Is enlightenment possible?

I would have to say I definitely believe in enlightenment/ developing a sense of awareness.

Through taking psychedelic drugs and meditation one can look at one thing, and see millions of different things.

I felt that when I was on acid, I could look at someones face, and know what they were thinking by their expression.

Also, you sit back and take a look inward, into yourself, which is extremely important to self health. It is of utmost importance that everyone knows who they truly are and to not let outside sources effect who they are/what they become.

I think that if the whole world was diagnosed with asshole disease, and prescribed 1-10 blotter tabs a day, there would be no war. We would have a much better connection to the planet we live on, and more knowledge about all of the other factors of our existence

 

I believe enlightenment is a state, occurs at the final stage of spiritual evolution, where one is aware of the soul, and where the soul fuses and becomes one with the infinite - thereby rendering the experiencee in a permanent state of godhead while still grounded in physicality.

 

Wouldnt know, havent died, and nobody who has died has lived to tell about it

I had little regard for ancient indian texts, despite being indian, and despite being highly spiritual in my inclinations, until a couple of weeks ago, where I delved into them and found large amounts of writings that resonated profoundly with me, found new levels of meditation that have in just 2 weeks already very significantly altered my existence for the better.

The texts do indeed say that at the moment of dying awakening does occur, but is not permanent, and that the only permanent awakening that frees one compeltely from karma and the life-death cycle and fuses the Self with the infinite is the one attained while still alive physically.

Are we talking the dimension of space here? What I feel and what the indian texts render is that through awareness we can "feel" the source, sometimes even be it or connect with it completely, and that this feeling or temporary connecting positively affects our existence in the dimension of space in an indirect way. Through very deep meditation one can acheive states of "samadhi", where the consciousness leaves the body completely and fuses with the infinite until it is brought back or returns to the body. When englightenment finally occurs, I feel and it is written that one requires not to enter samadhi or leave their body to unite with the universal consciousness, but the self permanently fuses with the infinite and disintigrates the ego body completely, thus rendering the being in a state where he sees the One in everything even in the dimension of space, and can function in the physical world while perpetually connected to the Source.

 

Yes, one, did a week long chakra cleansing meditation and yoga course with him. Although even then all this cannot be taken for granted, nothing can be taken for granted, not even ones personal experience to be 'universally right'. But if I feel it works for me, resonates with me, and I see something in it an it causes me to feel whole, peaceful, complete, blissful, I will keep with it and will attempt to pass on my experience to humanity because from what I have gathered so far, they feel as I did before I found all this, and would like to experience existence as I do when I walk into the gardens of all this that we converse here about.

 

Will check it out

 

very interested in learning more on indian beliefs.
i believe the mythology would be of great interest as well

and yes i belive enlightenement would be the samadhi adrogenicx is talking about.
like a few other cultures the indians had genuine knowledge from the "gods".
id love to hear the creation story.

 

I think it depends what you mean by enlightenment.

There is the ability of being in touch with the etheral... understanding and therefor commanding the spirit...

I suppose you must balance your chakras before you can be...

 

[FONT=&quot]Consider the intangibility of enlightenment.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Who is "enlightened"? Gandhi? MLK? Aristotle?[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]I don't believe that any human being is truly capable of becoming enlightened. What happens after that point? We are prime beings, then, and have no life purpose of any sort other than to be admired? We would be unnecessary.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]I think of enlightenment more as a motivator. An idea that compels us to live a life where we maintain an interest in mental and physical growth, intellectually and spiritually.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]If we did not care to continuously delve deeper into our selves, what purpose would there be to exist? Would we be satisfied living a life where our only concerns were of what truth and reality was provided for us, and we never cared to evaluate our own spiritual and instinctual desires? Doubtful. Even the most careless, putty-brained human beings possess some will to learn at least some things about who they are, and how they exist. Of course, then, that explains why those who seek stimulation to the mind and body more regularly, or, those who are considered to be generally more "intelligent" and knowledgeable are considered to be more likely to find "enlightenment".[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]We hope, in our religions, that the most significant characters throughout the history of our faith might be enlightened, or the most close to enlightenment, of all beings.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]If all human beings were capable of enlightenment, then that would mean that we are all destined to be considered "godly", in some way.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]We can presume, based on this, that the idea of "coming to god", or going to heaven may be tantamount to the idea of "enlightenment".

