enlightenment?

Hi everyone,

I really liked Julian's idea of starting a thread on enlightenment. those of you who have been following the wie discussion over the past months will know what i mean when i say that there has been a lot of words exchanged over it, to the point where some of us are wondering whether it's a good idea to have a pod called wie! just seems to encourage a lot of going in circles about who's enlightened, who isn't and why…

i believe it's important to have a clearer understanding of enlightenment but question that endless arguments about what it is would be the best way to go about that.

for me, there are a few givens about enlightenment

1) it's ineffable so definitions and explanations are all fatally flawed.
2) it comes in many varieties and almost anything can lead to it, like the endless series of zen stories that finish by saying, after something that seems very ordinary or even unhelpful, “and he was enlightened”
3) it is only the beginning of the most exciting part of the story of your life, not the completion or be-all of it
4) no one can dictate the best way for another person to become enlightened
5) if enlightenment is true, there should be real and positive changes in the ability to live authentically, loving and staying in the moment - “you shall know them by their fruits”

having said that, i also believe that there are practices that are helpful to us in the process of becoming enlightened, and that we can share what works best for us in humility, knowing that it will not be of use to everyone right now, but may be of help to someone at some point.

i have a lot more i could say but would like to learn from the wisdom of the group first before going on.

love,

nicole

Re: enlightenment?

Thanks for jumping in, Nicole!

I would add that I really prefer the phrase “realizing one’s enlightenment” to some sort of arbitrary definition of what it is, since it is, as you’ve noted, a complete waste of time anyway.

My ego (and my mind) doesn’t understand this phrase yet, but we’re all “always already” enlightened. I’d love to skip the whole definition entirely. What the hell do “I” know?

Pi, anyone?

;o)

Liz

Re: enlightenment?

Oh, I wanted to start a thread asking the same question for some time. Hi Nicole, you already said much of what I wanted to mention about this “question” of enlightenment.

What the hell is it? As far as I can see, there are as many definitions as there are people who’ve heard the word and then assigned some meaning to it. That’s a lot of different definitions, and each person seems to change their definition as soon as they achieve some of the criteria they’ve set for themselves. So ‘enlightenment’ might be seen as an endlessly moving target - the carrot a donkey will never reach.
And what a relief it is to finally not give a flying fig about accomplishing this anymore… because somehow, by grace and good fortune, you truly get that you simply cannot become what you already are.

Intellectually, as a temporary insight, I glimpsed that in my early twenties - and even before. But the striving, this burning, primordial thrust of ambition to “attain the ultimate state and stay there”– for that it took someone I completely trusted, who could come over physically, grab me by the shoulders and shake the idea that ‘I am not already That’ out of me, and with the full force of his being transmit an energy that I could not resist.

Since then, enlightenment, buddahood, and who’s who in Mr. and Mrs. Soandso’s hierarchy seems like a board game for adults. Amusing from time to time. Right now I get this image of wanting a pair of shoes (I used to covet shoes), desperately thirsting for an exquisitely expensive pair of shoes far out of reach, until somehow it dawns on you that you’re a fish in oceans of suchness, and the last thing you need is some damn shoes.

M

Re: enlightenment?

In my opinion….. (stated before, but I’ll reiterate it here…)

If you have to declare it for yourself, it’s not
If you think yourself a budda……you cannot be (enlightenment is seen, not declared)
If you have to tell us you are second tier, it’s not so (you wouldn’t see it anyway)

These things….they are what they are. If you have to tell me you are such and such….

Zero, nada, null….doesn’t register.

Just my 2 cents.

-Greg

Re: enlightenment?

I'll try to put this in terms that agree with Wilber's work and what I understand of various teachings, including the only direct teaching I have experienced from my teacher, Brian Nager.  I have read works of other teachers (many from various lineages and traditions) that seem to agree with the following, at least to the extent that I understand it.

Ego is about structure, aka limitation.

Self is unbounded, without structure at all.

Egos develop incrementally in stages, as a being evolves through more and more complex structures that are capable of processing more and more….not sure what is being processed, actually….maybe just processing as a Bohmian sort of thing.

At some point, the ego learns the there is a higher stage of development called 'enlightenment,' and being a creature of structure, the ego looks for the structure of enlightenment.  To do so, it is taught that is must drop lower structures (aka transcend them).  When this willingness to do so is strong enough, and with the good fortune of karmic merit and graces, structures do actually begin to drop off.  I think this dropping of structures is the beginning of the path of awakening, but not enlightenment itself.  For some time, it may be worthwhile to continue to move to higher structures when dropping lower ones, but there seems to be a point of diminshing returns with respect to picking up higher order structures.

The initial glimpse of the Self is not enlightenment unless it “sticks.”  That is, even when apparently quite ruffled in the mind, there is an underlying sense that all is well, kind of a background witnesser that is always present.  This initial stage of the path of enlightnment (beyond “mere awakening” at this point) can be quite rocky, with lots of egoic structures continually rising to challenge the being and attempt to reimpose limitations on the being.  As this process unfolds, that being can be unwilling to drop lower order structures, and “lose” their enlightenment.  Or, they can become attached to higher structures, and have some “percentage” of their being attuned to higher order structures of consciousness, but still be very impure with respect to lower order stuff, such as desire to transcend further, etc.  Desire, regardless of the object, is a lower order structure.  It is ok to use that desire for a while, but at some point, that and all structure must be dropped, including the higher order structures, such as “Witness” which dualistically implies witness and that which is witness.

(At this time, i'd like to reiterate so as not to creat the impression that I am an authority on this.  I am not making these statements as fact…this is a stream of consciousness flow of my currrent understanding of the path)

When that process of dropping the higher order structures takes hold, then the path moves through and beyond “mere enlightenment” to the path of liberation.  Continually dropping all structures, including the Self as a concept….this is where the ineffable reality seems to be most applicable.  The “highest” structures that I am aware of (as concepts, not as direct experience…or at least I have had some minimal experiences of some of this, but only state experiences, not realizable stage development, though it is most likely that so much of this is unconscious….phew!) are related to the structures of one's sense of “I”, which apparently have both personal and impersonal aspects (such as the contracted self would be the personal “I” and the impersonal, unbounded Self would be the impersonal “I”), and beyond that there is core egotiy itself, the separated sense, including perspectives of interiority and exteriority, subject and object…basically core dualistic structure.

There are some traditions that state that the only enlightened stage is the liberated stage, where core egoity is dropped and there is no longer any identification at all.  Conceptually, to me, that would imply no further evolution of an individual being….way more than I can grasp experientially.  I think that might be “absolutely true” but there is a lot of confusion that still surrounds that one for me.  A lot of confusion all over this one, but there does seem to be some clarity on some of the stuff I have written.  Gotta drop all of that too.

Truly, and I don't want this to come across as false humility, I don't know whether that is the case or not.  I don't even know if I am being sincerely humble or not.  I still do have lots of attachment to wanting to be right at the same time I want to not be seen as a someone who has to be right about this.  Truth Is, whether I understand it or not.  Gotta drop that too.

With respect to state experiences.  What I have found is that moving from lower to higher egoity feels good.  There is no sense of losing something but rather a sense of gaining something, like bliss, peace, love, etc.  The state experiences I have had (which I believe are directly related to transmission from my teacher) that relate to higher egoity feel like a euphoric, or “drugged” state (not that I would have any comparison;-)).  the ones that, so I am told, relate to dropping of structures, feel different.  They are much harder to describe.  For instance, I can say that I feel a lot of energy in my crown chakra, and it is quite pleasant (like right now for instance), and I would assume that would be a higher order state experience.  The few times (much fewer than the energized chakra states or euphoric buzz that seem fairly common) that I have experienced what I assume is identification with dropping of higher structures (of which “I”, impersonal and personal are supposed to be), it is what is called by my teacher a “non-experience experience.”  In the case of higher order state experiences, there is a sense of losing identification with lower egotiy that is not necessarily pleasant but which I have invested much time (lifetimes) in supporting my sense of self.  In the case of  “non-experience” there is sense of losing identification, period.

Anyway, that's my take on it.  I'm happy to drop it.  It's a toughie to drop something that seems so important to my development, but I suppose that if I believe it, I have to drop it.  What a conundrum.

By the way, just read some cool stuff here from N. Maharaj as told through one of his disciples that seems to agree with what I just wrote….seems to.

Loving this forum….damn!  gotta drop that too!

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

thanks Keith :) and others… these are very helpful reflections…

the verse from the intro to the Zen book The Gateless Gate:

The Great Way is gateless,
Approached in a thousand ways.
Once past this checkpoint
You stride through the universe.

love

nicole

Re: enlightenment?

yeah!

well i just cruised by to start the thread i wanted to call enlighrtenment vs ego and found out it is already going strong! nice posts all 'round…

here is my bit:

1) enlightenment is a mythic symbol, a metaphor that should not be literalized.

the idea of enlightenment has caught on in the west and is used variously to refer to everything from non-dual consciousness to the fantasy of achieving mind over matter a la neo in the matrix, to being “free from suffering” in some new age meets buddhist way, to being a state that is beyond the limitations of the ego, to being in a fully psychedelic state all the muthatruckin' time etc etc

the literalization of enlightenment resonates with a kind of saul on the road to damascus image in which suddenly, in a blinding flash of light, everything is DIFFERENT.

this causes some serious problems because a) it feeds into our instant gratification culture and we long for that moment of radical transformation - this also b) plugs into our unworthiness/protestant work ethic programming and makes us feel that we are never quite good enough or trying hard enough or thinking the right thoughts - fill in the blank…

c) it creates the concept again literalized whereby people buy into the notion that certain masters actuallly are “fully enlightened” and therefore are worthy of our submitting ot them, abdicating critical thinking and constructing various “crazy wisdom” rationales for their often abberant behaviour when not delivering satsang (see my thread on gurus cults and aliens for more on this sad but uniquitous issue…)

