I, Unidian, "Naturyl," James Quirk, am a popcorn maker.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

How about this Dan, when I get hold of some real internet, which you may know to be an almost impossibility dealing with telstra in Australia, or if I venture to another house, I will watch your videos on enlightenment and give my first ever "Intellectual response" seeing as over complicating simple conversation is the genius forum thing .

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Really the main question I would have, and possibly anyone would have, is that if enlightenment results in freedom from delusion, why are they so deluded who preach it?

It is easy for the deluded to think they are enlightened, and it is easy for the unenlightened to think that the enlightened are deluded.

.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Everyone is crazy, some suffer less, the average person would laugh at Buddhism and the irrational idea of rebirth.

[Alex Jacob]

And Elizabeth, do you speak as one of the 'enlightened'? Or are you just repeating something you've heard? Would you be comfortable doing away with the category altogether?

[Alex Jacob]

John: Whoa, now you're bringing rebirth into this? Like, born in another body in this terrestrial hell-realm to go.through.it.all.over.again?

You know that is a deluded interpretation, don't you?

Excuse my comical bent but I am The Three Alexes riding on the back of A Talking Ass into the New Jerusalem. And I can prove it!

[Dan Rowden]

Yes, I'd seen that video and others like it. And I think I understand, too, the basic outline of your philosophy. My main question was Who was sitting in the car and turned on the headlights?!? Was that Kevin? (Joke, just a joke).

It was the Buddha, because he's eternal and everywhere 'n' stuff and he loves fucking around in cars.

Really the main question I would have, and possibly anyone would have, is that if enlightenment results in freedom from delusion, why are they so deluded who preach it?

If that's your main question then it's a pretty dumb one. If you are asserting delusion on their part you'd better demonstrate it. Be specific: name one
"preacher" of enlightenment then one way in which they are delusional. If you're speaking about the global generality of those who profess such a thing, then yeah, that's not such a hard thing to do. If by that question you're just trying to indulge in some sort of Douglas Adams-esque humour, get stuffed.

Who sing its virtues?

There are two types of people who sing its virtues: 1) those that belong to the culture of the religiosity of Eastern philosophy (which includes all the facets of modern western Theosophy, New Age movement etc); 2) those that have consciously become aware of their ignorance and delusion and who seek to remedy it because it's dissatisfying to them. I don't care overly much about the former group, other than to note the hindrance they present to human development.

Because that is (obviously) so, it makes me think you are speaking and writing about an idealized state or an imagined state of realization.

Well, it's an ideal state that's being proffered, yes (as opposed to a romanticism); I don't resile from that characterisation. But so what (yes, I started a sentence with "but" - so what?)? That doesn't illegitimise it or make it unreasonable. There's no way to know how many people in human history have achieved such a state. The point to be made there is that when one has sufficient understanding of the basics it becomes clear that such a state is possible.

I know that probably sound like an insult and I honestly don't quite mean it like that.

That's ok. You should divest yourself of the belief that you have the ability to insult me.

Am I not understanding something?

Lordy, Lordy, ain't that a question.

Is it the word 'delusion'? What I have heard from the people who are attached to this philosophy and who speak about it, to be undeluded brings one to a state where one 'does God's will' automatically, so to speak. Cathy who used to post here said that often. Is that also your view?

Yes, it's accurate enough though I'm frankly not that fond of the coinage. I try to avoid "God speak" more often than not, even if ultimately I'm able to accept it. I just find it needlessly poetic and it can sometimes muddy the waters when the person you're saying it to is mired in conventional theological constructs. The reality is we all do "God's will" automatically, whether we're deluded or enlightened. It's just that the enlightened know it. They do God's will absent of delusion. They function in the fabric of causation absent of the delusions of those still invested in notions of inherent reality.

Is it possible to teach enlightenment, as you define it (know it, otherwise how could you speak authoritatively about it? And would you agree that to speak authoritatively about it when one had not fully 'realized' it would be hypocritical and necessarily misleading, would you agree? Or, is enlightenenment something that can be received and repeated like a formula, without actually understanding/embodying it? (I will assume a 'no' here).

