GENIUS FORUMS

There can be some reliable understanding without perfect application, Carl. I think it's on this level that Ryan and I are engaging in this "momentous" duel.

People cannot discuss enlightenment without taking some position on what they think it is. To be able to speak about it, or claim someone else is or isn't enlightened, one is automatically taking a position. Even your post is doing this, because you have to have some notion of what enlightenment means, to be able to use the word.

Ryan wrote:Perhaps we are at two different stages, but personally, you're entire extreme position seems over the top to me.

The former appears to be largely why you think the latter.

You sound like a hypersensitive war general high on testosterone supplements. Perhaps it will work for you, although it sounds a tad willful.

You are currently taking a feminine state, a state of willingness. So to you I appear to be taking an excessively masculine state, the one of willing, and of creating values.

An enlighened person actually becomes quite meek, mellow, and relaxed in their mindset.

It's a type popular with the ladies, and with many men. It doesn't ruffle feathers, it goes with the flow, it hides in the crowd and mixes easily with everyman. It's the gentle Jesus, meek and mild, protecting and caring for little children.

Non-attachment can appear in a wrathful form when necessary, as Jesus himself often appeared. Or, among those beating their chests, sqwarking endlessly to catch the ladies' attention, or preening its glossiest feathers, it appears frivolous and pointless. It all depends on the context.

I think you need to take a long look in the mirror, and take notice of how many blood vessels are popping out on your neck and forehead....

It's an inhuman tendency to take things to perfection.

I ask you to consider that the term 'enlightenment' is useless and misleading. If you can say 'I am enlightened!' and then say what it is, how it came to you, and what it causes you to do differently, then the term has validity.

All the uses I have seen of the term 'enlightenment' seem to have been to defend people's ego-constructs.

Anyway, if a vote were taken today, I would receive the enlightenment nomination.

If you can say 'I am enlightened!' and then say what it is, how it came to you, and what it causes you to do differently, then the term has validity.

Apart from the fact this perspective of enlightenment is wrong, I'll answer anyway.

It is Truth.

It doesn't come to me or anyone. It happens by causes, primarily by the dissolution of mental constructions of me as an inherent entity.

Not act in a deluded way.

This is valid for everyone, but few agree with it, because they don't like the weak appearance of dissolution. They think it means powerlessness and vulnerability, and an exhausting level of exposure to a totalitarian regime.

When I pitch tent at night my number one priority is to be aware of my imagination. What a wild thing. Hypersensitivity to every shadow, light, sound, and movement. Evil lurks in the darkness and awaits my lapse in precautions.

Then my tent is up, and the very second I slip inside the world changes to whatever I want it to be, and I have NO MEMORY of the fear that was just existing. What a wild thing. Must be aware of catching it at the beginning, before it runs off with my mind. How God-like I am when I do.

Anyway, if we're talking houses I do have a lingering dream of a log cabin alone in an evergreen forest. It's interesting to see which parts of our self-image manifest into reality. I couldn't say for sure, but I think it's usually the ones that are of medium-consciousness. Not too much in the forefront, not too much in the background. Kind of like the thoughts that spark my dreams at night.

Nick Treklis wrote:R: Not only that, but mortgage repayments can be less than rents. In my case, i am receiving $100/wk in rent from others, and because i had a good deposit my mortgage costs about $70 per week. So my house is being paid for by others plus i am getting extra cash. That is so, so much better than renting. Although i miss out on rent assistance from the government, which i think i should get. It keeps many in poverty the way they only help people who pay rent.

N: If you didn't have tenants would you be able to make your mortgage and utility payments?

Yes, but it's tight. Life would be all about making ends meet.

Do you work a full time job?

No, government.

Where did you initially get the money to put down on the house?

Many years ago while i was working i saved enough to buy a share in a cheap land-sharing co-operative. I later developed the site and sold out, making some gain.

Kelly,

You are currently taking a feminine state, a state of willingness. So to you I appear to be taking an excessively masculine state, the one of willing, and of creating values.

Okay, as I said, perhaps you need the extreme masculine mindset at this point. Although, It seems like you’ve been there for quite awhile now.

It's a type popular with the ladies, and with many men. It doesn't ruffle feathers, it goes with the flow, it hides in the crowd and mixes easily with everyman. It's the gentle Jesus, meek and mild, protecting and caring for little children.

It doesn’t mean that you don’t defend what you believe to be true. Have you ever listened to an enlightened person speak? They are very meek, but that doesn’t mean they don’t defend truth. In my opinion, an enlightened person ends of having many qualities of women, only because his masculinity is so concentrated and directed.