2) enlightenment is either a) held out as the reward at the end of a lot of gruelling work often having to do with various sadomasochistic “ego-frying” activities or b) claimed to be always already the case and so the answer to wie is “who wants to know?” said with a smarmy smirk and a knowingly gleaming prolonged eye contatct…one can no more attain enlightenment than one can attain one's feet….but do you know this yet like I do? - says the always already poseur… :O)

and c) sometimes there is the more nuanced perspective that enlightenment refers to both the awakened state and the journey toward the realization that we have always been in it - just not fully aware of it. one becomes more deeply oneself….

the problem is basically this:

the concept of enlightenment is a place holder - a way of talking about a specific state of consciousness.

the state itself doesnt translate into words.

the word used to signify it is empty.

it should not be literalized or thrown around as an adjective, nor even an adverb. in fact i think it shoudnt be thrown around at all because mostly it is either meaningless or manipulative.

from one stage of consciousness development the stage one or two higher appears absolutely mind-blowing and heart opening when it is glimpsed in meditation, moments of adversity, on drugs etc etc….just like the way south sea islanders were stunned and amazed at the godlike powers of the gunpowder and musketball bearing sailors…..imagine if they had tv's or computers with them?

but too often ( as many american seekers did in the 70s and 80s) we generalize the signs of the adept in one area to their whole being and imagine that there is some final ENLIGHTENMENT in which all the lines of development converge and are completed - we then project whatever idealized fantasy we have onto what we think that would look/feel like and get all caught up in a regressive fantasy about having found the perfect daddy/mommy who can help us to be perfect like them and cure us off this icky world in which we have to deal with suffering, imperfection and having our narcissism frustrated.

this makes us tend to overlook two importnat things:

1) everyone has a shadow, because everyone has a psyche - the fantasy that the work will one day just be done is a subtle kind of allegiance to the self-hatred that got us into neurotic trouble in the first place.

2) as wilber has so brilliantly observed, lines of develoment (like cogntion, spirituality, empathy etc) are usually differently developed in each individual - an example might be the computer genius who cant have a conversation in public, or the profound artist who cant calculate the tax on the bill at dinner….. (too bad ken didnt figure this out before he sent people into the jaws of adi da samraj! - but thats another story…)

now generally, if we have bought into the literalized concept of enlightenment, we are in the camp that gets set up with what i think is a FALSE duality between “the ego” and “enlightenment”.

here the ego (boo, hiss!) is seen as the bugaboo of enlightenement.

well as far as i can tell having no ego doesn't make you enlightened - it makes you psychotic!

i suggest that it is not the ego that is the problem.

in fact when we say someone has a big ego, we actually usually mean that they have a weak ego - but highly developed EGO DEFENSES - and it is these defenses that can be so obnoxious.

the tricky thing is that to relinquish the ego defenses actually requires healing and cultivating authentic  self-esteem, not humiliating even further the already weak sense of self……(thats actually an old cult leader trick that does no-one but the vampirish guru any good)

the false duality between so called enlightenment and the dimly viewed “ego” creates a situation in whcih seekers basically feel that they have to be at war with themselves in order to wake up and it is this sadomasochistic transcendentalism that i think is so problematic. usuallly of course he guru is doing none of the practices that the student is doing and is enjoying all of the pleasures forbidden to the student - but hey when you get to be nlightened you can do whatever you want…

simple formula - where there are ego defenses there is unprocessesed pain. when the ego defenses come down the pain will be intense. on the other side of processing that pain there is more freedom. that more freedom eventually leads to more of a tolerance for the imperfection of being human and less narcissistic fantasizing about idealized and “permanent” states of being. practice becomes more mature and more about seeing reality clearly, warts and all.

the skillful and (i would say) integrally informed teacher/guide has compassion for the suffering underneath the defenses and ccreates a space within which that suffering can be processed, inner resources can be accessed and the sacredness of being human can be discovered in a way that actually transforms one's life, relationships, psyche etc…they also know when to refer to others and are aware of multiple practie methods and therapeutic approaches - to better meet the complexity of each person.

now - i think that the process, through meditative disciplines, of gaining acccess to various profoundly insightful states of consciousness is very, very valuable, but it is not a solution to anything at all, and for many it perpetuates a dissociative or narcissistic patternt hat might be bettter resolved in a therapeutic setting where the grasping for “enlightenment ” and hatred of “the ego” might be itself deconstructed….

those are some rambling opening thoughts….

:O)

Re: enlightenment?

I'd like to do a more in-depth response to Julian's insightful comments.  In case I don't get the time or inspiration to do it proper service, here are a few comments that are poking out from my interior.

1.  Enlightenment is not a final state, it is a process or a way of being (in my view, anyway)

2.  The ego is not the enemy in the midst of that process (aka path), it is merely an intersubjective tangle of concepts that grow over the path and make it more difficult to walk through life (the path is life).

3.  Do not make enlightenment a goal to seek.  If you are alive, you are on the path.  If you are on the path, you are in the process.  What is there to seek if living is that which is doing the seeking? (not sure that is worded very well, alas)

4.  Don't have any expectations at all regarding some final outcome on the path. In other words, don't bind yourself up in more conceptual briar patches that might be growing over the path.  They are there, and that's fine, but they can be moved through skillfully without getting attached to them.

5.  Beware of the false guru who doesn't recognize or convey 1-4.

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

Hi Julian,

You seem to have covered a lot of the bases here.  And ….. when I read your first point:

1) enlightenment is a mythic symbol, a metaphor that should not be literalized.

I read further and thought: ok, he qualifies this by saying:

“the literalization of enlightenment resonates with a kind of saul on
the road to damascus image in which suddenly, in a blinding flash of
light, everything is DIFFERENT”

so it doesn't necesarily imply that you think it is wrong/inappropriate/not useful to look at the literal meaning(s) of the word  — because I find doing this quickly gets to the heart of that old chestnut 'what is enlightenment?'!! If we take one definition of 'enlightenment' as 'the act of enlightening' and one definition of the transitive verb 'to enlighten' as 'to shed light on' then anyone's idea or understanding of what enlightenment is has to take into account as well as account for what it is that is having light shed upon it. Turning my mind to this immediately produces what I consider to be appropriate humility preceeding the acknowledgement that I don't know the nth of it. In the immortal words of Manuel from Fawlty Towers, “I know nahthing”.

Some of my own musings (none of which are in response to anything posted so far):

The enormity of the question 'what is enlightenment?' ought to be enough to stop even the most mercurial and high-powered intellect in their tracks for a moment or two at least. There is an infinity of  wonderment to be discovered in that pause/space before a thought arises in answer.

I don't get hung up any longer on what it is I may or may not be trying to attain, or whether or not I'm trying to attain anything.

My  zaadz name is ma rig pa because when choosing a name I found myself thinking of grandiose names of the like of  “rangjung yeshe” (self-originated wisdom).  Rig.pa is primordial or pristine awareness, and 'ma' is a negating word. Ma.rig.pa is most often translated as “Ignorance”, but  what it really means is not being present to or in instant presence of ones innate primordial awareness, in any given moment. As I spend more time in ma.rig.pa than in rig.pa, I opted for that name as being more representative.

If I can find myself 'in' my natural / primordial state for a few moments or longer without  being distracted, then wonderful. This, from my perspective, is the key aspect of the Path. Path to what? Without needing to qualify the Fruit, I can simply think of the innumerable layers of consequences that can arise out of being distracted from my natural state, and then I can imagine, at least, being in 'instant presence' without distraction, being in 'the unconditioned state'.

What distracts me from being in 'instant presence'? Well for me right now thinking these thoughts and keying these words in! Can I do this without being distracted? It is possible for the odd moment(s) … but  then I quickly find I've been distracted. What else tends to distract me? A myriad things …. discursive thoughts, feelings, emotions, reaction from having buttons pushed, lethargy, fatigue, dissociation, anxiety etc. etc. All of these reveal areas that would be useful or necessary, depending on ones perspective, for me to work on. So I work with a Jungian therapist, practice Qi Gong, try and lead a balanced life etc. etc.

Does being in instant-presence-without-distraction mean that one is unfeeling or without an ego? Certainly not. The self-sense is there, it's just that in that moment it doesn't distract. All the senses are wide open, it's just that in that moment the objects of the six sense consciounesses don't distract.

Is it possible for one to move, talk, think, emote etc. without being distracted from ones primordial condition? According to received wisdom, yes.

What is enlightenment? I could say I haven't a clue, but that's not really true. There are lots of clues.

Do I think Messrs Wilber and Cohen have the answer? No.

Lol

Re: enlightenment?

kieth and ma rig pa

love the responses!

i like those 4 points keith.

i like the drawing together of the basic etymology (to shed light) and the sense of awe/humility that you intone in relationship to the mystery of consciousness ma rig pa.

yes there is the literal meaning. and of course most of the western world associates the word enlightenment with a hugely important movement in the 1700's in europe that transformed the old world monarchies, religious hegemony and persecution of science and art in powerful ways that go to the essence of what the founding fathers of america were so passionate about….

i might also say - you have enlightened me - after a session with my computer techie….

but in the context of this discussion i think we mean something else.

enlightenment is used to indicate a very special state of consciousness that is not passing but has become stablized in a specific individual and makes them almost beyond human in the way the experience and percieve life. yes?

this idea is, shall we say, archetypal. while it is different culturally in important ways, it is in some ways on a par with the saviour archetype from the middle east (then of course we get the avatar/gur/god-man archetype that adi da and maharaj ji have exploited to great effect) , and perhaps also has some commonalities with the arthurian hero returning from the quest transformed and bearing the grail cup…

now there are important differences here, but to extend the mythic symbol bit -  there is a literal meaning to virgin birth and to world savior too, there is a literal meaning to a griffin, but these things are understood by reasonable people not to indicate literal events or entities but to be symbolic, archetypal constructs that carry psycho-spiritual meaning.

so too, i am saying with enlightenment.

i wanted to play a little with this:

from the hindus we get the central metaphysical dynamism of enlightenment - the soul is reincarnated again and again based on the karma of the soul at death. the world is understood to be a lesser realm of suffering and illusion (samsara) spiritual insight begins when we realize that the world of appearances is ultimately unsatisfying and contaminated - we then begin to strive for nirvana - literally the annihilation of the egoic patterns that keep us chained to the wheel of rebirth - because we want to go beyond all that into atman-brahman.

