Enlightenment And Evolution

[Wayfarer64]

Memo to self:

 

Things to do with my enlightenment-

 

I will name my enlightenment "Boogaloo".

I will train it to come and sit and play dead, feed it table scraps and take it for long walks.

Plan B - Go to the pound and find a happy puppy to love me.

Scratch that- too daunting a responsibility to take on this week.

So...

Reassesment:

It may be best just to clean my abode and air it out with cool Autumnal breezes,

Rename myself BoogieWoogie and claim bank-ruptcy.

 

Positives-

My reality will be changed and I will find the new me to be a very happy camper indeed, this I promise myself.

I know something I can do with my new enlightenment will make me a complete human being !

I know because I've read of such things and met happy people with love and wisdom shining from their eyes,

I will become as they are.

 

Negatives:

Unknown time frame-

I'd like this to get wrapped up sometime next winter as my new life should start around the vernal equanox...

Unsure if bad credit ratings will still follow me as Mr. Woogie.

Will need astute lawyer to solidify my new status. (may want 1/3 of my enlightenment)...

 

Conclusion-Pretend it never happened...No one will notice anyway.

Edited October 11, 2006 by Wayfarer64

[fatherpaul]

Memo to self:

 

Things to do with my enlightenment-

 

I will name my enlightenment "Boogaloo".

I will train it to come and sit and play dead, feed it table scraps and take it for long walks.

Plan B - Go to the pound and find a happy puppy to love me.

Scratch that- too daunting a responsibility to take on this week.

So...

Reassesment:

It may be best just to clean my abode and air it out with cool Autumnal breezes,

Rename myself BoogieWoogie and claim bank-ruptcy.

 

Positives-

My reality will be changed and I will find the new me to be a very happy camper indeed, this I promise myself.

I know something I can do with my new enlightenment will make me a complete human being !

I know because I've read of such things and met happy people with love and wisdom shining from their eyes,

I will become as they are.

 

Negatives:

Unknown time frame-

I'd like this to get wrapped up sometime next winter as my new life should start around the vernal equanox...

Unsure if bad credit ratings will still follow me as Mr. Woogie.

Will need astute lawyer to solidify my new status. (may want 1/3 of my enlightenment)...

 

Conclusion-Pretend it never happened...No one will notice anyway.

 

 

 

: )

[Uncle Fester]

.

Edited September 20, 2021 by darebak

[Wayfarer64]

I've written elsewhere about my finding Taoism through the Yi Jing. The basic structure of the hexagrams used to illustrate cercumstances, are discribed therein by way of the family structure.

 

Since my birth family was not very tightly-knit and pretty dysfunctional, the basic family orientation many if not most people enjoy, was not mine to start with. The man who was my father had no emotional connection to me. And there was only a somewhat more natural love between my mother, sister and myself. Still, there has been a lot of love given and accepted in my life.

 

I am not sure how deep and loving understanding and enlightenment are so very different in the way we've been using the terms here. Yet, there is that element of otherness and attainment also spoken of here-something to become - an inner change that somehow creates a new "me"...

 

But a new me is being formed each moment anyway so where are my wings?

 

Becoming a new person happens all the time, particularly when I "fall in love"! I for one have never gotten it how I fall in love with someone else...It just takes over my heart and gets in my mind and I feel it in my gut.

It is not something I attain. It seems to take me on a journey and the new "we" formed by the relationship either learn how to make it last or we become seperated by other factors that somehow disperse that love...

Or they were taken from me and the world through death.

 

I do gain insight and knowledge about another human that I keep and this adds to my experience. I am not sure this knowledge can be call enlightenment but the deep sharing is as close as I've come to being a real part of the wider world. The connections remain through time and space and death. There is still a oneness -and obviously it is not exclusive as I still feel connected to several people who have died. What is that? A connection to being beyond life is not enlightenment nor just a strong memory. It is just part of being in this shared universe.

 

The "attainment" of such an experience has no value to the majority of spiritual teachers wanting my being to adhere to their path. The value of such union found through loving is denied by many teachers and seekers, who claim to offer something greater and even more eternal, in this transitory world....I think it is the bonds created in love that offer such experiences.

 

I may be better off seeking a new lasting love to share than an awakened me to balance the illuminated realms of higher being with the entropic nature of life's expected decay cycle at ever higher levels of consciousness...

 

It may be that seeking to live in ever more humble and earth-bound realms will bring me closer to that which I'll call the Tao. Allowing a simple and pragmatic acceptance of myself as I am, (while becoming renewed)may just be enough for the now to offer me another way to share love and acceptance. Maybe even find another being to be the Yin to my Yang as it were...

 

If I can accept myself being in the universe just as it is (ever changing)- then it may be that I will be at home no matter where I am or in whatever cercumstances I am changing yet some more...

