Herd Mind or Enlightenemnt?

[satsujin]

Almost every report of someone who claims to have achieved enlightenment ( or god-realization) is described the same way. It always has the element of losing the concept of the self in the many. Being one with everything & everyone. Since most New Age spiritual practices present the concept of God being everything, this is taken to mean that a person has become one with God.

 

However, other than this "God is everything" concept, what is making us associate this experience with God, whatever God is supposed to be? I have recently been considering the concept of the herd mentality of humanity. Science has put forward the idea that this element exists as a leftover from our evolution from a herd species. I am certain this element exists from my own personal experiences to need to conform to mass society and also the existence of mob mentality which I need to research further. Perhaps I can state one example of the still existing herd mind in me: When I put my movie rankings on Criticker, I always have a number decided before visiting the site but once I get there and see rankings of others or its average, I feel the need to adjust my score to match theirs. I can fight this urge but it will always present itself initially as an automatic mental effect.

 

So perhaps what we currently call enlightenment is simply an example of this herd mind element in the brain completely gaining control for a little while? I don't know. Just an idea that occured to me. Would love to hear your views.

Edited January 29, 2015 by satsujin

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Interesting ideas. Maybe the herd instinct is involved in clinging to transcendent self. It's the greatest combination of unity with the group with there still being an individual body/mind that anyone could imagine - you get to satisfy the need for group belonging absolutely, but still keep the individual's individuality.

 

IMHO, when someone loses the view of individual self (I am this body/mind) but then clings to a view of a transcendent self (we are all one, all the Self, etc), it is because they aren't ready to completely let go of all ideas of self, they are still clinging on to the idea that there is some sort of self.

 

So imagine reality as an infinite net. Belief in individual self is thinking that the part of the net marking your body/mind is substantial and lasting, separate from the rest. Belief in transcendent self is thinking that you are the infinite net, with each body/mind just being part of your true self. Letting go of the view of self entirely is accepting that there is just string, arranged as an infinite net.

 

 

[Infinity]

When one candle lights and warms a room it's easier for others to be lit.

 

Herd mentality is surely driven with unconciousness and fear?

 

It could I suppose apply but any mind subscribing to the herds ways would have no understanding of what he/she were doing surely? Would not they just be mirroring those around them?

 

More conscious minds don't follow the herd they walk there own path as individuals.

[satsujin]

I don't think herd mentality is always driven by fear. I think it arises more out of a sense to belong. Certainly, the self always wants to BE instead of becoming lost but there is also a lot of times a sense to be part of something. Herd mentality is not a unstoppable force if you realize that it can control you if you let it but even more conscious minds have a philosophy or concept of self beliefs that they associate with others and possibly want to be a part of.

 

However, my idea is that what we call enlightenment is a temporary takeover of the consciousness by the subconscious of the herd mind.

[Infinity]

I don't think herd mentality is always driven by fear. I think it arises more out of a sense to belong. Certainly, the self always wants to BE instead of becoming lost but there is also a lot of times a sense to be part of something. Herd mentality is not a unstoppable force if you realize that it can control you if you let it but even more conscious minds have a philosophy or concept of self beliefs that they associate with others and possibly want to be a part of.

 

However, my idea is that what we call enlightenment is a temporary takeover of the consciousness by the subconscious of the herd mind.

 

I take your point about belonging.

 

So you are also saying that the 'herd minds' subconscious takes over an individuals conscious mind? Not sure I follow... Surely the conscious minds of the herd all agree on an idea and or action and follow it for what ever reason?

 

I don't think enlightenment is an 'idea' in my opinion in fact it is eventually in its final stage the complete loss of all ideas and concepts about anything and the simply abiding in 'what is' - 'reality'.

 

Eventually again in my opinion there is no position or perspective that can be held as all positions and perspectives no matter how contradictory are both true and untrue and duality collapses into a 'singularity' or a oneness or an emptiness which is over flowingly full so to speak.

 

∞

Edited January 29, 2015 by Infinity

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Well, one of the issues here is people have different views on what enlightenment is. Bear in mind that, in these discussions, different people can be speaking from different perspectives on what enlightenment is about.

 

Many people and traditions would describe it in terms of unity with everything or an absolute like God, but I see that as just another idea or experience, and I don't think there is any absolute, only interdependent processes. From my perspective, a significant part of awakening is letting go of all possible views of self - individual (I am this body/mind), transcendent (I am one with all), and clinging to the idea there is no self at all - though no-self is a nice shorthand term for this stuff.

 

So IMO if someone claims to be enlightened but says they are one with everything, they aren't enlightened (maybe partway there though) because they are still clinging to a transcendent view of self. Enlightenment as I see it is therefore not a takeover of the conscious by the herd mind, it is liberation from views, attachments, ignorance and so on. But perhaps what some people interpret as enlightenment is actually a takeover of the conscious by the herd mind.

[satsujin]

True, how can you be one with everything if there is a you to experience that. But you can be part of everything. That seems a more rational explanation of the experience. Part of a group. Belonging to something bigger than the self while still being aware of the self. That would match the herd mind. But this is all conjecture on my part anyway! Does anyone know if someone has looked into concept more deeply? Some writings or somesuch?