now this striving for nirvana is performed by yoga, meditation, puja to various deities, fire ceremonies, austerities in some cases as severe (for the saddhu) as reliquishing possessions piercing or cutting the flesh, and covering oneself in ash from the funeral pyres daily to show ones diminishing attachment to the world, the body etc…certainly sex and tasty food are foregone in the interest of cultivating a taste for something higher than the sense pleasures..

so this is transcendentalism.

the goal is to transcend the world in order to find god.

period.

in this quest, a guru is deemed useful. the guru is one who is already enlightened. he has tasted nirvana in his deep meditations. he has purified mind and body enough to sit in states of nirvanic bliss for hours at a time and to see beyond the veil of illusion to his true nature as atman - which is the spark of divine brahman consciousness in each of us. no longer is he identified with the push and pull of his karma, he is now free and has penetrated to a stabilized consciousness of the mystery that the unenlightened do not understand.

this transcendentalist essence at the root of this set of dynamics is not unique to india, but it is where we get the archetype of the enlightened one from. this material resonates with our own deep (and i would say erroneous) judaeo-christian mythic dualisms between god and the world, this life and the next, the shame of the senses, sexuality and the purity of the spiritual life etc… and the need to submit to the strong and wise parental figure - be it god or the guru, the patriarch or the priest.

of course the buddha comes along.

now the buddha wanders for 6 years in search of enlightenment - becoming so adept at the practices that each master offers him a franchise (which he refuses), so skinny that you can see his spine from the front, so commited that he gives up his super-priviledged background in order to find freedom from death, old age and sickness. in order to know what is really valuable in life.

ultimately the buddha discovers that the radical asceticism of the saddhu is empty, that the quest to find and identify with atman is a waste of time.

the buddha returns from his long night under the bo tree with a nascent psychotherapeutic approach to meditation. his four noble truths outline a psychological tangle that he says we can be free of by following an 8 fold path.

the buddha becomes identified as the definitive archetype of enlightenment, but now the realization is not one of nirvana and atman or ultimate self, but one of no-self and the nature of suffering. the buddha's methodology is less rooted in the mythic dynamism of reincarnation and the possibility of getting off the wheel and more concerned with the here-and-now reality of your life as observed through the dedicated practice of insight. his is again a nascent existentialist psychotherapeutic approach to meditation.

now as is always the case we

1) tend to imagine that the human being and the archetype they represent are one and the same. we imagine, erroneously, that a human being can become an archetype. so the buddha is seen as a somewhat superhuman figure - this is rooted n our need to believe that somehow human beings can overcome our limitations - little things like oh, death, for example - and become heroic immortal spiritual beings. it is this archetypal conflation that hovers behind all humans who claim enlightenment and it is fundamentally incorrect and rooted in magical thinking and existential denial.

so we fetishize the enlightened person and imbue them with the primal energies of our anxiety soothing fantasy of overcoming death. this will often completely obscure out ability to see clearly the nature of what is happening in relaity with the guru, their community and ourselves - which would actually be the opposite of any kind of meaningful enlightenement in my eyes - but more on that later…

2) this process tends to lead to the creation of a religion. the awakened special person becomes deified and their observatiions from a discrete state of consciousness get turned into doctrine that is believed in but usually not based in much direct experience.

so what i am attempting here is to prepare the way for a few distinctions:

a) there is a difference between a practice-based spiritual path of inquiry that is a journey into acceptance of the human condition and one that (consciously or not) is running a dualistic transcendentalist program. the non-dual schools in both hindu and buddhist teaching are uncommon. for example the yoga sutras of patanjali so venerated by yogis are explicitely dualistic and spring from the hindu outline i gave above. for example goenkaji's free meditation ten day retreats that are the introduction to vipassana for many people are explicitely dualistic. they perpetuate an intense inner conflict in the name of awakening and encourage a kind of over-identification with certain aspects of our being and complete dissociation from and repression of other aspects - in order to become enlightened.

now we can see the western version of this shadow denial showing up in people like ted haggard, yes? or say george w. bush.

one of the great advances in our understanding has to do with the jungian concept of the shadow, which stands on the shoulders of freud's concept of the unconscious. with these two principles in hand we see that a more integrated path is about exploring  our depths rather than overcoming them. owning our shadows with awareness rather than excoriating them with self-righteous sado-masochism. (sound a little extreme? well, think of the fakirs and saddhus, think of the self-flaggelating priests and torturing inquisitors, think of the islamic  jihadists….i use the term sado-masochistic very intentionally and calmly…)

so this brings us to tantric, non-dual paths and philosophies - unfortunately fraught with their own problems, but more interesting at least to me. :O) more later….

b) there is a difference between paths that subtly or not so subtly perpetuate category error beliefs in divine human personages and ultimate states of consciousness, overcoming of deathy, eternal life, miracles etc   ( see sai baba, adi da, the entire history of christianity etc, for why these deeply flawed premises lead inevitably to disaster..) and paths that are about seeing reality clearly and growing cognitively beyond the point of idealizing , fantasizing and the narcissistic need to be perfect or be close to someone who is perfect…

c) there is a difference between recognizing developmental stages and following a path of peak experience of various states that later become integrated into permanent traits, all the while staying grounded in real life and releasing illusory prerational metaphysical beliefs in favor of the awesome mystery of life in-us-as-us with no promises and no talismanic protection from evil, no perefect synchronistic fantasy of control over reality or special treatment form the universe on the one hand, and the idea that developental stages lead ultimately to a stage in which all development is transcended and all develomental deficits, existential anxieties and traumatic scars are magically erased, on the other.

i think that the non-dual pespective in its updated form includes the kind of discernement that allows us to see this life, warts and all, anxieties and all, is itself sacred - that in fact sacredness (like god) is a human consttruct that has erroneously been projected outside of the human experience. that in fact it is our very mortality and the imperfection, nay, tragedy of the human experience that makes our moments of insight, freedom and compassion so intensely valuable and beautiful. and it is precisely their fleeting nature - lost like tears in the rain - that makes them so powerful in spite of and because of  their mortal decay.

Re: enlightenment?

Some schools contest the idea that enlightenment is a state.  Or rather, they contest the idea that the ground of enlightenment – choiceless awareness, buddhanature, etc – is a particular state.  The Buddha's aim was to push beyond the state-focus of his teachers, since all states are dependent upon causes and conditions for their existence and therefore cannot be considered absolute.

Now, we can say that realization of the unconditioned takes place right in the heart of conditioned experience, so there are relative ways that such realization may (appear to) manifest in a particular spacetime locale.  I think that's what the WC lattice is pointing to.  But traditional descriptions of enlightenment appear to insist that what is being described is unconditioned and therefore not dependent on causes and conditions.

Is this distinction lost when we refer to enlightenment as a state?  Or should we distinguish between enlightenment, as a state, and this “other” thing which is the open, self-luminous context for the arising of all states and stages?

Re: enlightenment?

Julian has certainly given this a lot of thought.  I don't really have a problem with any of the arguments made.  In that sense, we might be agreeing that enlightenment is not that.  It is not all those things that Julian thoughtfully claims is not to be.  However, just because it is not that, doesn't mean that it is not at all.  Does it?

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

great questions balder and kieth. i look forward to hearing more from you and responses from others…

my point is that enlightenment is a concept. period. does it have reference to some experiential set of insights? - no doubt, but this is part of the myth of the given and it represents the longing for some absolute resting place fo spiritual certainty, peace, liberation, insight etc - there is no such thing.

deep and beautiful transformative moments  are possible through serious practices and sometimes spontaneously - but unfortunately these do not guarantee that our interpretation of what they mean will be in any way more accurate than any of other perceptions.

consider - someof the greatest minds of our time - with extraordinary qualifications and sincerity - gerog feurstein, ken wilber and alan watts all pronounced da an enlightened realizer of the first order….hopefully we all know how tragically flawed that naive and inflated assessment was, yes?

now we watch as andrew cohen's group go through their wrestling with similar - though a little less intense material.

the concept gets literalized and debated over theoretically with reference to various philosophies and experiences. but it is a slippery, enticing fish imbued with all of our desire for the boon-bestowing supernatural.

i am saying that like all literalized symbols the word enlightenment generally causes a lot of confusion and even harm and is imo pretty useless.

was trungpa enlightened? da? sai baba? osho? maharaj ji? is cohen? on closer examination the problems with and even meaninglessness of the concept in the real world are revealed…

i think there is massive confusion between on the one hand, peak experiences, some of which appear to become integrated, many of which are later seen to not be what we think they are, some of which represent a merging of wishful thinking and altered states etc…and on the other hand the assertion that there is some final and ultimate state that is no state.

i think the idea of an ultimate state beyond all states is again archetypal and has mostly been misused in a variety of ways ranging from the silly to the criminal.

the conceptual discussion about enlightenemnt is all very well and fun - it also makes us feel like we are privy to some cool esoteric spiritual shit, but ultimately i think it is a big red herring, a category mistake, and that the real work lies in a much more nuanced exploration of developmental stages, psychological issues, trauma, existential conflict, relationship, critical thinking.

i am asserting that once one has done enough of the above work the whole enlightenment trip just beomces less and less compelling.

here is a list. teachers claiming enlightenment on the right, teachers who do not claim or emphasize it on the left. see if my point becomes clearer:

wilber                        cohen
kornfield                    da
chodron                    maharj ji
dalaia lama              sai baba
welwood                   osho


the whole topic of enlightenment is inextricably linked to this problem of literalizing mythic symbol, or perhaps more acccurately imagining that a human being can become something archetypal.

of course this is based in the misperception that two-dimensional pure archetypes are more powerful or valuable than mutlidimensional but imperfect human beings. this is again the disowning of divinity and the forgetting that the whole idea comes from one place only - the human psyche…

at the core of the whole discussion of enlightenment is the problem of the shadow as contrasted with the light and our attempts to dissociate from it and ultimately from our humanity in one final act of heroic dualism.

i suggest that this is the eastern version of the particular historic psychological sticking place in human evolution enacted in the west through the abrahamic traditions.

post-metaphysical for me means going beyond the enlightenement, reincarnation, guru, mtyh of the given too!

