Spiritual Enlightenment: what is it/what it is.

Polymath257 · May 30, 2017

crowfeather said:
You miss the moment, which is the only time in which one ever lives. The moment is the experience. It alone is Real.
Yet many prefer the simulation to the Real, where the mind modifies what was the moment, that it may feel more comfortable, more in control of it.

I do not miss the moment. In fact, as you say, we are always in the moment. But can we connect one moment to another (understanding) or do we just experience the moment now?

I'd suggest that the next step after enlightenment (where you realize all you've been taught is wrong) is understanding (where you realize much of what you've been taught is correct).

As they say:
Before knowledge, a rock is a rock and a tree is a tree
During investigation, a rock is not a rock and a tree is not a tree.
After understanding, a rock is a rock and a tree is a tree.

crowfeather · May 30, 2017

Polymath257 said:
I do not miss the moment. In fact, as you say, we are always in the moment. But can we connect one moment to another (understanding) or do we just experience the moment now?

I'd suggest that the next step after enlightenment (where you realize all you've been taught is wrong) is understanding (where you realize much of what you've been taught is correct).

As they say:
Before knowledge, a rock is a rock and a tree is a tree
During investigation, a rock is not a rock and a tree is not a tree.
After understanding, a rock is a rock and a tree is a tree.

It beats me why you'd even respond to my thread. If you already know it all, there's nothing for you. So leave it be.

Darkstorn · May 30, 2017

crowfeather said:
It beats me why you'd even respond to my thread. If you already know it all, there's nothing for you. So leave it be.

I think he's trying to make the point that you don't know it all.

Why should people put you on a teacher's pedestal? I mean, i just don't see how you hold yourself in such a high regard, because i've also seen your actions...

And you seem just as petty as i.

Darkstorn · May 30, 2017

I would like to also make a serious point. I'm essentially no one, and people shouldn't listen to me any more than you. But: I judge thee thus:

You aren't enlightened. Everything you've said so far would lead me to think that at best, you've just now learned how to properly meditate. That's all. You know how to empty your mind, and lose conceptions etc etc. Good for you. That's a start. Now, the real work begins.

You are grossly mistaken to think that there's an end. And that you've achieved it. And that it's permanent. Of course, from my perspective, nothing is permanent and everything is in a constant state(heh) of impermanence.

It's folly to ever consider oneself enlightened. It's still a step not overcome. It's a concept.

Darkstorn · May 30, 2017

crowfeather said:
Yes. Some genius moved it here from where it was because morons debated where a discussion was meant to ensue.

Maybe next time you want a honest discussion, you won't make empty assertions and proclaim your superiority openly. Just a suggestion.

Right now your OP is literally worded in a way that basically demands debate or utter acceptance from faith. NOT very conductive for an actual discussion about the issue: It actually resembles someone making claims of reality. And you are asserting that your understanding of reality is superior.

Your own fault. You are shallow for not seeing it.

I do not debate, and so the author of this thread has no more to say.

You debated. You made claims. You asserted. You even made claims of OTHER PEOPLE. You specifically debated your views against others.

Dey smart dem folks.

They made the right call. The fact that you are not able to, again, leads me to doubt your level of ability. You are no teacher.

godnotgod · May 31, 2017

YmirGF said:
Very nice. There is also that naughty penchant for saying one sees things "as they are", where from my own extensive inner adventures the one thing I have grown to rely on is that things are never quite what they seem at first.

Are you able to say that because you are seeing things as they are?

godnotgod · May 31, 2017

Polymath257 said:
On the contrary, the specifics of the dream worlds are usually NOT at all similar! That is what distinguishes dreams from reality: the reproducibility between people.

I was not referring to the specifics of the dream world. Of course they would vary from one individual to another; I was referring to the fact that all dreams exhibit certain patterns and characteristics. I was not referring to content. But even in the waking state, otherwise known as Waking Sleep, all that we experience via perception is interpreted differently from one person to the next. What I am actually saying to you is that dream-sleep is the second level of consciousness, while what we think to be wakefulness (ie, what you call 'reality') is actually just another degree of dreaming. A further awakening onto yet another level of consciousness must occur before one can know that this everyday 'reality' is but a dream. Most think it to be reality because their senses tell them it is real, but this experience is that of perceptual reality, not that of Ultimate, or True Reality.

Because dreams are not reality.

