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

[Grasshopper]

Rather than "simple", I think a better expression would be "subtle, but profound". Not something where you think "oh that's cool" and then go back to your normal life. It's something you notice or see in a different way, and that experience changes your relationship to the way you thought about it before.

For example, many people don't understand if I say "a thought is just a thought." People don't get this until they do the work to watch their thought process objectively, until they see for themselves that they're separate from the thoughts that are passing through their mind. Then there's the realization of "oh...they're just...thoughts." You need that experience of seeing it for yourself, although there's nothing really new to see, but there's a different perspective to view it from, which can have a profound impact. Things like that.

[Flicker_boy]

@Grasshopper thats a great point. like shinzen puts it 'subtle is significant'

Edited July 8, 2016 by Lorenzo Engel

[Key Elements]

@Lorenzo Engel

Check out the clip below...at 34:45 Leo started to discover the Zen term, the Ox's tail. What does this mean?

Now...hold on...Ox's tail...are they really talking about an animal or something else? Check out Shinzen Young's clips on The Ox Herding Pics:

https://youtu.be/x8aN9O73lg

https://youtu.be/0PQonSiGkVE

https://youtu.be/Ozca_5ifwQ0

The question is, why do they tell the story this way? Very ancient story. And, what is Riding the Ox Backwards really mean in the end according to an enlightenment experience? It's an interesting but discreet story. Anyone who has had an enlightenment experience will tell you that the experience is an outer body experience without the human mind & without the fictional ego, literally. The ego doesn't exist in an enlightenment experience. All you "feel" is peace (nothingness/everythingness = one with the universe) Whereas in the human mind, the ego is there because of "choice," or unawareness.

But, if you would like to talk about it with someone, like a master or guru or whoever, there has to be an understanding between the two-no judging.

How do we make use of the understanding of enlightenment and/or enlightenment experiences? Below is a clip of Leo talking about creating world peace.

How do we discover our talents/gifts in order to contribute to this? Below are some more clips:

(Note: I just want to make a little note here. All that I've said has nothing to do with religion. It's the meaning I'm trying to communicate. Riding the Ox Backwards is an extraordinary experience of time & space where one is facing backwards. )

Edited July 9, 2016 by Key Elements

[cetus]

15 hours ago, Salaam said:

Do you know what is the difference between that rock and that sand?

@Salaam Where does the rock and sand end and I begin? I used to know the answer to that. what has happened ? i am like an idiot i am so empty.

[Salaam]

1 hour ago, cetus56 said:

@Salaam Where does the rock and sand end and I begin? I used to know the answer to that. what has happened ? i am like an idiot i am so empty.

End and begin are kind of extreme concepts that give people the impression of extreme boundaries, that sever from our perspective the chain of perpetual motion. It's a limitation, from lacking nuance and being unable to hold and process everything actually going on, especially transitions. 

There is a balanced spectrum between solidity and energy, and that balance means that even the most solid of things, still has some degree of porousness. Conceptual understandings of ending and beginning, tend to violate that reality. Nothing "ends" it changes and transforms it's structure, with varying distributions of solidity or ephemeralness, with commensurate degrees of ability and expression.

It's much healthier to focus on change and degrees of change Or specifically in this case degrees and tiers of solidity to ephemeral, while also grounding yourself within your current limitations of awareness.

Instead of end and begin, we can say there is a physical barrier of our skin that can attach through touch and connect with those rocks. The magnetic fields within those rocks are ephemeral enough to pass through my skin and connect inside me and fuse with my inner experience. I can eat the damn sand if I want and my body will break it down into smaller parts that my various cells can then connect and fuse with, which will probably have a small to negligible influence that my awareness can pick up on.

So with that said, it's not where you and the rock begin and end. It's more in what different ways you and the sand can connect, and to what degree that connection influences your centralized awareness within a moment.

Distinct sub-systems, within a larger system. Much like our liver is a sub-system within our larger bodily system. It is connected and an integral part of maintaining the structure of who we are, but is also at the same time distinct with a realm of it's own experience and health.
 

[cetus]

29 minutes ago, Salaam said:

most solid of things, still has some degree of porousness.

@Salaam Yes it does. The atom itself is 99.999999% empty space. So when Salaam see's sand or a rock, what is mostly there?

[Salaam]

55 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

@Salaam Yes it does. The atom itself is 99.999999% empty space. So when Salaam see's sand or a rock, what is mostly there?

Well, it's not technically empty, it's filled with potentiality, or the wave form electron cloud that collapses into a point when "touched", plus all the other stuff we just are too limited to detect at this time. I do similar stuff in a way with potentialities, choosing which potentialities I touch and connect with, allowing influence and and immersion onto my mental landscape. I love potentiality.

We have to watch jumping to hard conclusions that close ourselves to further potential. Certainty about the wrong things can severely limit our growth, we have to protect potential, and burden the tension of ignorance and limitation in order to stay open to further things that will increase our understandings beyond the limits of what we can currently perceive.

So when I hold a rock in my hand I see and feel what I feel, but I don't conclude that "this is what is there". No, instead, this is what I can feel for right now, with potential for more. There is always mystery.

I don't mind the tensions that comes from brushing up against the limits of my awareness. Does that make sense for you? I understand that the boundary of that limitation will shift and change as I further sensitize myself and work on the other structures of capability within me.

As to what I actually feel, that depends on the rock and it's chemistry with me and what part of my body it's touching. Different rocks will actually have different fields of influence with different parts of my body. I'm thinking the interaction of these fields, coincide with organs or nexus points in the body, which people then pedestalized with chakras or whatever.

My abilities have upgraded again since yesterday, so I'll have to play with a rock and see what's changed.
 

[Mal]

On 08/07/2016 at 2:05 PM, cetus56 said:

@Salaam  ....what has happened ? i am like an idiot i am so empty.

Mmm.. true...

[Mal]

On 08/07/2016 at 1:24 AM, Natasha said:

'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.        

Everything is one substance, and that substance is perfection. Yes, and even the separation is part of that substance called love. 

David has never experienced non duality (only has an intellectual reference point), this is glaringly obvious, the multidimensionality is included in oneness. 

Thanks Natasha

Looking good by the way 

 

[99th_monkey]

39 minutes ago, Mal said:

Everything is one substance, and that substance is perfection. Yes, and even the separation is part of that substance called love. 

David has never experienced non duality (only has an intellectual reference point), this is glaringly obvious, the multidimensionality is included in oneness. 

Thanks Natasha

Looking good by the way 

 

agreed

[Natasha]

36 minutes ago, Mal said:

Looking good by the way 

Thanks! This body-mind organism called Natasha went to Busch Gardens recently... even though there is no coming or going, no past or future and every day is like 'now'. 'Looking good' is just happening, considering nothing is really neither 'good or 'bad', except for which the mind makes it

 

[jjer94]

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Edited July 10, 2016 by jjer94

[Deutsche22]

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

 

No. It can just happen to you suddenly or gradually.

[99th_monkey]

On 7/10/2016 at 11:05 PM, jjer94 said:

.

awwwwww. what you say? i always look forward to your posts and you went all Pinocchio on us

[Natasha]

7 hours ago, 99th_monkey said:

awwwwww. what you say? i always look forward to your posts and you went all Pinocchio on us

@jjer94 I read your post before you deleted it, and it was very insightful. Keep your posts, please!