Following on from the cup of tea thread, I'd just like to start another thread on this for more musings... for what it is worth!

The ultimate goal is often said to be no more incarnating in the physical world and no more life as a separate entity in the spirit world, but "becoming one with God" (the Source , the One etc). As far as any of us can know what they really means (probably not very) what does it mean to you? Do you think you'd still feel a sense of individual identity, or would you just feel like you were one big self-contained being that was a part of everything?  :-?  

Also, if we came from the Source in the first place, what is the point of all of our travels through the human and spiritual realms in individual identies, only to go back to where we came from evertually? Does the Source just get bored and like to split off parts of itself to have adventures and illusions of being separate?

Do you think it is soemthing like what TS Elliott said: “And the end of all our searching shall be to return to the place where we started and know it for the first time.” -T.S. Eliot ?

Or appreciate it better?

Another thing - if it is so great to learn to be in the moment and not think of future and past etc (which sounds a good recipe for peace of mind and enjoyment of activities, if not so good if you've got important plans and preparations to make (future), or if you want to avoid repeating mistakes (past)) - then why aren't trees and animals etc more "enlightened" than us --

as Walt Whitman said,

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d;
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
Not one is dissatisfied—not one is demented with the mania of owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago;
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth. "

So if all the anguish and thinking too much that goes with being human is "unspiritual" what makes us think we are better than a cow that ends up in our cheeseburger, for example?

HI Orlando-

The Hindu tells us that reality is lila. literally, the play of God. Buddhists tell us that it is attachment to something.

But here's an experiment - Notice something that attracts you to study it. So you study. Then  there passes a new thought, observation, feeling, or whatever. Most of the time you observe and ignore. No change. But occasionally you are attracted to the side trip, and that's the hook that seems to bind us here.

Notice what you would have to do to stop being here - it's as simple as holding your breath.  All the other functions come to a focal point at that time, and then you go "elsewhere". But we persist in breathing, and thus we persist in being here as we are. Further, if you use some kind of trick to stop breathing, that reifies the necessity to breathe, which brings you right back to where you left off when you suicided. So, in that sense, everything is just a matter of what we are interested in, and how much interest we have.

I actually tried this when in my 20s, and a lot healthier and more robust. I knew that there are physical mechanisms by which the body resets itself, else, if we got the breath knocked out of us while hunting and gathering, we'd simply die. So I deliberately held my breath until I passed out - a rather uncomfortable thing to do - and my body seems to have reset itself - although maybe I'm actually dead and all of this is a dream? Anyway, I went to a new point of perspective, couldn't understand what I saw and experienced there, and promptly returned with a gasp. Now, 50 years later, it begins to make sense. While I DO NOT suggest that anyone follow my example, it can be done, and it makes sense with respect to attachments. (I suggest that the reason I "returned" was that the effort to suppress breathing was reification of a felt need to have breath - an attachment - that I carried into the "other place of awareness" - so it brought me back to the place I had left off. It's like a mini-suicide, but not quite as terminal.)

dave

I was thinking about "lila" after posting - I think maybe that is a more light-hearted and appealing way to see life than just "attachment" from which we should try to escape (maybe it is a bit similar to the Taoist idea of following the tao, which I guess is something like finding the way of least resistance, the least painful and most "playful," if you like, way though life - but perhaps you can't do that with too many attchments either..)  But I really don't know how it all works!

Interesting about your experiment with a "mini-death" and rebirth by stopping breathing. As you say though, maybe it's not a good idea to try..

PS not entirely serious about cows being more spiritual than us - I mean I dare say they have less capacity for empathy and good works, for example, but just throwing out some thoughts..

having said that, apparently a rececnt study showed chimps can be altruistic:

Felix Warneken and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have found that 12 out of 18 semi-wild chimpanzees went out of their way to help an unfamiliar human who was struggling to reach a stick.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn12132?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn12132

First of all, since this topic isn't brand new, some of what I say will repeat what I've said before. Sorry about that.

Source being started out with the ability to be aware, and the ability to create.  These two aspects of being are inseparable from each other, even though there are ways to focus on one aspect of being, rather than on both aspects. When exactly love came into the equation I don't know.

