why some people attain enlightenment faster then others?

[Peo]

This is a question i have wondered for quite a time now. Some people spend 50 years chasing enlightenment and they dont achive it. While some people acchive enlightenment not knowing anything about it, just one day it just hit them out of nowhere. For example Eckhart tolle attain one of the deepest enlightenment. It just happend to him one night. He had no idea what happend to him before he looked it up. He went from stage 1 in the oxherding pictures to picture 5 or 6. Do anyone have a answer to why some people attain enlightenment faster then other people?

 

[Joseph Maynor]

I think the people who attain faster are people who have been working on Enlightenment all their lives without really knowing it.

[Shin]

52 minutes ago, Peo said:

This is a question i have wondered for quite a time now. Some people spend 50 years chasing enlightenment and they dont achive it. While some people acchive enlightenment not knowing anything about it, just one day it just hit them out of nowhere. For example Eckhart tolle attain one of the deepest enlightenment. It just happend to him one night. He had no idea what happend to him before he looked it up. He went from stage 1 in the oxherding pictures to picture 5 or 6. Do anyone have a answer to why some people attain enlightenment faster then other people?

 

Open-mindedness, intuition, vulnerability, willigness, faith, vision etc

Most people don't value or train those abilities, thinking enlightenment will be attained by "x" number of hours on the cushion.
The real work is to unfuck yourself of your thoughts and emotions patterns (which is a 24/7 practice), not to be at peace 20 minutes a day sitted on your bed.

Also, most people don't suffered enough, and therefore don't see any interest to feel better, since they think they are happy.
Or they aren't interested in metaphysical questions, which is totally understandable since we're at stage orange worldwide.

Eckhart Tolle is a bad example, the reason he got enlightened in 1 night is because he was suffering so much, that he couldn't stand living with "himself" anymore.
Very few people would have an enlightenment experience instead of committing suicide with such an experience.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Shin

[Leo Gura]

In any human endeavor you should expect to see a Gaussian distribution curve of results and effectiveness.

There will always be super-human freaks who will attain spiritual heights inaccessible to normal people just as there are weightlifters who can bench press 1000 lbs. Best not to compare yourself to them, or you will forever feel inadequate.

Walk YOUR path. Your path will be uniquely yours.

[winterknight]

1 hour ago, Peo said:

This is a question i have wondered for quite a time now. Some people spend 50 years chasing enlightenment and they dont achive it. While some people acchive enlightenment not knowing anything about it, just one day it just hit them out of nowhere. For example Eckhart tolle attain one of the deepest enlightenment. It just happend to him one night. He had no idea what happend to him before he looked it up. He went from stage 1 in the oxherding pictures to picture 5 or 6. Do anyone have a answer to why some people attain enlightenment faster then other people?

 

The traditional Hindu answer is that those who seem to attain enlightenment effortlessly in this life have exerted the efforts in previous lifetimes. Indeed, even to get to the point where one is interested in the idea is said to take many, many lifetimes.

[Leo Gura]

@winterknight I wonder, is this logic applied to artists and athletes too? Did Tiger Wood spend many lifetimes playing golf?

Why not apply this logic across the board?

But if you acknowledge there are natural differences in golfing ability across people, why not for spirituality as well?

Does every human soul start existence with identical spiritual capacities? Why would that be so?

[ivankiss]

Passion.

[Key Elements]

Ppl in general are born different. That's a given. If you ever worked as a teacher in a school, you will see that some kids are academically inclined and others are not. Those who are not are not doing it on purpose. They are equally as smart. They just have to find another path more suitable for them in life. Yes, some ppl are more prone to become a body builder and some a doctor. You have to discover it for yourself. What are you waiting for? Do a profound life purpose and see things falling into place, including your career with entrepreneurship and enlightenment. A life purpose encompasses everything you put into it.

[winterknight]

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@winterknight I wonder, is this logic applied to artists and athletes too? Did Tiger Wood spend many lifetimes playing golf?

Why not apply this logic across the board?