Re: enlightenment?

Julian wrote: of course this is based in the misperception that two-dimensional pure archetypes are more powerful or valuable than mutlidimensional but imperfect human beings. this is again the disowning of divinity and the forgetting that the whole idea comes from one place only - the human psyche…

It appears to be true that everything that we “know” is “known” by and through our human psyche, experience, and interpretations … yet it seems to me that when we become certain that there is nothing “real” beyond our human perspectives, we have created another idol, another myth of the given.

Mary

Re: enlightenment?

good point mary.

what i am saying is that sacredness, enlightenement, god etc are all human concepts that come from our psyches and are conditioned by our societies etc….

this is not to say they dont refer to something, but to point out their origin and that we often forget that our speculation about the spiritual is self-referential. ahall of morriors in whcih we often get tragicallyand ironically  lost.

we forget that the archetypal relam is within us, not out there somewhere.

certainty?

well i cant be certain (to quote hume) that there isnt a teapot orbiting the earth, now can i?

i think it is ok to be certain of things as not existing until they are proven otherwise - the burden of proof is always on the side of something existing - not on something not existing. i don't have to prove that god doesnt talk to george bush in order to be certain of it.

it is not another myth of the given (nor is it a religious statement - though i do believe it) to say that i am certain that jesus never rose form the dead - there is a difference between fgaith based metaphyscial assertion and reliance on scientific facts, yes?

i am certain that this is a metaphorical symbol common to many mythologies and that it represents something psychological in nature…

i am certain that the whole gorgeous pantheon of archetypal symbolic mythic material comes from nowhere but the human psyche.

what is the human psyhce you might ask?

now that's a question…..

:O)

Re: enlightenment?

i think it is ok to be certain of things as not existing until they are proven otherwise - the burden of proof is always on the side of something existing - not on something not existing.

There's a bit of a paradox here, and I know that Integral Spirituality (which I have not yet finished) has a perspectival take on this, but: did bacteria and atoms and galaxies “exist” before humans had the tools to perceive them? History suggests that we can actually be certain that there are “somethings” that exist that we do not currently have proof of …

My hunch (which is not belief, but a kind of faith) is that there are “things” out there, the existence of which will likely be unprovable when it comes to most current  tests of proof.

Out of time, but what a cool conversation this is!  Thanks to all of you.

Mary

Re: enlightenment?

hey mary - full agreement - i am in no way suggesting that the physical universe is socially or psychologically constructed in a literal sense….

that is not what the sentence you quoted from me refers to. i mean if you say - satan lives under my bed.

and i say i don't think that's true.

and you say - well you cant prove that he doesn't.

you have “shifted the burden of proof.”

philosophically the burden of proof is on you in regard to a statement of something extraordinary.

the burden of proof is not on me to disprove it.

if i cannot prove that satan doesnt live under your bed - it does NOT logicallly follow that therefore he must be there….right?

:O)

Re: enlightenment?

ok so mary - going back to see why i said what you quoted about the burden of proof.

here's what i think is at play:

i humbly suggest that you are conflating radically subjective features of the psyche - archetypes, altered states, images of god etc… with the objective physical features of the universe - bacteria, galaxies, atoms etc..

when i say that archetypes are purely psychological i think this is 100% fair and accurate. and indeed if we saw an archetype in objective reality, say at tonights xmas party,  we would

a) poop our pants and then
b) wonder if we were having a psychotic break and then
c) look around to see who slipped the LSD in our punch.

:O)

this is not to be confused with a bad quantum physics/bad adveita//narcissistic solipsism that suggests that the physical unioverse doesnt exist until we percieve it.

yes the supernova is there, the amoeba is pseudopodia-ing around, even before we become conscious of them, and there are more than likely still other phenomena that we do not percieve yet but will later.

from this is does not follow that culturally constructed belief-based interpretations of altered state experiences therefore refer literally to something that has opbjective reality.

the psyche is so sophisticated and beautiful. it's archetypes are potent images, containers for meaning/energy. confusion, tragedy and madness lies in believing them to be literal.

for me i would almost say that the psyche is god - but not god in any way that has been conceived of in religious terms - religion is the child of the psyche and perhaps more accurately the child of a very particular pathology/developmental stage of the psyche…

so i am not saying that everything is psychologically constructed. but i am saying that everything that is psychologically constructed and socially constructed - myths, religion, archetypes, art etc belongs to the symbolic realm. it refers to something real we are trying to make sense of but it is not itself literally real.

this does not mean that the archetype “god” is not immensely important. it is. it's just important that we step back and see it for what it is….

Re: enlightenment?

I understand what you mean about the importance of not confusing the subjective with the objective, the phenomenal with the empirical.

And Satan lives under my bed only once in a blue moon, I swear  …  :-)

Still there may be truths that transcend these concepts and perspectives. I cannot be certain that there are, and thus will not rest on these speculations as any basis for the kind of certitude that comes with belief. Yet faith–which allows doubt, questioning, and seeking– still whispers to me that the Mystery is both within us and beyond us …

…and thus teases me into being skeptical of my own skepticism.

Peace,
Mary

Re: enlightenment?

Lovely lyrical response, Mary. That Mystery is palpable sometimes.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.

Re: enlightenment?

Hi, Julian,

I think you've made some very good points.  I agree with you that acknowledging the deeply entrenched influence of the myth of the given requires us to recognize that enlightenment is a concept – and a developmentally, relatively situated one at that, which does not have the same meaning at all times, for all people. 

But I think it is a leap to move from this realization to the conclusion that the philosophical notion of the unconditioned or the Absolute is invalid and no longer worth retaining in a post-metaphysical worldview.  It seems that this is a conclusion that underlies some of the arguments that you are making – that the notion of the “unconditioned” is a holdover from outmoded, metaphysical worldviews.  Is this your understanding?

Wilber acknowledges that any worldview, any philosphical paradigm or worldview, must accept a few “givens” to be able to get off the ground.  Wilber himself posits a few involutionary givens in his own system – features of reality which are not held to be merely artifacts of cultural conditioning or religious fancy, or conditioned grooves cut into the Kosmos by the slow, wandering path of evolution.  If pressed, I imagine he would acknowledge that, ultimately, even these involutionary givens might prove to be inadequate conceptual constructs, but would add that, at this point, there is good (practical, pedagogical) reason to accept them as abiding features of the Kosmos.

The question, then, is whether there is good reason to retain the concept of the unconditioned or the Absolute, and whether it makes sense to continue to assert – as the ancients have done – that it is possible for human beings to awaken to the unconditioned in some meaningful and abiding way.

What do you think?

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: enlightenment?

brief response to your great question balder. then i have to prepare for a client…

well, i suspect that perhaps “the unconditioned” is another way of saying the unmoved mover, which is a way of postulating a god outside of space and time, outside of cause and effect, unconditioned, which is the uncaused cause.

this is a philosophical concept that has been roundly critiqued ( by hume and more recently dawkins) as a circular argument and an unsatisfying one becuase it attmepts to bring to an end an infinite regress just by postulating something unprovable as “absolute.”

i suspect that the idea of “the absolute” is another way of saying god.

just like “enlightenment ” i think that all of these terms are place holders for something that is being proposed and belived as possible based on a theory - a castle of concepts built in the air with no reference points in reality.

because these terms are actually so abstract they can mean almost anything to almost anyone and i think it is a little peretentious to claimany ultimate meaning or interpretation, y'know?

do i think there is literally an absolute supreme being big kahuna all knowing consciousness at the beginning and the end of the cosmic evolutionary train ride - probably not - i see no reason to think so. beautiful metaphor though!

does that mean i think al of this is meaningless - not at all - it is rich with meaning, beauty, mystery, love, creativity, intelligence, but it requires no unconditioned absolute to be so - and it loses none of those qualities if the proposed (and i would say imaginary) unconditined absolute is suddenly absent….

as for “the ancients” - unfortunately they have believed agreat many things about the cosmos, consciousness, ourselves, most of which has turned out to be partial if not plain wrong….

again - there are indeed states of consciousness accesible through various practices - how those are then interpreted is usually a cultural affair - this is not to say that they have no value, but that the value assigned is often almost entirely constructed.

for example the situation in which a charismatic christian, new age raver and zen meditator all experience a similar stae of consciousness, but each assign radically different meaning to it based ont heir pre-existing wordviews - each of course sees their experience as proof of their beliefs….

what is really going on?

for years i have wondered when wilber would stop priviledging the hindu-buddhist position as being somehow completely free of the myth of the given - finally he has done so.

this leaves us with what i think is the correct answer to your questions - i dont know.

i dont hink anyone does.

the inquiry continues.

:O)

Re: enlightenment?

also i should add that i love to visit those states of consciousness whenever possible and that they have been a) a guiding light inmy own journey of integration, healing and stagewise development and

b) a wonderful container for my wishful thinking, narcissistic heroic fantasies, need to “believe in something”, soothing of existential angst etc…

i think at a certain point something happned for me where i no longer needed the stuff that was in category b for me.

i think that as my meditative/yogic/cognitive-philosophical path has deepend and expanded it has been impossible for me not to find several cornerstone new age and hindu-buddhist ideas very, very fishy indeed and no longer useful or necessary to my process…

Re: enlightenment?

Hi, Julian,

Actually, by “the unconditioned” I do not mean something akin to Augustine's unmoved mover, but before we get into that, I'd like to ask you what your general opinion is of Wilber's reliance on the notion of Spirit, particularly when he describes Spirit as “throwing itself outward” and laying down involutionary givens before the manifest universe of relative phenomena emerge and begin to evolve.  (He is writing stuff like this in his Wilber-5 material).  It seems to me that, from your perspective, these sorts of speculations are uncalled for and would be incompatible with a truly post-metaphysical perspective.

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: enlightenment?

Wow, Julian, this is getting wild and wonderful! Many thanks - you are giving me much food for thought.

