Enlightenment

Blessings,
 
Starting this New Gregorian Year I am doing a series of meditations on Enlightenment – that mysteriously simple subject/state/experience/process/? My hope is to gain some insight that will help me towards Awakening. I'm a householder wanting to wake up - whatever that means:}
 
For the next week or so I will post one of my poems from my nightly meditations. I will expound on the poem in my Sacred Yoga Forum. Here is my first poem.
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There's a lot of hang ups:
 
How it should be?
What conditions are right?
What needs to be done?
What to let go of – what to think/feel/etc?
When is the right time?
Where will it happen?
Why?
 
There's just the Here and Now -
it really is that simple

 

Blessings,
 

 
I agree that Enlightenment is not a state, as it is so much more than just that, but I am not so sure that there is not something to be had when looking at Enlightenment as having some mental state, as in, clear, open, receptive, aware, and such. Or having an emotional state like joy, freshness, centered, balanced, etc…
 
As for an act of learning more and more, that seems to fit, though, is there not some point when certain things, like the discursive mental chaos drops away or the incessant need to identify with things, react, and such. We can say we continue to learn more and more, but at some point there is a level of mastery and wellbeing that, while never ending, does have a sense of arriving, attaining. There is a point when the hungering and grasping stops.
 

 
I agree that letting go seems to be a beneficial practice towards helping us Awaken, especially when it comes to beliefs, fears, unbalancing desires, anger, and so forth. Learning to let go of anything that agitates, clouds, stagnant, or disrupts in any way our minds is a good thing, as it invites peace, clarity, balance, and all the other good things that I believe many associate with Enlightenment. What I call, ripples of Enlightenment, as they seem to be connected to it, but not it.
 
The Lighter thing i have always thought the same: to In-lighten ourselves is to lessen the baggage, the identifying, judgment, and concepts of self, among other things.
 
As for the last things you have said, agreed: just being fully present and aware seems to be an essential ingredient of Enlightenment.
 
Blessings Be...

 

Day Two
 
At first, I considered meditating on Enlightenment to be silly. It's not as if I expect to be Enlightened after this 7+ day meditation: I just yearn for it – whatever "it" means. So, what better way to get to know something than to think about it, study it, contemplate and meditate upon it, infuse ourselves as fully into it as possible. So here I am doing that, and here is one of the insights that arose in last night's meditation. I expound on this pithy poem in my Sacred Yoga Blog.
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Everything touched,
be it with body or mind,
has the seed of Samadhi within it:
 
How could anything be boring?

 

In my studies i have come across that belief from many different voices, my only question to this would be, would we say the same things if we were sleeping: "we are already awake, we only need to realize it?" If we are sleeping, then we are not awake. Being lucid of course, is retaining conscious awareness while in the dream, but is that awake: maybe? I don't know. The problem with analogies is that they don't quite take us all the way.
 
 

Why is it odd to reach for Enlightenment? We seek out things all the time. If it is really what so many claim it to be, it seems like it would be the most desirable thing to seek.
 
While i agree, there is an absence of personal identity, of me, self, when it comes to our idealized concepts of Enlightenment, even the Buddha, the archetype of Enlightenment referred to himself as "I" in some of his teachings. It would be weird in conversation to refer to this incarnation in the third person. The difference of course is the lack of attachment to the "I" as a permanent, unchanging, limited drop of water in the Ocean. 
 
 

No, not Buddhist. I do totally love Buddhist traditions though, specifically the Lam Rim and Tonglen systems. I use the word householder because I am consciously cultivating myself while having a family and paying bills. It is just a fitting word. I originally came across the householder tradition via the Upanishads. I believe it is not just a Buddhist thing, but an Indian thing in general. My main influences are Christianity, the Occult, Yoga, Inner Martial Arts, Taoism, and Buddhism, with a splashing of Philosophy and anything else that enlightens the shadows of the mind.     
 
What do you mean Buddhist Enlightenment? What kinds of Enlightenment are there?

 

Day Three
 
Every time I think i know what to expect, a whole new perspective arrives. I learned years ago to enter my Yoga rituals with openness. I use to be rigid, whatever my chosen meditation topic was, I would never veer from it. Then one day it all changed. I came into ritual with my intention, but something in my life was so overwhelming, that it took over my ritual. Since then, I go into a meditation ritual with an intention to focus on a specific topic, but always beginning the meditation with openness, allowing whatever to come, to come.
 
This series of meditations on Enlightenment has been open-ended. I research as much as possible and then sit down, smoke some Herb, and listen. While I have many preconceived notions of what Enlightenment is, more times than not, I find myself in unknown territory.  
 
I expound on the poem in my Sacred Yoga Forum
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There's a tendency to think of Enlightenment from the mind's perspective,
rarely giving thought to the Earth's perspective.
 
How the feet tread lightly
leaving no sickness,
only fertility and life.
 
How the animals come out of hiding
feeling no threat within the Garden:
 
No Separation.

 

Blessings,
 
I am loving this forum, out of the four forums I am reaching out to, this one offers the most intelligible and genuine conversation by far.

I agree, it is like the fish trying to talk about the ocean it lives in. I guess it would be something like this, normally we are driving on autopilot and the seeking is merely in effort to become more conscious while driving and then working on deepening the awareness of driving via the sensations and such, before finally becoming the car: no separation. I don't know. That is why I am doing this meditation, to learn and hopefully experience.
 

I hear that, "we are already Enlightened," so why seek, make an effort, and so on. Yet, while there might be some truth to that, in the mindset I currently abide in, that is not true. I agree it is not over there, up there, down there, in there, and so on, and yet, it is over there, up there, in there, and so on. If it is here, then it is there. What's the difference. Sometimes we need to step outside to experience what is inside.
 
There are those that have had spontaneous Enlightenment, but it seems more times than not, there is effort, desire, hardships, and so forth involved. The Kundalini tradition I hail from, it's a process. Working through the different layers of our being, the different issues, blocks, mental obstacles, and so forth. Each effort strips away a layer until there is no layers, nothing but bare nakedness.

 

 
Agreed.
 
Some of the things we strip away are the thoughts, judgments, expectations, concepts, and such. It is a process. I have been working at it for years and this mind is still dancing around like a monkey on meth. Thankfully, there is no deadline, no time limit, no pressure. I get to enjoy the ride in the car, so to speak