Ok, let's set aside those who speak of it from a religious, devotional, "canonised" perspective and limit ourselves to the parameters of QRS's perspective: Yes, you do have to have such a realisation to speak of it with real authority. The experiential part of it is ultimately the thing itself. However, there is a point in one's intellectual understanding where one can can speak sensibly and accurately about it. Or, at the very least speak in a speculative way that is likely to be more or less on the button. I think people in this circumstance ought be quite circumspect, however, in what they proclaim. Then again, you don't have to be enlightened to get what it means for the most part. It just means you have yet to attain the full experiential element of it. One can say, for example, that it's a state free of delusion and by extension, emotion, because that is true by definition. All you require for the ability to state such a thing is the understanding of how delusions and emotions arise from ego and the manner in which ego functions.

This will I imagine amount to just another stupid Alex Question, but can or do the Enlightened disagree?

Sure they can. Just not on the basics of the nature of reality. In the realm of the subjective, the contingent, the relative, they can disagree all they want. But it's not really "disagreement", it's just a different perspective within that realm. They would never see such difference as disagreement.

How do you know if a given person is enlightened?

I can never know such a thing with surety. No-one can. It will always be a contingent matter if people we meet are in fact enlightened. If our own understanding is complete we're in a good position to make a reasonable assessment, but it will never be something we hold as "true". An enlightened person is always alone in the world in this respect. He has no fellow travelers in an absolute sense. I would never suggest another person was enlightened, for example. At best I would hold that all the signs are there.

Does it depend on words?

Words help, but it's more the way they're put together. You know, in a grammatical sort of way...

My impression has often been that your style of enlightenment is very dependent on words: a wordy, analytical, 'reasoned' approach to enlightenment.

An analytical, reasoned approach to understanding reality is the only path there is. You can't "faith" your way to enlightenment. Enlightenment is not, of itself, intellectual understanding or knowledge, but it cannot be attained without those building blocks. It's a bit like a person who goes into psychotherapy. The therapist can help them intellectually understand the issues they are facing but he/she cannot make the person incorporate that understanding into their psyche. They have to take that step, the step of their consciousness being altered as a result of that understanding. Whether that happens or not is really in God's hands (oh, fuck, I did it...).

But do you know (of) a person whom you know is enlightened who never spoke a word? And how would you know? Through he eyes? Through some sixth sense?

A guy winked at me once in such as way as to transmit the fact of his enlightenment to me. It was a really impressive wink. I exclaimed, "OMG you're enlightened!" Then he undid his pants and I figured I was having a bad intuitive day...

Do you accept for example the 'enlightened status' of Ramana Maharahi?

Oh hell no, not even contingently. He was Bahkti batshit.

If so, do you accept what was often said about him: that he was able to affect people---transform them or initiate some fairly profound change---just by being in his presence?

Well, of course he could! Jesus friggin' wept, Alex. You know perfectly well in stupidly religious communities (and what religious community isn't stupid) charisma means an enormous amount. Go to any number of Xian churches and you'll see the same shit happening. It's meaningless, other than in the sense of how sad it is.

I am not fucking with you, Dan.

Aw, really, no? But your Ass is so cute...

But there is as always a little shade or irony.

Um, ok, whatever that means.

And I do very much want to hear your program for the education of youngsters. High School if you wish but I am pretty convinced that a 'good' education must run through all the years of a child's life and especially stressed early. But we would I think disagree about what the focus of that education would be.

A young child should be two things in my estimation: as literate as possible and as capable of independent thought as possible. Those two things make for education beyond the natural limits of "education".

[SeekerOfWisdom]

You are looking at rebirth from the average "This is my body, when it dies I die" perspective, hence the idea of rebirth sounds impossible physically. Luckily there is nothing but what is seen of the mind, your form is only an experience of consciousness, it is not the source of your consciousness. There is no beginning or end, life and death are natural experiences in the "wheel of existence“, but they are only experiences.

Just because you have a lack of memory you think this is your only existence. Do you get it now why ending self attachment is related to all that preaching about eternal life?

