so much, the best forum site on the whole World Wide Web 

[bobbyward]

it helps to realise that there is really no one seeking and no seeking. what you call you seeking is just experience as you seeking, you seeking is just the shape experience takes. you cant wake up, if waking up happens its just the shape experience takes. 

in your inquiry you need to look for whats true, the problem is the ego often wants answers to comfort it.