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[FONT=&quot]To believe that I could truly become spiritually enlightened is to believe that I am somehow omnipotent, or am capable of becoming omnipotent.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]To believe that one is able to connect so fully with whatever concept of "God", be it the Christian God or entirely otherwise, that they could somehow actually become God, in any sense, takes a very high level of selfishness.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]That is why enlightenment should be recognized as more of a continuing force that should be applied to the daily life as much as possible. It should be, essentially, a reason for being. It can instill a feeling of purpose; the purpose to achieve, and to grow, endlessly.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Naturally, then, it can be seen as a goal. As human beings we will act in order to achieve something. We are motivated to do something, in order to reach an end. We need to believe that there is a goal.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Since I, personally, do not believe in heaven, or “enlightenment”, I do not consider the death of a human being to be an “end”. Rather, I believe in reincarnation and the transference of energies. Enlightenment could be seen as a progress meter, of sorts. One that fluctuates based on our mental, emotional and spiritual awareness. I use “fluctuates” because it is true that our awareness most certainly does vary, rather than move from down to up on a steady basis.

It's important to care enough to continue to learn about ones self and the world around us. What point would there be to ever stop doing so?


(P.S.- Just posting this now. I guess I saved it from last night. I must have been pretty god damn stoned. Hehe. =])[/FONT]

 

This is thought concept trying to understand the nature of the unfathomable. What happens after that point? Find out for yourself through experience, not through baseless, purely theoretical, whimsical thought - which is what all thought is.

We have no life purpose anyway..what is it you are afraid we will lose? Admired? Enlightened beings look for no admiration, in fact a great number of them remain ascetics away from humanity for their lifetime. Were unnecessary anyway, whats necessary about us in any way in relation to the vast, boundless, directionless nature of our universe and existence itself? What occurs after enlightenment? The ego body cannot fathom an existence without its worry and pain and attachments to life as it knows it, and so completely disbelieves and often fears the possibility of an existence void of all and any negativity and non-manifestation of inner will where all there is is pure bliss and complete self expression of the true self. It is said that this is what occurs upon achieving complete enlightenment, and it seems perfect to me given my experiences with awareness and the godhead so far.

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Most of humanity today I feel is unaware of any concept or practice of self or existence today. Asking philosophical questions renders us with nothing - absolutely nothing. Thought cannot encapsulate what is, because it is a limited, private perspective, and apparition attempting to summarize an unfathomable reality from a 3rd person viewpoint.

Who says the intelligent are more likely to find enlightenment? Au contraire, intelligence tends to cause much, much higher thought levels and much, much more chaos, and is a much bigger obstacle to achieving perma-bliss from complete control over thoughts. Is it easier to bring under control a hover-train going at a hundred and fifty miles an hour or an old steam engine going at 40?

We are all selfish, completely and utterly, when we feel seperate and feel like individual identities. How can we not be? All our experience in this universe stems from our own consciousness, and our consciousness is directly related to us, so, obviously, all our experiences are in direct relation to ourselves, and are what we consider the best thing for ourselves. "Selfless" community service is but selfish community service - it is motivated by the desire for the happiness acheived from doing community service, the sense of 'doing something right' - why else would we do it?

the thinking mind has not the faintest clue what is god, how is it so proposterous to claim akinness at the core with the cosmos, the source? We know nothing - going from there and exploring completely honestly, from a space where one realizes one knows absolutely NOTHING, is key to discovering truth. In any case, enliightenment is not touted as omnipotence in the traditional sense: it is simply falling into 'what is', connecting with the source and fusing with it, thus rendering the experiencee with perma-bliss, his soul freedom from the death-life cycle, and complete expression of the true self. Miracles and the ability to feel, manipulate and manifest things considered unreal or impossible by many is also reported, though all the supposed greatest beings of the ages, the Buddha etc, say that this is a side effect and is not the purpose, and it isnt, not to me anyway. What use is omnipotence and miracle working if one cannot feel perma bliss and have complete expression of the true self?

This is what they say is the purpose of human existence, to grow, to evolve spiritually to the highest state. The highest state is called enlightenment, the process cannot be mistaken with the final state, although is obviously a completely integral and necessary part of it.

Learning in the traditional sense is a thought process, it is bookish knowledge, it is highly limited, personalized thought concept. Indeed, to feel at complete bliss with all moments of existence requires one to discover the true nature of the self and everything. The world around us is just a small, small part of it.