[fatherpaul]

learn, yes, learn everyday

but without accumulation

a taoist loses everyday

 

"being empty, i am filled"

 

 

forgive me

but you seem serious and sincere

all the more reason

to look into the matter for yourself

 

peace,

paul

[cloud recluse]

To assume that you know what enlightenment is or isn't, is ignorance. Probably. I don't know. I'm not enlightened. If you are enlightened let me know. Then again you could name a sandwich enlightenment and then attain it. So nevermind.

 

Actually,Adyashanti said that no-one has ever found Enlightenment to be what they expected.Ever.

 

But he does seem to say that you CAN point to what it is NOT,& you can speak about its consequences.

 

Perhaps we are getting to the limits of speech here? You cant say what it is,but you can release false notions based on what it is not.

 

Or something.

 

Regards,Cloud

Edited October 18, 2006 by cloud recluse

[cloud recluse]

.... there is that element of otherness and attainment also spoken of here-something to become - an inner change that somehow creates a new "me"...

 

But a new me is being formed each moment anyway so where are my wings?

....

 

If I can accept myself being in the universe just as it is (ever changing)- then it may be that I will be at home no matter where I am or in whatever cercumstances I am changing yet some more...

 

Is Enlightenment really 'creating' a new me,or is it just relieving the ongoing creation of new me's from any burdensome obligation to solidify into some final form.

 

So then your acceptance of this process in itself,as its own justification,& the love you find in this process,would be perhaps the consequence of Enlightenment? Enlightenment freeing you up to become more intimate,more loving ,with this endless procession of change?

 

So those would be your wings,ready to unfurl AT ANY TIME,at any point in the process,as soon as you unburden the process from any desperation & open up to it in real love.The process never 'gets' you Enlightenment,Enlightenment is Always Allready your Beginingless condition.But you (we ,all of us) get confused,& look to the process to 'get' us Enlightenment,& so saddle the process with an impossible burden.

 

And once again,language is breaking down.

 

Regards,Cloud

[Wayfarer64]

Hi again Cloud!

 

I am lucky and sometimes swinish too! I can forget how to let myself be the best me possible; and yet I can remember being in the womb, born, more of my childhood than most folks I talk to of such times, and I seem to have kept a sort of deep contact with the eternal through-out my life. A few near-death experiences and out of body experiences, the thing with the Dalai Lama, and a pretty consistant ability to stay cheerful even when faced with dire circumstances -(as I am now... sort of worried about how to pay the rent & food bills etc)...And still sensing everything as being all right anyway...So I may indeed be on the way, or in the Tao or whatever we're calling the process of becoming a being of awarness!!??

 

Your suppositions are very intreaging!

 

What If it is as simple as just "being in the moment" and aware of our higher self's connection to the universal aspects of our environment? And what If we actually feel close to accepting that state of awareness that we all seem to be sharing here - as being enlightened!? Or it may be that just the activity of seeking and being aware of the process is to be enlightened and evolving...

 

And that is somewhat close to what I believe it to be. But then just the thought of such a "concession" seems so very egotistical that it just rings false...Wanting to keep my warrior's stance and face down the evils in the world, (as if they matter so very much to me as to supercede my own life's needs sometimes)...Is still being stuck on the kharmic meat-wheel of life's food-chain. Or at best the Artha level of human give & take...

 

So it would seem that we can exist on many levels of consciousness at the same time. And perhaps that is getting closer to the truth of this quest, that at some point our body/mind/soul/spirit/ consciousness somehow no longer contend or vie for energy and attention from each-other to maintain their seperate spheres...When we consciously unite ourselves to the eternal ever-changing aspects of our universe we have a chance of uniting what I'll call our chakras here- the alchemical bond is created, however we can express this ever-changing epression of being one with all.... and yeah language gets in the way for me here too!

 

But it seems that process is at least part of the continuum and our expanding awareness is the content of the changes we put ourselves through, or accept into our lives.

 

I guess I just haven't let go enough to desolve my self. Perhaps I have too large an ego to contend with at my current levels of energy and internal gumption. But this is a great thread to delve into the various aspects we each have experienced and tried to practice with both all due diligence & letting go of all striving...

 

The middle way between those two aspects of seeking may be somewhere to find the balance of these efforts for many of us.

[cloud recluse]

There is an adyashanti.org audio excerpt from Adyashanti , says what I wasTRYING to say FAR MORE ELOQUENTLY

 

It begins with Adya addressing someones question,& unfolds into the themes of inherent completeness & human exploration of new horizons.

 

Just click on "The Heart of Service" excerpt in the listen-on-line section in TEACHINGS.

Edited October 29, 2006 by cloud recluse

[Starjumper]

Before you go too far you should note that there is something called an enlightenment experience, and there is some thing else, they say, called being enlightened.

 

Two different things. Once the enlightenment experience is over, then, my friend, then you're no longer enlightened.

 

But,

 

It ignites a process, an unfolding, which may or may not result in what people call being enlightened, I'm not telling.

 

Two different things.

 

One is emotional bliss

 

the other one is something else.

Edited October 29, 2006 by Starjumper7

[cloud recluse]

Starjumper,

To be honest,I must disagree. Emotional Bliss,& any subsequent unfoldings it ignites,are great stuff & Im all for them.

