Are Babies Enlightened?

[Andre]

As we come into this world innocent without knowledge of language and any conceptions of reality, Before our minds become trapped by dogma and conditioned by society,Parents, TV, Teachers, etc. could we consider babies to be enlightened?

[99th_monkey]

babies are like a new glob of play-doh fresh out of the tube. perfect just as it is but will dry out and crack and crumble if you dont "do" anything to it. and who cant resist an un-touched glob of play-doh to mold as you see fit

[Flicker_boy]

I like the way Rupert Spira puts it.

He says that babies have no distinction of self and world, they experience it all as one. As we grow old we are taght that we are selves inside a body, and we disidentify from the world. Then when we get into spirituality we complete this movement by disidentifying even from the body. This completes the cicle and we identify as nothing and everything simultaneously.

So in a sense they are enlightened, but their enlightenment can still be taken from them.

[charlie2dogs]

2 hours ago, Andre said:

As we come into this world innocent without knowledge of language and any conceptions of reality, Before our minds become trapped by dogma and conditioned by society,Parents, TV, Teachers, etc. could we consider babies to be enlightened?

no if they were they wouldnt be here.

[Leo Gura]

They're enlightened but don't know it. Just like you

[vizual]

I'm not sure how this works, I only have an intuitive sense, but I believe all beings come into existence to become free of their karma. When a being is still wrapped up in their karma they are not yet "enlightened". If baby's were free of karma they wouldn't have come into this world. That's why people say that "we are all here for a reason". There is stuff here on this planet to do for each of us, and if there weren't it wouldn't make any sense for us to be here at all. 

I'm not saying life has this grand purpose of become free of karma, it's just that's how the flow of life goes.

[Andre]

@charlie2dogs Where would they be then?

[Andre]

On 6/8/2016 at 3:08 PM, vizual said:

I'm not saying life has this grand purpose of become free of karma, it's just that's how the flow of life goes.

@vizual I have questioned purpose for a very long time... Since childhood. I have been running llike a monkey to the next big thing from time to time and at a point of completion this thought struck me, I asked "what is the purpose of all this?", "Whats the point????"....

This video hit home to me:

 

[Mal]

@Andre

Hi Andre, 

This is a good question, something I've been researching.

In my opinion infants are not really "enlightened".  Their state is a condition of unconscious symbiotic fusion - similar to "being" but undifferentiated.

According to the traditions (for example, the Vedic Science concept of "changing levels of mind" (Maharishi 1970) each human being progresses through a series of fundamental shifts of consciousness, from pre-verbal (infancy), to discursive-verbal (adulthood), and in rare cases post-symbolic (transpersonal) and then cosmic consciousness (aka "unity consciousness").  

Some teachers and philosophers are convinced that a person cannot reach what the Vedic tradition calls "full enlightenment" until they have developed their ego, mastered the object world and then transcended it.

Not everybody agrees with this, but I happen to think this reflects the process as accurately as we can make it on an intellectual level.

Mal

[charlie2dogs]

1 hour ago, Andre said:

@charlie2dogs Where would they be then?

where was the consciousness before it came to take up residence in the body of the baby

[Andre]

@charlie2dogs

On 6/9/2016 at 10:38 PM, charlie2dogs said:

where was the consciousness before it came to take up residence in the body of the baby

F-Knows???

[Buba]

On 6/10/2016 at 0:14 AM, Mal said:

@Andre

Hi Andre, 

This is a good question, something I've been researching.

In my opinion infants are not really "enlightened".  Their state is a condition of unconscious symbiotic fusion - similar to "being" but undifferentiated.

According to the traditions (for example, the Vedic Science concept of "changing levels of mind" (Maharishi 1970) each human being progresses through a series of fundamental shifts of consciousness, from pre-verbal (infancy), to discursive-verbal (adulthood), and in rare cases post-symbolic (transpersonal) and then cosmic consciousness (aka "unity consciousness").  

Some teachers and philosophers are convinced that a person cannot reach what the Vedic tradition calls "full enlightenment" until they have developed their ego, mastered the object world and then transcended it.

Not everybody agrees with this, but I happen to think this reflects the process as accurately as we can make it on an intellectual level.

Mal

What do you mean by mastering the object world?

[Prabhaker]

9 minutes ago, Buba said:

What do you mean by mastering the object world?

Before you can lose your ego, you must attain it. The real can be known only through the false, so the ego is a must. One has to pass through it. 

[Spiral]

The sure seem to suffer a lot for being enlightened ? but do absolutely see your point

[isabel]

On 6/9/2016 at 1:38 PM, charlie2dogs said:

where was the consciousness before it came to take up residence in the body of the baby

consciousness is not somewhere else away from us, there is a space but we are in the space already

a baby being born is consciousness taking form 

so the consciousness in the baby is something that was here with us the whole time

so are babies enlightened? yes, everything is

probably...idk really

[Archen]

There is a quote by a man named Elliot Hulse which i feel applies here. "We come to the earth whole, but humanity shatters our whole and we lose our parts. Our journey in life is to remember and find these parts, and become whole again."

[Joseph Maynor]

ARE BABIES ENLIGHTENED?

Maybe!  But they lose it as soon as they start clinging to the Paradigm of Self.  Enlightenment is surrendering to BE-ing in the moment without pre-judgments or pre-expectations; and it's also a transcendence of all paradigms, including but not limited to the 'Paradigm of Self Or No Self'.

Babies haven't even been programmed with paradigms, so they've transcended all paradigms because they haven't learned them yet.

At a certain point though, the babies will start clinging to the Paradigm of Self and start getting triggered by things in their experience that are not aligned with what their wants.  That's definitely game over for Enlightenment.  The Paradigm of Self, which creates a Self, causes the baby to identify with the Ego in their experience, and they start to take things personally and get offended by certain things in experience, etc.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Solace]

I see babies as a pure expression of source consciousness. You can see the light coming through their eyes, and their smile. They come in at the 48th level of consciousness. Read more here if you are interested: http://www.transcendencetoolbox.com/spiritual-psychology/levels-of-consicousness

[Forestluv]

9 hours ago, Prabhaker said:

Before you can lose your ego, you must attain it. 

The ego is no more attainable than the images appearing on a movie screen.

[cetus]

51 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

ARE BABIES ENLIGHTENED?

Maybe!  But they lose it as soon as they start clinging to the Paradigm of Self.  Enlightenment is surrendering to BE-ing in the moment without pre-judgments or pre-expectations; and it's also a transcendence of all paradigms, including but not limited to the Paradigm of Self.

Babies haven't even been programmed with paradigms, so they've transcended all paradigms because they haven't learned them yet.

@Joseph Maynor I can remember back to when I was about 4 and 5 years old. What I remember most vividly is the experiences of oneness with existence that would happen out of nowhere from time to time. I suddenly felt as if I had two mothers when it would happen. One a physical mother. And one a mother that was everywhere/everything/infinite. Than as I entered school that feeling of universal connectedness slowly went away as I  developed a separate personality and became an "individual".  That continued all through my teenage years/high school until I was about 21.  At that age I experienced something that brought me back to that original awareness of oneness that I had long forgotten about. It was like "hello old friend- It's been a long time". Bottom line, this awareness started as far back as I remember. Maybe it took a hiatus for a while. But it's always been here.