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?

[numinoso]

I think the absolute is relative, too. Because if it were absolute it wouldn't be able to change or else it would lose its absoluteness. There would be no development in it.

You can make a logical construction called the absolute which is the superset of everything existing, with each relative reality being a subset of it, but I don't think God would prefer to be like that. It would mean that he's static, that spontaneity and creativity don't exist for him. He would be bored.

I think God is happy with being a relative being, too. Like that life is much more interesting. He's one of us. (Although being a little bit bigger.) And the absolute remains being a logical construction, like the infinite in maths, which is always approached but never reached.