...and neither is the ordinary everyday world we call 'reality'. When you are dreaming, you do not know you are dreaming. You only realize the dream-state upon awakening. Likewise, your state of wakefulness is still a dream, but you do not know you are in a dream. This state of Waking Sleep, the Third Level of Consciousness, is also known as Identification. Your parents, government, educational system, and society at large have all had a hand in your social indoctrination, altogether which have created the identity you call 'I'. But this identity is not who you really are; it is but a character acting out a drama in a script written by others. IOW, it is fiction. But again, you can only realize this upon a higher awakening, an awakening which is thwarted at every turn by your social indoctrination and conditioning, even via your biology. Add to this the fact that other sleeping people are doing whatever is necessary to keep others asleep*, and the chances of a real awakening becomes almost impossible. But if you begin to listen very carefully, at some point you will detect the facade you call 'reality'. Just know that when you do, the ego (ie Identiity), once found out, will play every dirty trick in the book to keep you giving it your attention, rather than to the real business of Awakening.

Understood. And I would claim that the 'enlightened state' is another form of dream.

Then it cannot actually be 'Enlightenment', can it?

Interesting. What strikes me is how *dis-similar* the various mystical viewpoints are. The commonality seems to be more of a way that our minds work under certain sorts of stress than anything else.

Certainly there is a psychology involved in these areas, which can be studied empirically. But one needs to do a great deal of study before one sees that there is but one Reality, and many fingers pointing to the moon. Don't get caught up on the different pointing fingers; take a look at what they all point to.

And I see that as confirmation bias. Mystics are always vague enough to allow multiple interpretations which allows the seeker to read into it what they want.

I have never met crowfeather, and yet understand his message right from the get-go, not because I possess the same factual knowledge as he, but because the same universal consciousness is inherent in us both to which we are awakened*. Only when the mind churns its multi-faceted concoctions do we have a kaleidescope of views. The mystical experience is beyond mind, beyond personal conceptual views. It is the cessation of all personal mind activities, and union with the universal consciousness found within all sentient beings. The Buddha said that all sentient beings possess Buddha nature. He saw that the same consciousness that you use to form your personal ideas of reality is precisely the same consciousness with which he attained Supreme Enlightenment. It's just that you have sculpted it into a personal view, while the Buddha has gone to the Source of all views.

*crowfeather said this in an earlier post:

"Enlightenment renders one One; the totality of all there is, everywhere, forever.
No senses involved, no thought extant, no interpretation of anything, only Reality."

I am saying exactly the same thing when I said that one realizes union with the background of existence. Different words; same meaning. Another way of saying what he just said comes from Rumi:

"You are not just the drop in the ocean; you are the Mighty Ocean in the drop"

In other words, it is about experience. But experiences are prior to knowledge, and are the source of knowledge after testing. So, you stop exactly when you should be starting.

No. If the mind is conditioned, experiences will still yield conditioned responses, further strengthening the conditioned mind. IOW, the individual is still asleep. Awakening provides a view which is unconditioned, unborn, and uncaused. Awakening is to realize union with the background of existence; that one has always been in union with it, and has never been separated from it in any way. Only the conditioned mind thinks it is a separate observer and experiencer of the experience. It is not. It is the experience itself. Campeche?

*Alan Watts once commented that Christians are like men huddled in the dark, shouting to lend comfort to one another.

godnotgod · May 31, 2017

Polymath257 said:
There is no 'direct understanding'. There is only 'direct experience'. Understanding takes place *after* analysis and is never direct.

It is not understanding that takes place, but knowledge. Accidentally burn your finger on a hot stove, and in that very moment, all there is, is 'Ouch!', an immediate understanding of a direct experience without analysis; without thought; without an 'experiencer of the experience'.. Analysis then comes in the moments afterwards, and the realization that you have burned your finger. But you have done no such thing, have you? Finger-burning took place without a finger-burning agent called 'I' who 'burned his finger'. The mind with it's ego-I only kicks in after the experience. Why? Because it does not live in the present moment, but in the past. It is a creature of the dead past, as it's 'analysis' of past experiences is also dead.

godnotgod · May 31, 2017

Polymath257 said:
Awareness is quite different than understanding. People were aware of the sun long before they understood the sun to be a star.

