Enlightenment

[Uday_Advaita]

Enlightenment???

What do you get out of it?

Sages who have tasted it say:

• You get nothing out of it
• No special knowledge comes to you
• No special powers are acquired.
• No riches, recognition, fame awaits you

Yet! Seekers all over the world are desperate to get it.

They indulge in various practices (Sadhanas) like, meditation, vipassana, yoga and quite a few punishing routines etc. and even travel continents for that “Bang” moment.

In Marathi there is a saying – “Unless you die, you can’t see Heaven”

Is this similar?

After Enlightenment what remains is:

• The Mind Body Apparatus (MBA)
• The World around you
• The awareness of I AM – I exist
• Peace & Harmony

Even Lord Buddha has declared that – “Samsara (the phenomenal life) and Nirvana are not different”. However, the all important “Me” – the Doer is lost for ever.

There is truly no one to enjoy the Enlightenment.

SHOULD YOU EVEN CARE???

"Nibbana is perfect peace (santi)"

Even all the world's riches cannot buy you the peace of a joyful heart. It is truly priceless, and only to be known by the wise.

Worth it? A thousand million billion times over.

I knew from reading your initial post that you are new, and here to stir.

[Unseeking Seeker]

Ascension steps let us stagger
Begin now by embracing the beggar!

***

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Uday_Advaita

Enlightenment???

What do you get out of it?

SHOULD YOU EVEN CARE???

You get the knowledge that you exist everywhere. You are everything. There are no limits to your Being. This is our natural state. This is priceless.

True, there are no powers, riches or fame, but what do they matter?

Yes, personality, mind, emotions, body are still there with all their limitations. The world has not changed. And yet everything has changed because you know that there is only Being, one thing everywhere. Separation is no more.

Knowing the Self to be everywhere, there is unchanging stillness pervading all movement.

And this state of Being never changes, it is always present in every moment of every day.

It truly is worth whatever effort is required.

Peace.

[NoOne]

I will defer to Gopi Krishna here, who is a rarity in that he has gone through a genuine Enlightenment process himself and has kept meticulous written records of what happened to him. He was also close friends with some of the famous Quantum Physcisists of the 20th century, such as Von Wiezsacker and Heisenberg, who provided a scientific and philosophical framework to his experiences. The former wrote a lengthy foreword to his first book, which made it immediately credible even in scientific circles. Anything from Gopi Krishna can be considered an authentic account of Enlightenment, which is a process, not a single event.

Enlightenment starts with what is know today as Kundalini Awakening and continues with a process of transformation that slowly but surely transforms a human body of mere physical matter into one made of higher-dimensional light. If successful, enlightenment ends in Ascension where, upon death, the enlightened person sheds all his physical bonds and moves on to the next state of evolution, becoming a light being.

Enlightenment is about evolution, moving on to the next stage of our development and we all have a desire to become more than what we currently are.

It isn’t confined to Eastern religions either, all cultures have concepts of enlightenment and saints are depicted with a halo around their heads for this reason. In a Christian context, enlightenment is about being touched by the Holy Spirit, through the Grace of God. Islam and Judaism have their holy men too, mostly through the practice of Sufism and Kabbalah. All religions and spiritual practice have the same goal in mind, but achieve it through different means. It is usually the mystical, hidden tradition within each religious tradition that concerns itself with individual enlightenment.

[Moondance]

Originally Posted by Uday_Advaita

Even Lord Buddha has declared that – “Samsara (the phenomenal life) and Nirvana are not different”. However, the all important “Me” – the Doer is lost for ever.

Hello Uday Advaita - welcome to the forum.

I don’t know about enlightenment - I’m not keen on the magical thinking associated with that word. But yes, in awakening the doer is no more - but the ‘me’ is still operative in the sense that it is used in connection with a specific body-mind.