I'd like to respond not necessarily to what you have said but what your comments and others have reminded me of, in no particular order:

1) Religious thought in general and Christian thought in particular has tended to veer between various cliffs - dualism, gnosticism, docetism, fundamentalism and many other unpleasant isms - often these involve demonising the “flesh” and the body and exalting a peculiar view of spirit… taking it a long way from the original Jewish stream of thought which was very much physical… and the sense that one small little group of people has the gnosis, the knowledge, and everyone else, well, too bad, suckers…

2) it is a human trait to be vulnerable to the charisma of a leader and having been wooed and won by his amazing qualities, to raise him (usually not her :) ) up so high on a pedestal, just below the gods…

3) mysticism is a golden thread linking the different religions - the mystics may indeed verbalise or think of their experiences differently depending on their religious persuasion, but there is a lot of convergence so that regardless of the religion of origin, mystics often sound like they are talking or not talking as the case may be of the very same kind of experience… and this experience or state or path or however you see it is often regarded as “enlightenment”… the mystics themselves though do not seem to see “enlightenment” in the simplistic or goal-oriented ways you were rightly disparaging, Julian… often when you read them they seem reluctant to talk about the experiences at all, or to draw attention to them, or underline them as important or something to seek… this reluctance, this insistence that enlightenment is ineffable or unsayable, should tell us something vital about its nature and how not to go about seeking it …

4) true mysticism is most passionately involved with other humans in a caring and practical way, not removed from them.

namaste,

nicole

Re: enlightenment?

agreed on all fronts mary. i love the dialog too and your points are great.

i am not “disparaging” the experience the mystics are having - i am pointing out the hugely problematic and often tragic results of our naive literalism around this word enlightenment…

i think the mystics to whom you refer would probably not use the word.

and i think we have a somewhat lazy over -relicance on “ancient wisdom” and “mystic truth.”

i am pleased to be breaking the pious taboo of ultimate quthority that “the saints and sages of the ages” carry for many.

i subscribe to the buddha's last words - be a lamp unto yourself.

i think there is this orthodoxy in alternative spiritual circles around all sorts of things from bad interpretations of quantum physics, to the new age narcissism of creating your own reality,  to the earth or the universe as literally a conscious being, to good thoughts making things happen the way we want, to astrology having some basis in fact,  to all religions really saying the same thing.

none of these actually ring demonstrably true for me. in fact i think they are all easily disproved.

i still spend every day engaged in a spirituality that has nothing to do with any of them. funny huh?

:O)

Re: enlightenment?

Julian – I think you meant to address this to Nicole and not to me (Mary) – but that's okay. 'Tis a compliment (at least from my pov) to be mistaken for Nicole!

:-)

Re: enlightenment?

Dear Mary,

Thanks, I would feel the same were I to be mistaken for you! :)

Julian, I hear you, and am with you - thanks for the response and dialogue… i will have more time together to engage again in the dialogue…

love,

nicole

Re: enlightenment?

oops - sorry nicole. and mary - though i mistook you for her, the general sentiment is transferrable! :O)

Re: enlightenment?

hey balder - digging the questions *and* would love to hear you expound a little so i have some context on where you are coming from… :O) i sense a lot behind what you are aslking ansd would love to hear your perspective!

ummm let's see - i love ken's work and find it unparalleled. at the same time i think his reach sometimes exceeds it's grasp - the spirit stuff you are mentioning is a beautiful poetry in which he is expressing a  powerful and profound perspective.

technically, yes of course it is absolutely speculation. beautiful and fun - but hardly the last word in some GUT of how the universe manifested, right? poetic meta-myth? cool…

i think in many ways it is beside the point.

i have only briefly perused the new book - which i think has a lot of problems - so i will do some research into this particular aspect of wilber 5 and get back to you on your question.

i am actually much more interested in 3 things which i am currently writing about:

1) cognitive development a la piaget meets SDi plus real ways to assess and excercise real stagewise cognitive growth
2) shadow work - ie how to integrate really grounded depth psychological work with spiritual practice in a way that frees us up from reliance on the prerational as an avoidance of reality anmd can open us up to authentic transrationality
3) post-metaphysical inquiry-based spiritual practices that integrate and are in dialog with the above two areas

all of this includes a thorough critique of both old world religion and it's contemporary younger cousin - the “new age”..

Re: enlightenment?

i am actually much more interested in 3 things which i am currently writing about:

1) cognitive development a la piaget meets SDi plus real ways to assess and excercise real stagewise cognitive growth
2) shadow work - ie how to integrate really grounded depth psychological work with spiritual practice in a way that frees us up from reliance on the prerational as an avoidance of reality anmd can open us up to authentic transrationality
3) post-metaphysical inquiry-based spiritual practices that integrate and are in dialog with the above two areas

all of this includes a thorough critique of both old world religion and it's contemporary younger cousin - the “new age”..

Fascinating! I look forward to reading more of this from you, and perhaps we can discuss this in other threads…

love,

nicole

Re: enlightenment?

cool nicole - thanks for the chat! mo' later…

Re: enlightenment?

ps - what do you mean by unconditioned and how does it differ from the augustinian unmoved mover…?

Re: enlightenment?

Come on, y'all!  I have a job and this is way more interesting, and my job is pretty interesting.  How am I supposed to get anything done with such provocative thoughts running around the mind?

Just time for a quickie response.

Julian has noted that enlightenment is a concept.  I would say yes based on my experience and no based on that silly irrational impulse that keeps coming up in me:  faith.

While enlightenment is a concept it is one that encourages transcending concepts.  It seems that, I believe as Julian noted, after some time of earnest practice, there is less attraction to the concept of enlightenment.  That is, the conceptual enlightenment fades and, perhaps, some more “real” enlightenment peeks out from behind the conceptual curtain.  If it were possible to transcend concepts altogether, and not just in temporary state experiences but in permanent stage development, than that, to me, would be enlightenment beyond concept.  Of course, this is a conceptual argument, so it's not that either, but maybe I'm pointing in the right direction?

Now, back to work.  I have a bid to prepare…..

Materials:  the Kosmos
Labor:  sitting as close to lotus as these hips, knees and ankles will allow
Equipment: one human being
Margin:  full of error

Quote to customer:  We can get it done in two weeks, but it'll cost ya.  Do you have all the appropriate permits?

Cha-ching!  (modern version of I-Ching)

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

this is brilliant keith! :O)

Re: enlightenment?

Keith, I just love ya!!

Yes, the concept of enlightenment is a concept.

I remember receiving in-depth Mahayana Buddhist teachings some 27 years ago. There was an explanation of how bodhicitta is cultivated ….. meditating on compassion for the suffering of mother sentient beings, leading to mahakaruna or great compassion, leading to generating and ongoingly renewing the commitment to attain total realisation (whatever in gawd's name that may or may not be!!)  in order to benefit all infinite mother sentient beings, leading to that very special mindstream of the bodhisattva.

Then we learnt about the arya bodhisattva, the bodhisattva who had also realised sunyata / emptiness. We learnt that he/she was the first of ten levels, or bhumis, of increasing development ….. finally arriving at the 10th level bodhisattva, who posesses such wonderful qualities, depth of realisation etc. And that the gulf between his/her realisation and that of Buddhahood was somehow still effectively infinitely wide. Hmmmm. Enlightenment, what the hell might  that be … or not?

My own teacher doesn't claim to be enlightened, or anything much at all. But he does accept he has the capacity to give oral, symbolic and direct introduction to what he terms ones real condition, ones primordial condition ….. to dzogchen, the self-perfected state.  It  is said quite simply in the dzogchen teaching that this 'state' is no different to that of a Buddha's. Which doesn't imply anything other than being in ones natural state is analogous to being in a river leading to the estuary leading to the sea leading to the ocean.

Nothing magical or mythic. Simply discover then keep on rediscovering ones real authentic condition, as much as possible resting in that, relaxing into that, while integrating as many moments of experience, of life, as one can into that.

Or accept an injunction and take it up, follow it, practice it.

Re: enlightenment?

beautiful flow ma rig pa. yum.

yea “take up the injunction” - which is radically different than - “i am enlightened and you are not.”

the concept of enlightenement seems all but useless - the injunction to practice and find out for youself extremely useful.

a firm grasp on critical thinking and knowing the difference between archetype and human being essential when faced with the smorgasbord of charlatans, scams and ego-trips lightly sprinkled with authentic teachers that makes up our spiritual landscape!

my single point is: the word enlightenment plugs into a very powerful set of naive projections that wise practice learns to inquire into, see through - and then take another breath and se what comes next!

peace y'all….

Re: enlightenment?

I've really appreciated your contributions, Julian.

Last night I was half-way through a response to things you'd written but  just had to give up — your postings have been so prolific I simply haven't been able to keep up!

I have enjoyed reading your various blog entries, and like Nicole am up for reading (and dialoguing) about those 3 things that you're really interested in!

I look forward to any new thread you might start, and if you start a new pod, let me know.

Lol

Re: enlightenment?

Hi, Julian,

I largely agree with the points you are making – enlightenment is a loaded concept, one which can provide inspiration and orientation at certain stages of the path, but which later may prove unwieldy and even unnecessary at later stages.  However, I do not take this to mean that enlightenment is really an empty, purely metaphysical term, without any meaningful referent.  Yes, it is often used in a metaphysical way, and in these contexts, may help to “cement” certain dualistic or escapist trends in thought and behavior.  And yet, I wouldn't go so far as to say it is a worthless term – not at this point in my own understanding, at least.

To give you some context of where I am coming from, my primary “vehicle” at present is the TSK vision (which I believe is a truly integral, post-metaphysical, inquiry-centered path); I rely also on AQAL and Integral Theory in the ways I approach issues and contextualize them; and I have about a fifteen-year background in Tibetan Buddhist teachings, particularly Dzogchen.  When I was discussing the “unconditioned,” I was referring primarily to Dzogchen's understanding of emptiness as the natural state of open-cognizance, the clear light of mind, the inseparability of emptiness and clarity that is the root source of our perspective-taking and world-spinning. 

