What does enlightenment look like?

[taotemu]

How does enlightenment / self-realization manifest in the finite human perspective?  How can we determine if someone is enlightened or not from the "outside"?  How do we know if a guru or master is enlightened or not?

The words they use?  How they live?  What they do?

[Mason Riggle]

@taotemu there are many degrees and facets of 'enlightenment'... A math teacher is more 'enlightened' about Calculus than her students.  Anyone can be a guru, if they have something to teach you.  

[Terell Kirby]

For me, it’s a deep understanding of the infinite nature of reality. The question itself can have an infinite number of answers..and they would all be legit.

[taotemu]

47 minutes ago, Mason Riggle said:

@taotemu there are many degrees and facets of 'enlightenment'... A math teacher is more 'enlightened' about Calculus than her students.  Anyone can be a guru, if they have something to teach you.  

I agree.  But we can learn from anyone, that doesn't mean they are spiritually enlightened.

10 minutes ago, Terell Kirby said:

For me, it’s a deep understanding of the infinite nature of reality. The question itself can have an infinite number of answers..and they would all be legit.

Ok, so how does that deep understanding manifest in the world?  How can another person get that someone has a deep understanding?

[Breakingthewall]

It is very difficult, unless you are enlightened too. there are people with a well-learned lesson who know how to explain things. it is possible that they themselves think they are enlightened. the only way is intuition. the truth is intuited. and he who does not intuit it is because he has it contaminated by the clothes of the ego. The more true integrity there is in you, the more you will be able to recognize it in others. the closer you are to the truth, the more you can intuit it in another person

Edited August 26, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[ZzzleepingBear]

I think it is a s scale between worshiping to the amount of actual self recognition in the teacher/gurus way of being, that reveal wheter they are enlightened or not for you. You will be the judge of that either way, wheter you are cluless or enlightened yourself.

[SriSriJustinBieber]

Assuming you speak of enlightenment meaning buddhahood, tathagatahood etc, well you generally can't tell if someone is enlightened in such a way at all because their mode of being will appear very ordinary, they have gone beyond personhood a long long time ago and are not even interested in using spirituality to gain or avoid something. They will just behave like humans. If they are not teaching spirituality in some form, you will totally overlook them.

If you speak of lower levels of spiritual advancement, you can tell to an extent. For example, it is easy to tell if someone has realized what people like to describe as "nothingness" (it would be more accurate to call it the causal body but let's just roll with nothingness as it's a popular word haha). You can see it in their eyes, or perceive it in the way they say certain things, because you've been there and you know someone will not be making a certain point, in a nuanced way, unless one has realized this or that.

And therefore who is a good teacher? A teacher is someone who appears to have valuable stuff to teach, regardless of their own journey.

Edited August 26, 2021 by SriSriJustinBieber

[mandyjw]

A self has value to a self as long as it's a self, other than that it's loved/seen as its Self. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Oh wait, Justin Bieber is here, and he's enlightened! Ok, forget what I just said. 

 

 

[The0Self]

15 minutes ago, SriSriJustinBieber said:

Assuming you speak of enlightenment meaning buddhahood, tathagatahood etc, well you generally can't tell if someone is enlightened in such a way at all because their mode of being will appear very ordinary, they have gone beyond personhood a long long time ago and are not even interested in using spirituality to gain or avoid something. They will just behave like humans. If they are not teaching spirituality in some form, you will totally overlook them.

If you speak of lower levels of spiritual advancement, you can tell to an extent. For example, it is easy to tell if someone has realized what people like to describe as "nothingness" (it would be more accurate to call it the causal body but let's just roll with nothingness as it's a popular word haha). You can see it in their eyes, or perceive it in the way they say certain things, because you've been there and you know someone will not be making a certain point, in a nuanced way, unless one has realized this or that.

And therefore who is a good teacher? A teacher is someone who appears to have valuable stuff to teach, regardless of their own journey.

^^ This.

Nice.

Even with Buddhas who teach, it's still hard to tell. When they give pointers and teachings, it will almost necessarily seem as though they're "beating around the bush" -- that's because that bush is a massive black hole that can't be talked about.

Quote

Oh wait, Justin Bieber is here, and he's enlightened! Ok, forget what I just said.

