Question About Enlightment

[abrakamowse]

My question basically is how do we know that what we are perceiving when we are enlightened is the truth and not another construct of our mind?

 

 

[mgi0077]

when you no longer need to ask that question

[abrakamowse]

Thanks mgi0077, you are totally right.

 

I think I just have the response from what you just posted. Thanks!

Edited February 8, 2016 by abrakamowse

[abrakamowse]

Is The best way to be enlightened just to observe your thoughts and reactions without being involved in them? Is there a point where you became aware of who you really are?

[Ayla]

28 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

Is The best way to be enlightened just to observe your thoughts and reactions without being involved in them? Is there a point where you became aware of who you really are?

It is ONE way yes. Most importantly, ask who is the one having those thoughts? Where do they arise from and where do they go? 

Acknowledge that the Mind is just an illusion and dismiss it as such. 

[abrakamowse]

27 minutes ago, Ayla said:

It is ONE way yes. Most importantly, ask who is the one having those thoughts? Where do they arise from and where do they go? 

Acknowledge that the Mind is just an illusion and dismiss it as such. 

Cool Ayla, thanks for your comments. Sometimes I got a bit anxious and I want to become aware very fast hehehe.... thanks again!

[abrakamowse]

5 minutes ago, Spacious said:

Seeking/striving/wanting is the antithesis of the state as it is the refusal to accept exactly where one is. The mindset happens when it happens. You can only provide the conditioning, the mindset is a consequence. 

Thank you very much, very nice answer. I see... I need to stop seeking. It's true.

[jjer94]

Quote

Cool Ayla, thanks for your comments. Sometimes I got a bit anxious and I want to become aware very fast hehehe.... thanks again!

You can't want to be aware; you already are. Instead of striving to add stuff to your present experience, you may want to ask yourself what is the rubbish in the way that is preventing me from seeing that awareness is my natural state? The pathless path to enlightenment is not one of adding awareness, of 'trying' to be aware. It's one of subtracting out all the bull---- your mind says so that awareness becomes your natural state. And for that...sorry to say, but you're going to have to stop running away from your anxiety and instead face it. You will need to enter into the things you fear, the things that cause you emotional pain, in order to understand the stories you tell yourself that give you a reason to suffer. 

“It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” -Bruce Lee

[Galyna]

In my opinion self-awareness is not enough to become fully Enlightened. From what I've read it comes by luck, pure luck, and! practice of course.

[Khin]

 

1 hour ago, Galyna said:

In my opinion self-awareness is not enough to become fully Enlightened. From what I've read it comes by luck, pure luck, and! practice of course.

Yeah, were does that luck come from? Actually it seems like by luck but actually it's not. There are cause and effect. When external colors are added in to you, your color changes depending on your original color. It is the same thing here. Depending on your original self, you will understand things differently on different things. People are different, that's why they become enlightened by different causes. We cannot attain enlightenment by meditation but by observing our true self with true awareness. Awareness is like water that is not moving, still and clear. You can see your true self in that water. Meditation is a way of making water not to move, clearing the muds and trash. That is practice. It will clear the trash in your mind which are thoughts. When water is still and clear, you will be able to see through water and your reflection. When your mind is clear and still it becomes clean and clear water which is true awareness. With true awareness, you will be able to see your true self inside out. Thoughts like to make up things. Thoughts like to go to future and past which aren't even exist. Therefore thoughts are compared as muds and moving water. Awareness is like water because in the clean and unmoving lake, you know water is there but it does not block you from seeing into it or seeing your true self. So it's not luck that makes a person enlightened. It's self observing, looking deep in to your senses, origin of thoughts, and thing that are naturally happening in you with clean awareness. After many times of practices (Meditation), that awareness will become large and clean enough to see and cover all the possibilities for you to become enlightened. You will be able to observe more and more things with that awareness and eventually will meet the need of your original true self to be enlightened. At that point, the person will be enlightened without anyone's control, not even self control. No practice needed after wards. Everything will flow through to enlightened state naturally.

[Galyna]

Great answer, thank you! It is hard to articulate with the words here when talking about subjective reality.

I am aware of my self, what I mean by this is that I notice my body in the 3D space, I notice when I think, when I look, move my eyes, my hands, I notice objects around me and my thoughts, I am attentive to people's words and what they says (not 100% of the time of course). I really love this state. I also notice how my thoughts make me emotional, causing fear/suffer/pleasure. I notice when I am critical to other people, when I am rude, angry, or happy and playful. But I am scared of meditation, that is why I think that only self-awareness will not make me Enlightened. 

Please share what it is for you to be self-aware. Does it mean to be fully attentive to the present moment, observing reality?