Does Dzogchen preserve patterns of metaphysical, premodern thought?  In many of its teachings and stories, yes, I believe it does.  This is one reason why I have moved from Dzogchen into the practice of TSK, since the latter preserves the deepest insights of Dzogchen, in my opinion, but situates them in a vehicle which I believe is more suitable for the postmodern world – more sensitive to the myth of the given and the insights of (post)modern West.

If I have appeared to resist some of what you are saying, it is only when I have sensed that you might be dismissing, or at least looking down upon, all ancient vehicles such as Dzogchen or Mahamudra as premodern approximations, at best, of the fuller and more rigorous understandings of the modern West.  Perhaps you have not intended this.  But I believe that there are elements of these teachings which are quite advanced, and which are as rigorous and sophisticated in their own ways, and perhaps in some cases moreso, than anything we have to offer in disciplines such as SDi, Piagetian developmental psychology, psychotherapy, shadow work, etc.  We have not “moved beyond” them altogether, and can still stand to learn from them (not as supplements to our greater understanding, but as vehicles which in fact may have the potential to take us even deeper in our understanding than our own models have yet reached).

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: enlightenment?

Hi Balder,

I always relish reading your posts, this one being no exception. However ……. you say:

“When I was discussing the “unconditioned,” I was referring primarily to Dzogchen's understanding of emptiness as the natural state of open-cognizance, the clear light of mind, the inseparability of emptiness and clarity that is the root source of our perspective-taking and world-spinning.”

I love it ….. and I'd like to qualify this a little :)

“Does Dzogchen preserve patterns of metaphysical, premodern thought?  In many of its teachings and stories, yes, I believe it does.  This is one reason why I have moved from Dzogchen into the practice of TSK, since the latter preserves the deepest insights of Dzogchen, in my opinion, but situates them in a vehicle which I believe is more suitable for the postmodern world – more sensitive to the myth of the given and the insights of (post)modern West.”

Re: enlightenment?

Hi, Lol,

As a fellow dzogchenpa (although a rather lousy practitioner!), I fully appreciate what you are saying and what you are emphasizing here.  I think this discussion could take us more in the direction of metaphysics and the myth of the given than the nature of enlightenment, so maybe it is time for another thread.

But just to make a very general comment:  Recently reading Unbounded Wholeness, a book on Bonpo Dzogchen by Anne Klein and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, I was struck by the book's descriptions of how mythic consciousness has been preserved in Tibetan tradition in a way that sets it apart from the Western historical trajectory of thought.  It wasn't so much rejected, as it was in our history, as it was transcended and included – assuming new meanings and roles within Tibetan thought, at increasingly subtle and refined levels.

It's a complex topic, but in general I take this as an indication that there is not just “one” way we can develop beyond mythic-membership thinking.  And I mention it here because I agree with you that the mythical language of a culture may not be what it first appears to be, and may not stem from the structures of conscious that we expect.

About the Dzogchen claim that it is possible to rest in and fully integrate with rigpa, which is open and unconditioned:  I do not think this is necessarily a metaphysical claim.  Whether it is or not, would probably be interesting and worthwhile for us to explore – here or in another thread.

Best wishes,

B.

Re: enlightenment?

so much for enlightenment … :O)

new thread in the works huh?

the myth of the given: what does it mean? what are the implications of this idea?

what is symbolic, what literal? why does this matter?

what is metaphysics, therefore what is post-metaphysics?

how can we tell if something is pre or transrational?

what do we mean by “faith” and is faith necessary or useful in a contemporary transrrational spirituality?

and finally what are the practical applications/consequences of these abstract signifiers?

who wants to start?

Re: enlightenment?

Hi, Julian, I know you're joking, but my suggestion to start a new thread was to keep from interfering from the cool stuff happening on this one!

It seems like your questions are a good start.  I'm going to use them to start a new thread and then add a passage from Wilber.

Best wishes,

B.

Re: enlightenment?

I don't recall if anyone has brought this up in previous posts (it's been a few days since I read the thread), but I thought I'd share a definition of enlightenment that Wilber offers in Integral Spirituality.  I think the definition could be debated somewhat, but it does appear to be one useful way of retaining the word in a post-metaphysical context.

“[T]he generic definition of Enlightenment is the full realization of, or being one with, Emptiness and all Form.  Many lesser spiritual experiences and realizations are possible, but we are taking 'Enlightenment' – with a capital 'E' – as a type of end or limit of the fullest and highest spiritual realization possible…

So how can we define Enlightenment with this in mind?  The answer we have suggested throughout this book is: Enlightenment is the realization of oneness with all states and all structures that are in existence in any given time.

Stabilization in causal Emptiness provides the Freedom at any given time; but the world of Form evolves, not according to a predetermined plan, but as an evolutionarily creative process.  If one wishes, this process can certainly be seen as Spirit's creative sport and play (which I believe is true, and removes us from scientific materialism of various forms), but the 'levels of the Great Chain' simply no longer preexist or are given in anything like their fixed forms.  As the world of Form evolves, what is required to be one with that world is for individuals to evolve and develop in their own cases up to the highest levels then in existence.  Higher than that, there isn't, ontologically speaking.”  (Wilber, Integral Spirituality, pp. 241-242).

Re: enlightenment?

Hi B.

Certainly something I'd like to respond to, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow. I'm knackered, it's nearly 3 am over here.

Just spent what seemed like hours battling to get a longish tale posted on the ayahuasca  thread … but that's another story.

Ciao ciao

Re: enlightenment?

Did I say tomorrow? Oh well …

Anyway, thanks, Bruce, for providing Wilber’s definition of enlightenment (Wilber, Integral Spirituality, pp. 241-242). It gives me an entry point for exploring a little ‘the myth of the given’, and also presents an opportunity to contrast his definition with my understanding of how Enlightenment is presented within Buddhism, and offer my thoughts on this.

You said: “I think the definition could be debated somewhat …”  and I agree  “… but it does appear to be one useful way of retaining the word in a post-metaphysical context.” … and I again would agree, in so far as my rudimentary understanding of post-metaphysics allows me to!

What I find intriguing is that there seem to be certain givens implied in Wilber’s definition.

For example, when he says: “Enlightenment is the realization of oneness with all states and all structures that are in existence in any given time”  this would seem to imply that it’s not possible for an individual, at any time in history up until the present day, to have realised and internalised developmental structures of the highest possible level (whatever they are) simply because consciousness to date is not considered to have evolved any higher than integral. So it seems to me that the ‘given’ here is that any individual’s so called ‘full Enlightenment’ is limited by and tied to whatever stage of evolution of consciousness has been arrived at (at that point). However, in the Dzogchen teaching ‘total realisation’ is said to be beyond any kind of limitation.

Similarly him saying: “… the world of Form evolves, not according to a predetermined plan, but as an evolutionarily creative process” seems to me to be holding the “creative” aspect of this “evolutionarily .. process” as a metaphysical given.

Looking more closely at Wilber’s definition, he starts by saying: “[T]he generic definition of Enlightenment is the full realization of, or being one with, Emptiness and all Form”. What is meant here by “all Form” needs to be qualified, because it could easily be interpreted as something like ‘all Form that has ever existed to this point in time’ and therefore necessarily finite … and so again seeming to imply that it’s a limited kind of Enlightenment …which to my mind is barking up the wrong tree …what’s more pertinent, surely, is the infinite capacity of the primordial state to manifest any single form or an infinite number of forms without being affected, altered, conditioned by any of them.

If one uses the reflective capacity of the mirror as a symbol of the primordial state’s capacity to manifest infinite potentiality, (an infinite number of ‘events’?), then just as a mirror has the capacity to reflect any object in front of it, including at some future time a never-before-created object, without its capacity being conditioned in any way, so too the primordial state as primordially pure (Emptiness) isn’t conditioned by any of the infinite potentiality of manifestation that arises within it.

Wiilber then adapts what he has posited as the generic definition to suggest: “Enlightenment is the realization of oneness with all states and all structures that are in existence in any given time”, and again it’s his making ‘Enlightenment’  dependent on a finite quantity of structures that to me is missing the point.

But I’m getting ahead of myself a little. To get  back to “Emptiness and all Form”, I’m taking it that he’s alluding to the famous “Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form” of the Heart Sutra.

[“ …form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form ; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness.” ( from The Heart Sutra, translated by E. Conze)]

Emptiness  (Voidness / Sunyata) here is nothing other than the lack of inherent / independent / substantial existence of ‘things’ / dharmas / phenomena – including the self, and the concept  ‘emptiness’ itself. So in this context nothing is or can be a given.

What Wilber really means by “causal Emptiness” I’m not sure. If he’s referring to the Dharmakaya, then he would need to qualify from which perspective he was referencing the term, Sutrayana or Vajrayana. Sutrayana deals with the ‘Two Truths’, Absolute and Relative, Absolute Truth being Emptiness, and in this context Dharmakaya is the Buddha’s Wisdom Mind of Emptiness. In Vajrayana, however, there cannot be Dharmakaya without the two types of Rupakaya (Rupa meaning Form) i.e. Sambhogakaya (infinite ‘pure vision’ manifestation) and Nirmanakaya (both the material dimension and the form of an ‘enlightened being’ (e.g. the historical Buddha) that can be perceived conventionally).

Incidentally, if Wilber is still equating Nirmanakaya with Gross, Sambhogakaya with Subtle and Dharmakaya with Causal, as three separate stages, then this from a Buddhist perspective is completely inaccurate.

If we look at the Three Kayas from the point of view of Dzogchen, which is held to be the essence (and in that way the most essential) of all Buddhas’ teaching, then there is consideration given to the Three Kayas of the Ground, the Three Kayas of the Path and the Three Kayas of the Fruit. The Three Kayas of the Ground (which may equate with what Wilber calls “the timeless Urgrund” [On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality: Part 1] relate to:

Essence : Primordial Purity (kadag) / Emptiness (Dharmakaya)

Nature : Clarity / (the manifestation of) Infinite Potentiality (lhundrub) (Sambhogakaya)

Energy : the inseparability (yermed) of the above two ‘without interruption’ (Nirmanakaya)

All of these as concepts are ‘givens’. However, a concept is one thing and being in ‘instant presence’, the primordial state, the non-dual state is another thing — it is going beyond concept.

