Do You Have To Have An Enlightenment Experience To Become Enlightened?

[Flicker_boy]

I'm just really confused with this concept cause while guys like sadhguru talk about a experience beyond space and time others like rupert spira and jeff forster talk about a simple recognition. You know, a simple recognition is that, simple. Easy to manage and live. As opposed to some extraordinary experince which just seems to me like creating needs.

[Natasha]

6 minutes ago, Lorenzo Engel said:

I'm just really confused with this concept cause while guys like sadhguru talk about a experience beyond space and time others like rupert spira and jeff forster talk about a simple recognition. You know, a simple recognition is that, simple. Easy to manage and live. As opposed to some extraordinary experince which just seems to me like creating needs.

It's a subtle shift in perspective.

Example: you see an object sitting on the beach. You get closer, it's a sand castle. Is the sand castle separate from the sand? No. As matter of fact, the castle IS sand, it just looks like it's separate. 

You're self-realized/ awaken when you realize that everything (including yourself) is one substance (sand, in our example) manifesting/ experiencing itself as object reality (sand castle, in our example). Right now you are that sand castle thinking to be separate from sand. But the shift would allow to 'see' yourself as the castle being merely what it is - sand. 

A simple recognition, nothing earth shattering  

[Key Elements]

Both are true. One experience can help understand the other. Both mean peace. If there were no extraordinary experiences beyond time and space, no one would be talking about it, and it wouldn't be wide spread and much of a news. Even psychology has a topic called parapsychology. 

Ralph in the clip below says it in very subtle ways - kinda funny to me but I understand - not so easy to say it openly - cause people do get criticized and ridiculed for it...

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by Key Elements

[cetus]

@Lorenzo Engel Almost 35 years ago I had an awakening experience. It was for me anyway. A realization to something that I had never considered possible before. Something that would have seemed absurd until that experience happened. It was the realization that what I had always thought to be a separate "me" within this world was an illusion and everything in the universe was really one thing happening.  There was no internet to get information from at that time. I was wondering what that was that I was experiencing. I knew it felt true compared to what I previously thought of as a self. So I searched around local book stores and found something called "enlightenment" or "cosmic consciousness". There's a phrase they don't use much any more. After 35 years what I have personally experienced has been pretty much more of the same to varying degrees of no-self and connectedness to everything. I practiced meditation and I use to be waiting for the "big" life altering experience to happen. I thought that first awakening was just the beginning to much bigger things. And it is, but on more of a subtle level so far. For the most part I now see that the initial awakening was pretty much the major part of the awakening. Sure it is still a continuous unfolding process, it's a life long journey. But it's still more of the same original awakening being built upon. I'm not saying that's enlightenment and I could be missing something huge all this time. And I know I still have a long way to go. But I am no longer expecting another "big" enlightenment experience to happen that takes it to the next level suddenly. It seems to me now that what it's all about is simply resting as awareness. So that's my personal journey. So far........ ** I know some people say they have experience extraordinary things happening like meeting multi-dimensional beings, astral travel and such. I'm not saying it can't happen, but personally I have no experience of anything like that. Are there other realms of existence? Could we be multi-dimensional beings or something more than what we normally perceive ourselves to be? I guess it all depends on who you ask. It's a mystery I personally don't have the answers to. If something extraordinary does happen that suddenly changes everything, I'll let you know. Till than, I rest as awareness the best I can.

[cetus]

@Lorenzo Engel

Found this and thought it was interesting to listen to.  It's not woo-woo stuff, just a little different view maybe.

[Key Elements]

I think Ralph is doing a great job at being discreet in his enlightenment experiences. Anyone here with enlightenment experiences can learn a lot from Ralph in how to express it without being judged too much.  Teal, on the other hand, is very bold, and then became kinda discreet later on. 

@Leo Gura You are also kinda discreet in some areas of your enlightenment clips. 

I like the discreetness. Looks adorable and those who gained experiences are able to learn from them.

[Grasshopper]

@Lorenzo Engel I don't think you need some extraordinary experience. I haven't, and honestly I'm glad, because otherwise I might think I'm crazy. But everything I realized can be explained in plain English, although some people might not be able to relate if they haven't tried looking themselves.