 

But I dont see how either of them,in & of themselves,constitute Enlightenment.Bliss is one expereience among many,a temporary high subject to conditions.Unfoldement is a linear process governed by change & circumstance,once again subject to conditions.

 

Enlightenment,if it is to liberate,cant be any passing state,any new addition to ones experience.Rather,it would have to be the subtraction of an erroneous perspective from the experiencer.NOT a thing then vulnerable to circumstance or subject to conditions.

 

If it were so subject,it would no longer be a source of liberation.It would just be yet another state for the ego to temporarily experience.The ego would remain intact,no matter what the degree of empowerment it received from Bliss & unfolding.

 

If its to be worthy of the title Enlightenment,it must liberate.If its still conditional,as are Bliss & Unfolding,its NOT liberation.

 

Enlightenment would have to be a non-conditional freedom,a result of a 'letting go' rather than a 'clinging to'.A clinging is always destabilized by change,by conditions,sooner or later.Freedom would be the dropping of an agenda,the agenda to freeze experience in a way comforting to the ego.

 

One would then continue to have all manner of experiences,both 'High' & 'Low',Blissful & painful,but they would no longer be happening 'to' a dualistically motivated 'self'.Experience would be free of the burden of that agenda,& its energetic forms no longer distorted by that agenda.

 

Bliss & Unfolding are great,but they do not indicate Enlightenment.They may disturb the ego's sleep,but they will not awaken it.

 

And they are also two of this ego's favourite dreams

 

Regards,Cloud

[Spectrum]

"You will HAVE to intergrate it sooner or later,Enlightenment wont allow for anything else."

 

You could just go insane. It happens. It's important to have guidance from a teacher or mentor in spiritual matters. It seems easy for westerners to dualistically catagorize the three treasures without consistantly regonizing themselves as the medium of their art.

 

Spectrum

[Starjumper]

Starjumper,

To be honest,I must disagree. Emotional Bliss,& any subsequent unfoldings it ignites,are great stuff & Im all for them.

 

But I dont see how either of them,in & of themselves,constitute Enlightenment.

 

 

We agree much more than you know.

 

You are right, an enlightenment experience is not the same as being enlightened, at least not after the first 24 hours or so. During that initial time it is the same though. Then much work remains to be done, work that never ends.

 

Consider it a preview.

Edited October 29, 2006 by Starjumper7

[cloud recluse]

"You will HAVE to intergrate it sooner or later,Enlightenment wont allow for anything else."

 

You could just go insane...

 

Spectrum

 

Wasnt there some Zen tale to this effect? Some student fell Awake,then went nuts.Tried to teach Zen disciplines to the stray cats hanging around the monastery ? His teacher described him as "One of my two mistakes" ,or something like that?

[cloud recluse]

We agree much more than you know.

 

You are right, an enlightenment experience is not the same as being enlightened, at least not after the first 24 hours or so. During that initial time it is the same though. Then much work remains to be done, work that never ends...

 

Im still not sure that we do,though admittedly Im being VERY finicky about terminology.

 

Bliss itself might accompany the Falling Awake,the immense relief that comes with the unloading of the burden that is ego. Just think of the little bliss of a fever breaking,that in itself can be emotionally & physically plaesurable!!

 

If a particular persons ego-agenda was extremely painful,its falling away would be extremely pleasureable.For a while.Then the system would stabilize,& new temporary experiences would take its place.But the Enlightenment,the absence of the ego,would still remain.

 

But that Bliss would still not be the Enlightenment itself.More of a temporary byproduct.

 

Now you have a system free of the root delusion that generates 'ego',& that system can then begin the endless process of deepening & embodying that Enlightenment.

 

I suppose Im just very wary of any definitions that confuse the immediacy of Enlightenment with any temporary or linear proceses like Bliss or Deepening/Unfolding.Such a confusion would be counterproductive.

 

Regards,Cloud

[Uncle Fester]

.

Edited September 28, 2021 by darebak

[cloud recluse]

Coz Enlightened folks will take some time to clarify what Enlightenment is NOT

 

So this is not so much trying to fathom the unfathomable,but to dispel resistances to the Unfathomable in you when it stirs.

 

We can never "get" Enlightenment,but we can cease to resist the process when in awakens in us,& so allow it to Awaken us. So theres a lot of language that is useful,its just not literal.

 

Ultimately,mystic statements end in paradox/negation to free you from attachment to what you mistake for enlightenment. That in itself has value. And you can still speak about the CONSEQUENCE of Enlightenment for the remaining bodymind,whils still not circumscribing The dao itself.

 

So language CAN be useful,as long as you bear in mind its proper & improper functions.

 

Having said all that,Speaking may have absolutely no relevance to a particular individual at their own point in the process,but it has relevance for EVERYONE at some point. So we might as well clarify it & find the most useful forms that we can.

 

Anyhow,when are we going to get a bit more into the Evolution side of this thread !!

 

Regards,Cloud