The only thing better than taoism...

[the_crow]

No it couldn't. The soul, once awakened, will never not be.

I am saying that 'I', 'me', am once again, merely human, while carrying the residual wonder and wisdom of what I have experienced.
Meanwhile the soul that awakened, is still within me, but everywhere else, too. You could never claim ownership of such a thing, any more than you could claim ownership of God, or tao.

My presence here, really, is to encourage anyone who wonders about the possibility of enlightenment, that it is, indeed, possible. Not to claim it, tout it, flaunt it, or anything else. It exists. It can be experienced.

Not ownership. Responsibility. Which is to say, response-ability, the ability to respond.

[the_crow]

Sorry: I didn't understand that.

To look at the relationship with the soul, God, Tao, as one of responsibility to, as opposed to ownership of. Like when someone says -my- family, or -my- community, I feel that they are speaking of relationships, responsibilities, and our place in the greater whole. But that's just my perspective. Sorry if I phrased it confusingly.

[the_crow]

Ah. Got it. Thank you :)
Owning much of anything is pretty much illusory, although necessary in order to function anywhere near society. It generally serves to own as little as possible.

[Arcturus]

i see. you xperienced an ecstatic state. not sure i would correlate that with enlightenment personally. enlightenment, to me, is the total ending of suffering and pain. a path that once walked cannot be any other way. atb

[the_crow]

Well that's just exactly the problem that besets the Western world.
Nothing is ever good enough for anybody. Nothing is ever enough.

My experience is so much more than good enough, for me, far surpassing anything I ever imagined I would have the good fortune to see and be.
I could never hope to have more. I would never look for more.
I call that enlightenment.
It really doesn't matter what you call it, does it?

[Arcturus]

there you go again...pointing self justifying fingers at "the western world"

The confusion and misery are not only in the West, for human beings the world over are in the same plight. The problem of the individual is also the world's problem, they are not two separate and distinct processes. We are concerned, surely, with the human problem, whether the human being is in the Orient or in the Occident, which is an arbitrary geographical division. The whole consciousness of man is concerned with God, with death, with right and happy livelihood with children and their education, with war and peace. Without understanding all this, there can be no healing of man.

why should i accept anything less than the total ending of inner conflict as indication of an enlightened state? if i did this mess we're surrounded by might carry on.

having a momentary experience or vision and then clinging to it, even talking about, is only trying to keep a dead thing alive, no? what value had it? it has not freed you from the binding influence of psychological thought.

[the_crow]

You seem to think I have a need to self-justify. I do not.
You also seem to think enlightenment is something that should be to your specification. Good luck with that.
I cling to nothing at all. I do this thing almost unknown to humans: I share.
As for 'the Western world': it is, unfortunately, the one I know the best.
I speak solely of what I know. Unlike most.

Originally Posted by the_crow

The final barrier was the label itself.

Amen!

This is the hardest obstacle to overcome for many of us; myself included! But I thoroughly enjoy the process, so it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

"There was a young man who said though, it seems that I know that I know; but what I would like to see is the 'I' that knows 'me' when I know that I know that I know!" — Alan Watts