Well, actually, perhaps it is. Keeping in mind that karma theory is not considered strictly true to advaita vedantins -- it is merely a provisional theory, an approximation for seekers -- there is some evidence along these lines.

Take for example this dialogue with Ramana Maharshi:

 

Maharshi: “There is nothing new under the sun.” What we call inventions or discoveries are merely rediscoveries by competent men with strong samskara [tendencies that result from past actions] in the directions under consideration.

Questioner: Is it so with Newton, Einstein, etc.?

Maharshi: Yes. Certainly. But the samskaras, however strong, will not manifest unless in a calm and still mind. It is within the experience of everyone that his attempts to rake up his memory fail, whereas something flashes in the mind when he is calm and quiet. Mental quiet is necessary even for remembrance of forgotten things. The so-called genius is one who worked hard in his past births and acquired knowledge and kept it in store as samskaras. He now concentrates his mind until it merges in the subject. In that stillness the submerged ideas flash out.

 

Quote

Does every human soul start existence with identical spiritual capacities? Why would that be so?

Well, karma theory doesn't allow that souls "begin" at all. They are eternal. Even at the end of a world cycle they go right back into storage and come back out. This leaves a lot to be explained, of course (one of karma theory's many downsides!)

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, winterknight said:

Well, karma theory doesn't allow that souls "begin" at all. They are eternal. Even at the end of a world cycle they go right back into storage and come back out. This leaves a lot to be explained, of course (one of karma theory's many downsides!)

But supposedly a soul must have a beginning, even if it lasts across multiple lifetimes. The universe did not start out with human souls. They had to be created, and with a full and final liberation they end. They must also be individuated from other souls since all people do not share the same samskaras and past-lives. And just how many souls are there? 7 billion? What happens when the human population doubles? Is there an infinite number of human souls sitting around waiting for the Earth's population to grow before they can take Earthly form? Where did these 7 billion souls come from? Why would they exist long before humans were even a species? Seems like an ineffective design. Or are human souls the recycled souls of dinosaurs?

So the question is, when these souls were born many life-times ago, were they all equally spiritually capable? Or were some more capable than others? Is the soul of a Neanderthal the same as the soul of a Homo Sapien?

Lots of questions arise when it comes to souls and past lives.

[winterknight]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

But supposedly a soul must have a beginning, even if it lasts across multiple lifetimes. The universe did not start out with human souls. They had to be created, and with a full and final liberation they end. They must also be individuated from other souls since all people do not share the same samskaras and past-lives.

So the question is, when these souls were born many life-times ago, were they all equally spiritually capable? Or were so some more capable than others?

Well, karma theory does not agree that souls begin. Souls -- and ignorance -- are "anadi" -- beginningless. Never was there a time when these souls weren't there. So you could never ask what the souls were like when they were "born."

There are other theories, bu they all have their own even worse problems.

These kinds of problems are why advaita vedanta in the end rejects karma theory, and says that the very idea of souls is illusory; actually, they're not even that. That too is said for seeker's sake.

In the end, the souls do not even appear to appear to exist... and so these kinds of questions are deemed simply incoherent.

Edited February 10, 2019 by winterknight

[Leo Gura]

If souls exist they must have a beginning. Since the only thing without a beginning is the Absolute itself. And the whole point of the notion of a soul is that it's localized and finite, as soul is precisely not the Absolute Godhead.

If souls exist, they are subtle forms. Which means they are born and die just like all forms.

Before there was life on Earth, I would expect that there were no souls. So souls must have arose alongside the evolution of life.

[Solace]

The absolute vs the Soul @Leo Gura

 

[winterknight]

15 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If souls exist they must have a beginning. Since the only thing without a beginning is the Absolute itself. And the whole point of the notion of a soul is that it's localized and finite, as soul is precisely not the Absolute Godhead.

If souls exist, they are subtle forms. Which means they are born and die just like all forms.

Before there was life on Earth, I would expect that there were no souls. So souls must have arose alongside the evolution of life.