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Ask Dan what he thinks of death/rebirth, he will say nothing of the Self is retained, but there was really no self to begin with. One minute ago you were not the same being as you are at this minute, the only thing you hold on to is the continuity of existence. I really don't like talking about this kind of thing because words are never accurate, the closest way to share understanding is that life is a dream, you know what a dream is like, apply that to your waking life also, (vision, existing only of the mind), now think about death/rebirth knowing that mind is the encompass of all experience and that apparent physical objects are actually only objects of sensation and do not really exist.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Diebert's 'obsession' in a nutshell! Nearly completely inaccurate but that doesn't matter. It is a sufficient rallying cry to set the standard for all consequent response: where the 'train wreck' is actually precipitated. Bravo!

Nah, that kind of anticipation I was briefly into a few years ago with our discussions to the point I could write all your replies myself as a good prophet would. I'm now just adding my presence to "transform or initiate profound change" purely by charisma, reflecting back all obsessions like the still surface of a lake. Just kidding! But being nearly completely inaccurate can be translated coming from you as "closest to the mark ever". The fascinating thing about any approaching train wreck is that nothing the bystanders would do or shout will slow or hasten any outcome. There are no breaks powerful enough, there's no driver attentive enough. Just next time take a walk instead; perhaps the best summary of any existential philosophy out there.

[Dennis Mahar]

Alex,

And Elizabeth, do you speak as one of the 'enlightened'? Or are you just repeating something you've heard? Would you be comfortable doing away with the category altogether

?

If you can 'grok' this.
Catch yourself in the act.

You persistently try and 'pin someone down' and effectively get yourself in a headlock.

This belief you have in an inherently existing self has you determined not to be pinned down by anyone else because if that happened it might be taken away, injured or made unhappy.
Being afraid of the boogeyman.

This isn't, of course, something exclusive to you.
It's not open for vanity to claim as being better at it than most.

It's just a grok into human being.
or

'what's going on'

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Alex is the guy on an enlightenment forum trying to convince the members that enlightenment doesn't exist and people only think themselves enlightened because of the ego, very ironic.

[Alex Jacob]

No, that is not quite it, John. But on the surface it would appear that way. Put another way, the structure of view that you hold to about 'enlightenment' forbids that you see my effort in any other light. And so what I say is again that 'enlightened attitude' is possible and everything that may come to a person through self-mastery and the use of talent ('genius', so called) in the course of the time one is alive, but that the 'enlightenment' that is spoken of, and by everyone who speaks of it on these pages, appears as and functions as a neurotic indulgence. And also a 'delusion'. A possible 'delusion of grandeur' and other things. You are precisely a case in point. Even the other enlightened (the really and truly enlightened) turn on you, although at the core you are cut from the same cloth! What I wonder about you is if they will succeed in bringing you around? Or if yours is a completely idiosyncratic 'enlightenment'. Now, I would not say that your 'enlightenment' is not a state that you experience. Whatever it is is 'real' insofar as any perception is real. But I do feel that when you examine the attitude and behavior that are brought forward, elicited, by this 'state' (whatever in fact it is), that 'anyone should be able to see that it is neurotic'. The quotes are to indicate my own assessment because I know that not everyone sees it that way).
____________________________________

I can never know such a thing with surety. No-one can. It will always be a contingent matter if people we meet are in fact enlightened. If our own understanding is complete we're in a good position to make a reasonable assessment, but it will never be something we hold as "true". An enlightened person is always alone in the world in this respect. He has no fellow travelers in an absolute sense. I would never suggest another person was enlightened, for example. At best I would hold that all the signs are there.

I understand what you have written. It is really a rather bizarre statement, though. And this is why I wholeheartedly reject the term 'enlightened' and all the jibber-jabber connected with it. By your own definition, 'it' depends only on subjective criteria, and one is 'alone' with that realization, whatever it is. If you would never suggest that another person is enlightened, in actual point of fact I think you would have to extend that to yourself and to anyone making such a claim. Unless of course we were to rework the definition of 'enlightenment'. In fact I think this is what you and Q-S have done. But it is very difficult to get to the bottom of it.