Lol I just saw that! Imagine if it turned out to actually be him that'd be hilarious.

Edited August 26, 2021 by The0Self

[mandyjw]

59 minutes ago, The0Self said:

Lol I just saw that! Imagine if it turned out to actually be him that'd be hilarious.

It's already even more fantastic and hilarious than that. YOU are Justin Bieber. 

[The0Self]

4 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

It's already even more fantastic and hilarious than that. YOU are Justin Bieber. 

Sure, except you have no idea how right you are. There’s a reason for why I actually know that other account is not the real Justin Bieber 

? 

[Nahm]

5 hours ago, taotemu said:

How does enlightenment / self-realization manifest in the finite human perspective? 

It doesn’t. Infinite can never know finite. Or if you like, it does…as the falling away of the overlay or interpretation of perceiver & perceived by which  ‘human perspective’ is derived.  Ever notice there’s no perspectives in a dream? Just, the dreaming. 

5 hours ago, taotemu said:

How can we determine if someone is enlightened or not from the "outside"? 

By ‘knowing thy self’. 

5 hours ago, taotemu said:

How do we know if a guru or master is enlightened or not?

How do you even know they’re aware? Have you ever actually experienced any thing, or any one, as, being aware? 

5 hours ago, taotemu said:

The words they use?  How they live?  What they do?

Have you ever experienced those as anything other than ‘your’ thoughts? 

[Moksha]

For me, the difference between awakening and enlightenment is this:

One who has merely heard of fire has ajnana, ignorance. One who has seen fire has jnana. But one who has actually built a fire and cooked on it has vijnana.

- Ramakrishna

It is not so rare to see the fire, but cooking on it takes true intent. It is the dissolving of attachments to transience. Enlightenment is the "end state" in which a being has become nearly translucent, before dissolving entirely. Like a wave cresting, and returning to the ocean that created it.

Are the most enlightened beings the best teachers? Not necessarily. Some have moved so far beyond the delusion of individuality that they are unable to speak your language. Look for a guide that resonates at a higher frequency, but still within your bandwidth. When the resonance discrepancy resolves, find a new guide, until you have climbed to the summit of yourself.

[James12345]

On 8/26/2021 at 4:26 PM, taotemu said:

How does enlightenment / self-realization manifest in the finite human perspective?  How can we determine if someone is enlightened or not from the "outside"?  How do we know if a guru or master is enlightened or not?

The words they use?  How they live?  What they do?

Non stop being, as sleeping. Never have birth, life, family, self nor universe, which is now. Source.

[Thought Art]

like this 

 

[Rishi9]

True story: once a guru had a connecting flight in an airport. She then went to find somewhere to sit and wait. She found a nice seat, next to a middle aged woman. The middle aged woman took no notice of this woman, that was seated next to her. In a few moments, tears of bliss and surrender, was flowing down the middle aged woman’s cheeks. Crying like a small baby.

That is how you know, that someone is enlightend. 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Rishi9

[Enlightenment]

No way to know other than scanning their brain

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Enlightenment

[Goldzilla]

If you really meet one, it will be an uplifting experience. 

[The Buddha]

It's the eternal dwelling in the beingness of existance. Check yourself, soak into that ever-present presence, that I amness in silence. The fact is that they are eternally anchored in that. So in their presence, you go beyond your identifications and survival, your wantings desires and needs, and you find that you are, you are conscious that you are, and u see it was always there. It does not look in any particular way for the fact that everything is, it's not the form of the gold what matters, what actually matters is that everyhting is gold and the gold is beingness. Stop searching for a second or projecting to the future what you think this is and see for yourself. Make your mind come to the now, feel the now, and go deeper, use the question who I am, that points outside the place from where that question and deluded answer may take form, and check your own presence, you are yet nobody is "issing". How can u lose this? It is now and you are always now and you always are. The point is are you anchored in that realization? Is consciousness pointing to itself rather than losing in it's shape? That is an enlightened being, the one who as sugar is dissolved in the ocean of God. How it looks like? Well as the whole ocean. Check again the reality which is existing, which is, that is in fact how enlightenment looks like, from the seer, the procces of seeing to the seen. However, to make that jump is hardly imposible. That is why guru exists, the one who is existence, reality, infinity, truth and love, while being conscious that it is all that.