Spiritual Enlightenment: what is it/what it is.

[Polymath257]

Ah, I was waiting for you to get caught in that sticky trap!

Think:

I am referring not to the AMOUNT of saltiness, but instead to the fact of saltiness itself. Once again:

"The saltiness of the sea is the same everywhere"

Note that I did not say: "The amount of saltiness is the same everywhere"

Nice try, though.

But even the types of salt will vary from place to place. And certainly the experience of the saltiness will vary. So in what way is it the same?

Is the saltiness of the sea the same as the saltiness of my glass of water that I just put salt into?

 

[YmirGF]

Yes, I have a choice ... listen to the teachings of my Guru, or to some stranger off the internet ... which one? hmmmm..., lol

Yep. That is a toughie, alright. Hmmmm. Evangelizing Fundamentalist Enlightenmaniac on the net or sweet guru in the flesh... whew... decisions, decisions, decisions...

 

[YmirGF]

Not as far as factual knowledge is concerned, at least. But in terms of the nature of all things, one can indeed know that, because what you are is what Everything is{drivel snip}

So.... since you didn't really mean the saltiness thingy the way you put it, and not for the first time either, what part(s) of the rest of the statement do you not really mean either? Your statement is unfalsifiable twaddle that sounds kewl but doesn't add up to a hill of beans. I'll start you off. In reality, you are not what everything is. Hell, you've prattled on, seemingly endlessly, that "you" don't exist so what are "you" really saying here?

 

[Vinayaka]

Most people who claim to be enlightened at least know enough about it to know that the 'I' is no longer there. So they make great pains to eliminate all personal pronouns, either by editing their posts or by getting into the habit of writing that way. Still they make the big claims of being smarter than everyone else on the planet, and use condescending language, won't listen, and the rest of the telltale signs.

I would expect people to at least, if you're going to try to fool anybody at all, get rid of the 'I' ness. That's just too basic. Then try listening, or reading what the other person says.

Still, it's just ridiculously obvious that any enlightened being would have far better things to do that argue or brag on an internet forum ... like sit in a cave and enjoy it. It's entertaining and sad, both.

 

[YmirGF]

It's not my POV. If it is, now please tell me at what other time you will come to realization if not in the here and now?

That reminds me of how I love to rib people in real life.

"What time is it, Paul?" "It's now, of course. It's always now, right now."
"Where are we?" "We are here!"

It's usually at this point that I get swatted at, but it's all in good fun. My point is that stating things like this, though sometimes helpful, are not generally helpful observations.

 

[YmirGF]

Most people who claim to be enlightened at least know enough about it to know that the 'I' is no longer there. So they make great pains to eliminate all personal pronouns, either by editing their posts or by getting into the habit of writing that way. Still they make the big claims of being smarter than everyone else on the planet, and use condescending language, won't listen, and the rest of the telltale signs.

I would expect people to at least, if you're going to try to fool anybody at all, get rid of the 'I' ness. That's just too basic. Then try listening, or reading what the other person says.

Still, it's just ridiculously obvious that any enlightened being would have far better things to do that argue or brag on an internet forum ... like sit in a cave and enjoy it. It's entertaining and sad, both.

Or feed bits of apple to beautiful passing wild deer.... Jus' sayin'...

 

[Vinayaka]

Or feed bits of apple to beautiful passing wild deer.... Jus' sayin'...

The ones I know are actually incredibly busy, and incredibly happy ... just sayin'. lol.

 

[Vinayaka]

That reminds me of how I love to rib people in real life.

"What time is it, Paul?" "It's now, of course. It's always now, right now."
"Where are we?" "We are here!"

It's usually at this point that I get swatted at, but it's all in good fun. My point is that stating things like this, though sometimes helpful, are not generally helpful observations.

Simplistic advaita is rarely pragmatic.

 

[Kirran]

Guru used to use first-person pronouns a fair amount, AFAIK. One of the swamis told him he couldn't go and buy building supplies in a massive fluffy fake fur coat (as a very dark man in rural Wales of the '80s, too) and he said 'I can, and they're going to remember me!'

When he showed up, the dude driving the forklift was so shocked he went smack into a wall.

 

[Vinayaka]

Guru used to use first-person pronouns a fair amount, AFAIK. One of the swamis told him he couldn't go and buy building supplies in a massive fluffy fake fur coat (as a very dark man in rural Wales of the '80s, too) and he said 'I can, and they're going to remember me!'

When he showed up, the dude driving the forklift was so shocked he went smack into a wall.

Yes there are times you have to, just to communicate at all, I suppose. But I wouldn't know.

 

[Polymath257]

That reminds me of how I love to rib people in real life.

"What time is it, Paul?" "It's now, of course. It's always now, right now."
"Where are we?" "We are here!"

