What is 'Enlightenment'? Options

[Shawn]

It's certain that enlightenment means different things to different people, and so I'm curious what it means to other people, and also to throw out a few questions to provoke thought.

Is Enlightenment an experience, process, realization, way of living, or what?

Is Enlightenment a multi-faceted word that is context-dependent and relative, or are there absolute truths that are invariably associated with any type of Enlightenment?

What are the 'truths', if any, that would invariably be realized/experienced thru Enlightenment?

Is Enlightenment an all-or-none experience (AHA experience) or is it a gradual accumulation of wisdom?

What is the relation of Enlightenment to mystical experience?

Please note that the above constitutes a partial list and is not meant to exhaust the range of questions that could, and should, be asked.

Personally, I believe the statement, "We are the Universe conscious of Itself", is on a par with Buddha's "All that we are, is the result of what we have thought" from the opening of the Dhammapada, and that both constitute part of a collection of truths that are invariably experienced during what I think many would call Enlightenment.   The task at hand, though, is to clarify this notion of Enlightenment to the best of our abilities thru mere verbal communication.  Is anyone up to this challenge?

[synchronox]

I don't know who God is, so I can't deal with him.
I have read the perverbial ten thousand books, finding many of them puzzling, the ones I understood were an intellectual understanding and did not carry the heat necessary for transformation.  Most of them were a waste of time, because they were talking about them and not me and I could not make the necessary translation.
I studied many religions, movements , joined or looked at communities, drank, took substances. some other things as well.
At one time I compiled a dynamic list of the top 100 books and tried to read them all, I failed or rather lost interest.
I would meet someone of interest and at the end of the conversation ask them who the wisest person they knew was and if appropriate, ask for an arranged introduction and repeat the same with that person.  With many interesting excursions.
In the end I found it was all in my back yard, not out there. I am a Westerner, not an oriental or Easterner or even American Indian.  I had to live with the shape of my psyche.
I tried science, mysticism, religion, desperate to get out of my own skinbag and become someone else.
In the end I found the only thing that worked was to begin with myself and understand, who was I?  I was finally left with only me.  I was not bright enough to follow in someone else's footprints especially when I didn't grok their instructions or lack of them.  I don't understand what the hell Patanjali is talking about, his statements are just too intuitive for me to put any of them to work, but I do understand how to find out what I am about.  I tuned in, in my own fashion to my own genius, who tells me specifically what to do with my problems.
I found and decode the visionary dreams that can be turned on, they are the first tool.  These dreams, are the source of most visionary movements in the world, IMO.  I do not know how many people can do this.  The people that are attracted to it, I guess.
I hope to write about them here and the cultures that base their wisdom on them, if I don't levitate first.
I have talked with Shawn and became a moderator to do this for a short period of time.