Basically in a crowded room of fools, you’d barely know they were there. Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said, “ A woman’s tragedy is that she becomes her mother, a man’s is that he doesn’t”

Ryan Rudolph wrote: Have you ever listened to an enlightened person speak? They are very meek, but that doesn’t mean they don’t defend truth. In my opinion, an enlightened person ends of having many qualities of women, only because his masculinity is so concentrated and directed.

Basically in a crowded room of fools, you’d barely know they were there. Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said, “ A woman’s tragedy is that she becomes her mother, a man’s is that he doesn’t”

Whether the sage would get noticed or not in a room of fools would depend on what everyone including the viewer were doing. If the sage examined the viewer, or spoke, or behaved unnaturally in the face of particular circumstance, and the viewer had an eye and/or ear for it, they would be noticed. Some on the other hand are so disconnected from reality it could take some time before they noticed an elephant in the room.

EDITED

Rhett has a complex. Inferiorty, whatever.

He thinks he's the shit, but he ain't.

Carl G wrote:Golly -- housing issues aside for a moment -- Ryan and Kelly have all but announced their Enlightened status by now.

In Kelly's case, it's more than "all but". Perhaps you missed this from the "FOOTHOLDS" thread, in response to Anna's direct question, "By the way, do you claim to be enlightened?":

Kelly Jones wrote:For this discussion, enlightenment means having a virtually perfect understanding of Reality. So I am claiming enlightenment.

Rhett wrote:

Do you work a full time job?

No, government.

I'm suprised the government pays you enough to actually own a house on top of everything else needed to survive. How did you make out on such a good deal?

Ryan Rudolph wrote:KJ: You are currently taking a feminine state, a state of willingness. So to you I appear to be taking an excessively masculine state, the one of willing, and of creating values.

Okay, as I said, perhaps you need the extreme masculine mindset at this point.

Is it possible that you interpret actively engaging in philosophical discussions as 'needing the extreme masculine mindset'?

If not, then what are the signs of this mindset that you believe I'm exhibiting?

RR: Enlightenment is about finding a calm and stable mindset within your own being, which involves silencing the will's desire to be constantly battling imperfections that perhaps cannot be changed.

KJ: Enlightenment is precisely not about finding a calm and stable mindset within your own being. That is what modern psychology is after, and it's a deluded endeavour, though relatively useful, such as for people with significant emotional damage. Enlightenment is about what one truly is, which forces one to realise the importance of abandoning all resting places.

RR: An enlighened person actually becomes quite meek, mellow, and relaxed in their mindset.

KJ: It's a type popular with the ladies, and with many men. It doesn't ruffle feathers, it goes with the flow, it hides in the crowd and mixes easily with everyman. It's the gentle Jesus, meek and mild, protecting and caring for little children.

RR: It doesn’t mean that you don’t defend what you believe to be true.

And what if the lie is something like, "dwelling in the animal realms is necessary for survival"? Is it unenlightened to attack this lie actively? As we discussed, living in the animal realms is to meet the needs of the ego.

Have you ever listened to an enlightened person speak? They are very meek, but that doesn’t mean they don’t defend truth.

It's mistaken to refer to other people as indicators for enlightenment. Truth comes from one's own understanding. At most, other people can serve as catalysts to stimulate thought, but they might be actors, con-artists, or unconscious robots.

A good teacher knows that the average person is quickly aroused to defending the ego. As this clouds the mind, closing it to wisdom, the good teacher usually won't appear as an aggressive, agitated person. However, its appropriate to stir-up the complacent, animal type, and give a strong presentation of the clashes and contradictions of their thought, because they will do anything to preserve their contented undoubting existence.

A person with a strong understanding can be very active, and not make mistakes. It depends how grounded in Truth he is. If the root is deep, then there is no movement into delusion, regardless of how or where he travels.

Basically in a crowded room of fools, you’d barely know they were there.

If earth is that room, the wise man has to stand out a bit in order to bring some of them to life. If he's a wise man, he will weary of enjoying his spirit and solitude.

Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said, “ A woman’s tragedy is that she becomes her mother, a man’s is that he doesn’t”

I think he's talking about animal tragedies.

The animal-man is in despair his whole life because he can't return to the safety and love of his mother's arms.

But, we can interpret it as a spiritual aphorism. In this case, it is a tragedy that he doesn't see what he has always been, and always will be, no matter how active or inactive he is.

