Enlightenment An Ultimate Aim? Options

[Shawn]

[to continue a discussion started with Steve Lance]

When your experience grows, and you become a part of all you experience, and there is no clear boundary where you end and others begin, where is there room for an ego? And where do we go when we've outgrown our old egos? Do we create new ones or does something else happen?

Assume for a moment that you've reached the ideal state of enlightenment (some of us may be there already, but nevermind that). You reside in an expanded, godly, egoless state of mind in which you are one with everything you experience. What now? Is this it? Is this really the goal of life you desire?

Perhaps all living things have a will to transcend themselves (which appears exceptionally in man, at times). In such a case, there is no ideal state of enlightenment. In such a case, quality of life is measured in terms of striving and strength to transcend oneself, and the notion of remaining content with a state of enlightened Being is seen as a weakness precisely because the act of Becoming (and striving and transcending oneself) is noticably absent.

Or perhaps it's no coincidence that age is commonly believed to be correlated with 'wisdom', and that the older we get, the more 'mellow' we tend to become. That is, we become more mellow as we age because we become wiser?

There seems to be a flaw with that logic. The point being that we should all strive for enlightening experiences, but not remain content with the enlightenment thereby attained, because in the end, it's all relative.

[Rick]

You reside in an expanded, godly, egoless state of mind in which you are one with everything you experience. What now? Is this it? Is this really the goal of life you desire?

You go down the mountain and seek justice for the people.

[lucid_dream]

You reside in an expanded, godly, egoless state of mind in which you are one with everything you experience. What now? Is this it? Is this really the goal of life you desire?

You go down the mountain and seek justice for the people.

Why?

[code buttons]

You reside in an expanded, godly, egoless state of mind in which you are one with everything you experience. What now? Is this it? Is this really the goal of life you desire?

You go down the mountain and seek justice for the people.

Why?

I don't know about you Lucid, but to me, the path to enlightenment takes me through the well being of everything and everyone that can be better-off. If Oneness is our ultimate goal, therefore, the suffering of others (of those who can suffer) becomes also my suffering. So, untill the very last neuron in the universe may benefit from my entering into this state of enlightening, then I may not enter into it either.

[Guest]

Hey Max, I like your style :0)

Not sure about your logic though, it's a bit wavey. To take repsonsibility for yourself and everyone around you is a good thing and part of the journey, but to deny yourself enlightenment for what ever reason is martyrdom. There's only one trick to becoming enlightened and that's to shut down your thinking and just experience the things around you, some call it meditation.

I'm with shawn on the "what now?" thing, enlightenment is lonely :0(

I can't quote Alan Watts but he had a great way of looking at this problem and said something like:
As you learn more and more the world becomes less and less mysterious, ultimately there is nothing left to learn and you are a god, the world meanwhile becomes a bore. The way out of this is to start to forget things so that they become interesting again, and the more you forget the more mysterious the world is.