An analytical, reasoned approach to understanding reality is the only path there is. You can't "faith" your way to enlightenment. Enlightenment is not, of itself, intellectual understanding or knowledge, but it cannot be attained without those building blocks. It's a bit like a person who goes into psychotherapy. The therapist can help them intellectually understand the issues they are facing but he/she cannot make the person incorporate that understanding into their psyche. They have to take that step, the step of their consciousness being altered as a result of that understanding. Whether that happens or not is really in God's hands (oh, fuck, I did it...)

I think that what you are describing is a a realization of 'pure awareness free of conceptual encumbrances' or that is more or less the interpretation I have made of your peculiar and hybrid 'Buddhism'. There is a definite logic in it, I think. So too is there a logic in jñāna generally. But, within the systems that brought those notions to you, linguistically, as in the root meanings at the core of the words, other means are also understood as possible. What you seem to have done is to tyrannically assert one means or method as against any other and to spuriously concoct a strange and tendentious system of organizing your perception, and one in which you 'reign supreme': you become the ultimate arbiter of a hypothesized state which, by your own definition, cannot be objectively known. It is only known to the one experiencing it! The whole system becomes very quickly a recipe for madness, and this madness is played out by EVERYONE who participates in the system. It is, in it's way, a 'Ponzi scheme of the mind'.

Still, no one and not I would every deny the importance of 'an analytical, reasoned approach to understanding reality'. Unless I am mistaken, that pretty much describes the scientific approach and method which has certainly totally transformed man's relationship to the world. What is a little odd is that, prior to the Western explosion and opening up into knowledge (jñāna of a radically new order), there is no cultural system that had access to an accurate Jñāna-system, in a material sciences sense. And so their grasp of cosmology was completely erroneous. It was filled with misconceptions, 'peopled' with misconceptions if you will. And yet you suggest that even with this basic erroneousness (misunderstanding, misconception, partiality, etc.) that on other levels, i.e. in a mystical sense, they indeed grasped Reality, and therefor could realize 'pure awareness free of conceptual encumbrances' toward their, shall we say, imagined or projected Reality.

But what 'you' have done is something really pretty weird. You start from a Western-based rationalistic order (Question: What in the East corresponds to your Aristotelian 'A=A'? Surely there must be something within the vast Veda knowledge-base?) and shoot it full of Buddhist mysticism with its Buddhistic take of a jñāna-method of realization. With this manoeuvre you are able to, shall we say, 'salvage' a certain amount from the Occidental repositories while you simultaneously jettison from them everything that you merely don't like or that makes you uncomfortable. Then, you go further by positioning yourselves within strangely distortable Weiningerian sexism to precipitate a sort of sexual war within ideas. (That precipitates no trainwreck of satisfying intercourse, heh heh). And once you have constructed this Edifice, you perch yourself within it and chortle in supremely confident arrogance about your own mastery and superiority. [Lightening flares out, the sky darkens, the Earth shakes!] ;-)

I really do not see an alternative to stating it in these terms.

Now, if this is true, if my assessment is close to the truth or has any relationship to it, it establishes a platform for describing who is attracted to the system and why they are attracted. And this is what I have described, or tried to, over a long period of time, and also what is resisted tooth-and-nail. But that is part of the way the system functions: like a religious platform it offers a means to an 'absolute certainty' and draws the people who most lack that. The part that is interesting is that these are 'religion-hungry' folks, and those who have been forced to fall away from religious structures because of these 'acids of modernity' but in whom it is all still there, functioning. You said, Dan, that your system cannot be a religion because it is free of 'beliefs', but I suggest that that is not what comprises a religion. And if you had a little more access to Western knowledge-bases you'd be able to know this, too.*

A guy winked at me once in such as way as to transmit the fact of his enlightenment to me. It was a really impressive wink. I exclaimed, "OMG you're enlightened!" Then he undid his pants and I figured I was having a bad intuitive day...

And indeed you were!

This can be read in a number of different ways. One, that you missed the Buddha's opportunity. He came to you through space and time and only if you would have seen and understood might you have said 'Your place or mine?' and then the rest would have been history. You missed an 'inconceivable opportunity' in Castanedan terms! ;-)

Or, that your 'enlightenment' is a sort of chimera you follow that has a whole other understructure to it, and one that you do not seem to realize.