What it really comes down to, is, why should a wise man spend his life imitating husbands; fixing engines, houses, toilets and so forth?


KJ

I believe there is hope for you Ryan. I suspect you will even outgrow this place.

Kelly, I believe you are in danger, as Alex says, of building a huge ego edifice to your own enlightenment which will become impervious to actual enlightenment.

The ego cannot be killed but only transcended.

Alex,

Anyway, if a vote were taken today, I would receive the enlightenment nomination.

A question is whether a mystic can be enlightened, or are they two different things? You're more of a mystic.

+++
The only masculine woman I have ever seen at this forum, is me.

To be truthful, I don't think I am anything quite so solid. I feel that my ideas about things are rapidly going through changes. I am becoming something I wasn't even one year ago. It is kind of strange but I also really like it. The next few months and the next year, I have a feeling, will put me on a very different path than what I had been on.

I reject 'enlightenment' as a term, but I would hold to 'enlightened values'. I think some people have advanced trance experiences that they call 'enlightenment', I think Krishnamurti wrote about that. I think some people considered Krishnamurti to be 'enlightened', and they certainly regard Ramana Maharshi as being enlightened, but that idea of 'death-of-self' or termination of self or transcendence of self just doesn't mean a great deal to me. Yet I am aware of people describing that so-called death-of-self experience, or the experience they have when they realize---as mikiel has said on a few occasions---that the fictional self never really existed (I am thinking of Andrew Cohen and others like him).

I think our values have to be on-the-ground values. It seems to me that if there is an enlightened state it is a state of remaining committed to one's values of living, because one has caught a glimmer of one's personal truth, resulting from a personal relationship with God. My understanding of this 'enlightened state' is therefor essentially personalist, insofar as everyone can and should forge a connection with his or her 'personal God', and then you make your own interpretation, and you live it out in your life.

Do you actually see yourself as a 'masculine woman'?

Iolaus wrote:Kelly, I believe you are in danger, as Alex says, of building a huge ego edifice to your own enlightenment which will become impervious to actual enlightenment.

This is ironic, coming from Anna, who thinks there's no danger at all in making thoughtless claims about existence. There is far more danger where Anna is, spreading the disease of unconsciousness in a happy-go-lucky binge of irresponsibility.

Someone may claim temporary insanity when they murder in rage, but their victim is still dead.

The ego cannot be killed but only transcended.

The ego, like all things, lacks inherent existence. It is exactly that bundle of ideas and thoughts that denies this is so. So it can neither be killed nor transcended, but disappears like the darkness in the brilliant light of wise thoughts.

All it takes is the will to be enlightened.

Alex wrote:

I think our values have to be on-the-ground values. It seems to me that if there is an enlightened state it is a state of remaining committed to one's values of living,

which are based on...

a glimmer of one's personal truth, resulting from a personal relationship with God.

which is...

My understanding of this 'enlightened state' is therefor essentially personalist, insofar as everyone can and should forge a connection with his or her 'personal God',

meaning, it is...

and then you make your own interpretation, and you live it out in your life.

meaning, it is whatever you want it to be.

Duh.

So, Ryan, in a room of fools, where everyone is claiming temporary insanity, are you going to stand by and let them drop like flies?

"...meaning, it is whatever you want it to be."

Not at all.

I think that our values come from religious and spiritual sources, and I place higher intellect in that category, so in a sense our values have already been defined. I think that the more one experiences the Divine, or God (even if one understands it as 'emptiness', etc.) that one seems to come more into these values.

I don't see you-all being so very different, in fact.

I place the stress of 'coming into relationship', and the more one comes into relationship, to more one wants and needs to live with values. But, as I say often, I see my relationship as being paradigmatically 'Biblical'...

I think that our values come from religious and spiritual sources,

Alex, what if all religions were founded by con-artists, actors, and unconscious robots? What if all the spiritual sources were brainwashed by devils?

All our values, including enlightened values, could be a pile of hogwash. But you'd accept them blindly anyway?

Alex,

I would not have used the word solid as the first adjective to describe mystics. Well, what is a mystic? It seems to me it's a person with intuitive contact with the divine, universal knowledge, and who has experiences and understandings arising from such.

I feel that my ideas about things are rapidly going through changes. I am becoming something I wasn't even one year ago. It is kind of strange but I also really like it.

