Seeing Enlightenment From A New Perspective

[Telepresent]

10 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

The great cosmic joke is that you are what you are seeking.

And yet I am not.  Because the I that reads these words and interprets them as I is not the I that you are talking to.  Madness

[Tancrede Pouyat]

Enlightenment is simply awareness being aware of itself.

As a human being, you can realize that you are awareness being aware of itself. And then you can start living from that place, people will tell you that you're "enlightened".

And, yes, you're essentially just giving yourself an answer to the question "Who am I ?" when you're "pursuing" enlightenment. But when you become "enlightened", it's not the same because, this time, you became directly conscious of Truth (as opposed to before when it was all just lies).

[Telepresent]

2 minutes ago, John Flores said:

@cetus56 I think tiny fragments of ego still exist within an enlightened person, they just don't get very many thoughts as they constantly grasp on to the present moment.

Adyashanti talks about how he still experiences ego reactions, they just get recognised for what they are very quickly.  Jed McKenna talks about how he still has to 'wear' his old ego in order to funtion as a person.  It appears as thought the enlightened state - if it exists - is far more alien than most people want to believe/imagine

[Telepresent]

3 minutes ago, Tancrede Pouyat said:

Enlightenment is simply awareness being aware of itself.

As a human being, you can realize that you are awareness being aware of itself. And then you can start living from that place, people will tell you that you're "enlightened".

And, yes, you're essentially just giving yourself an answer to the question "Who am I ?" when you're "pursuing" enlightenment. But when you become "enlightened", it's not the same because, this time, you became directly conscious of Truth (as opposed to before when it was all just lies).

Thank you for this reply.  As someone who is still 'pursuing', but who is aware of my pattern-making mind, what advice would you recommend as my next exploration? Cheers!

[cetus]

28 minutes ago, Telepresent said:

areI sometimes wonder whether this whole 'spirituality' game is the biggest practical joke ever pulled

Here's a funny thought. If there are advanced civilizations out in the universe watching us, they could be saying, "The good news is the humans are starting to evolve their brains. The bad news is they give credit for that to an idol named Spiritual Enlightenment"

Edited October 31, 2016 by cetus56

[Prabhaker]

5 minutes ago, Telepresent said:

And yet I am not.  Because the I that reads these words and interprets them as I is not the I that you are talking to.  Madness

 Enlightenment remembrance of that which is already there. You have forgotten who you are. The only thing that has to be done is that you have to remember who you are. The question is only of remembering. 

[Telepresent]

2 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

Here's a funny thought. If there are advanced civilizations out in the universe watching us, they could be saying, "The good is news the humans are starting to evolve their brains. The bad news is they give credit for that to an idol named Spiritual Enlightenment"

HA! This is a hugely important point, though.  Exactly why are we ascribing to this idea that enlightenment, or whatever, is the ultimate truth, and what we should be piloting towards?  I mean, really, why?  A lot of people have been doing this so long it's default and they don't remember why.  What's your reason?

Mine is that it struck an inner chord that said "yes, this is true, keep investigating", and I haven't satisfied that chord yet.

[Tancrede Pouyat]

@Telepresent I honestly couldn't care less about enlightenment, I only care about raising my consciousness to its maximum potential. 

[Telepresent]

1 minute ago, Prabhaker said:

 Enlightenment remembrance of that which is already there. You have forgotten who you are. The only thing that has to be done is that you have to remember who you are. The question is only of remembering. 

Yes, and I'm starting to hit touches of what I suspect might be that remebrance.  The problem I have is of language: you talk of "I", or "you", and that gets interpreted by my thoughts as the mental pattern which my thoughts think I am.  I sometimes think this is the problem that spiritual teachers have: they seem to forget that the "I" to which they refer is not the same "I" that interprets/imagines the message

[Tancrede Pouyat]

9 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

Here's a funny thought. If there are advanced civilizations out in the universe watching us, they could be saying, "The good news is the humans are starting to evolve their brains. The bad news is they give credit for that to an idol named Spiritual Enlightenment"

You do realize that evolution could bring a species to something radically different from rationality, right ?