Or, that you and David and Kevin offer to other people a sort of 'front': based on the surface, you offer a substantial thing. But when examined in depth it contains a 'perversion' around which your followers greedily wrap their lips and suck for all its worth!

A young child should be two things in my estimation: as literate as possible and as capable of independent thought as possible. Those two things make for education beyond the natural limits of "education".

And it is with these two things that I have been able to make the discernments I do make. I have taken such an 'independent' attitude toward the thinking-system you offer.

Trippy, huh?
________________________________________________________________________________________________

*See the Talking Ass's Tract No. 471: "Religion and Reality Relationality: A Farce in Three Parts".

[Alex Jacob]

It's just a bit of pointless for me to expect much of this anymore. Not even to challenge myself. Please let this rest, okay? Lack of motive. Rest. Goodbye!

Lest we forget, Diebert.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

And Elizabeth, do you speak as one of the 'enlightened'? Or are you just repeating something you've heard? Would you be comfortable doing away with the category altogether?

I was not repeating anything that I had heard, and of course I would feel comfortable with doing away with that category or any other or making lots more categories. Categories are just imaginary lines anyway.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

It's just a bit of pointless for me to expect much of this anymore. Not even to challenge myself. Please let this rest, okay? Lack of motive. Rest. Goodbye!

Lest we forget, Diebert.

It's not like I'm expecting anything again so I will not raise any serious topic. But it's good to see you remembering anything at all, I guess: keep that thought!

[Pincho Paxton]

The continuing topic that all is imagined is very circular.

All is imagined, prove it isn't.

There is a God, prove there isn't.

The physics of the Universe are in your head, prove that they aren't.

Basically, create a circular argument that nobody can bring an end to. I think that a brain running in circles is a wasted brain. I have an automatic logic section of my brain, and that's why I am on the Genius forums. I don't run my brain in circles with useless ideas. The physics of the Universe work very well without any imagination taking place. For example, if I am in a dream state, in a simulator machine, or in a Matrix machine it doesn't make any difference to the state of the Universe. The Universe is correct in its physics no matter where I am, because I work the physics out separately from myself as a human being. For example, I know that the colour red does not exist, I make it in my mind, but I know that there is an energy that matches the colour red. That energy could be a spin, or a rocking motion, but the colour can be turned into a physical match by a television. So 1 we make the colour in our imagination, but 2 somebody has matched it physically with a television. The television version uses just physics without a mind.

I can touch an object, and the touch is in my imagination, but now we have robots able to sense a touch, and so there is a physical match.

Whatever we can imagine, we can reproduce physically. Therefore the physics are out there, and if I am asleep in a bed somewhere, the physics are still out there when I wake up. I don't really care if this is a simulation, I do know that I have worked the physics out separately from my senses.

[Alex Jacob]

Elizabeth, might I be placed in the category of the enlightened? I am tired of being excluded! No one thought to send me a card on Enlightenment Day this year. But that's not what hurt the most...

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Alex, I liked that paragraph directed toward me, it involved barely any.mockery and was sincere in a sense, I fully understand where you are coming from, and although I can't see it while writing this post, I will do my best to respond.

99.9% of people who have ever spoken about enlightenment think themselves "enlightened", so I am very aware of what you mean, and more than 99% of those people are clearly only thinking highly of themselves without any clue. It doesn't concern me that others make guesses on this, Dan was accurate in saying you can't really know, the signs given through language are not near enough and what you would consider practical intelligence has nothing to do with it, someone who has never spoken may be enlightened.


So since you are looking for a straight forward answer to the questions "Who is?", "how can you know you aren't just deluding yourself?" Etc, etc, I will give you answers with some proof on definitions and explanations, I'll even quote the very.people considered "enlightened" (Buddha, etc) I will have to continue on another comment as I can't scroll.

Btw I'm on a phone.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

"Delusions of grandeur" is how you described it, very accurate, you already have your first indicator, look for the people putting themselves on display or still trying to gain some measure of fame for their all-knowingness, something I deluded myself with a while back , to start the "proof" I will quote some "enlightened" guys admitting their own complete ignorance.