What point is there in acquiring more thought concept about the self and the world around when all it does is keep us wanting more and not fulfilled? The ego body is a very strange entity - at once it both keeps seeking, coming to these forums and posting for example, reading spiritual books, thinking about these things, thinking about what is right and what is wrong, in order to stop the ceaseless wanting and to fall into an inexplicable state where the void of wanting is fulfilled permanently and we no longer feel wanting and incomplete - why else would we seek to discover, and explain and read and post if we felt complete and whole and felt no desire for these things? Whats funny about the ego is that it is locked into attempting to complete the completeness in its own way by attempting to learn, understand, rationalize what it experiences around it, yet rationalizing and thinking and bookish knowledge are highly limited personal perspective, opinions, more often than not discovered to not apply to reality in some instances, where one feels thrown off balance when these beliefs and thought concepts are at some time or the other, however briefly, shown to be an illusion by life experience. It feels compelled to attempt to understand that which cannot be understood, in order to feel complete - obviously this will not occur this way, and hence living in the maya illusion of egoic existence is never completely fulfilling and blissful.

 

Woohoo. A well thought out response. Thank you. =) [+rep]

So, you are saying that to find "enlightenment" is to achieve a state where the ego is meaningless, or ceases to exist, perhaps, because it no longer influences our perception of the self? I do understand where you are coming from. It probably negates everything I just said, really, considering I am arguing against the idea of seeking enlightenment and you are arguing that actual SEEKING of enlightenment is essentially futile, while the concept does likely exist in some form. Does that sound accurate to you?

Based on what you are saying, at least how I am interpreting it, enlightenment is a state one might achieve when he learns to relieve himself of the ego-based process largely centered around finding peace, as a goal in order to escape an unpeaceful state of being. Correct?...

If this is the case, then I can say that I agree with the idea. It is obviously much different than how I have previously defined the term "enlightenment".

Regarding:

"Who says the intelligent are more likely to find enlightenment? Au contraire, intelligence tends to cause much, much higher thought levels and much, much more chaos, and is a much bigger obstacle to achieving perma-bliss from complete control over thoughts. Is it easier to bring under control a hover-train going at a hundred and fifty miles an hour or an old steam engine going at 40?"

I agree with you here, to some extent, but when I consider intelligent versus unintelligent I usually think "greatly desires mental, emotional, spiritual stimulation" versus "has NO desire to seek out mental, emotional and spiritual stimulation", and obviously then, the median being somewhere along the lines of "welcomes stimulation as it comes, but does not seek". Based on this definition of intelligence I would say that the more highly intelligent, the more one desires to achieve a state of potential enlightenment. Of course, that does not mean that a particularly intelligent person would not have an exceptionally large number of thinking processes in the way of such a goal, whereas the less intelligent would likely not.

Would you say that the mentally and spiritually ignorant are more likely to achieve a state of being that they are possibly even unaware exists?

 

Quite accurate, yes. Enlightenment is a state of perma bliss in what-is. Seeking it is rejecting what is. To seek a space where you seek nothing makes no sense does it? Its an impossible paradox. It is a very subtle thing, and next to impossible to comprehend without actually discovering a state where you seek nothing..one has to seek it to get there, right? It sounds contradictory to itself and impossible, but it exists.

Yes

If were talking spiritual and mental ignorance, or biological mental retardation or brain damage etc, then it makes sense to me that these people would find it more difficult, perhaps even next to impossible - how can a biologically degenerate discover these states through outside guidance when hes more interested in your hair that looks like something to play with rather than the words that are coming out of your mouth.

when you said intelligence though I was referring to an 'intelligent' person, scientists, math geniuses, writers, people with higher than average mental capabilities than the average joe, in comparison with an average joe. In many ways it is alot easier for an average joe to hold these states when he gets into them because he does not overanalyze. An 'overly' intelligent person finds himself analyzing the stillness he just discovered and falling back into thought rather than staying in the stillness - an average joe i would think would tend to stay in the stillness longer and feel better. It is the same reason as why it seems to be a general trend and I believe even scientifically documented that more intelligent people are more prone to absent mindedness, depression, and confusion.

 

i'm not exactly sure what enlightenment is supposed to entail, other than escape from the wheel of samsara.

i think a pretty good start would be calming your mind enough to be able to live completely in each moment, assessing all experience without any preconceived notion or bias, appealing to nothing and only recognizing in what way anything affects reality...ideally appreciating the good and learning to redirect evil.

this is assuming that enlightenment means becoming totally aware for good and not evil.

is it possible there is a polar opposite? those who revel in pain and misery and seek to redirect good?

 

Honestly I don't dwell on this question as much as I did.

I've found it much easier to question everything, and then question your questioning, without enlightenment in mind.