The biggest thing is probably just noticing that what you've been thinking about reality is something that was told to you by people who don't know any more than you do. You have a model in your head of how the world works, how you work, and what your relationship to the world is. All those are just guesses at reality. Even what you've told yourself up to this point is probably just a guess. So if you've been stubbornly clinging to those guesses, it can cause a lot of suffering. Taking a moment to notice how all that suffering is based on fluff, it can bring a lot of relief.

[cetus]

@Natasha  You may have seen this already.  I watched some of it. What is said @12:00- 25:00 creates a real nice spaciousness.

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by cetus56

[Salaam]

16 hours ago, Natasha said:

It's a subtle shift in perspective.

Example: you see an object sitting on the beach. You get closer, it's a sand castle. Is the sand castle separate from the sand? No. As matter of fact, the castle IS sand, it just looks like it's separate. 

You're self-realized/ awaken when you realize that everything (including yourself) is one substance (sand, in our example) manifesting/ experiencing itself as object reality (sand castle, in our example). Right now you are that sand castle thinking to be separate from sand. But the shift would allow to 'see' yourself as the castle being merely what it is - sand. 

A simple recognition, nothing earth shattering  

Sand isn't just sand though. It's quartz and feldspar and mica, and a whole host of other minerals all mixed together. Are they connected? Yes. Are they just all one unified thing? No.

They are connected, but also individually distinct, that can change and form different combinations depending on chemistry and context.

It's not JUST one substance. Its one AND multiplicity, so not oneness, not duality, but multi-dimensionality

People destroy nuance and lose the multi-dimensionality part with their fixations on oneness.

It's people chasing comfort and still having evolving to do that causes that in my opinion.

[cetus]

[Flicker_boy]

(i'm so glad this enlightenment think tank is in place. i would have almost no external feedback wasn't for it. probably end up crawling in a dark room going insane, or not)

[cetus]

@Lorenzo Engel As Leo calls it," our sandbox to play in".

[Salaam]

@cetus56

Nice. Do you know what is the difference between that rock and that sand? The degree of connective force and it's flavor of chemistry.

Do people think about the nuance involved in attachment and non-attachment?

There are levels of attachment. From touching (like the sand particles) to interlocking (like a man and a woman during sex), to fusing (like the heat and pressure that melted and formed that rock).

There are also levels of non-attachment, i.e. distance. Like with a magnet and a metal, the degrees of distance will carry with it a palpable feel of degrees of intensity of electromagnetic connective pull. The closer the metal to the magnet, the stronger the pull, the farther away, the weaker. Does the pull ever disappear or disconnect? No, it just grows more and more ephemeral and harder to detect (which is why developing sensitivity is important). It's influence becoming less and less, replaced by a more dominant/closer/intense connective influence.

Even non-attachment isn't absolute disconnection, it's localized distance on just one plane of many or a local boundary on just one plane of many. An example would be two people talking on the phone in different countries. Our bodies are distant, but our voices are close and audible, due to the hundreds of cooperative inter-relations that include our phones, satellite network, electricity, and other shit. Quantum entanglement will be similar in action I bet, it's just that the cooperative inter-relations will be mind-blowingly more diverse and ephemeral.

If you just focus on a single plane, a person won't understand how the universe really works. You will only have a fraction of all the context at play, like trying to understand a book of a billion pages, by reading only a single paragraph from it's writings.

We have to work on holding as many planes of movement as possible within our perspective, while also balancing them, so both their individual and collective movements are coherent, cohesive, and understandable.

However, such a task takes tremendous effort. We have to evolve and grow to be able to do so. Humans as we currently are, won't cut it.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Salaam

[Mal]

@Lorenzo Engel @Salaam

(David, ignore the tags, I quoted you by mistake)

Ken Wilber speaks of it as "the only thing you have ever really known"

"The only thing that is real, more real than what you thought was reality"

Others call it coming home, or waking up from a dream state.  

These descriptions imply that enlightenment is really nothing special, but more of a recalibration back to reality. 

It's a little like when you're asleep in bed and inside a very convincing dream. Then you wake up and say "oh thank God, it was just a dream" and you recalibrate back to reality. Ever had a nights sleep like that? You were caught in something that seemed so real, and then this sense of relief comes over you.

It's that simple.

