Enlightenment

[andrew g]

Originally Posted by SerpentQueen

I just had a hamburger for lunch, so I am now part cow.

Yes. In this sense, I would say that I am also part cow and I havent eaten a hamburger in years.

Originally Posted by Enlightened

So why do you fight my claim of no-self, when this is what i'm claiming?

Why the resistance if you've really seen?

He hasn't been resisting you, Enlightened.

It's interesting you have no sense of any of us as individuals. That does tell me something has indeed happened in your brain. You remind me of UG Krishnamurti -- once a person (including his very best friend from childhood) was out of sight, he was out of mind, and UG wouldn't even recognize him when he reappeared. You even use similar language to UG, and your personality comes across prickly and often rude, like UG.

Just an observation.

Originally Posted by Squatchit

Hmmm, aren't they just arms, legs, and stuff, according to you?

I believe it was something like random occurances like the weather.

Originally Posted by Topology

As I have said from the very beginning, you will get naught from me but a critique on your ability to point effectively.

Exactly this. Is your finger scolding? That is usually not effective.

Originally Posted by andrew g

Formless is nothingness.

Somewhere, somehow, at some point, individuality has to be accounted for.

The formless is consciousness. What's left when form is gone? The unmanifested. Just consciousness. It is the unmanifested which allow the manifested to be.

Originally Posted by Lisa

It is only about the way you're doing it.

Maybe it does work for some.

But how many others have only strengthened this belief by this way?

Speaking of STARVATION. Millions of Somalians are presently starving and dying of thirst and hunger. Real Suffering.

As we play on the forum- let's do something, a small thing to help these people.

Politics have a way of not offering aid to suffering people.

Write a letter, call or mail to support aid.

(And yes, Self-realization- God Realization- No Self-Realization- would be the ultimate way to help.)

/begin sarcasm

But, they're not ... little blonde haired blue eyed children in Norway....

/end sarcasm

Originally Posted by Enlightened

...

But they believe in a self, so they suffer.

...

Your opinion.

I have felt profoundly liberated by certain experiences. I have felt at some times in the past that I am liberated and others are not. I have felt like liberating them by trying to somehow get them to have the same experiences I have. I have experienced oneness as congruent with no-self. For me, this isn't an intellectual understanding. It is something I have experienced and felt deeply. But then I found out that the feeling is temporary. And I realized that calling myself enlightened or liberated even after finding out that these amazing oneness and no-self experiences bring only temporary relief would be dishonest. What would be the point of calling oneself enlightened while knowing that there are contradictions in experiences and most who have these experiences during which they feel so much clarity later become confused again and suffer again?

I read the RT forums occasionally. It happens often enough that someone who was confirmed as enlightened by the community later questions it. If they keep questioning it instead of ignoring the contradictions, they get banned. I've seen it happen several times. You keep your membership if you keep calling yourself enlightened/liberated even though they see that some who had been confirmed later don’t feel so certain about it. So it seems that the point of calling an experience of no-self enlightenment is so that one can call oneself enlightened. If the point of calling something enlightenment is just so one can call oneself enlightened, that doesn’t appear to be genuine liberation. It appears to be something else. Something that very much affirms the person’s (subconscious) acknowledgment of their own self.

Here we are allowed to question these contradictions and keep on questioning them. Some will settle on certain answers/beliefs and express certainty about them. You’ll rarely find two of them who have settled on the exact same answers. Many keep on questioning, keep on experiencing many different things, many different awakenings, and engaging in discussion about them and their differences. That is allowed here. Where that is allowed, the methods employed by groups and individuals that insist they have the only true enlightenment are not very effective. I’m sure that is a large part of the reason why they try to discourage such discussion.

Originally Posted by Enlightened

...

But yeah, keep looking. I want proof next time i'm back.

The proof is your responsibility to provide. You can't do it now & won't be able to do it later.

✦✦✦ Provide PROOF that my self DOES NOT EXIST. ✦✦✦

Arive nan: preach it. Amen.