What you are calling 'understanding' is factual knowledge. Yes, we know the sun to be a star due to scientific knowledge, but we don't actually understand 'star'. When we look out upon the night sky, we see a vast and seemingly endless panorama of stars, but there is zero understanding of what we are seeing. On the surface, it seems that nature has been prolific in this department for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I can tell you this: factual knowledge about stars is actually an obstacle to understanding the prolific nature of stars. So the ancients who were aware of them without factual knowledge probably had a better understanding of their prolific nature than moderns do with all their vast 'knowledge'.

young girl: 'Grampa monk, what's the color of that tree?'
monk: 'Why, it's the color that it is, my dear!'

godnotgod · May 31, 2017

Vinayaka said:
. I wonder if there is a term for fundamentalist + enlightened.

Oxymoron. There is no doctrine in Enlightenment, as there is in fundamentalism. Enlightenment transcends all doctrine. Doctrine is an idea about Reality; Enlightenment is Reality itself.

godnotgod · May 31, 2017

Polymath257 said:
I am not confused by this. I reject it. I understand the parable of the cave. I just find it to be a false story.

If it were a false story, the history of the world would not be what it is; a litany of pain, suffering, ignorance, hatred and violence, all based upon delusive thought; of men firmly believing that those dancing cave wall shadows actually represent reality, upon which they then act.

In other words, you go back to the state of ignorance prior to actual thought.

What you are calling the state of ignorance prior to thought is the result of thought itself. But prior to that is where we find pristine Enlightenment, the default state. The thinking mind is an altered, conditioned state of consciousness, having come about after the default state, which has somehow been forgotten, because the thinking mind is captivated by the glitter of the object it seeks. The Enlightened mind is a free mind. That is why it can be called 'enlightened'.

Words miss the point because they are symbols and the reality isn't a symbol. A finger pointing at the moon isn't the moon. Etc.

My point is that knowledge comes *after* experience when we start to think and analyze. Pure experience is only the start, not the finish.

Pure experience is Everything. Knowledge about it is an empty shell without the actual experience. This is a common error in thinking, and puts the cart ahead of the horse. We think we can 'understand' the nature of things by dissecting them into their 'component' parts, reassembling them, and then we will gain 'understanding'. This is the reductionist method of science. But what we end up with is something dead, it' s life blood drained from the corpse. The description of something can never be the Reality that it actually is.

Don't get me wrong: Factual knowledge is very useful to man, and we make predictions based upon it. But it can never yield to us the true nature of Reality.

Polymath257 · May 31, 2017

godnotgod said:
What you are calling 'understanding' is factual knowledge. Yes, we know the sun to be a star due to scientific knowledge, but we don't actually understand 'star'. When we look out upon the night sky, we see a vast and seemingly endless panorama of stars, but there is zero understanding of what we are seeing. On the surface, it seems that nature has been prolific in this department for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I can tell you this: factual knowledge about stars is actually an obstacle to understanding the prolific nature of stars. So the ancients who were aware of them without factual knowledge probably had a better understanding of their prolific nature than moderns do with all their vast 'knowledge'.

On the contrary, we can and do understand why there are as many stars as there are. And we understand *what* stars are: nuclear fusion reactors at the centers of great balls of gas.

young girl: 'Grampa monk, what's the color of that tree?'
monk: 'Why, it's the color that it is, my dear!'

So, we have a tautology in place of knowledge. Wonderful trade-off!

Vinayaka · May 31, 2017

godnotgod said:
Oxymoron. There is no doctrine in Enlightenment, as there is in fundamentalism. Enlightenment transcends all doctrine. Doctrine is an idea about Reality; Enlightenment is Reality itself.

Of course it's an oxymoron. It was sarcasm.

Polymath257 · May 31, 2017

godnotgod said:
I was not referring to the specifics of the dream world. Of course they would vary from one individual to another; I was referring to the fact that all dreams exhibit certain patterns and characteristics. I was not referring to content. But even in the waking state, otherwise known as Waking Sleep, all that we experience via perception is interpreted differently from one person to the next. What I am actually saying to you is that dream-sleep is the second level of consciousness, while what we think to be wakefulness (ie, what you call 'reality') is actually just another degree of dreaming. A further awakening onto yet another level of consciousness must occur before one can know that this everyday 'reality' is but a dream. Most think it to be reality because their senses tell them it is real, but this experience is that of perceptual reality, not that of Ultimate, or True Reality.

But in the waking state, there is a commonality of content that simply doesn't exist in the dreaming state. Our emotional reactions differ, but we can all agree there is a chair in a room. Yes, our senses are limited and our attention is directed, which means we ofen miss crucial aspects of the world around us, but there is still a common reality.

Now, you *claim* that there is another level where this reality becomes like a dream. I claim your experiences of this is just another dream. The differences again show it NOT to be a reality, but to be a figment of how our brains work, creating 'meaning' from nothingness.