Literally everything we think up is egocentric.

[Prabhaker]

2 minutes ago, Telepresent said:

you talk of "I", or "you", and that gets interpreted by my thoughts as the mental pattern which my thoughts think I am

Language has its limitations, we can't do anything about it. When a wave appears in the sea, it can think it exists, still it is sea, not separate.

[Telepresent]

20 minutes ago, Tancrede Pouyat said:

@Telepresent I honestly couldn't care less about enlightenment, I only care about raising my consciousness to its maximum potential. 

Great: and I meant what I asked.  Apologies if I sounded argumentative, I really didn't mean to.  It sounds, from what you've said, like you've reached an awareness I haven't.  I'm being genuine when I ask if you have any advice?

[cetus]

4 minutes ago, Tancrede Pouyat said:

You do realize that evolution could bring a species to something radically different from rationality, right

Yes I do but I'm not sure it's just about rationality. BTW- I just watched your vid. Very good except the part about emotional investment. That seems unnecessary. Intention -Yes.   Intention without emotion attached. Emotion is wasted energy that could be put to better use.

[cetus]

23 minutes ago, Tancrede Pouyat said:

something radically different from rationality

@Tancrede Pouyat So, what do you see that as being?

[Tancrede Pouyat]

9 minutes ago, John Flores said:

@Telepresent Yes. There is a lot of mysticism that exists and for good reason...because there is a lot we don't understand.

Yeah this is a vibe I've been getting a lot recently : I really don't know shit about anything. 

3 minutes ago, Telepresent said:

Great: and I meant what I asked.  Apologies if I sounded argumentative, I really didn't mean to.  It sounds, from what you've said, like you've reached an awareness I haven't.  I'm being genuine when I ask if you have any advice?

Sorry I wasn't clear : my advice to you is : don't care about enlightenment, care about raising your consciousness.

5 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

Emotion is wasted energy that could be put to better use.

Emotion drives behavior. It's the thing that makes you think you have free will. Don't undermine it. And, when you grow, the part of you that's about to die, shows up, and that can cause strong emotions. 

[Tancrede Pouyat]

1 minute ago, cetus56 said:

@Tancrede Pouyat So, what do you see that as being?

To be clear, when I say rationality, I mean working with things. "What" would be a thing, so....

The only way I could describe this would be after I become conscious of it, which sounds quite hard since I can't even become conscious of who I am.

Nevertheless, I think an evolved species would have some paradigm that would be a better description of reality, maybe similar to rationality on some levels but different.

[cetus]

41 minutes ago, Telepresent said:

Yes, and I'm starting to hit touches of what I suspect might be that remebrance

Yes, it is a remembrance. Not a new finding that so many search for. That is the spiritual part of what we refer to as awakening.

[cetus]

3 minutes ago, Tancrede Pouyat said:

maybe similar to rationality on some levels but different.

It would have to rationality that is all inclusive.

[Bob84]

1 hour ago, Telepresent said:

Adyashanti talks about how he still experiences ego reactions, they just get recognised for what they are very quickly.  Jed McKenna talks about how he still has to 'wear' his old ego in order to funtion as a person.  It appears as thought the enlightened state - if it exists - is far more alien than most people want to believe/imagine

Not really (to the alien), when you understand what these people mean when they say ego. Would encourage everyone to have a second look at that.

Edited October 31, 2016 by Bob84

[cetus]

2 hours ago, Telepresent said:

): what do you think enlightenment means?

I really can't say exactly.  I've looked at it from a spiritual perspective for a long time because of it's feel good quality's in answering the Big Questions that the minds asks mostly out of fear. But now I'm exploring it under a new light as possibly being the natural evolution of human development. Just the fact that we are questioning everything and expanding the mind beyond our self imposed limits is an evolutionary process of growth. For whatever reason we are rewiring the way our brain works. I think most of us would agree with that.