Since the creative aspect of being can't be seperated from source being, there is nothing wrong with using it, even though using it leads to problems at times. In fact, it would be rather odd if the creative aspect of being wasn't utilized.

The goal is to get to the point where we are in control of our creative aspect of being, so we can use it according to divine wisdom and love, rather than imperfect limiting ideas and attachments. One of the benefits of incarnating physically is that it provides us with a unique opportunity to learn how to control our creative aspect of being. My feeling is that incarnations are chosen according to need, rather than forced.

I figure that awareness is aware of and has the ability to understand everything that takes place within it. Problems develop when limited ways of perception and understanding are taken on. When this happens awareness understands according to such limitations rather than according to what is true and all encompasing.

In the beginning source being existed as an infinite field of awareness that had the ability to create. This creative ability was in an unmodified state until it was utilized in specific ways. How exactly the initial steps of creation took place I don't know. Perhaps the creative energy that existed had random fluctations. Because awareness has the ability to establish relationships and comprehend what takes place within it,  it started to recognize some patterns as its creative energy fluctuated in various ways. For example, in some places the energy might've vibrated faster than other places. Sometimes it was more dense. Because awareness wasn't limited by time and was spread out infinitely, it took no time at all before it understood relationships well enough, so it could start creating intentionally. I figure that at some point it realized that it can cause its creative ability to fluctuate through the application of intent.  Once again, when precisely love came into the equation I don't know.

Perhaps at some point the prime source noticed that it was alone.  It was able to figure that if it used its ability to create in specific ways, different parts of itself would take on the "appearance" of being something other than itself.  It figured the appearance factor is okay,  because what determines reality is what awareness experiences, not a mental understanding, even if that mental understanding is representative of what is "primarily true." If one considers that past, present and future all happen in the same now, the limiting effect of "primarily true" is minimized (more about this later).

If one thinks about it, as soon as awareness starts comparing one perceived thing with other perceived things, a field of relationships is established and experienced. If awareness didn't create anything at all, there wouldn't be anything to be aware of.

Some might say that love existed from the start and prime awareness had this to be aware of.  If it is taken for granted this is true, what would be the meaning of love if prime awareness had nobody to share love with? It might feel good, but would be lacking in complete meaning. The same is true with the experience of oneness. What does oneness mean, if there isn't anybody to share it with? Because source being used its creative energy so that many other beings could appear within itself, it became possible for many beings to share oneness together. The key to understanding that the result of such creation is valid (as opposed to being nothing but an illusion as some philosophies contend), is to remember how the awareness aspect of being and the creative aspect of being are both real. Therefore, whatever results when the two work together is real.

Vedanta (A system of thought that comes from India and really stresses the word "enlightenment) contends that only that which is permanent is real. Therefore, anything that is created isn't the ultimate reality.  Not only does this way of thinking not acknowledge the creative aspect of being I spoke of above, it doesn't recognize that past, present and future all exist in the same "now." Therefore, whatever is created throughout time as we perceive it (in a linear way), doesn't come to an end. Rather, in a simultaneous manner; the creation that takes place in supposed past, present and future, works itself out so that a perfected end is reached.

One thing that is important to understand is that when we reach our final goal, our awareness isn't going to be limited as it is now. We'll find that we are beings who are capable of being much more aware than we allow ourselves to be now.  Even though we'll find ourselves in a state where we experience perfect peace, divinity, a vast feeling of love, oneness, and a level of knowledge that has all the answers that were sought when source being decided to go through the process of creation; we'll find that our awareness has the room to be aware of even more. What is this "more" I speak of? I'm unable to say what this "more" is all about.  But one "more" is the wonderful sense of relief, appreciation and happiness that results when we see how things are compared to how they were when we took part in limited states of confusion.

This is how things felt for me when I had what I've refered to in the past as my night in heaven experience. I felt a great sense relief and appreciative about how things turned out. Some might say that this sense of relief and appreciation would be passing, but this is a linear mind way of thinking about things. When we live in a no time realm, everything we worked for while in linear time,  has a lasting effect.

