Questions

[ste20man]

Hi this is my first post.

Can i ask some questions to hear your views?

What is the ultimate stage of enlightenment that can be attained.

Can a person reach this state by concentration alone, not specifically following the paths laid out in Buddhist texts?

If it is true that you have to experience this state to fully comprehend it then would everyone appear lost, or at least have a lower understanding of reality to someone who has been enlightened?

Although there may be many people who are on the path, how many people on this existence are reportedly consciously awake and aware of this higher state of being? Is there only one of could they be many?

If there are many and two of these people meet, what would they talk about given they are two vast pools of stillness?

Thanks for your time and ideas in advance, Ste. :)

[relinquish]

Hi Ste20man :-)

They are all very good questions. At the same time, every single one of them is misconcieved.

Allow me to try to explain why.

A particular thing could not possibly exist in the way in which it apparently does without the totality of ALL that is other than that thing existing in the way in which it apparently does. This being the case, where is the actual boundary of any particular thing? If there ISN'T really an actual boundary, is it actually possible for particular things to REALLY exist? If this is NOT possible and particular things DON'T actually exist, what does? What remains? Anything other than the infinite, eternal nothingness of Existence itself?

What are you?



Peace :)

[Samana]

Originally Posted by ste20man

What is the ultimate stage of enlightenment that can be attained.

Can a person reach this state by concentration alone, not specifically following the paths laid out in Buddhist texts?

If it is true that you have to experience this state to fully comprehend it then would everyone appear lost, or at least have a lower understanding of reality to someone who has been enlightened?

Although there may be many people who are on the path, how many people on this existence are reportedly consciously awake and aware of this higher state of being? Is there only one of could they be many?

If there are many and two of these people meet, what would they talk about given they are two vast pools of stillness?

Thanks for your time and ideas in advance, Ste. :)

Hi Ste,

My understanding is that enlightenment is connected to the cooling/pacification of mental stress and dissatisfaction. There is no more craving, attachment and delusion about impermanent worldly phenomena and there is clarity and awareness together with wisdom and compassion for all sentient life forms.

Other than that I think its pointless to speculate about "what if's" . What needs to be done is to study and practice the teachings of the Buddha in order to eventually have freedom from dukkha for oneself.

with good wishes to you,

S.

[ste20man]

Ok.

I follow your words and understand your direction.

If we 3 in this postl say we are enlightened and have the understanding that comes with that then there is only one thing left to do with our lives and that is to help others become enlightened. I understand that you can only lead a person to the door, that they must open it and finally let go of all.

My feeling of the nothing is that although each follow their infinite choices most expressions seem lost.

To read the texts and move towards enlightenment is obviously the greatest thing, but in my soul I feel it can be achieved quicker, more simply using maths.

The essence remains the same but the delivery system is far quicker because it is far more fundamental, easier to comprehend.

Sequences of numbers combined with geometry laid out to subconsciously change someone's experience, teaching the way differently.

What do you think of that?

[charly233]

Hmm I thought I would just share a few feelings I have about the subject of enlightenment and un-enlightenment. This is just how things seem to me at this moment in time. My perspective may change from day to day and moment to moment.

The word enlightenment means different things to different people. Some people define enlightenment is such a way as to make it virtually impossible to achieve. For me I prefer an understanding that makes enlightenment achievable for ordinary humans.

In a way my understanding is that there is no such things as enlightenment. And that enlightenment means to accept your un-enlightenment. Un-enlightenment is enlightenment. Enlightenment is un-enlightenmemnt.

For me your ordinary everyday state of consciousness is your enlightened consciousness. To be alive in the everyday world is to be God. It is impossible to be separated from the basic oneness of the universe. To realize that there is no ego is to see that even the ego is God.

There is a counter argument that could be put here. That is that it is the belief that you are already enlightened stops you from achieving real enlightenment. So I guess I am not enlightened at all and my silly ego is playing tricks on me again by pretending that it doesn't exist!!

Relevant to all this is the issue of suffering. I do not believe that enlightenment means the end to all suffering. I believe that all beings are enlightened just the way they are and just need to realize this fact. Clearly suffering exists and if all beings are enlightened they are enlightened with their suffering as part of their experience.

What I think does happen after enlightenment is that suffering decreases gradually until it is eliminated. I don't know how long this takes as I still sometimes suffer myself.

You could call the final cessation of suffering as the final enlightenment. But I am skeptical of this approach as it seems to undermine the fact that to experience the oneness, with or without suffering, is THE enlightenment. For me there may be stages beyond enlightenment but there is only one enlightenment itself.

Not sure if this makes "sense". It is just a story I am telling myself about myself when in fact there is no "self" just pure Self.

[relinquish]

I guess I don't really know if I'm 'enlightenend' or not. What I CAN say is that both 'incompleteness' and 'imperfection' can no longer be found anywhere. They used to be found all over the place, and that caused a lot of suffering. Now, in their absence, all that remains is peace.

That's all. :)

[charly233]

Originally Posted by relinquish

I guess I don't really know if I'm 'enlightenend' or not. What I CAN say is that both 'incompleteness' and 'imperfection' can no longer be found anywhere. They used to be found all over the place, and that caused a lot of suffering. Now, in their absence, all that remains is peace. That's all. :)

That sounds pretty enlightened to me. In fact it sounds like the space when suffering has ceased that I believe is a kind of state that is beyond even enlightenment. LOL.

