-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
enlightment
- Thread starter syo
- Start date
WalterTrull
Godfella
Try to not build walls. Get rid of the ones you find. (Carefully, carefully)
It seems to me there are no guaranteed paths to enlightenment (so far as I know), nor are there any scientific studies that I'm aware of which rank the relative efficacy of the various paths. Indeed, some notable people -- such as Jiddu Krishnamurti -- deny there is any path at all.
Some people -- again, Krishnamurti among them -- advise against seeking enlightenment on these grounds: To actively seek enlightenment, you must form a mental image of it. "Enlightenment is X" or "Enlightenment is Y". But that mental image can no more be an accurate representation of enlightenment than a candle can be the sun, or a map can be it's terrain. Moreover, having such an image can become a barrier to actual enlightenment because it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy -- you might attain to it someday, but what you attain to will only be your own mental image of enlightenment. Not the real thing. Hence, some folks advise not only to avoid seeking enlightenment, but to even go so far as avoiding arriving at any conclusions or fixed ideas about its nature. To them, those are all barriers to genuine enlightenment.
However, as Trull suggests, there is a negative approach that is not quite a path. It's to remove the barriers to enlightenment. This negative approach is found in several religious traditions in various forms -- as well as in the writings of some non-religious mystics.
Metaphorically, this is approach seems to be the equivalent of opening all the windows of your house so that any breeze which might happen to arise can come in -- rather than being blocked..You then wait, perhaps forever, because you cannot force a breeze to rise, nor can you force enlightenment to come. If you're lucky, though, and a breeze does indeed arise, you will not have prevented it from "entering your house".
Last, I'm just summarizing what I've read and heard about enlightenment -- I'm no authority on it myself (except for that time I saw Terri's breasts in the moonlight).
The Kilted Heathen
Crow FreyjasmaðR
Live your life unsheltered. Blinders, walls, and burned bridges only foster ignorance and ensure negative bias.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Here's a little something that may help ...
One of the problems in explaining enlightenment is that we have to use words. Words are only symbols and don’t give the real understanding. The letters of a word are merely a code that the mind translates into meaning. Words only have meaning if you already have an experiential knowledge of what the words mean. If you were blind could you understand color through just words? Can you describe music to someone using only words? Can you describe the emotion of love only using the symbols of words? Words are only effective at communicating experience if the experience is already known. You know color, music, and emotion because you have perceived them directly. Enlightenment is not an experience that one already has a reference for and so a word description is not likely to be meaningful enough to convey an understanding.
Enlightenment | What is enlightenment | How to become enlightened | Compassion | Laughter | Divine Comedy
Best of luck in your quest!
One of the problems in explaining enlightenment is that we have to use words. Words are only symbols and don’t give the real understanding. The letters of a word are merely a code that the mind translates into meaning. Words only have meaning if you already have an experiential knowledge of what the words mean. If you were blind could you understand color through just words? Can you describe music to someone using only words? Can you describe the emotion of love only using the symbols of words? Words are only effective at communicating experience if the experience is already known. You know color, music, and emotion because you have perceived them directly. Enlightenment is not an experience that one already has a reference for and so a word description is not likely to be meaningful enough to convey an understanding.
Enlightenment | What is enlightenment | How to become enlightened | Compassion | Laughter | Divine Comedy
Best of luck in your quest!
Define it first I would think.
Definition of enlightenment
Buddhism :a final blessed state marked by the absence of desire or suffering
It seems to me a process of becoming detached from both material and conceptual things.
Everything is impermanent even to your identity/concept of self. Everything you possess will be lost/taken from you at some point. The loss of anything you remain attached to will cause you to suffer.
Enlightenment IMO more than anything else is freedom from suffering. How you get there depends on what you find yourself attached to and whether you are able to become unattached to it.
It's hard to first realize what your attachments are, and even then knowing what they are to let go of them.
I feel freer the more things I'm attached to that I am able to let go of. This encourages me to want to let go of more. Still there are some attachments I don't want to be free of. I know this is likely to cause me to suffer at their loss but for now I'm ok with that.
You are really the only one who can really know the path you need to take towards enlightenment. However the first step I think is to set it as a goal.
WalterTrull
Godfella
I suppose you’re right about definitions.
I think we can assume we’re not talking about the 17th & 18th century French movement. Also, probably not a project to build a Window Manager for X11. I’m guessing we’re talking about something more akin to “a concept in spirituality, philosophy and psychology related to achieving clarity of perception, reason and knowledge.” The Buddhism one is good too. What’s interesting, silliness aside, is that most of us knew what SYO meant.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I would think that if perchance, a person just so happens to be free from the effects that desire and suffering brings, would "enlightenment" as people make it out or imagine it to be as, pose any concern or consideration whatsoever?
I've heard that some enlighten folks choose to make it their business to help others to become enlightened.
Siddhartha Gautama for example. Does this mean he still held some attachments?
More for my benefit really. Since we're communicating with words, I like to make sure my concept of a word is accurate.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I wonder how things go for people who pursue such endeavors?
As to the latter,
You would need to ask Siddhartha that question. ;0)
BSM1
What? Me worry?
Well, that's enlightening...
WalterTrull
Godfella
Cool. Wasn't trying to be snarky by-the-way (I think). Apologies if it came off that way.
syo
Well-Known Member
I think it's ''knowing'' ''awaken of the mind'' that will make you live in harmony and die in peace.