...and neither is the ordinary everyday world we call 'reality'. When you are dreaming, you do not know you are dreaming. You only realize the dream-state upon awakening. Likewise, your state of wakefulness is still a dream, but you do not know you are in a dream. This state of Waking Sleep, the Third Level of Consciousness, is also known as Identification. Your parents, government, educational system, and society at large have all had a hand in your social indoctrination, altogether which have created the identity you call 'I'. But this identity is not who you really are; it is but a character acting out a drama in a script written by others. IOW, it is fiction. But again, you can only realize this upon a higher awakening, an awakening which is thwarted at every turn by your social indoctrination and conditioning, even via your biology. Add to this the fact that other sleeping people are doing whatever is necessary to keep others asleep*, and the chances of a real awakening becomes almost impossible. But if you begin to listen very carefully, at some point you will detect the facade you call 'reality'. Just know that when you do, the ego (ie Identiity), once found out, will play every dirty trick in the book to keep you giving it your attention, rather than to the real business of Awakening.

Yes, this reality *is* reality. Your dream of unification and enlightenment is yet another dream: one in which you reject reality in yet another way.

You really never know you are dreaming while dreaming? I don't remember my dreams often (much less than once a year), or even having dreamed.

Then it cannot actually be 'Enlightenment', can it?

So you understand my point. Exactly.

Certainly there is a psychology involved in these areas, which can be studied empirically. But one needs to do a great deal of study before one sees that there is but one Reality, and many fingers pointing to the moon. Don't get caught up on the different pointing fingers; take a look at what they all point to.

Most of the fingers are pointing back to the pointer.

But the point is that we do have a common reality that we can learn about through observation and testing.

I have never met crowfeather, and yet understand his message right from the get-go, not because I possess the same factual knowledge as he, but because the same universal consciousness is inherent in us both to which we are awakened*. Only when the mind churns its multi-faceted concoctions do we have a kaleidescope of views. The mystical experience is beyond mind, beyond personal conceptual views. It is the cessation of all personal mind activities, and union with the universal consciousness found within all sentient beings. The Buddha said that all sentient beings possess Buddha nature. He saw that the same consciousness that you use to form your personal ideas of reality is precisely the same consciousness with which he attained Supreme Enlightenment. It's just that you have sculpted it into a personal view, while the Buddha has gone to the Source of all views.

*crowfeather said this in an earlier post:

"Enlightenment renders one One; the totality of all there is, everywhere, forever.

No senses involved, no thought extant, no interpretation of anything, only Reality."

I am saying exactly the same thing when I said that one realizes union with the background of existence. Different words; same meaning. Another way of saying what he just said comes from Rumi:

"You are not just the drop in the ocean; you are the Mighty Ocean in the drop"

Yes, I do understand the position. Now it is time to take yet another step. You have rejected reality for a dream because reality seems like an illusion. Now it is time to go back and realize reality is reality and enlightenment is the dream.

No. If the mind is conditioned, experiences will still yield conditioned responses, further strengthening the conditioned mind. IOW, the individual is still asleep. Awakening provides a view which is unconditioned, unborn, and uncaused. Awakening is to realize union with the background of existence; that one has always been in union with it, and has never been separated from it in any way. Only the conditioned mind thinks it is a separate observer and experiencer of the experience. It is not. It is the experience itself. Campeche?

Yes, of course. We are a part of the universe. The mind is our experiences, but the universe is more than just our experiences. And we can learn about the universe through our experiences. To do so, we have to give up most of our pre-conceptions concerning how things 'must be' because how they really are is seldom what we think they should be. We are the universe experiencing itself.

*Alan Watts once commented that Christians are like men huddled in the dark, shouting to lend comfort to one another.

I agree. But I also see that about all mystics. Much better to open our eyes and see what is there.

Polymath257 · May 31, 2017

godnotgod said:
If it were a false story, the history of the world would not be what it is; a litany of pain, suffering, ignorance, hatred and violence, all based upon delusive thought; of men firmly believing that those dancing cave wall shadows actually represent reality, upon which they then act.

On the contrary, it seems to me that much of the sorrow and suffering is produced by those wanting to deny the reality right in front of them. They deny the existence of poverty while stepping over a homeless person. They deny climate change while in the midst of a flood that would not have happened 300 years ago. They deny the crimes of their government because they are patriots. ALL are an attempt to deny the reality of what is our common reality. No dreamlike enlightenment will help in this.