[ste20man]

This is so interesting. :)

If I can just speak of my experience so i can hear your views.

I have had 10 years of utter pain(doesn't matter which kind) and was essentially good for almost nothing. I had no real knowledge of myself,completely crushed. Still, there was a small light inside looking for the truth.

I've been doing this unknowingly all of my life getting progressively closer to what I thought it was something that I could hold in my hand; mistake of course. But I always kept searching with a clear heart and mind. I eventually found what I was looking for, it just wasn't what I was expecting; at all.

As i lay in bed one night, concentrating on the simplest of things, I was finally brave enough to let go of everything. I lay there and for the first time in my life willingly surrendered myself to nothingness, accepting my life for what it was and for whatever was to come.

In that moment I was given and felt on every possible level the understanding that everything is pure consciousness, no space, no time, no definition only experience. I had not read it in a book or followed a prelayed path but stumbled across it on my own.

In that moment of realization all my pains were stripped away, in an instant. There was only bliss. And this bliss does not go away, it is a transformation into complete stillness of all. In this sense you never move, you never need see or hear. You never want because what you need will come. There is only the moment, the whole, infinite joy and possibilities.

And herein lies my possibility. In the matrix film it is the moment when Neo wakes from the sleeping pod after taking the pill and looks around at the vast number of people who are asleep in their pods and do not even know it.
How can i not spend the rest of my life waking others. I have walked every path and so simply be.

That truth is that is naturally in me now, encoded, understood and thrown away, free of having experienced it.

My enjoyment and life is to gently help people to experience what I have been blessed with.

I turned to Buddhism because I felt this was the closest text to this experience. I realize that all of the Religious texts are the same purpose and it is in my nature to wonder what the basis of writing actually is. In my heart I know that the most fundamental form of communication is mathematics, it is universal.

Why has this not been used to convey the message of the Buddha or the Bible?

This is my question to myself. Can the teachings of the Buddha be coded into simple math and geometry and spread throughout society?

Can the subconscious be accessed in this way, to teach without teaching. To know without knowing. A path, shown in regression, from geometry to the line to the point to the emptiness, beyond zero.

We are conditioned every day to buy and consume from advertising to social norms; why has this process not been distilled for the Buddha's path?

It would be far more beneficial; I can think of worse ways to spend my time.

[charly233]

Originally Posted by ste20man

In that moment of realization all my pains were stripped away, in an instant.

According to my understanding you would also be enlightened and realized and beyond enlightenment too. LOL. This is brilliant!!

There seem to be quite a collection of enlightened and God-realized people around the Spiritual Forums site.

Enlightenment seems to be a growing movement now, no longer restricted to the occasional Christ, Buddha and special person.

[ste20man]

Originally Posted by charly233

According to my understanding you would also be enlightened and realized and beyond enlightenment too. LOL. This is brilliant!!

There seem to be quite a collection of enlightened and God-realized people around the Spiritual Forums site.

Enlightenment seems to be a growing movement now, no longer restricted to the occasional Christ, Buddha and special person.

I completely agree. Why should there be room for only one to be truly enlightened? As an example what could Jesus or the Buddha have done that I cannot. Or more importantly for me, any thing living alive today.

Surely a mass awakening and shift is all they wished for.

If I am enlightened or you were, what would you teach?

You teach nothing, in the sense that you regress expectations leading people to discard, eventually, all. In the film the Matrix Neo is led to the door of the Oracle, he is ready; but he has to make that final step himself. He has to make that leap of faith. And being presented with that door after all that searching and new found understanding how could he possibly turn away.

That moment with the oracle is his alone and that is what I dedicate my life to. I know that I could lead people some way to it, and that others would see the door and turn back, but that is my singular journey, that is what the Oracle had for me. Know thyself, and so I did.

Now Morpheus, of dreams, is The Bible, the teachings of Buddha, the Koran in my eyes. They are a gateway, a good path. But they are slow. I was born in a place that began the industrial revolution, the computer. This place is wired for speed and efficiancy and nothing else.

It's that which I am beginning to apply to the only thing worth teaching; enlightenment.

Whereas the books teach of A B C....

I want to show people what is different. I want peole to go backwards.

Not looking out at the stars, looking in. Because until you finally let yourself completely collapse and die, you will never be truly free.

D C B A 0 .

No one has told us that zero is just a placeholder, there so we can imaginably build fake castles in the sky. Beyond zero is the point and it takes a lot to accept it for what it is(nothing) and let it disappear forever, realising that it never existed to begin with.

Once you do that you are swimming in light, energy, true one consciousness everything you once knew disappears and what you are left with is the ability to relate to everything you ever see hear or come across. You feel free to do this because whatever you stare at is essentially you looking back at yourself.

To harm a thing is to harm yourself. To set someone free is to have another person to play with.

Even playing with a person who is still asleep in their pod is fun.

Hello!!! What do you think of this!? Can I press this button? Can you open your eyes???

As I was I would have been furious at the thought that my family cannot see past this untaught prison.

Simple geometry leading back to simple math back to the point.

We've been teaching people in the wrong direction.