[abrakamowse]

First of all, thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts, it helped me a lot to understand a bit more.

To Galyna (I'm not sure if you asked me, but this is what I think about self-awareness): At this moment I feel like awareness is realize that you are not your ego and act in that way. Act without preconceptions, seeing things the way they really are and not the way I think they are.

At this moment, I know intellectually that I'm not my ego, that I am not my thoughts, emotions, etc. But they still control me, right now through observing the environment, my reactions, observing my thoughts I am beginning to develop a bit more of awareness, but I know I still have work to be done to clean the mud of my emotions, thoughts, etc . I am still no confident, I have fears, I don't see very well the problems of why I'm still not as successful as I would like, etc.

And about meditation, don't be scared. The meditation that I think we need to be aware is just to be more in touch with reality. Not trying to reach an state of nirvana or anything like that. It's just see the reality better without all the ideas that we have from past experiences, thoughts, preconceived ideas, etc.

That's at least what I understand at this moment. 

 

Thanks everybody again for your valuable input!!!

[HGGabrielF]

@abrakamowse

It happens.

[abrakamowse]

Thanks! @HGGabrielF

[Khin]

16 hours ago, Galyna said:

Please share what it is for you to be self-aware. Does it mean to be fully attentive to the present moment, observing reality?

Not sure if you asked me. LOL! Let me share but decide yourself. Self-awareness for me is Doing nothing (mentally). Being a stranger to myself. Looking at thoughts, feelings, and senses without trying to take control over them. Looking at how they arise and disappear. It is what Leo's been practicing. We can never TRY to be FULLY attentive to the present moment. One can try to be in present moment but that is not fully attentive though. A person will be fully attentive to present moment when something strike one's need (As I mentioned). By need I meant something that would make one to curious and see the glimpse of reality. It could be a sight, sound, one word, a thought, an act, you never know. But you need man-made awareness (cleared water) to see when it strikes. If not, it won't be noticed in muds. That's why meditation is so important even it doesn't make one to be enlightened. When you meet that need, do not worry about FULLY attentive part. Your awareness will increase. It will transform from man-made (we think) to natural and that natural awareness is sharper than you could ever imagine. One will not sure if YOU or I (soul) really does exist. Natural awareness will do all the job. It will do really thorough observations. Observation  of if entity really does exist or not. It knows itself and other senses. It knows when it appears and disappears. It also knows when other senses appear and disappear.

Let me also quote this.

18 hours ago, Pinocchio said:

In fact self-awareness eventually needs to go.

It's not like natural awareness stays and knows everything. It also comes and goes thousands of times in one minute. That is why you can't say that awareness is You. One will know that better in actual experience.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Khin
sentence error

[abrakamowse]

Very interesting @Khin . One thing that it came to my mind was that Leo said that we are "reality", if I understood that well. And we basically are nothing. 

 

That part is the most difficult to understand for me at the moment hehehe....

Thanks for your comments!

[Luna Wilde]

@Khin I love that explanation! Thank you for sharing. Do you have a particular technique or method of meditation? Right now I am using a guided meditation by Tara Brach that brings you into the present, focusing on breath, sound and the body. I am interested in how other people practice.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Luna Wilde

[abrakamowse]

@Luna Wilde  I am actually using one of the techniques shared by Leo, it is called mindfulness meditation.

Probably you saw it already. Here it is in case you didn't.

http://www.actualized.org/articles/mindfulness

[Luna Wilde]

@abrakamowse That's great, thank you. I will watch it again. 

[Khin]

@Luna Wilde I have been using Do nothing for six years now. That's  exactly which Leo was saying.

18 hours ago, abrakamowse said:

One thing that it came to my mind was that Leo said that we are "reality", if I understood that well. And we basically are nothing. 

To me, what he meant by reality was the present moment. Only the present moment exists and that present moment is always changing. Doesn't even last for one second. But your mind is too trashy to notice the reality (no awareness). For example, someone cursed at you and you heard it. But did you aware of a sound being just a sound? Did you aware that sound just goes away after the air hits your ear drum. Mostly no. So the consequences come along. Ex: the anger, disappointment, etc...

So a sound is just a sound, a sight is just a sight, that's reality. Hearing and seeing are reality. Also, they don't last forever, they disappear right away. That's reality. The body exists but not the same as last year. Cells changed, everything changed and it's all new now. That's reality. ALL DISAPPEAR. it's what I call little DEATH. Therefore, there is No such thing as permanent I because if you are the 'hearing sense' then when it disappears You disappear. Nothing is permanence so you are impermanence and that's why you are NOTHING.