If souls had a beginning, you'd be left with the question of what caused them to be the way they were, and you'd be left with the same perplexity about  how they began (i.e. do they all have equal capacity, etc.).

Anyhow souls are a false concept, that's the real point.

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, winterknight said:

Anyhow souls are a false concept, that's the real point.

Then how do you explain why some people are so spiritually gifted? Genetics?

Quote

If souls had a beginning, you'd be left with the question of what caused them to be the way they were, and you'd be left with the same perplexity about  how they began

I could buy that souls evolved, similar to how animals did.

[Shin]

8 minutes ago, winterknight said:

 

Anyhow souls are a false concept, that's the real point.

Then what the fuck is past lives ?

From my understanding, that just means the environment of the absolute creating the right conditions to give birth to an individual.
Or it means all the other infinite expression of the same ego share the knowledge of it.

Doesn't matter though, it's all armchair philosophy unless we experience it for ourselves

Edited February 10, 2019 by Shin

[Solace]

Basically it depends on how you define the soul. When some people say soul they are meaning the Absolute. Technically the Soul is a formless awareness and energy that holds all of the knowledge from our past lives.

The soul still has a slight ego (personality) because it is individualized from the Absolute. And it has desires for this lifetime, of how it wants this incarnation (us) to express, and the things to experience and learn. We often ignore our soul desires and create our own using our minds (this is up to us as we have freewill to live and create from our hearts, mind, emotions or physical body, there is no preference to create from the soul or from our minds), and thus, the knowledge we have in this one lifetime. We can also be guided by the higher self, which holds all the knowledge of all of the souls it expressed through.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Solace

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Solace said:

Basically it depends on how you define the soul. When some people say soul they are meaning the Absolute.

That would be an improper definition. When people talk of souls that is different from the Absolute. The Absolute is universal, formless, and infinite. A soul is localized and limited.

When we talk about souls we are talking: Body >> Mind >> Soul >> Absolute Self

Each of those levels is less fundamental than the first. With Body being least fundamental.

The Absolute does not necessarily preclude souls. Souls could be an intermediate structure between Body/Mind and the Absolute.

[winterknight]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Then how do you explain why some people are so spiritually gifted? Genetics?

I could buy that souls evolved, similar to how animals did.

Ultimately "explanation" is like looking into the mind of God... explanation cannot penetrate there. There are just layers, which have to be explained more layers, and then more layers.

The layers can be useful within a certain context. We can know if we drop something it will usually fall. But why was it there in the first place? Trace back the causes... and they will be neverending.

The issue is that the entire mind is a kind of simplification which maps the world into concepts. Maps can never fully represent the territory. The mind creates the idea of "causes and effects" and then asks for causal explanation for what it has deemed effects. But actually there are no causes and effects.

In reality, the entire concept machine, and all its concepts, are limited -- and therefore wrong. 

1 minute ago, Shin said:

Then what the fuck is past lives ?

From my understanding, that just means the environment of the absolute creating the right conditions to give birth to an individual.
Or it means all the other infinite expression of the same ego share the knowledge of it.

Doesn't matter though, it's all armchair philosophy unless we experience it for ourselves.

There cannot be said to be past lives -- or for that matter, present ones -- in reality.

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, winterknight said:

Ultimately "explanation" is like looking into the mind of God... explanation cannot penetrate there. There are just layers, which have to be explained more layers, and then more layers.

The layers can be useful within a certain context. We can know if we drop something it will usually fall. But why was it there in the first place? Trace back the causes... and they will be neverending.

The issue is that the entire mind is a kind of simplification which maps the world into concepts. Maps can never fully represent the territory. The mind creates the idea of "causes and effects" and then asks for causal explanation for what it has deemed effects. But actually there are no causes and effects.

In reality, the entire concept machine, and all its concepts, are limited -- and therefore wrong.

Generally I agree.

But then again, science is moving ahead and it may one day have to map out stuff like souls and perhaps even figure out a way to create them.

For example, maybe it's possible to use the science of souls to create a robot with a soul.