The fact of how we no longer limit our awareness adds to this fact. For example, during my night in heaven experience,  I was able to understand how God and the afterlife are possible, and that everything works out wonderfully in the end, without having to think about it on a thought by thought basis. This was because I was connected to the oneness that contained this understanding. Numerous near death experiencers etc speak of having an experience where "everything" is understood.

So to conclude, the state of being we are aiming for isn't simply a state of bliss. It is state of being where we experience on various levels. There have been a number of occasions where I've experienced bliss and it didn't seem like time mattered during such experiences or that I needed anything else. Yet when such experiences were over I understood that much more is available.  There is love, oneness (which sort of relates to bliss in terms of how it feels), and what the process of creation brings.  On a few occasions my spirit guidance has made a point of pointing out that there is more to life than bliss after I've had an experience of bliss. For one thing, the sweetness of love isn't apparent during experiences of bliss. There was a very strong feeling of peace and a feeling of vastness.  There was even a feeling of divinity, despite the absence of love. I guess there is more than one way to feel good.  To me the happiness and love that is experienced when the presence of others is acknowledged, is preferable to the seeming indifference bliss seems to contain.

P.S. I'm still figuring it out, so hopefully I'll have more to add in the future. :)

thanks Recoverer, that was a very thoughtful reply, and one to ponder on. I personally like the idea that incarnations and the world of physical things have their value and purpose in the big scheme of things and are not only illusion and entrapment etc. That kind of thinking does not seem far removed from a certain kind of traditional Christian thinking about renouncing 'The world, the flesh and the Devil' and focussing only on God and Heaven, which I also find a bit negative.

Something else came to mind.

One of the things that establishes the ability for uniqueness and oneness to exist at the same time, is the fact of how each of us has the ability to create our own reality. Certainly such an ability is more than just an illusion.

Or consider this. You sit in a room and have a conversation with a friend. The oneness you share doesn't get negated simply because the oneness manifested as two parcels of energy/awareness beings that are able to think for themselves.  Why can't oneness be multifaceted?

You're welcome Orlando.

If there is something about our concept of the final goal that makes us feel afraid, there must be something wrong with our concept of it. Enlightenment, whatever it is, isn't something to be afraid of. Yet, so many of us cling. Perhaps we need to throw out our false ideas about it.

I see no reason to deny that I can sit in a room and use one hand to scratch an itch on the other, despite the obvious fact that they are essentially one and the same. While being used as separate elements, they essentially take on that role. Isn't this more or less the way that a single Source radiates all beings?

Looking a bit less severely at the issue, it would be a real nuisance to discover, while kissing my wife, that actually I'm just ... er.... doing it to myself.  

Or worse, what if all realized that we are God, but would have different opinions about how to run the world. That kind of thing could lead to wars etc. In fact, wars (as well as Inquisitions and torture camps) seem to have a strong flavor of that kind of thinking.  "I'm God, and I'm really going to stick it to you because you disagree with me ... blah blah blah." There seems to be a good basis for considering those who take such a posture to be mentally incompetent.

But to start out playing this bizarre game of blind man's bluff, trying to figure out who we are and what we can do, especially with rules that force us to learn at every turn, seems to be ultimately (but not necessarily in each instance) a useful way to rediscover our own divinity without forcing us to play all our games with ourselves.

dave

The variety of perspectives on enlightenment in these posts probably underlines what's always been said about it - that it's pretty much indescribable and incapable of full explanation using language or conceptual understanding. i.e. basically that you more or less need to be enlightened to fully recognise it.

Which by the time misperceptions are laid on top maybe explains why we have so much trouble figuring out who might or might not be, especially so far as teachers are concerned.

We can describe it to a degree in terms of particular attributes - although there seem to be many levels or degrees of enlightenment, and the highest ones are historically very rare.