There can be confusion regarding these sort of designations. Recently, following a conversation with someone who was trying to make sense of all this I complied a list which reflects my experience and understanding. I’ll share it here.
---------------

Body-mind: It’s plainly the case that there is a body-mind system (or organism.) But, as with all apparent things, it is not actually an entity, it is a conditional, temporal, ever-shifting (yet fairly consistent) matrix of conditions. The body-mind system is without agency to initiate action yet is the locus or instrument of action.

Person: Person is almost synonymous with body-mind except that we tend to use it less formally and in order to convey more of the character or personality of the organism.

Ego: Ego is often misunderstood in spiritual circles. Some equate it with the personality, others with the self. Its original use (in spirituality) is derived from the Hindu word ‘ahamkara’ which means attachment to an identity. So to be rid of ego really means to lose this attachment - not be void of personality.

Self: Self (small s) is generally understood (at least it’s my understanding) to be a kind of essential, immutable inner nature which is the thinker of thoughts, feeler of feelings etc. This inner entity is thought to have agency and be responsible for decision making etc. Most human organisms develop this kind of sense of self. But it’s an illusion (not the sense but that which the sense purports to convey) since on no level does this immutable enduring self actually exist.

Me (or I): In one usage 'me' simply points to the body-mind. When asked who the blue car belongs to we reasonably answer ‘me’. What we are really confirming is that the blue car is associated with this particular body-mind system. In another usage, when asked who wrote this poem, a person might, again, answer ‘me’ which in normal conversation and for practical and social (and legal) purposes is obviously acceptable. But on closer examination this is not actually (ultimately) true. As with the comment above about the body-mind, the person (body-mind) is the locus of the poetry (or the painting or the recipe or the plan or the doing etc.) but the person/body-mind is not the originator, author, initiator, first cause etc. of the action, creation or deed etc. The real origination is co-dependent on a numberless myriad of conditions, prerequisites and complex factors - which brings me on to:-

Source: Source is the designation I’m using to refer to that which is the ‘prime mover’ behind all events, phenomena and occurrences. In a sense (certainly a spiritual sense), Source (or Reality or Life or the Cosmos or whatever you prefer) could be said to be the real me or I. And when we have a vivid sense of ‘I am’ we rest as something vast and ineffable which is clearly prior to the objects of the mind. Source is the creative source, origination and wellspring of the above 'numberless myriad of conditions, prerequisites and complex factors' and could be said to be, in some mysterious (and non-anthropomorphic) sense, the doer behind all actions.

[iamthat]

Thanks to NoOne and Moondance for their intelligent contributions.

The problem with the word enlightenment is that it means different things to different people, to the point where it almost becomes meaningless.

I would suggest that the journey to enlightenment is a process, culminating in a single event - ie the actual realisation of the Self (using the terminology of Ramana Maharshi).

And I would also suggest that it is not necessary to go through the kundalini process to have this realisation. The awakening of kundalini is certainly one path but it is not the only path.

Some people consider enlightenment to be the end of the spiritual journey. Perhaps it is the end of one stage of the journey, but also the start of a new stage.

Peace.

[Uday_Advaita]

Hello Moondance. Truly appreciate your views. The way this MBA (i.e. me) understands this as:
1. Mind-Body is an Apparatus, where Body is accumulated food and mind is electronic circuitery with accumulated memory. It has appeared and will disappear in horizontal time
2. Person, Ego, Self and me are identifications with a Mind-Body. Hence conceptual.
3. Source is all there is
Happening of this - Total conviction of above - is worth

[Uday_Advaita]

Originally Posted by iamthat

You get the knowledge that you exist everywhere. You are everything. There are no limits to your Being. This is our natural state. This is priceless.

True, there are no powers, riches or fame, but what do they matter?

Yes, personality, mind, emotions, body are still there with all their limitations. The world has not changed. And yet everything has changed because you know that there is only Being, one thing everywhere. Separation is no more.

Knowing the Self to be everywhere, there is unchanging stillness pervading all movement.

And this state of Being never changes, it is always present in every moment of every day.

It truly is worth whatever effort is required.

Peace.

Hello iamthat,
While fulling agreeing with you, this me believes that any effort to "reach' there is counterproductive. It can only happen