What you are calling the state of ignorance prior to thought is the result of thought itself. But prior to that is where we find pristine Enlightenment, the default state. The thinking mind is an altered, conditioned state of consciousness, having come about after the default state, which has somehow been forgotten, because the thinking mind is captivated by the glitter of the object it seeks. The Enlightened mind is a free mind. That is why it can be called 'enlightened'.

Yes, I agree. You are pointing to the default state. But that default state is the state of ignorance. We should *want* to learn about the world outside of us and how we fit into it, realizing we are a part of it. yes, it is easy to get sidetracked with shiny objects and ideas (such as enlightenment, I might add). Which is why we have to observe and test our ideas, attempting to find out where they fail.

[QUO]Pure experience is Everything. Knowledge about it is an empty shell without the actual experience. This is a common error in thinking, and puts the cart ahead of the horse. We think we can 'understand' the nature of things by dissecting them into their 'component' parts, reassembling them, and then we will gain 'understanding'. This is the reductionist method of science. But what we end up with is something dead, it' s life blood drained from the corpse. The description of something can never be the Reality that it actually is.[/QUOTE]

Yes, our descriptions are always less than the reality. But it is only through description that we can communicate and test our ideas. Mere experience is only the first step. We have to realize the faultiness of our perceptions and go beyond and test them, finding where we are lead astray and learning where we are deluded by our pre-conceptions. True understanding goes past experience and re-learns about the world around us.

Don't get me wrong: Factual knowledge is very useful to man, and we make predictions based upon it. But it can never yield to us the true nature of Reality.

But it tells us much, much more than sitting lotus and pondering our navels.

Polymath257 · May 31, 2017

godnotgod said:
It is not understanding that takes place, but knowledge. Accidentally burn your finger on a hot stove, and in that very moment, all there is, is 'Ouch!', an immediate understanding of a direct experience without analysis; without thought; without an 'experiencer of the experience'.. Analysis then comes in the moments afterwards, and the realization that you have burned your finger. But you have done no such thing, have you? Finger-burning took place without a finger-burning agent called 'I' who 'burned his finger'. The mind with it's ego-I only kicks in after the experience. Why? Because it does not live in the present moment, but in the past. It is a creature of the dead past, as it's 'analysis' of past experiences is also dead.

OK, we are using different words here. I would not call that immediate experience 'understanding'. I would call it experience. And yes, experience is important: it is how we learn.

The finger-burning happened at first without my awareness. You are correct that I didn't consciously set out to burn my finger (well, we assume that). But it was still my finger that burned and I was informed of that through my experience of pain. The pain is the signal, not the reality.

Polymath257 · May 31, 2017

crowfeather said:
It beats me why you'd even respond to my thread. If you already know it all, there's nothing for you. So leave it be.

I don't know everything. But I know enough to be skeptical of those who claim to know everything. And I know enough to know that people tend to delude themselves.

godnotgod · May 31, 2017

Polymath257 said:
On the contrary, we can and do understand why there are as many stars as there are. And we understand *what* stars are: nuclear fusion reactors at the centers of great balls of gas.

Oh, boy! Now you know all about stars, eh? All you know about stars are their DESCRIPTIONS! The description of something is not that something. Balls of gas? Gas, which is composed ultimately of sub-atomic 'particles', all such particles being the product of fluctuations in the Higgs and Quantum Fields as standing waves, an illusion of material 'reality', what the Hindus have called 'maya' for over 4000 years!

I was not referring to the number of stars and why that number exists; I was referring to the prolific nature of stars.

So, we have a tautology in place of knowledge. Wonderful trade-off!

Excuse me, but 'the color that it is' is closer to the reality of the tree color than the word-symbol 'brown'.

godnotgod · May 31, 2017

Vinayaka said:
Of course it's an oxymoron. It was sarcasm.

Ah, so you give credence to Enlightenment, then.

Vinayaka · May 31, 2017

godnotgod said:
Ah, so you give credence to Enlightenment, then.

I'm a Hindu. Enlightenment, the term, is more closely associated with Buddhism, but yeah, sure.

Spiritual Enlightenment: what is it/what it is.

Think & Care

One

This shows how unique i am.

This shows how unique i am.

This shows how unique i am.

Thou art That

Thou art That

Thou art That

Thou art That

Thou art That

Thou art That

Think & Care

devotee

Think & Care

Think & Care

Think & Care

Think & Care

Thou art That

Thou art That

devotee