For example as others have said the dropping of the mistaken presumption that the ego based personality is what we are, ability to move seamlessly between and function effectively in this reality, the afterlife or bardo realms and the absolute; equanimity and eventual omniscience due to awareness and perception no longer being restricted by ego needs, the ability to access the ever higher levels of collective consciousness and knowing, 'supernatural' powers (like the ability to manipulate space, physical matter and time) of one sort or another and so on.

Viewed at this level it (depending on the degree of realisation and the person's experience of this state) delivers the ability to live from love and selflessness (from the Christ or higher nature of mind) and for the greater good - although this latter and the need for 'tough love' may at times create the opposite impression.

This world would be a very different place if this was what we were all doing, but equally the need for (or the cause of) this world would probably  evaporate in this case.

All of this (and it's pretty blurry at the edges) is fine for a drawing room conversation and wise noddings of agreement around the table, but it gets really confusing when it comes down to the practicality of what it means in terms of 'how an enlightened person would behave in these circumstances right now'. Or what should I be doing to best help myself along the way.

A Course in Miracles (ACIM) puts it very nicely (in the preface for anybody who'd like to take a look), and  Buddhism says broadly the same in different (and arguably less accessible) language although without mentioning God.

Everything created by God is absolute, is unalterable unambiguous truth, and is is eternally real. It is the world of one will and one thought, that of God.

The world of (egotistical) perception is the world of time, beginnings and endings. Based on interpretation (perception) and not facts (knowledge), and founded on belief in scarcity, loss, separation, separate wills and death. It is learned, a dream - a world which consequently needs continuous defence (by the ego) to maintain the illusion of reality.

From this two distinct thought systems arise which are opposite in every respect. When caught in the dream you cannot escape without help, because everything you perceive only witnesses to the reality of the dream. (and reinforces the delusion) This is the goldfish bowl or cocoon of selective perception  we've talked of before.

If we use our perception to justify our mistakes  - our anger, neediness, selfishness, impulses to attack we will see only a world of evil, destruction, malice and despair. The Christ or enlightened mind on the other hand is forever connected, safe, loved and loving, and has no needs - and in the same world will see only love. (the merging of different realities we talked of before)

ACIM has it that the Holy Spirit mediates between these worlds, that without help you cannot escape the world of perception as the harder you try the more you reinforce your perception. Buddhism would say that it's the 'true nature of your mind' or higher aspect of mind that is realised in enlightenment that enables escape - but it's really the same thing.

So perhaps the good news is that we don't need to 'understand enlightenment' in order to realise it. That making it an essential step on the way (if it is allowed to become a hurdle that must be cleared before moving on) only plays into the hands of the ego by creating an insurmountable barrier. The above (both Buddhist and ACIM perspectives) make very clear that in fact the more we objectivise it and grasp after it the further away it will recede. Precisely because we can only conceive of it in egotistical terms.

Put another way. Enlightenment is the state that progressively and spontaneously emerges as we drop our delusions - the striving and grasping - and progressively transition to living from our natural state which is love. (Buddhism talks of the clouds revealing the sun) What matters of course is the transition to the new system of thought - the discarding of egotistical mind to reveal the ture nature or loving mind.

We get there not by furiously thinking and taking on more intellectual baggage (if I could only just figure out this last question on this enlightenment sh1t I could do it), but actually by dropping the  conditioning and the thought processes that create more. ACIM defines the term in its own way, but refers to this process as 'forgivenness'. For example - if we do wrong beating up on ourselves only makes the issue grow in the mind and hence inflates the ego. (I'm such a sinner...) Buddhism might talk of 'cutting away ego'. This is why meditation (or 'not doing') combined with the right view is so powerful.

So.... Not sure where that leaves us and I hope I've accurately paraphrased ACIM. ACIM really is worth a look for anybody who'd like a more comprehensive and practical treatment of this stuff. The text sets out the thinking, but there's a workbook of daily exercises by which we can apply them in practice - probably the only way there is of learning that does not result in ego growth.  ::)  :) We've such a tendency nowadays to intellectualise stuff... .(says he after yet another record length post)

Hi Vajra-
Your approach to enlightenment is the only one that makes sense to me. It can occur rather abruptly, in a great leap, or it can occur over time, snail style, but I agree that it seems to be a process. It's rather like life, a matter of how we transition, rather than some abstract end point. If it were simply an end state, life would be like playing music as fast as possible in order to reach the end, which seems to miss the essence of what we're doing here.