Yes, you're a kindred spirit alright. I think this constant change is OK, too. More than OK, it is as it should and must be. Perhaps you think of a mystic as belonging to a particular religion, and being a mystic within it. Solid.
But, times they are a changing. My own mentor, the closest I'll ever get to a guru, someone I can't help feeling some kind of love for, is a monk whose pen lit my soul on fire and from then till now, having drunk the waters of life, it has indeed been such an ever-changing, yet somehow sensible journey. What I call, living in the bridal chamber of the Lord. (New Testament stuff, also one from the gospel of Thomas.)

Perhaps, had I lived in his era, which in fact he died around 1930, but he might as well never have left the 1800's in which he was born for he lived a life of monastic isolation -- had I lived in his era I too, might have become a saint.
But the problem is, we have a lot of information now, and I dug into it, and I had a crisis of faith, and I had to choose the real over the silly idea of a true religion. I could not remain in a state of contented bliss, digging deeper into the reservoirs of my religion.

So he was a mystic, and I am a mystic but I have achieved a level of freedom that he only hinted at, and its not that I'm better. He was better. But he lived in another era, and he lived a very different life with different options possible for him.

Alex it's a bit new age, but you must see a little clearer the difference between religion and true spirituality, which is dogma-free, and does not depend upon stories, and is essentially mystical, relying on intuition and a guiding principle of not accepting negativity.

I agree that enlightenment is a term meant differently by different people. I define it as a breakthrough in perception beyond duality, and there is something about waking up to whom one really is - there being only one being in this universe. Waking up just like you do in the morning when your dream self suddenly says, "Oh, I was dreaming, and now I am awake."

This might be translated as no self, but I also find it problematic, if only because it isn't true, can't be true. But in some sense it is true. Having not really experienced it, I can't be expected to fully understand it. But one guy calls it the 'expanded self.' And I immediately liked it because the little ego self that seemed so important, so encased and isolated, so prone to fear, is no longer all that one feels oneself to be, or its boundaries expand so that it is, you know, like the incredible lightness of being.

The enlightened obviously still have a self, an ego, a name, they feel their body, etc. But it is not all that exists in their purview. It has been likened to lucid dreaming. Have you had any? There you are in your dream with your dream self, suddenly aware that it is you dreaming, and the dream is fun and silly, with no possible fear in it.

Andrew Cohen, by the way, is a guy who has tried to have a serious dialogue about women and spirituality.

As far as on the ground values, I think that is similar to my view that the enlightened values had better be compatible with life. Like one of the sycophants said, "real men don't breed."

Oh yeah? Well your values are irrelevant then, aren't they?

because one has caught a glimmer of one's personal truth, resulting from a personal relationship with God. My understanding of this 'enlightened state' is therefor essentially personalist, insofar as everyone can and should forge a connection with his or her 'personal God', and then you make your own interpretation, and you live it out in your life.

This I would describe as mystical. The question of a personal God is one I struggle with. Logically, it has problems, yet that is the experience. I suspect that it is personal in a different way than I understand, yet.

Do you actually see yourself as a 'masculine woman'?

Yes, always have. Not in a frightening way. The men in my life seem not to have detected it. On the other hand, it's perhaps the main reason they have appreciated me.

The reasons I do so consider myself is that I am quite rational, think for myself and have a strong inner life and identity, and have always been more at home in conversation with men than women, they are more interesting to me. I would have preferred to have been a man, but I have so long since made my peace with it that I hardly remember.

Some women here, such as Marsha (long gone) were considered masculine because of a certain bitchy and aggressive attitude, and because they were parrots and sycophants, mostly for David, who seems to have his little harem (I'm sorry to confess I'm included but not for the same reasons - I love David because I sense he loves God, a trait I can't resist, albeit he denies it). They also loudly proclaimed themselves as men, whereas I spent many years overcoming same!

But did they think alone, did they have developed ideas of their own, did they communicate well, were they interesting at all or boring, and were they excessively emotional and self absorbed in an irrational way? No, no, no, no, and yes.

And I don't say I am masculine to compliment myself, as others here would, it's just a fact I've lived with all my life. Or perhaps I am fully psychologically hermaphroditic - I love men and sex and babies, after all!
But I would not say I am extremely masculine. I don't do well with all the new technological toys.

Kelly,

If not, then what are the signs of this mindset that you believe I'm exhibiting?

Overly narrow in your view of what is important, which is necessary on part of the path. However, I question whether you’ve totally surrendered to the will’s desire to constantly be active, seeking, pursuing and so on. Sometimes, you strike me as sort of a busy body…

And what if the lie is something like, "dwelling in the animal realms is necessary for survival"? Is it unenlightened to attack this lie actively? As we discussed, living in the animal realms is to meet the needs of the ego.