[Azrael]

18 hours ago, Lorenzo Engel said:

I'm just really confused with this concept cause while guys like sadhguru talk about a experience beyond space and time others like rupert spira and jeff forster talk about a simple recognition.

Basically from what I have experienced so far enlightenment experiences can be very beautiful / frightening / opening to have and let you in on a view you never had. It's like there is whole dimension right now in front of you that you are not aware of and an enlightenment experience pops this into your awareness for a limited time - so it is overwhelming and astonishing. I always loved / love these kind of experiences.

But the real difference starts to show up when it manifests in your life on a day to day basis. When you've untangled your thoughts and you are able to see how they are just triggered by events and not by yourself bringing them up, when you see that everything is just the current spontaneous manifestation and that it can't be any other way, when you see brighter colours and patterns and acknowledge that good and bad are the same thing separating itself just to play.

When you slowly begin to see that, you come down from this horror trip of life you were so convinced to believe in. So both has it's effects. Let it come to you and carry you away.

[Ayla]

18 hours ago, Lorenzo Engel said:

I'm just really confused with this concept cause while guys like sadhguru talk about a experience beyond space and time others like rupert spira and jeff forster talk about a simple recognition. You know, a simple recognition is that, simple. Easy to manage and live. As opposed to some extraordinary experince which just seems to me like creating needs.

Short answer NO! Now after that "re-recognition" (because you already are what you're looking for), MIND perceives that as an EXPERIENCE, something extra-ordinary (not a day to day event). Mind IMMEDIATELY takes over and tries to see this as an event, as something you need to "do", to "go back to", etc. In order to do that, mind points you in all the "wrong" directions: where you were, in what position, place, state of mind... on and on it goes with the offerings so that you get lost in it. It is mind's job.

So...... Awakening happens. PERIOD! After that, mind "translates it" as it pleases... 

 

[Mal]

3 minutes ago, Ayla said:

MIND perceives that as an EXPERIENCE, something extra-ordinary (not a day to day event). Mind IMMEDIATELY takes over and tries to see this as an event, as something you need to "do", to "go back to"

 

This is the genesis of all religions and spiritual teachers.  They make nothing into something...and off on a wild goose chase we all go after them...

[Ayla]

4 minutes ago, Mal said:

This is the genesis of all religions and spiritual teachers.  They make nothing into something...and off on a wild goose chase we all go after them...

Sure, but that is ALSO no separation from consciousness. No YOU is there to decide to go on chasing... or not.  

Your ONLY "job" is to look from what sees. Once you've seen "it"... it isn't what you're looking for (you). 

*************************************************************

can the best knife in the world cut itself?  

[Natasha]

16 hours ago, Salaam said:

Sand isn't just sand though. It's quartz and feldspar and mica, and a whole host of other minerals all mixed together. Are they connected? Yes. Are they just all one unified thing? No.

They are connected, but also individually distinct, that can change and form different combinations depending on chemistry and context.

It's not JUST one substance. Its one AND multiplicity, so not oneness, not duality, but multi-dimensionality

People destroy nuance and lose the multi-dimensionality part with their fixations on oneness.

It's people chasing comfort and still having evolving to do that causes that in my opinion.

'Sand'/ 'substance' are just a metaphor to give an example. They, of course, don't do justice, because what we're talking about here is something that's unknowable and un-describable and primal to any concept. Leo called it 'Pure Transparent Empty Awareness' in his video on the enlightened self - impersonal, timeless, boundless, meaningless, and completely mysterious to the human mind.  

Edit: Just saw your response to Cetus56 about relativity in another thread. Terms 'duality' and 'non-duality' simply refer to the perception of separateness/ conceptual boundary  vs non-separateness, like that sand castle being sand or a wave being ocean (metaphors). No one's arguing on the matter of dimentionality at all.        

Edited July 8, 2016 by Natasha

[charlie2dogs]

22 hours ago, Lorenzo Engel said:

I'm just really confused with this concept cause while guys like sadhguru talk about a experience beyond space and time others like rupert spira and jeff forster talk about a simple recognition. You know, a simple recognition is that, simple. Easy to manage and live. As opposed to some extraordinary experince which just seems to me like creating needs.

if your statements are true of the three, then sadhguru would be right. the simple recognition is the newage watered down version.