The issue that comes to my mind at this point is whether enlightenment is essentially an evolved awareness of information, or essentially attitude, the reaction to our relationship to information, or is it both, which would mean everything but the material grounding of all this stuff.

dave

Regarding the below, I figure we (by "we" I mean the human race as a whole) have differences of opinion, because each of us clings to our differing concepts and emotional attachments. Once a person finds out that he or she no longer needs to cling to such a way of being in order to have the security, knowledge, happiness, peace and love he or she wants, and instead lives according to universal mind and love, he or she finds that other beings who have done the same want the exact same thing as they want. To find a way so that all beings obtain a state of perfection. Once such a person finds that a divine plan is already in place, there won't be a need for he or she to change what has already been established. If a person felt compelled to tell the divine powers that be to stop what they're doing and do as I say, such a person wouldn't be a person who abides according to universal love and wisdom.


dave_a_mbs wrote on Oct 16^th, 2007 at 10:43pm:

Or worse, what if all realized that we are God, but would have different opinions about how to run the world. That kind of thing could lead to wars etc. In fact, wars (as well as Inquisitions and torture camps) seem to have a strong flavor of that kind of thinking.  "I'm God, and I'm really going to stick it to you because you disagree with me ... blah blah blah." There seems to be a good basis for considering those who take such a posture to be mentally incompetent. dave

Thanks Dave. I'd have to say though that what I've written is not original, just a personal take on what ACIM and Buddhist thought on the topic have to say and what makes most sense to me.

My best guess on the sudden versus progressive enlightenment question is that it's exactly exactly what you say. Perhaps the sudden variety is the result of final breakthrough or flash of insight or seeing which gets past what was maybe a single but very significant delusion or obscuration which on it's own was powerful enough and wide ranging enough in it's application to affect all sorts of parts of the person's life. (and mask the progress made by the stripping away of all sorts of other lesser delusions to get to that point)

Others may have perhaps more delusions, but more minor and of less obvious consequence. So that their stripping away one by one creates the impression of a more gradual process. Both are (barring the possibility of some sort of wholesale externally applied reload and reboot of the mind to run a new programme) presumably process based though in that the individual has to continue to function while it's going on.

Although in truth I don't truly have a clue as to what the possibilities are - we're talking something involving Grace and as such not necessarily amenable to our simplistic cause and consequence based logic.

Bernadette Roberts book 'The Experience of No Self' is probably the most detailed and moving (if still fairly qualitative) description of the enlightenment experience that I've come across. http://books.google.ie/books?id=1WaPQVWIZukC&dq=Bernadette+Roberts&prev=http://www.google.ie/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dbernadette%2Broberts%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch%26meta%3D&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1&cad=author-navigational Wikipedia has a biopic and summary of her experience here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadette_Roberts . Despite her being a Catholic contemplative her experience correlates pretty much exactly with Buddhist descriptions of what it entails. (her first contacts with Buddhism were when the process was well down the road and she was seeking explanations)

On the evolved awareness vs. attitude issue. My sense is that enlightenment starts with a change in view (the Buddhist word) or attitude - which is the result of insight(s) leading to the crumbling of previous 'knowns' in Robert Monroe language and their replacement by new ones.

But that this new view in essence throws open the 'doors of perception' ( :) where did we hear that before??)  - that previously unavailable capability (shut down by or obscured by the ego to maintain it's self serving view of 'reality' in our awareness) enables access to/the perception of other realities (made up of the ability to access non-ordinary experience, access to higher information perhaps from the I there and maybe more, and greatly increased wisdom and intuition) and previously unperceived aspects of our current reality. (this latter most obviously includes empathy or the ability to truly see and be driven by a care for the other's view)

The insight (or progressive insights) is perhaps the seed. Which as above is normally blocked by ego which uses selective perception to its own ends. Which is why meditation and experience are so important.