Not necessarily, the body/genes/brain can need a certain chemical response on a regular basis, but the ego could have long ago disappeared.

What it really comes down to, is, why should a wise man spend his life imitating husbands; fixing engines, houses, toilets and so forth?

Those things are necessary whether he is a husband or not. They are necessary for a sentient being’s survival. Being a sage doesn't mean that you're above life, you still have to do the things necessary for your own existence. Personally, I think sentience should strive to know any many skills as possible because it reduces your dependence on paying other people large amounts of money for their labor.

So, Ryan, in a room of fools, where everyone is claiming temporary insanity, are you going to stand by and let them drop like flies?

This forum is different because everyone here at least claims to have some interest in enlightenment, and so they have a position of what enlightenment is. However, in a room full of mediocrity, people are not interested, they are content with mediocrity; they don’t care, so the sage has no reason to speak.

Carl G wrote:Golly -- housing issues aside for a moment -- Ryan and Kelly have all but announced their Enlightened status by now. This is quite momentous. As far as I know they are the only two of the long-timers besides QRS who have done this, although Trevor has come close, and Nick certainly speaks as though he thinks he is. I say long-timers to differentiate from some like mikiel who seem to have significantly different definitions of the term.

I guess things are really progressing here at Genius.

I'm with you there, Carl. It's a beautiful thing to be witnessing.

Kelly writes:

"Alex, what if all religions were founded by con-artists, actors, and unconscious robots? What if all the spiritual sources were brainwashed by devils? All our values, including enlightened values, could be a pile of hogwash. But you'd accept them blindly anyway?"

The origins of religion, and the spiritual bent in man, seems to have paleolithic roots, and for us is a post-Ice Age phenomenon. I don't know if you've read much about shamanism but it is pretty interesting, and also pretty strange. A sort of controlled madness, allowing shifts in personality to occur, something like inviting schism, cultivation of 'ecstasy', visions, the cultivation and management of 'story', a sort of 'hysteria' and all the rest. (For example, he God Yahweh way back in the mists of time past was a kind of whirlwind spirit of the desert or the desert mountains, a fporce difficult to cultivate and difficult to control). It is very difficult to put a finger on any of it, and in modern language you'd have to say it was sort of like being possessed by 'complexes' or 'devils', and certainly the 'unconscious' plays a big part in it. Everything about humankind is enveloped in weird slime, the slime of birth. It is ugly and beautiful but 'utterly strange'.

And this is what and who we are, and this is what we have to work with.

In our traditions especially---the Occidental Traditions---we are called upon to deeply examine our own assumptions, our own cultural values, our religious values and modalities, and this is what we do. There is some of this in Hindu philosophical traditions---some part of the 'grand conversation'---but I can't think of any other tradition where this is done so intently as in ours. I am a part of that, though I have a religious orientation, more so than you apparently, but I also see you squarely in that peculiar tradition, so we can converse.

I haven't accepted much 'blindly'. Part of the risk of life, that is part of the process of learning while alive, is to test the borders, to test moralities and ethics. We have the freedom to do this.

Carl/Brokenhead -

I'm with you there, Carl. It's a beautiful thing to be witnessing.

And what is even more beautiful is how you two continue to contradict yourselves. Every poster on here has some notion of what they believe enlightened behavior is….

Enlightenment is just another word for rational, or very intelligent, and yes I do believe that I’m very intelligent, but that is a relative statement based on a common measure of normality within society. However, do I believe that I’m the most intelligent being in the cosmos? Clearly not… I bet there is at least one being out there somewhere in the cosmos that is aware of a tiny bit more than myself…. ; )

I think both of you are unclear about what humility means - Humility doesn’t involve tricking yourself into believing that you’re not conscious, when you are, its about being open to the possibility of being in error, open to possibilities that are beyond your perception, open to the fact that you do not have all the answers, open to being patient with other minds, and open and accepting of your own physical/mental limitations in general.

Ryan writes:

"Enlightenment is just another word for rational, or very intelligent, and yes I do believe that I’m very intelligent, but that is a relative statement based on a common measure of normality within society."

