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?

[joe]

QUOTE

I find it hard to believe that the only way to discover objective knowledge is by embracing the subjective experience of self.  Not only is it self-repudiating, but it is the total erosion of authority and the loss of meaning within the bottomless pit of relativity.  Maybe I just don't understand, but I don't see any reliable method of differentiating between real transcendence and say, the euphoria experienced by Christain snake handers, that doesn't involve serious contradiction.

You wouldn't see any difference, how could you if it has been something inside you and you have been taught to ignore it. As children we are taught that expression is subject to a time and a place and that sometimes it is inappropriate to say or express our feelings at all. Then the subtle realities we experience as children are stuffed along with the ability to use our nervous system freely as we are guided by our parents who have been guided by theirs and society into beliefs that this or that is real and this isn't.
Our level of awareness is reduced to basic gross interpretations of what is known through the trained senses and judgment of the input and output of the senses abilties.
It usually takes the frustration of the individuals sense that what the heart knows and what the mind has been taught "don't match up" to start the process of change. Being that we have been taught to be anal-ytical about what is seen and heard and the anal-isation being critical and biased in the ideas of what is good/real and bad/unreal the innocense of the child has to be relearned. I'm not talking about the learned limitations of stickning your hand in a fire and getting burned but the innocense of approach that is lost and clouded by past impressions. Tell someone enough that they need to watch out for the dangers in life and the mind will be ever focused on finding the things that may threaten ones safety and physical well being. What room is there left then to be open to see the subtler aspects of creation when the thinking process is on danger alert or paranoia processing?

You will need to relearn innocense to experience the more subtle aspects of yourself and the greater Self that is in you. If you are not at the point of that realisation then it would be like trying to teach mice table manners. It is not within the scope of ones attention span or awareness. You will see what you are willing or want to see. The universe exists to serve you in that capacity, it always gives you what you want. Trouble is that with the mind locked in the repetative cycle of thought, with some 100,000 thoughts per day the thoughts are not usually of new perspectives but the wielding of old habitual thought patterns in what am I going to do today, what will I eat for dinner, why did I ever get involved with that person etc. Some thoughts and desires get canceled out by other thoughts based on limited self worth or lack of beliefs and abilities. This process does nothing to expand the mind but to anchor it into repetative processes that keep one foot nailed to the floor so you circle the same spot over and over again until your body and mind gives up.
What the mind needs is something to free its self from repetative process in cycling the same old thoughts that keep a person limited to one basic reality shrouded by fear and mortality.
When your heart gets to be stronger than your intellect it will lead you towards the process that will guide you back towards your true nature. Until then you will think your way around your reality and stay within what you believe to be the relative boundaries of sensibility, safety and mortality.

QUOTE

Read what I actually said, not what your clever mind leads you to believe.  I was talking about your desire not your ability to change me.  In the future, I will stop responding to this child like way you have of distorting what I have said to you.  You are only interested in your own music.

All music is my music. Shall I let your limitations be my limitations as well? What are you really interested in on your journey to know yourself? Are you wanting a friend to support you in your limited beliefs that are not helping you to see more, or are you interested in someone who might challenge you in what you see so that you might see something more? What do you want John a new friend?
I see exactly what you want me to see, your vulnerability and your intense desire to rise above any limitations within yourself and to spread that throughout all that you see. I want that too it is my only desire. What I have gone through in the process has changed my desires in the way they look and feel to see more of the infinte Self and live from that, so that I no longer suffer in the world of duality fear and mortality.
What seems heartless and sterile in your perceptions of me is that part that you fear in "detachment" meaning the loss of individuality and person. I see the world a little differently than you, is that so bad? Do you have such a hard time with something that is different that you feel threatened that it is trying to change you, or are you able to see the process of change that is happening within you? The things that inspire fear are being exposed so you can make different choices and find a different anchor to associate with. God doesn't want to take anything away from you but you seem pretty much afraid that something can be taken away. Why is that?
You may do something you think to be noble to change the outside of ones environment but if the subtle self defeating programs that created the environment in the first place are not changed then the poor self deluded person that has not the will to stand up for himself or try, will suck off of the person or persons who feel sorry for their disposition and expect more from the world and do less for themselves. You use India as an example and you have overgeneralized the spiritual process of meditation and religions and applied your lack of knowledge and interpretation to what I am. How could you hope to help anyone from a position of extreme prejudice and ignorance.
Have you ever studied the process of meditation from anyone? Ever made any comparisons of the different methods? Do you know of the different processes, like the hair shirt approach, the sitting in a cave approach or the natural process of the inward movement of the mind that expands consciousness in the self and everyone around you?
Would you give the hungry man a meal and leave with him no hope or would you give him hope so that he may get up and try to create his life anew? What would you think to be the most enlightened approach?
Giving things away to the undeserving ungreatful will do nothing to help them rise above self defeating thoughts. The American welfare system is full of underachieving coniving people that will milk the system for all its worth so they will not have to do anything.
You will have to do better than try and use the Indian people and your interpretations of what you think they represent in your comparisons to religions, meditation and you own frustration with me and you inability to take the time to really understand what is happening here for you.

QUOTE

Joe: Size matters not? Then where's the limit? Why don't you write fifteen times as much? Or two hundred times as much

There is no limit. Only what is needed in the moment, only what is asked for.
Do you let your preferences sway your perceptions of what is in form?