It's usually at this point that I get swatted at, but it's all in good fun. My point is that stating things like this, though sometimes helpful, are not generally helpful observations.

Yep, true, but not helpful for understanding.

 

[godnotgod]

And I disagree. So, a good question is how do we decide which of us is correct? What experiment or observation can we make that will settle the issue? if enlightenment is just another dream state, how could we tell? If it is not, how could we tell? Is it even meaningful to ask?

Again, it cannot be Enlightenment if it is a dream-state. The thing is, however, that for a dream-state to exist, there must be a corresponding awakened state, even though you haven't a clue as to its existence, since the former cannot be a reality without the latter, and since, when in the dream-state, one is unaware that one is in such a state. Imagine for a moment that you are asleep, dreaming that you are a famous dragon-slayer, a hero, and that I can see what you are dreaming from a higher awakened state. Were I to ask you if you were a dragon-slayer during your dream, you would, of course, answer emphatically in the affirmative: 'Of course I am Polymath, the world-famous dragon-slayer! Why would anyone doubt me?', you might say. So on that level of conscious awareness, it is reality for you. But when you awaken from such a dream, and I were to ask the same question of you, you might say: 'Of course not! Why, it was but a dream!', and you might have a good belly laugh. And then you might also say: 'Oh, no, that was only a dream, but THIS is reality, perhaps not realizing that you have simply awoken into a higher dream-state made to appear as if it is concrete material reality. And because of science, you would never question whether it were real or not. Everything about it is real to you, just as everything about your dream of being a dragon-slayer were equally real when on that level of consciousness. In this scenario, the only way you could possibly know you were dreaming is for you to awaken. And since you obviously have not experienced a further awakening from what you see as 'material reality', for you, there is no such thing. But I just wanted to set the stage for further discussion, and make you realize that such a higher state of consciousness can indeed be the case, based upon what you already know to be true. OK?

 

[godnotgod]

So.... since you didn't really mean the saltiness thingy the way you put it, and not for the first time either, what part(s) of the rest of the statement do you not really mean either? Your statement is unfalsifiable twaddle that sounds kewl but doesn't add up to a hill of beans. I'll start you off. In reality, you are not what everything is. Hell, you've prattled on, seemingly endlessly, that "you" don't exist so what are "you" really saying here?

You can come down from your position of pseudo-superiority if you like. It's getting rather boring and obnoxious, and makes you look really, really silly, OK?

Each snowflake is a unique form, but all snowflakes are made of water, so in that sense, each snowflake is the entirety of what all snowflakes are.

You have a unique way of presenting yourself to the world, but at its base, the consciousness you are using to do so is the same consciousness inherent in all conscious beings, and behind the manifested Universe. Only your mind falsely separates itself from such universality, from which it has always been at one with, and has never at any point been separate from it.

 

[godnotgod]

So.... since you didn't really mean the saltiness thingy the way you put it,

Oh, but I absolutely do:

"The saltiness of the sea is the same everywhere"

This does not come from me, BTW, but from Hinduism. If you get it, you get it, if not, you want to argue meaningless minutiae in a feeble attempt to render the statement meaningless, and so, have missed the point. Pity.

 

[godnotgod]

Most people who claim to be enlightened at least know enough about it to know that the 'I' is no longer there. So they make great pains to eliminate all personal pronouns, either by editing their posts or by getting into the habit of writing that way. Still they make the big claims of being smarter than everyone else on the planet, and use condescending language, won't listen, and the rest of the telltale signs.

Let us revisit Plato's Cave for a moment. So the escaped prisoner who has now seen the glorious Sun, returns to the others to tell them of his amazing discovery. In their minds, this fool who thinks he knows more than the time-honored teachings presented to them on the cave walls, must be some sort of lunatic who appears to the rest to be spouting nonsense and putting on airs of superiority, and they feel threatened by the possibility of he being 'smarter' than they, though he has never made such a claim in the first place. Wasn't it Galileo who was put under house arrest by the Church for the rest of his days and forced to recant his 'wild' claims?

Perhaps some (many?), upon hearing the words of the enlightened, see them as condescending through the filter of their own egos. In the worst cases, we have things like 400 year long Inquisitions replete with witch burnings and castings out of imaginary devils and demons.

 

[crowfeather]

Let us revisit Plato's Cave for a moment. So the escaped prisoner who has now seen the glorious Sun, returns to the others to tell them of his amazing discovery. In their minds, this fool who thinks he knows more than the time-honored teachings presented to them on the cave walls, must be some sort of lunatic who appears to the rest to be spouting nonsense and putting on airs of superiority, and they feel threatened by the possibility of he being 'smarter' than they, though he has never made such a claim in the first place

Thank you, brother crow, for tirelessly, and patiently, carrying forward the message in the OP.
Nothing I've yet seen in the world of internet men means more to me.