Meditation ('no thought') by stilling the mind reduces the vigilance of the ego and enables the possibility of information sneaking past the screen of selective perception. Or slows down our jumping to conclusions (instinctively reacting) enough that we get the chance to consciously apply logic to the incoming information leading to unavoidable conclusions which conflict with what the ego would like us to think. The mindfulness, single pointedness and awareness it creates means we pick up far more of the available data, and are better able to process it.

Experience has the same effect. If we can raise the will to trial (wise and practical - not half assed) actions which go against our instinctive selfish ways  (like engaging in selfless actions to help others for example - good spiritual teaching plays its part here in prompting us in what are wise and loving actions) we may experience positive outcomes via routes and mechanisms we'd not considered possible given our previous dog eat dog framework.

So again the conflict with prior knowns arises (they are seen to be untrue), we replace them with the new and so become something else. And ultimately if we keep this up for long enough we become enlightened.

Ego by the way is presumably just one big but wrong 'known'. (the mistaken view that selfishness is the best way to live, the route to happiness) Meaning perhaps that sudden enlightenment could maybe be some major flash of insight which overturns the entire edifice. It may be though that we simply don't have the ability to make leaps of that magnitude from a standing start.

One of the most interesting aspects of enlightenment (as it is written of in the Eastern traditions, but fits with the above too) is the idea that it's only the beginning. That having collapsed the old 'knowns' it takes time and life experience (probably lives) to replace them with new ones inspired by the new view. That we have to go off and live the new view to generate experience and hence new knowns. Meaning that a 'newbie' enlightened person may get it wrong at times until they have it all figured out.

All this of course is only one view of what might go down. When you are dealing with a force (mind) that can transcend space and time and act out of conscious awareness almost anything is possible.

Which again makes it kind of lucky that it's practice (meditation and experience) that gets us there, not thinking about it...

;) Waffle warning. Pardon two in a row and that this is getting a little heavy. A more ordinary scenario which maybe illustrates a similar process to what happens during progressive enlightenment but in microcosm is the way culture is deemed to change in work organisations. This treatment comes from the field of organisational behaviour - specifically in the context of how people relate to each other, and to the company etc.

It's suggested that our position on issues develops in the sequence 'affect' (basically the immediate emotional response), 'mood' (still emotional, a little longer lived but still volatile), 'attitude' (a moderately firmly fixed view, but one capable of change via logic, experience and so on) and then 'value'.

Values are essentially very strongly held beliefs which it is extremely hard to get people to question - which if challenged tend result in strong (often unthinking) resistance and anger. An example of a value might be honesty/integrity - if having trusted somebody they breach that trust we tend to go ballistic. But values tend to be context/situation specific - for example we may choose to do business with somebody we know is unreliable and build in safeguards to make this feasible: in this case a breach of trust will not generate the same reaction.

What this seems to map out is the process by which the beliefs (or 'knowns') upon which ego bases its view of 'how things are' are built (or changed)- 'things' being the external reality against which it (we) positions it's (our) internal defences. (Ego is in a sense a mirrored reflection of our external reality - filtered through the lens of selective perception and self interest)

The very strong reaction caused by having values challenged seems to occur precisely because it threatens ego and its world/reality view.

The strength of the reaction produced (anger, dismay and so on) when a strongly held view that God is caring and always benevolent is for example challenged by an apparently unarguable contradiction arising out of new thought or experience (often or perhaps always the result of flawed logic, but we can't see the flaw) is a case in point.

We're at that stage left faced with two choices - either slide into God hating recriminations (which often happens) or grow by widening our view of reality to accommodate what we observe within a 'good' God view. Or mix them. Both hurt to one degree or another. Both can become delusional  - if rationality is sacrificed to avoid the need to change our original position, or if the new position becomes obsessively held.

The enlightenment process is to varying degrees painful (rapid progress = big step changes = ouch) and requires considerable fortitude for precisely this reason. This is perhaps also the underlying reason why we may experience 'the dark night of the Soul'. We may well have worked ourself to the point where via experience or fresh insight enabled by meditation we can see that our old view was wrong. But even willingly (and with the help of Grace?) embraced the experience (at least when the issue is significant) can cause lots  emotion.