If evolution occurs within relative, linear time (which, even though it can be measured by a chronometer, itself can fall prey to ‘the myth of the given’) then “the timeless Urgrund” points to something outside of, or beyond, conventional time. In the Dzogchen teaching this is referred to as ‘The Fourth Time’ (to distinguish it from ‘the Three Times’ of past, present and future) and in this way is seen to qualify the Ground (the inseparability of kadag and lhundrub). In this context kadag is Emptiness and lhundrub is Form. Wiber says “the world of Form evolves” and here he would seem to be implying an essentially ongoing limitation to the world of Form vis a vis possible future forms in a future, further-evolved world — whereas from the perspective of Dzogchen lhundrub is the infinite potentiality of manifestation of Form, inseparable from Emptiness.

As expressed earlier, as concepts these are ‘givens’ (I do, however, look forward to seeing how they might be presented from the point of view of a post-metaphysical model or vision) but according to the ‘timeless’ Dzogchen teaching, the Fruit, aka ‘total realisation’, is no different from the Ground, and as such is direct, never-interrupted, non-dual awareness never-separate-from lhundrub — further qualified as having an ‘infinite quantity and quality of Wisdom’. As such it is a very different definition of Enlightenment.

Of course all of this could be dismissed by some, perhaps, as mythic make-believe. How might one ever determine what really is the case? Essentially, by accepting and testing the various injunctions and seeing if they hold true, and this is the Path. It may be a process, but it is not considered to be an everlasting process.

Re: enlightenment?

Damned thing repeatedly insisted on not uploading the last paragraph, so here it is:

From the perspective of the Dzogchen teaching, what is completely indispensable is transmission, which comes with being directly introduced to ones primordial state by someone who has the capacity to effect this. When one has been introduced to ones primordial state, and is in ‘instant presence’ of this, then it is said in the teaching that one is, there and then, in non-dual awareness of the inseparability of kadag and lhundrub. What distinguishes this from ‘total realisation’ is the degree / level / depth of ones capacity. For the practitioner on the Path, among the many things that might be ‘missing’ are the capacity to be in this non-dual awareness permanently, and the capacity to have full knowledge of ‘infinite potentiality’.

Re: enlightenment?

ma rig pa

i get the depth of practice and study that you bring to the subject.

i personally dig on your level of enthusiasm.

at the same time i cant help but get the impression that this is a lot of jargon, orthodoxy and abstract faith based beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality and how one realizes it….

how do you reconcile this set of ideas with a myth of the given type of analysis?

i personally am really bored when wilber tries to define enlightenment and find it utterly pretentious and giving credibility to a kind of literalized fantasy that doesn't interest me.

he has proven his naivette and poor judgement with both adi da and cohen with regard to “enlightened people”. many have suffered as a result.

please understand that i have deep respect for your experiences and for the meaning they have for you. at the same time do you get what i mean when i say that your last paragraph sounds almost like video gaming language?

although several particpants said that i made good points about how, in practice, the concept of enlightenement seems to create an opportunity for delusion and manipulation, nobody really addressed my points.

it sounds like you are repeating doctrine here about The Path, permanent non-dual awareness, infinite potentiality, and all the fun jargon…

my bullshit meter goes way up with this stuff.

i have been around the spiritual community probably as long as you have, and i have never come across anyone who was really into enlightenment who wasnt either full of shit or being manipulated into projecting some really special juju onto someone else who was full of shit!

are you aware of the corrupt gurus i have referenced and that they all used this concept to manipulate, swindle, abuse and mislead large numbers of gullible people?

i have come to the point where  i think all of it is just one big con. and that it is beside the point of step by step spiritual, psychological and cognitive growth without reliance on doctrine or belief in any ultimates..

now sure there are extraordinary states of consciousness that are possible - but for me the beauty of the integral model is that it has been able to point out that non-dual realization is not the cure for neuroses, and in some cases not the cure for some pretty nasty pathology….

my question to you all is this: why do we need to believe in an abstract ideal of a permanently relaizable ultimate state in order to do the work of deepening awareness and getting real with ourselves and the world?

i don't think we do.

why would we blieve in a state that no-one we've known has been in?  this is mythology. it's like the fantasy of walking on water.

jesus is not literally the son of god but my guru is literally in a state of god-realized enlightenement 24/7 - waking, dreaming, and deep sleep? come on.

in fact i think in some important ways that this abstract idealized ultimate state is a distraction from and a hindrance to the real work, it is something to believe in - just like any other religious doctrine.

Re: enlightenment?

Hi Julian

It was illuminating (maybe better not use the 'e' word!) for me to observe my own sometimes egoic sometimes not responses to your post, so thank you for that.

Feeling the self-contraction, as they say, noticing the tightening in the solar plexus (as well as in the mind) and some less easily distinguishable feeling tones that, together, seem to be met quite nicely by ….. 'oooerrr, he's talking to me!'

Observing myself having to resist the impulse to immediately start responding to your opening points without having read much further than them.

Then remembering that it's all play, really, and finding myself relaxing, noticing that this may be the first of your longer posts where I'm not experiencing you as shouting.

Julian, I shall respond to your points as best as I can, and if not point by point, as much as seems to be necessary in this regard. I notice you responded very promptly, maybe you've got Mercury conjunct Mars on the Ascendant in Gemini (only joking, honest!), but I think it's going to take me a lot longer, so I'm going to have to ask you to be patient and bear with me.

In the meantime I wish you ….. and everyone else in this wonderful we-space ….. a very happy New Year ….. may everything be auspicious (tashi deleg) in this coming year, a future that we can so easily take as a 'given'.

Lol

Re: enlightenment?

OH NO! YOU FEEL LIKE I'M SHOUTING AT YOU! :O)

please take as long as you need, brother.

i am not yelling, merely trying to get to the nuts and bolts of the topic at hand. i liiiiiiiike distinctions….

my points and questins are sincere and you might notice i start by assuring you of my respect and admiration.

i think it's beautiful and noble that you have a serious investment in a path. this requires, discipline and courage, imo.

the topic at hand is the myth of the given. it's dangers. it's implication.

what say you?

HAPPY NEW YEAR! ( i was shouting that time….)

Re: enlightenment?

shit - wrong thread……

i know i know - the topic is not the myth of the given yet - even though we did move some of the conversation over that way….

seriously though ma rig pa - i am interested in your thoughts.

peace
~julian

Re: enlightenment?

Regardless of how one might define “Enlightenment,” there does seem to be no way out of the myth of the given when attempting to “prove” it.

Myth 1:  Enlightenment exists.

Myth 2:  Enlightenment does not exist.


To make any argument for or against must pre-suppose one of those myths.


Possible solution to this conundrum:  Enlightement is the Reality/Realization that transcends all myths.

This does not answer the question whether or not there is such a Reality.  My answer to that question is that there is Something.  Whether it is Allness or Nothingness or “frisky dirt” or whatever is of no concern to me.  There is a Truth about this Something.  I don't know what that Truth is, but it is nonetheless.  Isn't it?

Soooo, choose your myth.  I'm gonna hedge my bets with this simple statement of surrender:  I don't know.

And I'm gonna piss off anybody who is attached to their particular myth:  You don't know, either;-)

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

hmmmm keith this is very fishy. :O) ya not pissing me off…

let's play: logical fallacies anyone?

it's just a little bit of a circular argument. ummm it's also a false dichotomy.

let's change some of the words:

either poseidon exists or poseidon does not exist.

both these ideas are myths that one chooses to believe. even not believing is a choice to believe in amyth - that which says poseidon does not exist.

since neither are provable and nobody really knows, i am going to choose to believe in poseidon.

i think the ancient greeks were onto something.

or how about:

either you think there is a soulmate out there that you are destined to find or you think there is not.

either one is a myth and you cant avoid belkieving one or the other.

personally i like to think that there really is a soulmate i am destined to meet so i choose to believe it and you can't prove there isnt….

or we could go to:

 either you're going to heaven or you're going to hell.

i believe in jesus because that's the way to heaven, - where are you going after you die?

**please bear in mind these examples illustrate the form and do not suggest identity with your content** in fact , they are purposely using ideas i think you do not agree with to illustrate the problem with these logical fallacies….:O)

so as per the defintions i linked to:

your argument is circular becuase it presupposes the existence of enlightenment in the premises - your belief in enlightenment is also your conclusion - so your argument proceeds by circular logic and proves nothing.

your argument is a false dichotomy because it supposes that there are only two options, when in fact the question is very complex and tehre are in fact multiple options, you then atttempt to prove that one of those two options is true based on making the other seem silly.

in both the circular argument and the false dichotomy logical fallacious nature of your argument there exists also straightforward myth of the given material in that you are assuming the concept enlightenment as a given, even though you discuss it as a myth your argument is about wether or not “it” exists.

Re: enlightenment?

Julian,

I think you missed my point…maybe I did too;-)  Maybe I was unclear.  I'll state it in as clear terms as I can.

Regarding enlightenment as myth or not:

I don't know, and you don't either.

Nevertheless, you are certain that your position is right.  I am certain that I do not know (and circularly so….I don't even know if I am certain).  Certainly, we can disagree.  Or is it a myth to suppose that there is a we than can disagree? ;-)  (guess what…I don't know)

One thing I have learned in this life (not sure how many others):  Beware of one who claims to know the Truth.  Are you making such a Truth claim?  That there is Absolutely No Such Thing as Enlightenment?  What makes you so sure? (topical answer….ego…same thing that makes me so sure that I don't know….weird, but fun;-))

I love my teacher, because he always says he hasn't a clue what he talks about.  He only relates his own experience.  I'll follow that example, because I find it beautiful, as I reiterate my previous statements.  I really don't know….anything.


Keith

Re: enlightenment?

