GENIUS FORUMS

As I travel farther along the path to enlightenment I see a fatal flaw in the design. If I become enlightened I'll no longer have the urge to change the world for the better. I will simply realize that all is as it is meant to be and that all is well.

While I can know this intellectually, my ego cannot accept it. Maybe I am "too much of a woman".... Maybe I do put too much stock in emotion... but I consider this to be the nobler choice. Sure, there's the possibility that I could become enlightened if I worked toward it enough but I'd rather stay in the realms of falsehood, knowing it's false, and helping those who are in need.


How can my own enlightenment be worth the suffering of so many others?

False dilemma.

As I travel farther along the path to enlightenment I see a fatal flaw in the design. If I become enlightened I'll no longer have the urge to change the world for the better. I will simply realize that all is as it is meant to be and that all is well.

Do you really think that now that the enlightenment ball has some momentum that you can simply command it to stop? Might as well command the sun to stop shining. In for a penny, in for a pound. :-)

Know thyself, change thyself for the better and the changing of the world for the better will follow naturally. Think about it, if all were well, thinking would stop.

While I can know this intellectually, my ego cannot accept it. Maybe I am "too much of a woman".... Maybe I do put too much stock in emotion... but I consider this to be the nobler choice. Sure, there's the possibility that I could become enlightened if I worked toward it enough but I'd rather stay in the realms of falsehood, knowing it's false, and helping those who are in need.

I am a biological woman who has realized that emotional thinking must be set aside in order to understand (reason) the nature of reality, but that this setting aside of emotion is a gradual thing. While not focusing on the nature of reality, I watch TV, indulge in pleasurable dreaming, read novels, chat with friends, etc. The balance 'thing'.

How can my own enlightenment be worth the suffering of so many others?

Understanding brings about the end of the suffering of not knowing the true nature of reality. I assume you experience this kind of suffering. Most people don't care about knowing the truth, ergo, they don't suffer as you suffer. Ergo, you can stop worrying about effecting their suffering by "helping" them. My husband cares not to know the truth of reality and does not understand my suffering to know it, ergo our time spent together is light-hearted and pleasurable. Luckily he respects my right to suffer. :-)

Orenholt wrote:As I travel farther along the path to enlightenment I see a fatal flaw in the design. If I become enlightened I'll no longer have the urge to change the world for the better. I will simply realize that all is as it is meant to be and that all is well.

While I can know this intellectually, my ego cannot accept it. Maybe I am "too much of a woman".... Maybe I do put too much stock in emotion... but I consider this to be the nobler choice. Sure, there's the possibility that I could become enlightened if I worked toward it enough but I'd rather stay in the realms of falsehood, knowing it's false, and helping those who are in need.

The will to help change the world for the better wouldn't dissipate. If not by teaching others, merely your example would help. The only thing you would lose is your emotional investment into the matter.

Sure, the ego seeks to helps others for self-gratification, but to deny helping others is just another form of self-gratification. To be enlightened is to naturally express enlightenment, which helps others by default. If nature dictates that others are non-receptive to it, then so be it.

Orenholt wrote:As I travel farther along the path to enlightenment I see a fatal flaw in the design. If I become enlightened I'll no longer have the urge to change the world for the better.

This is incorrect. The enlightened expression acts so as best to enlighten in its context, and it does so without faltering.

Loving-kindness is only blocked by incorrect view.

The Will To Power. Jerks.

Orenholt wrote:As I travel farther along the path to enlightenment I see a fatal flaw in the design. If I become enlightened I'll no longer have the urge to change the world for the better. I will simply realize that all is as it is meant to be and that all is well.

While I can know this intellectually, my ego cannot accept it. Maybe I am "too much of a woman".... Maybe I do put too much stock in emotion... but I consider this to be the nobler choice. Sure, there's the possibility that I could become enlightened if I worked toward it enough but I'd rather stay in the realms of falsehood, knowing it's false, and helping those who are in need.


How can my own enlightenment be worth the suffering of so many others?

When you give unconditionally, what all the others do won't matter so much.

"All" welcomes the urge to change the world for the better. "All" does not exclude.

Orenholt wrote:If I become enlightened I'll no longer have the urge to change the world for the better.

Does this notion of changing the world for the better come from an enlightened perspective of the world or is it merely an expression of the ego? If the latter, why listen to it? Why take any notice of it at all? How can you suppose to make a meaningful judgement of the efficacy of such a notion and goal in the absence of enlightenment? How do you propose to change the world for the "better" in the absence of enlightenment? Guesswork? Sounds awfully egotistical and delusional to me. Remember the road the hell is paved with good intentions.

But it seems you've already make a choice between enlightenment and ego satiation. That's fine, but don't blame enlightenment for it. If this idea of bettering the world remains upon attainment, then the goal was always sound and consistent with such attainment. If it does not remain, then the attainment itself will indicate to you why it was not sound and its departure will not cause you egotistical and emotional distress.

The idea that you can resolve this without attainment is delusional.

Orenholt wrote:As I travel farther along the path to enlightenment I see a fatal flaw in the design. If I become enlightened I'll no longer have the urge to change the world for the better. I will simply realize that all is as it is meant to be and that all is well.

Two things can be said to that. The first: Enlighenment is the transcendence, not the nullification, of dualism; the distinction between the Absolute and manifestation is transcended within a higher unity, not lost within an undifferentiated void. Good is still good, and evil is still evil. Aside from deliberate counter-initiatory distortion, the reason for the confusion between transenence and nullification is that the words 'emptiness', 'void', 'nothingness', 'detachment', and so on have a nihilistic connotation in Western culture, contrary to their true meanings in Buddhism. Which brings us to the second point: in general, Westerners are more suited to the bhaktic path, which is the path of morality and devotion, than to the jnanic path, that of intellection and gnosis. Yet both paths lead to the same summit. How to know if you are bhakta or a jnana? The best criterion is as follows; if the doctrines of jnana eliminate all your defects of character, you are jnanic by nature; if not, then you are bhaktic by nature, and should follow a bhaktic religion. It seems as though you are a bhakta and not a jnana. Christianity, Islam or Amidist Buddhism would probably suit you.

Thanks everyone. I think I mainly got discouraged because I took the words of someone I considered "more enlightened" than myself as true when I shouldn't have. The whole idea of "why would I do anything?" has always plagued me and then to hear it from someone else only enhanced that.

Whether the desire to cause more wisdom and joy in the world is enlightened or egotistical I cannot say. I would undoubtedly benefit from it either way so it is hard to tell. I can say it's not short sighted short term gratification at least which is typically associated with egotism.

But yes... the point isn't to eliminate the ego but to transcend it.

Orenholt wrote:As I travel farther along the path to enlightenment I see a fatal flaw in the design. If I become enlightened I'll no longer have the urge to change the world for the better.

There have been many people in the past who have had the urge to change the world for the better. Some of these people committed what we now call great atrocities. What makes you think your changes for the better will not be considered atrocities by future generations?

Every creation is also a destruction. It's only a matter of perspective. Why not let other people or generations worry about their own interests in changing the world?

I heard somewhere that Mother Theresa was depressed as she was helping the sick and the poor. Why not help them while you're content, or help them to become content. (Maybe "empowered" is a better word.)

RZoo wrote:Every creation is also a destruction. It's only a matter of perspective. Why not let other people or generations worry about their own interests in changing the world?

Why not let yourself worry about your own interests? What makes your perspective less important?