If we're still at an early and emotionally based stage in our development or very uptight then we're not even going to allow new insight and information into conscious consideration - we'll either immediately lash out against who or whatever challenges our beliefs, or we'll without awareness of the fact head straight into denial or another delusion.

What all of this illustrates is probably the wisdom of the view held by most of the progressive traditions (but to varying degrees not by the institutional religions that 'teach' by dictat and dogma) that it's really important to stay light and open in our attitude - to not get 'hung up' and intense about beliefs that in truth can only be provisional. In the knowledge that it's an ongoing journey, and that whatever we think may reflect 'truth' today will by tomorrow and with increased insight be seen to have been either flat wrong, or more likely but a small part of an ever growing picture....

;)  :) Not sure why this thread may have died, but if my verbosity was to blame then please pardon me!!

The argument set out above is that enlightenment is possibly a process, and that even if it occurs it's likely to be simply the beginning of learning to live from an altered view. Meaning that there's no reason to think that an enlightened person (at least initially) is necessarily going to live like some sort of omniscient all compassionate being.

Osho's worldly imperfections are it seems fairly widely documented http://home.att.net/~meditation/Osho.html , and yet what I've read written by  him has for me always been 100% credible. Doing a bit of digging on him I tripped over this article which seems a fairly balanced if warts and all account. ( ;) his predilection for panty-less Buddhalicious babes may well cause some indigestion, but is not it seems necessarily proof of his non-enlightenment)

More interesting I also tripped over UG Krishnamurti (not J Krishnamurti) and his writings on the subject of enlightenment. He was an Indian gent widely accepted as having been enlightened who died early this year.

The little I've read so far is very interesting indeed - he basically insists that while enlightenment is real that it's impossible to teach anything that helps us towards it (any more than you can teach a smell - it can only be experienced), that seeking is actually a barrier, and that the enlightened person is subject to all of the same desires etc as normal and most definitely is not in some way omniscient.

He holds that the idea that it in some way confers such capabilities is a fabrication by the spirituality industry. Which perhaps explains the contradictions inherent in Osho!!

More reading need to comment with any sort of perspective comment on him. Here's some clips of him speaking on this and other topics: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ug%20krishnamurti&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv

More: http://www.ugkrishnamurti.org/ug/ug_video/index.html

Many of his books are available on Amazon - for example 'The Mystique of Enlightenment' http://books.google.ie/books?id=DymPVtco6jIC&dq=The+Mystique+of+ENlightenment&pg=PA2&ots=2GecetXxTb&sig=rO6ujtg3olwQHD-zpfMuwGsAQio&prev=http://www.google.ie/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3DThe%2BMystique%2Bof%2BENlightenment%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch%26meta%3D&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1&cad=legacy

This stuff is important - it has potentially enormous implications for how we view life and the path....

Hi Vajra-
I think I'm just a snob, but when I read anybody's "This is how it is" (including my own) I tend to try to put it into an immediate perspective that applies to my own life. Sometimes it works and I'm willing to accept what they say - but more often it's a matter of opinion that I don't share.

I tend to prefer the Tibetan writings that have survived for a few centuries in comparison to the more modern digested versions. Usually the traditional writings are specific, giving instructions that can be followed, after which it is possible to agree or not with the author. This, of course, is the reason that I found Bruce's works so interesting - they're all about discovering how to do it yourself, rather than who said what about which opinion of some other person who quoted yet others etc...

d

We're probably in a pretty similar place then Dave, although I've not made a serious study of older Tibetan writings and tend to rely on more recent writings and teachings that purport to draw on them.

It's possible that we differ a bit in degree of scepticism though. My tendency is to rarely dump ideas that seem genuine and to make a fairly coherent argument - I've often found that with enough reflection they fit and offer valuable insights but use differing terminology or maybe emphasise differing aspects of experience. Or that maybe there's insight in the view, but the author overplays his hand a little.