 

[godnotgod]

Thank you, brother crow, for tirelessly, and patiently, carrying forward the message in the OP.
Nothing I've yet seen in the world of internet men means more to me.

I consider it an honor to be called 'brother' by you. Thank you for having the courage to shed your light. Once the rare light of dharma is glimpsed, all else pales in comparison.

 

[Araceli Cianna]

I have read through about seven pages thus far and would like to share my own experiences and opinions.

A few years ago, I had a profound spiritual experience. Everything changed for me and I believed myself to be enlightened. I carried on with this belief for a couple of years, firm in the knowledge that just as I would know if I had fallen into a lake of liquid hot lava and known it instantaneously, I knew I had experienced an all encompassing oneness and the realization of that mystery which is All That Is and God itself. For that moment in time my identity was not and I had all disappeared as 'I'.

In the couple of years that followed I was extremely devoted to my spiritual path as of such. I spent most of my time meditating, conversing with spiritual beings, and being totally immersed in my newfound understanding of life and of myself. But it didn't last. The deeper I went, the deeper I opened myself to the spiritual world, the more out of control I found myself. Finally I had gone so far deep down into the rabbit hole that I completely lost my sanity, became severely dissociated, and believed I was being haunted and possessed by demons.

You cannot imagine the levels of psychosis I went through. At this point I wasn't just having single experiences or visions of the spiritual realm, I was living it 24/7 to the point where I can compare it to drowning with no ability to come up for fresh air. That little sense of 'I' that I had left vanished completely and I lost myself entirely.

I eventually got medical help when my personality fragmented so badly that I regressed to a little child of the age of three years old, unable to handle anymore. My mum had to care for me. It was one of the worst experiences in my life. With the right medicine it took me over a year to recover from that, and to make sense of everything I had experienced and witness.

I finally realized as I got better that all the experiences I had had were at best contradictory and did not harmonize with each other. Including the experience from whence it all started where I believed I had become 'enlightened'. The biggest contradiction was when I was going through the stage where I thought I was possessed, I was 'out of body', in 'heaven' meeting Jesus who appeared to be God. This God was nothing like the experience I had of God during my supposed 'enlightenment'. They were completely at odds with each other. They couldn't have been more different.

In the end I had concluded that I was mentally sick, and that my experience of enlightenment as well as everything else were products of an incredibly complex yet deluded mind. I was hallucinating. Because there is just absolutely no way any of it was real.

Now I do not consider myself to be enlightened or spiritual or anything at all, and I am all the happier for it. My dangerous flirtation with the depths of my own unconscious mind was born out of a deep need and desire to escape from the physical world due to depression and other situations in my life that made things difficult for me. I basically fled into a fantasy world of my own making...

More than anything I accept that the human mind is incredibly incredibly vast, and complicated, and imperfect. I have since become atheistic, but I am glad all that nonsense of my past is behind me.

By the way I am forever damaged because of those experiences. The psychosis left me with incurable chronic fatigue syndrome, non epileptic attack disorder, and other physical issues. In this case I had changed my own neurology so greatly through following these delusions that my body was no longer able to cope, and I doubt it will ever recover.

Therefore whilst I do believe that are benefits to a simple non-theistic spiritual path, I think that religion/spirituality can also be very dangerous and harmful.

Sorry that I have written so much:

TLDR: I experienced enlightenment which made me psychotic and now I'm messed up for life.

 

[godnotgod]

Mouse, having been exposed for the pseudo-superior that he is, is now resorting to labeling posts above his head as 'Funny', in a feeble attempt to pooh pooh them as insignificant.

 

[godnotgod]

TLDR: I experienced enlightenment which made me psychotic and now I'm messed up for life.

Enlightenment does not make people psychotic; it makes people enlightened as to the true nature of Reality. That is why it is called 'Enlightenment' and not Madness. That you experienced deluded thought, demons, and even insanity is not enlightenment; it is delusion.

A note from OSHO:

Madness and Enlightenment

"There is a great difference and also a great similarity. The similarity has to be understood first, because without understanding it, it will be difficult to understand the difference.

Both are beyond the mind – madness and enlightenment.

Madness is below the mind.

Enlightenment is above the mind.

But both are out of the mind.

Hence, you have the expression for a madman 'out of his mind.' The same expression can be used for the enlightened person; he is also out of his mind.

Mind functions logically, rationally, intellectually. Neither madness nor enlightenment function intellectually. They are similar: madness has fallen below reason, and enlightenment has gone above reason, but both are irrational*; hence, sometimes in the East a madman is misunderstood as being an enlightened man. These similarities are there."