"I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty" - Taoism central figure

You have probably heard of the idea of empty-mindedness in relation to having a clear perception. This is due to the non-egotistical recognition that "thoughts weaken the mind" Lao Tzu, our conceptualizations are often nothing more than false imaginations with nothing to do with anything. Hence "Not-knowing is true knowledge, thinking you know is a disease"- Lao Tzu. Or Confucius "True knowledge is to know the extent of your own ignorance". Another person considered a sage is Socrates with his "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" or the Buddhas words on the delusions of those addicted to assertion and negation "who have been unable to penetrate into the truth that there is nothing but what is seen of the mind itself", need a new comment, lots to say if you really want to Adress this.

so, first there should be the open recognition that the person knows absolutely nothing about any topic save for the " ray

[SeekerOfWisdom]

There should be the recognition that a person is fully aware of their own ignorance, no pretending to know about a scientific issue they have never done any research on for example. Remember this is me quoting "enlightened guys" having them display their take on enlightenment.

The next major point which is definitely included is a Buddha quote that is repeated in the sutras "One should understand, according to true wisdom, this does not belong to me, this is not my ego, this am I not". I'm quoting these from ,memory but if you know of the quotes I write you can check to see if they are accurate enough.
So, this one here is a fundamental point from enlightened guy about enlightenment. It is the recognition that your self is an experience of the mind, it is not really your ego, it is something that is transient, it should not be clinged to, another relevant quote is that "even the whole individual mind system is a manifestation the mind itself" which is a good quote to have next to “these beings who are hurrying and hastening through this round of rebirths". You will see that the notion of rebirth is an undeniable point made by the Buddha (I'm still trying to show what this "enlightened" word means by quoting "enlightened guy" as a way

[SeekerOfWisdom]

As a way of"proof" for what enlightenment is about, so far there are understandings of rebirth, the suffering caused by self-clinging, the underlying nature of all things being "like a dream or vision" - Buddha, and the undeniable point that they spoke of "eternal life". There is also a lot from both sages on "false imaginations" and ignorance born from self clinging.

Another two on self-clinging "If we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?" - Lao Tzu.

Another one on ignorance/ removing the dust of preconception.

"The ancient masters didn't try to educate the people, but kindly taught them not to know"- Lao Tzu

Another one on "there is nothing but what is seen of the mind itself"

"The world indeed is like a dream, and the treasures of the world an alluring mirage, like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves , but they are like heat haze"- Buddha

[SeekerOfWisdom]

This was all for one purpose, to have you agree that the notions regarding self-clinging, eternal life, ignorance and delusion, "vision of the mind", are all concepts directly addressed by "enlightened" people and are hence attributes of understanding related to the word "enlightenment".... Once you can agree on that, I will start on the differences between the deluded and the "enlightened", which entails almost nothing except for the awareness of a few things and the abandonment of delusions.

So after that I will give my take on the practical side of things and if there are differences between these categories or if it is all simply egotistical and no one is actually enlightened.

You have brought this up a number of times to myself and others and I hope you can appreciate me trying to satisfy your logical side of things by quoting to first depict some related topics to the word enlightenment which you disagree with, just so we have basis for determining if it is all a delusion.

[Dan Rowden]

I can never know such a thing with surety. No-one can. It will always be a contingent matter if people we meet are in fact enlightened. If our own understanding is complete we're in a good position to make a reasonable assessment, but it will never be something we hold as "true". An enlightened person is always alone in the world in this respect. He has no fellow travelers in an absolute sense. I would never suggest another person was enlightened, for example. At best I would hold that all the signs are there.

I understand what you have written.

Er, no, you absolutely do not, hence:

It is really a rather bizarre statement, though.

Alex, if you can't comprehend the simple notion of the subjectivity of consciousness then there's no point ever talking to you. Let me ask you this so perhaps we can move on and I can address the rest of your response: do you understand the proposition that a husband can never know if his wife loves him (or vice versa gender-wise). Do you get that? Do you agree with that? Let me state in advance that if you don't agree you emphatically don't get it.

[ROB]

Does...anyone, have a Letter to Solomon.? The Wisest man in The World?

[ROB]

A child is not enlightened. He is blameless.