I'd better not start explaining exactly why I think it's the case or it'll be another half page post that leaves nobody any the wiser, but my sense is that UJK is actually driving at a really important truth when viewed from the correct perspective (perhaps that the cocoon of selective perception dooms solely self driven 'doing' and intellectual  methods to failure, that the help of Grace or higher mind is needed and that this is the critical bit) but that maybe in his efforts to emphasise this (against the very formulaic one size fits all approaches that the traditions tend to teach) he overstates his case.

I suspect that he's correct in that the 'going through the motions' meditation and other practice that results from the contact of most with Buddhist teachings delivers only very slow change in people (or maybe heads off a slide in the wrong direction), but that equally path/process matters. (despite his emphasising no path there are from the short biopic I read actually big similarities between his life path and that of other seemingly spontaneous realisations like say Eckhardt Tolle.

I suspect that Tibetan Buddhism knows this bloody well too, but that this and the more nuanced version of what enlightenment truly is are only overtly discussed at the highest levels of practice and teaching - there's loads of room within the multitude of strands taught for radical views like this......

I recall a class in Sufism that I took many years back. (I also recall the Final Exam, where I had forgotten what the word "suf" meant - it means "wool", since that's what a lot of sufis wore.)

Later on I visited a conclave where Surat Shabd Yoga (literally, "soul sound union") was practiced. It's the yoga of the cosmic sound current - the mysticism of Omar and Kabir. I had first become aware of it through Sant Kirpal Singh when he spoke in San Francisco.  As I entered, and as I left, I saluted the pyr's photo. That night as I meditated I found myself immersed in the heart center, which is the basis of the type of yoga they use.  It was a literal location of awareness, together with awareness of the pulse beat, flow of blood etc. An objective description can be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surat_Shabd_Yoga . With theory, try www.ruhanisatsangusa.org/col/col-5a.htm. For technique that actually works try santhakar.tripod.com - The brilliance of the inner light and impact of the whole experience is definitely going to stay with anyone who masters this! ;-)

The same technique can be found in the Upanishads, where we are told to listen to the sound of the heart in the right ear, not the left, and to go into the heart, riding the gong-like sound. (In Richard Burton's Khasiddah he refers to it as the "tinkling of a camel's bell".  As the sound develops, it first sounds like a drum, but later on it sounds quite like a baritone cowbell.)

The kind of enlightenment that arises from this type of experience is different in its beginnings, although it moves onward toward more familiar ideas later. One of the interesting things is that there are proposed a large number of levels of awareness, some of which are said to be illusory, and inhabited by a negative demonic being whose task is to confuse us.  The meaning might turn out to be just another way to look at the astral levels, but using different criteria to differentiate them.

I get the impression that all the pathways to the truth eventually lead there, but that they take people through radically divergent experiences. I have a very rare mimeographed article by Swami Naryanananda, "Kundalini, the Primal Power in Man"  in which he points out that there are a very large number of ways to attain enlightened awareness. In specific, drugs, illness, emotional catastrophe and similar events are equally useful and valid as are the more traditional yoga methods. As an old hippie I really liked getting an official opinion that I hadn't wasted my time. :-)

In principle, all these levels of awareness are also available through hypnosis, but I've had poor luck producing them. However, I would guess that most people remain tied to the pathway through which they reached a higher level of awareness, and that this connection is going to color their experiences strongly. The inference is that we have dozens of kinds of enlightenment experiences, all being of the exact same ultimate nature.

Meanwhile, for those who are looking for a new and interesting thing to do, this meditative method is possibly a little easier than "contemplating your navel". (Makes more sense, too.)

Mysticism in Arab lands seems to be pretty much at the same kind of stalemate as for Christian mystics in the Dark Ages - if you deviated from the orthodoxy, they killed you. Same as now in Iran and other related places. I kinda wonder where this is going to lead over the next few centuries. As with Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity, at the end of the Dark Ages comes the Renaissance. Maybe Mullah Nasrudin will mount his mule and ride off into the sunset.   :)

My URL brackety things don't seem to work very well, but you can copy and paste the addresses.  :-[

d

Thanks Dave. Doing some reading on those links...