Ma Rig Pa, although this is somewhat of a trivial observation, one objection I've had to Wilber's claims about enlightenment consisting of realizing “oneness with the highest level in the Kosmos to have emerged at any given time” is that it limits the perspective to the development of consciousness on Earth.  Of course, we do not know anything about consciousness on other planets, but it is certainly possible that there are higher forms of consciousness out there in our enormous universe.  Wilber does not answer whether the attainment of higher levels at any location within the Kosmos opens the window, evolutionarily, for a similar emergence on other worlds.  Perhaps he is relying on Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance, and therefore doesn't think we would resonate with alien forms of consciousness – but then it doesn't make sense to speak in terms of “realizing oneness with everything in existence in the Kosmos.” 

Or perhaps he thinks the Earth is the leading edge of evolution in the universe.

Or perhaps he hasn't considered this question!

Re: enlightenment?

Hi Balder,

This is quite topical actually!

I was listening to my teacher the other day, via a live webcast. At one point he said “I am not a modern person” then later, when talking about some people's difficulty in accepting the possibility of other kinds of beings on/in other worlds or dimensions, he asked them to look up at the night sky, take in the countless stars and ask themselves whether it's likely that our sun is the only star with a solar system, or even if they accept that there are other solar systems, whether it's likely ours is the only one that can support intelligent life. Of course this is by no means an original idea or argument, but it's maybe significant that it's coming from an almost septuagenarian Tibetan lama. Or maybe not.

I share your objection ….. and, recognising that your last 'perhaps' is tongue in cheek ….. even though I haven't even yet got my copy of I S, let alone read it (or S E S for that matter), it seems to me that our Ken's primary concern at the moment is to present perspectives that are palatable to all those post-modernists out there.

Loving your work over on this thread's companion, bro.

Lol

Re: enlightenment?

false dichotomy.

see above. :O) did you read the links? fun stuff…

ummmm the whole previous thread is an elaborate exploration of what the word enlightenement might mean and on my end what i think the problems are with the concept in practice.

have you heard the one about the lawyer who asks the person on the witness stand - “sir when did you stop beating your wife?”

your question feels reductionsistic and assumes a dichotomy i don't agree with. i have already gone into some detail on my actuall thoughts in the matter and don't want to repeat them too much.

as per my previous post, let's insert poseidon.

so you say: neither i nor you know if poseidon is a myth or not. becareful julian not to pretend to know this….well, sorry - poseidon is a mytrhic figure, an archetype, a symnbol that is not literally real.

even in the language common to discussion of enlightenement there is the central idea that it is not what you think it is.

the finger pointing at the moon etc…

as such (and from the point of view of some serious teachers of enlightenent) it is definitely a mythic symbol that represents something one has to go beyond the mythic symbol and the limited beliefs of your present state/stage to experience, - yes?

as such it is explicitly part of any serious earch for illumination to deconstruct and go beyond mythic images as literally interpreted facts…

in campbell's words - good myths are masks of god that are still transparent to transcendence.

i am happy to claim the more conventional western meaning of enlightement here as having to do with knowledge.

critical thinking and a willingness to deonstruct the myth of the given (in this case the aspect that has to do with the concept of enlightenment) allows knowledge/awarenes to emerge that is enlightening…

semiotics anyone?

:O)

my position again: the literalist and fetishistic way that the word enlightenemnt is used in popular spirituality is highly problematic, regressive and idealizing of states and individuals in a way that is often quite destructive and ironically limiting of authentic growth, healing and awakening.

Re: enlightenment?

Hi Julian

Sorry, not had time to repond to your earlier response to my … you know wot I mean … yet …… I've been too busy reading all the great posts (yours included of course) on various threads …… but  this I find I can respond to reasonably easily!

If your position is simply as you state here:

“my position again: the literalist and fetishistic way that the word enlightenemnt is used in popular spirituality is highly problematic, regressive and idealizing of states and individuals in a way that is often quite destructive and ironically limiting of authentic growth, healing and awakening.”

I have no difficulty with it whatsoever ….. apart from a small matter of wanting to subtitute the three usages of 'is' with 'can be' x 2 and 'can (often) be' .

Lol

Re: enlightenment?

ma

rip

pa

i'll

take

it

!

:

o

)

~

J

Re: enlightenment?

I have read this entire thread and been engaged in it from the start, so I think I know what the gist of the arguments are.  Respectfully, yes, I read the links before my previous post, though I already know what circular logic is.  Then, I wrote what I wrote in my previous post (which I still think is a valid argument and not at all like the Poseiden myth or the lawyer question).  Then I read your reply.  Then I wrote a bunch of stuff in this reply but deleted it all.  Fun stuff, indeed.;-)

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

oh ok keith - i will go back and see what i missed!

i must have misunderstood something.

apologies.

~julian

Re: enlightenment?

well i think what i missed keith was the goood natured humor in your last two posts. this time around i enjoyed that! thanks.

i still think you are mistaken in calling my attitude toward the concept of enlightenment a “myth”.

i still think what you presented (humor and all) was a fralse dichotomy and a circular argument.

now your position may well be correct - you are right i actually dont know. but your argument does not back this up.

the examples i used apply to this problem.

another angle on my central premise in this discussion:

by definition enlightenment (in the spiritual, not commonplace or historical meaning) is beyond dualistic concepts.

therefore it follows that any attempt to define enlightenment will be inadequate.

therefore my point stands that the amount of energy people put into trying to define and attain enlightenment in some concrete dualistic way is in fact a blind alley.

i think it is better understood in an archetypal/symbolic way. i think it is also a good idea to investigate this fasacination and longing for holy enlightened messiahs and ask ouselves how realistic this is and what if any actual experience it is based in…

i like the fact that your teacher doesnt claim nor define enlightenment - a good sign imo.

again i have noticed that the teachers who do claim and define this big old red herring tend to be suspect and to use it in a way that makes their usuallly quite gullible followers apt to accept all kinds of unethical behaviour and cultic situations that do the opposite of healing or awakening anyone….

this is based on the history of the term in our weastern adoption of all things eastern - not in my believing or not believing anything at all.

Re: enlightenment?

Thanks for the reply, Julian.  I think we probably agree more than not.  I get a bit frustrated (having fun with it mostly, but a little frustration does arise) at the medium of forum posting.  Most of the time when there appears to be disagreement it can be easily sorted out by some dialogue.  My guess is that if we could explain ourselves in a more freeform way (unconditioned??? how appropriate) we would be in a much better position to get our points across.  Maybe not.  I don't know;-)

Peace

Keith

Re: enlightenment?

Julian wrote: “i like the fact that your teacher doesnt claim nor define enlightenment - a good sign imo.
again i have noticed that the teachers who do claim and define this big old red herring tend to be suspect and to use it in a way that makes their usuallly quite gullible followers apt to accept all kinds of unethical behaviour and cultic situations that do the opposite of healing or awakening anyone….”

It is funny about the 'voodoo' around enlightment…. if enlightenment was a gallstone attack, there would be signsand symptoms identified, an easily recognizable pattern of events, some simple tests to confirm…and then there would be some research done wondering why did this particular person get THIS….maybe there would be some straight forward answers maybe not….but still there would not be this big deal about it.  I have loved the brutual inquiry that Jana Dixon insists upon wherever she writes….. (google: “the biology of kundalini” if you are not familiar with her work, and otherwise she continues to post brilliant and brutally honest synopses of her experience on the HeartMind Community Forum). 

Nobody immediately suspects a person having a gallbladder attack of being a Narcissistic Asshole about to vie for power among a bunch of gullible sheep.

Maybe it is time to take Enlightenment off the pedistal and have a nice hearty look at it…..maybe it is time for the 'hero to return' and instead of 'playing the fool in front of the sober (unenlightened) eyes of the jury', it is time for all of us with our various myriad of experiences(narcissitic assholean experiences included) to welcome them back , 'hail fellow, well met!' and have a look-see at what they came up with on their adventures….. I'm just sayin' …..  :)

Re: enlightenment?

intertesting reflections jane. yeah, i actually know jana from a different forum. she has some good stuff…

Re: enlightenment?

Jane:  “if enlightenment was a gallstone attack, there would be signsand symptoms identified, an easily recognizable pattern of events, some simple tests to confirm…and then there would be some research done wondering why did this particular person get THIS….maybe there would be some straight forward answers maybe not….but still there would not be this big deal about it.”

I saw where you paraphrase Grof in another place Jane, and thought of this when I read your quote above:

 

Grof:
“At the cradle of each major religion are direct spiritual or transpersonal experiences of the founders, saints, and prophets. Buddha meditating under the Bo tree experienced the onslaught of Kama Mara, the master of the world illusion, and his terrifying army. The Koran and the Moslem religion were inspired by the “miraculous journey of Mohammed”, a visionary experience during which he was guided by archangel Gabriel through the seven heavens, the paradise, and the infernal regions of Gehenna. Similarly Jesus, according to the Bible, had a powerful visionary encounter with the devil during which he was exposed to his temptations. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament abound in descriptions of transpersonal experiences reflecting connection and communication with God and with angels. We have seen many similar experiences in the holotropic breathwork sessions, in psychedelic therapy, as well as during spontaneous psychospiritual crises (“spiritual emergencies”). We could add to the list St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Anthony, and many other Christian saints and Desert Fathers, as well as Ramakrishna and Shri Ramana Maharshi-they all had powerful visionary experiences of one kind or another.

According to traditional psychiatry, all these people would be seen as psychotics or people suffering from some other serious psychiatric condition. We actually have many psychiatric articles and books that discuss which psychiatric diagnosis would be most appropriate for the founders of various religions, their prophets, and saints. Franz Alexander, a famous psychoanalyst and founder of psychosomatic medicine, even wrote a paper entitled Buddhist Meditation as an Artificial Catatonia, putting spiritual practice into a pathological context.

Similarly, anthropologists argue whether shamans should be viewed as hysterics, epileptics, schizophrenics, or maybe ambulant psychotics. Many people who have transpersonal experiences are automatically treated as psychotics, people suffering from a mental disease, because psychiatrists do not make a distinction between a mystical experience and a psychotic experience. ”

Re: enlightenment?

ahhhhh we need a lot more from you in the pre/trans thread transient!