You might be interest in this. I once met someone who impressed me as like no other person I'd met before. That sounds a bit too dramatic, but I can't at the moment think of a better way of putting it. Now, I am certain this person did not consider herself enlightened. However, she struck me as not merely better than average at paying attention to people, but as simply the most attentive person I'd known. She had many other strange qualities, too. So I asked her what her secret was. She told me to find a meditative technique.
I kind of consider meditation to be a given, in terms of being a useful practice. I never actually tried it, but it seems so natural to me that i tend to take the idea for granted. I think though that i view it in different and most likely simpler ways than you would. Which while in part would be natural given the fact that i never tried it, is also i believe related to why we would each meditate in the first place. As in, our motives for trying meditation.
For instance, reading your story, i have no doubts that meditation is not by far the only or the most important factor contributing to this woman becoming that way. The way i see it, her life experiences as well as her personal make up are what's responsible, including the experience of meditation, which is just part of a bigger picture. I'd consider meditation to be something that helped her get to where she's at, a tool, perhaps even a crucial tool, and a reason among the reasons which helped her achieve this level of clarity and functioning. But that level would not be reached if it were not for a whole other set of experiences as well as attributes she personally possesses.
Now, none of what you said actually goes against any of that, but i just suspect that you probably view it differently to the way i do, and as such i'm interested in sharing with you my supposedly differing perspective.
By "casual" I meant comparisons that served no obvious or pointed purpose. Idle comparisons, if you will.
If i'm understanding correctly (and i suspect that i'm not), i can see contexts in which such a comparison would be made without subtracting in anyway from the person's supposed enlightenment. For instance, if they're made in a joking manner. Or if the person is intentionally being silly.
As it's probably becoming clear, my view of enlightenment doesn't include in anyway the necessity of the person having this 'unattached' touch to them. That's not what enlightenment is about for me. An enlightened person can be that way, but that's not necessary. Reason being that this state of mind in my view is only relevant and beneficial in certain contexts and for certain purposes. But generally, i don't think it should be aimed for. In fact, and in regards to what i'm aiming for with my life at this point, it is for the most part a kind of expression of enlightenment that is out of my sight. As in, i would never aim for such state.
Of course, it might be also becoming clear that enlightenment for me is not defined as reaching a certain outlook on life, rather it's the clarity based upon which one would deal with their situation in life, which could be done in more than one way.
Here's a funny story for you, Badran. I was at university taking a course in Hinduism. My professor was someone I was mildly suspicious of because he had a lot of hippie like qualities, and I thought such qualities suspect back then. But I somehow managed to sense he was authentic -- that is, true to himself -- and I respected that much about him. At any rate, one of the class assignments was to write a paper on a chapter of the Gita.
I submitted my paper on the second chapter. A couple weeks went by when something totally unexpected happened. I got a letter from him thanking me for submitting the paper and expressing his opinion that it was as profound as anything he'd ever read on the Gita, both "published or unpublished".
Perhaps you can imagine how full of myself I was after that! When I walked to school next day, you could hear my ego clanging louder than my footsteps. I would have been the funniest sight on campus to anyone who could have seen into me. "My paper is profound. I'm profound. Look at me, everyone! I'm profound!"
But that all came to an abrupt end the next time I was in class with him. For, you see, he asked me two or three questions. One of them was the question about condiments that I just asked. And, as I stumbled over myself trying to answer those questions, he seemed to me disappointed. But not because, I think, he was disappointed in me. Rather -- I thought I sensed -- his disappointment stemmed from the fact he was looking for someone he could share things with. Someone on the same wavelength as him. That is, he was looking for a friend!
My first thought is that he shouldn't have concluded much based on that. Sometimes when we're put on the spot and infront of people we don't express our thoughts properly, especially if it's regarding questions we've never thought about well before, or haven't really reached the phase where we can word our thoughts about them properly. Though i can see how he might get disappointed if he had built a rather excessively grand picture in his mind, and especially if he really needed that.
A scientific study of Zen monks once found that when they were meditating, at least, they were not easily startled by sudden noises. In fact, I don't recall any of them were at all startled. But the study didn't say what the same monks did when they were not meditating.
The same experimenters found that the same monks were able to notice a door quietly opening behind them across a large room from them.
I'm not surprised, that's actually what i'd expect from those test subjects.
For clarification, i'd consider such reactions possible to come from an enlightened person, but besides what i clarified about it not being a necessity, i also would not consider the mere presence of these attributes as a serious indicator of enlightenment. Zen monks or anybody else, given what enlightenment revolves around in my mind. Having such reactions on it's own would suggest certain things, but i wouldn't consider that to entail or necessitate enlightenment.
And to further clarify on each of those attributes, the first of the two, regarding the calmness idea, is based on observations that i have had about people who i've deemed pretty close to being labeled with the word enlightened. It's also more related to the core of the idea of enlightenment as i define it, in that it's more beneficial. The second one however (regarding hearing the door) seems much less necessary because such keen sense is not really as much beneficial or helpful in reaching high levels of knowledge and wisdom. It could be helpful, but in a much less crucial sense than the first one, and i have not personally observed it as much. So overall, it seemed much less related and almost irrelevant.
Just out of curiosity, what would you think if you knew for certain that enlightened people were more likely to say, "Thank you! That's very nice of you to say that" and similar things mainly because they sensed your compliments were important you and they were so extraordinarily sensitive to you that they didn't want to in any way demean your effort to compliment them? What would you think of that?
A mixture of different things:
1) Sometimes when we compliment people, it really is more about us than it is about them. As such, even if i get insulted (which is likely) by realizing that they think it's important to me, i'll be understanding of why they might consider it important to me. Which is because it actually is sometimes, even if in that particular case it was actually the other way around (more about them than about me).
2) On another front, i'll probably also feel insulted that my words didn't mean much or anything to them (regardless of what it meant to me and/or what they think it meant to me). Perhaps even threatened by what i would definitely and baselessly label as arrogance then.
3) I'd also feel sad for them, but would be curious to use the opportunity and understand precisely why they are unaffected by compliments. I'll have guesses, but it's better to look further and possibly gain decent knowledge about that mentality, even if it's gonna require me to do things i'm very uncomfortable with.
4) On the long run, i'll have to make sure i'm not around such a person for like years or anything close to that, though. For practical reasons, nothing else. I could really use not having that kind of person around me at this point in my life.