What is spiritual enlightenment?

[Gambit]

What is spiritual enlightenment?

"All your time is spent in dreaming. Your sleeping and your waking dreams have different forms, and that is all." - A Course in Miracles

Wkipedia defines a "lucid dream" as "any dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming." I believe spiritual enlightenment is nothing more than becoming lucid of your waking dream, just like you can become lucid of a sleeping dream. What sayeth you?

 

[Sunstone]

I think of it as a kind of perceptual event in which normal conscious awareness comes to an abrupt end while some sort of awareness or experiencing continues. Since normal conscious awareness involves, among other things, the division of the perceptual field into self and non-self, its end entails a perceptual unity of all things within the field. Some folks interpret this unity to be god, some folks don't.

The experience is frequently associated with an overwhelming sense or conviction of realness, with feelings of unsurpassed bliss, with a feeling or perception that everything makes sense, with a feeling or recognition that the experience ultimately cannot be communicated, and so on.

Or so I gather.

 

[Riverwolf]

It's hard to say, but I definitely do NOT think of it as some kind of "ultimate achievement" after which there's nothing more to learn, or after which one becomes "perfect", or anything like that.

Enlightenment in general, as far as I'm concerned, is when a particularly confusing issue suddenly is made clear, and makes sense. When misunderstanding becomes understanding. It's that "eureka" moment, when the light turns on above the cartoon head. And, most importantly, STAYS that way, rather than some new factor remuddying the watter.

Enlightenment, therefore, can be considered the "ah-HA" moment.

The problem, therefore, with defining "spiritual enlightenment" is that the meaning of "spiritual" means so many different things to so many different people that exactly defining it in broad, general terms is impossible. It requires the context of the person's beliefs about spirituality to be made clear before it can be defined.

 

[buddhist]

I don't know, I'm not enlightened yet

 

[allfoak]

Gospel of Thomas
Saying 22

(22) Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom."
They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?"
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."

 

[jeager106]

Ha! I know what that is. I'm in recovery from addiction to pain meds and alcohol.
Without a "spiritual" experience recovery is IMPOSSIBLE in the long term.
I was in rehab (home just today) and interacted with what I call "kids" 18 to
about 28, that were heroin and cocaine addicts. The odds of them staying clean for a year
after rehab is less than 10% without a profound spiritual experience.
That means prayer and meditation as well as a recovery support group.
Interesting what?
With regards to health the worse kind of addition is to alcohol as it causes damage
to literally every organ in the body. The most relapses into active addiction is cocaine
and heroin.
Heroin is cheaper than coke and available almost every where.
Those I was in rehab with that were addicted to coke and heroin all said that it's very, very,
hard to stay off the garbage even right after a stint in rehab.
Many relapse a day after release from rehab, and last night a young fellow jumped
out a window to get out of rehab and "get it done". He was back the next day in
awful shape.
I was released earlier today and will make A.A. meetings tonight to help me stay
off the freaking booze else I'll surely die.
What kills the most addicts? Coke, crack, heroin, or booze?
BOOZE by far.

 

[Mycroft]

That really satisfied feeling you get after you've just farted with a resounding trumpeting noise.

 

[wizanda]

What is spiritual enlightenment?

 

[allfoak]

I have seen people who go through these steps have profound spiritual experiences that changed them forever.
It is not for everyone but for many if done correctly it works.

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-- that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God AS WE UNDERSTOOD HIM.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God AS WE UNDERSTOOD HIM, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

http://www.12step.org/references/the-big-book/chapter-5/

This is by know means what it takes to enter the kingdom but this type of experience is crucial to begin the journey to the kingdom.

 

[allfoak]

View attachment 12009

Turning matter to spirit is like turning fat to muscle, a complete breakdown and rebuilding is necessary.

 

[Papoon]

Just being awake as you are, free of questions, and perhaps more significantly, free of explanation and dogma, regardless of what is or is not happening, whether in mundane reality or an 'extraordinary' state.

 

[psychoslice]

Enlightenment is when we awaken and truly realize our true Self, we are all One in Consciousness, or God of you prefer that word. We may have known about this awakening, or read about it, but its not until we ourselves truly do realize it from deep within, beyond the mind, that we can say there has been an Awakening.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

What is spiritual enlightenment?

I believe it is becoming lucid of your waking dream.

Spiritual enlightenment or awakening is like finding home.

Many people live in shelters and houses. It helps with external needs like shelter from cold and a place to sleep. Even with family, it may still be a house.

A home is a "place" you fit in naturally. A place where you are free to move and build another floor level without the Home Owners Association breathing down your neck. It could be just four sticks and a hood. It doesnt have to "already come with family." Its were you build your family (weither a loner or not)

Spiritual enlightenment is living naturally. The last stage of the grieving process...and so forth.

 

[allfoak]

Spiritual enlightenment or awakening is like finding home.

Everyone knows where home is and how to get there.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Everyone knows where home is and how to get there.

Im the exception. Not everyone is like Dorthy. I have no home. I have a roof. I have some new friends. I have my intermediate family who visits once in a blue while. I have shelter. I have some support. I dont have a home.

Spiritual enlightenment for some people is actually the joruney of finding home. Always been a local gyspy. We never stayed in one place long enough to develop what Dorthy has.

Cant generalize. Spiritual enlightenment is unique to everyone. When they find it, go back to it, or live it depends on the person.

 

[allfoak]

Im the exception. Not everyone is like Dorthy. I have no home. I have a roof. I have some new friends. I have my intermediate family who visits once in a blue while. I have shelter. I have some support. I dont have a home.

Spiritual enlightenment for some people is actually the joruney of finding home. Always been a local gyspy. We never stayed in one place long enough to develop what Dorthy has.

Cant generalize. Spiritual enlightenment is unique to everyone. When they find it, go back to it, or live it depends on the person.

sorry

 

[Unveiled Artist]

sorry

Its not biggie. Its hard to generalize when it comes to spirituality. Like I know people who have no roof and are living in the woods that have a home while little oh me with a roof is trying to find one. Spiritual enlightenment lets you know home is where you are inside even if outside feels or looks otherwise.

Difference between riches and wealth.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

View attachment 12009

Sorry, I have to steal that from you.

 

[psychoslice]

Im the exception. Not everyone is like Dorthy. I have no home. I have a roof. I have some new friends. I have my intermediate family who visits once in a blue while. I have shelter. I have some support. I dont have a home.

Spiritual enlightenment for some people is actually the joruney of finding home. Always been a local gyspy. We never stayed in one place long enough to develop what Dorthy has.

Cant generalize. Spiritual enlightenment is unique to everyone. When they find it, go back to it, or live it depends on the person.

Before my experience in Consciousness I was suffering from clinical depression, I laid on my bed crying to go home but not knowing where my home truly was. After the experience I felt like I was home and truly realized I was all along, we are all One on Consciousness, we are here as the mind body organism that has risen from Consciousness, we are like the shadow of Consciousness, but we have forgotten our true place and this is because of the strength of the mind, or ego, in what is called Enlightenment, we remember our true home.

 

[DawudTalut]

What is spiritual enlightenment?

I believe it is becoming lucid of your waking dream.

Peace be on you.
IMH understanding, it has facets:
Peace with God, self, people and creation.....Along the path, one may be granted true dreams and higher forms of blessings, acceptance of prayers, true knowledge etc.