Man, Ryan, that is so incorrect! You should look into the Hindu literature on enlightenment, even what Ramakrishna writes about his experiences (I suggest this because our Fearless Wisemen seem to admire him). From my background (my parents went to India for a year when I was 13-14 and my sister and I along with them) with Hindu scripture, 'enlightenment' is a 'condition of the soul', it is an experience of huge proportion, and is always attended with overwhelming feelings of bliss. God or the Atman, as the root of consciousness, is in its very nature non-different from the totality of self, which is 'sat-chit-ananda' (existence, consciousness, bliss), and it is generally defined as the natural state of the soul, and has very little to do with 'the mind' and intellect.

It seems to me, though I have no interest to ferret it out and clarify the issue, I just don't care enough to do so, that QRS have appropriated the word 'enlightenment', have attached their own definition to it, crawl inside their definition like a defensive fort, and defend themselves against the world! Look at Dan's photo of himself as he stares into his 'infinite' and there you'll have the only relevant definition of 'enlightenment' that appears on these pages. One of the reasons no one can make sense of Kelly, bless her heart, is that she also has an utterly spurious definition of enlightenment that has next to no relation with known definitions, and what she is talking about, who the heck knows?

In Hindu doctrine, this 'enlightenment' has all sorts of variations, the lesser being a non-permanent state that one can 'fall' from, back into 'delusion', and other states from which one does not ever 'return'. In Ramakrishna's case, defined by him or his disciples, the enlightenment he experienced was an ultimate variety, the experience of which 'causes the body to fall away'---you simply do not care for life or death, it is all the same, and is complete union with God---not 'emptiness'---not a 'void'---but God.

Alex Jacob wrote:Ryan writes:

"Enlightenment is just another word for rational, or very intelligent, and yes I do believe that I’m very intelligent, but that is a relative statement based on a common measure of normality within society."

Man, Ryan, that is so incorrect! You should look into the Hindu literature on enlightenment, even what Ramakrishna writes about his experiences (I suggest this because our Fearless Wisemen seem to admire him). From my background (my parents went to India for a year when I was 13-14 and my sister and I along with them) with Hindu scripture, 'enlightenment' is a 'condition of the soul', it is an experience of huge proportion, and is always attended with overwhelming feelings of bliss. God or the Atman, as the root of consciousness, is in its very nature non-different from the totality of self, which is 'sat-chit-ananda' (existence, consciousness, bliss), and it is generally defined as the natural state of the soul, and has very little to do with 'the mind' and intellect.

It seems to me, though I have no interest to ferret it out and clarify the issue, I just don't care enough to do so, that QRS have appropriated the word 'enlightenment', have attached their own definition to it, crawl inside their definition like a defensive fort, and defend themselves against the world! Look at Dan's photo of himself as he stares into his 'infinite' and there you'll have the only relevant definition of 'enlightenment' that appears on these pages. One of the reasons no one can make sense of Kelly, bless her heart, is that she also has an utterly spurious definition of enlightenment that has next to no relation with known definitions, and what she is talking about, who the heck knows?

In Hindu doctrine, this 'enlightenment' has all sorts of variations, the lesser being a non-permanent state that one can 'fall' from, back into 'delusion', and other states from which one does not ever 'return'. In Ramakrishna's case, defined by him or his disciples, the enlightenment he experienced was an ultimate variety, the experience of which 'causes the body to fall away'---you simply do not care for life or death, it is all the same, and is complete union with God---not 'emptiness'---not a 'void'---but God.

Alex,

Kelly is a man, a biological male. Not a "her/she".

(note the spelling of his name)



.

Alex,

Man, Ryan, that is so incorrect! You should look into the Hindu literature on enlightenment, even what Ramakrishna writes about his experiences (I suggest this because our Fearless Wisemen seem to admire him). From my background (my parents went to India for a year when I was 13-14 and my sister and I along with them) with Hindu scripture, 'enlightenment' is a 'condition of the soul', it is an experience of huge proportion, and is always attended with overwhelming feelings of bliss. God or the Atman, as the root of consciousness, is in its very nature non-different from the totality of self, which is 'sat-chit-ananda' (existence, consciousness, bliss), and it is generally defined as the natural state of the soul, and has very little to do with 'the mind' and intellect.

Experiences of bliss are not part of a mature enlightened mind, bliss or ecstasy can be caused by grandiose thinking, where the individual deludes himself into believing he is part of something special, vast, esoteric or divine. A mature mind simply accepts the ordinary nature of existence, as I have experienced such altered states in my early days, but each one was caused by delusions.

And All these spiritual con man that you speak of are selling people snake's oil dressed up as as elixir for the soul. Frauds and hypocrites, every single one.