Edited January 29, 2015 by satsujin

[Marblehead]

This is the first time I have seen (heard) of the concepts of "enlightenment" and "herd mentality" linked.

 

And no, I still have not heard a good definition of what "enlightenment" is or is supposed to be.

 

But I do understand the concept of "herd mentality" from Nietzsche's writings.

 

And even though I most times speak negatively of "herd mentality" I really do understand that there are many who need to be a part of something greater than themselves. That's basically what "herd mentality" is. The need to be accepted by other members of the herd. So they "act" like the rest of the herd.

 

Enlightenment, as far as I can tell, is a personal thing. It has nothing to do with the herd. Just because we can say the same words someone we consider enlightened does not mean that we are enlightened. All it means is we are being a member of the herd.

[Jetsun]

The herd mind is a form of deep survival consciousness so therefore it is trying to keep you unconscious or you could say on the side of Mara, not that it is bad but any movement towards freedom will eventually mean transcending it as it is old outdated conditioning. Being part of the herd or a group you could say is a substitute for the real thing of unity, yoga, non-duality,enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, but any substitute is ultimately unfulfilling because although you feel less separate in a group you are still in seperation from all that which isn't in your herd.

[Spotless]

I don't think herd mentality is always driven by fear. I think it arises more out of a sense to belong. Certainly, the self always wants to BE instead of becoming lost but there is also a lot of times a sense to be part of something. Herd mentality is not a unstoppable force if you realize that it can control you if you let it but even more conscious minds have a philosophy or concept of self beliefs that they associate with others and possibly want to be a part of.

 

However, my idea is that what we call enlightenment is a temporary takeover of the consciousness by the subconscious of the herd mind.

 

The sense "to belong" is fear driven.

 

We do not understand the magnitude of our fear.

 

Awakening and enlightening is not just another cardboard experience of the mundane.

Many of the comments here also suggest the depth to which "mind" is continually assessed conceptually as the only real element of humanity while Awakening diminishes this enormously and understands the inhabiting and becoming of much more both physically in a massive quantum leap and in the greater intuitive life ( which is not one of "better hunches" - it is "Knowing").

 

Faulting Awakened individuals neatly and concisely because they do not walk on water in total and complete perfection is very much like faulting them for having excessive nose hair - when the dross of fear and the false selves drop away and the great well of that which we are comes to light, the body will have residual patterns that still reflect in daily life but identification with them is gone.

 

Imagine those residual patterns still lingering within a body no longer held back by fear - none - no fear of phicological reprisal either - no fear - humanity truely does not understand the encompassing fullness of their fear - it is in everything we do and every step we take. The most fearless non-awakened person on earth is practically paralyzed by fear in comparison to one that is Awakened.

 

Their is a reason for not pushing to become awakened by short cut methods - for the most part they are ineffective for the purposes of awakening and if they did put you there you would be incorporated there with more physical baggage than you would wish to have incorporated and at that point it is often very difficult to ferret out "human" issues and in a certain sense "give a flying shit". There are other things that must go unsaid though they are sitting on the front shelf for anyone to see if they would just remove for a few moments the "perfection" glasses that have been fitted and self implanted into their inner eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[satsujin]

Faulting Awakened individuals neatly and concisely because they do not walk on water in total and complete perfection is very much like faulting them for having excessive nose hair - when the dross of fear and the false selves drop away and the great well of that which we are comes to light, the body will have residual patterns that still reflect in daily life but identification with them is gone.

 

I understand that those who have undergone the experience of enlightenment may not be willing to consider this as a possibility. And I am not one of them so I can't speak for the experience. But what really changes about you after the experience? One of the things you state above is loss of fear. But didn't you take this viewpoint during your practice even before the experience? But not having undergone the experience personally, I admit I could just be talking out of my rear end.

[Marblehead]

I understand that those who have undergone the experience of enlightenment may not be willing to consider this as a possibility. And I am not one of them so I can't speak for the experience. But what really changes about you after the experience? One of the things you state above is loss of fear. But didn't you take this viewpoint during your practice even before the experience? But not having undergone the experience personally, I admit I could just be talking out of my rear end.

That's actually a fair question, I think. Many things happen during our evolution. If the changes are slow enough we don't even notice them until one day we just click and say, "Hey! What happened?"

 

As stated, I can't speak to enlightenment but I can speak about peace and contentment. This too comes slowly and most times we don't even know we are approaching that state until that one day we click.

[Spotless]

 

I understand that those who have undergone the experience of enlightenment may not be willing to consider this as a possibility. And I am not one of them so I can't speak for the experience. But what really changes about you after the experience? One of the things you state above is loss of fear. But didn't you take this viewpoint during your practice even before the experience? But not having undergone the experience personally, I admit I could just be talking out of my rear end.

"I understand that those who have undergone the experience of enlightenment may not be willing to consider this as a possibility"

Willing to consider what as a possibility?

 

Regarding what really changes - imagine you just unzip from your previous existence and enter into another world entirely yet with all the same actors and on the same set - and the new existence has no noise from your head and you are in complete communion with the energetic sphere of your physicality which extends outward now by several feet and also encompasses now everything in existence. You weigh about half what you used to weigh - waking has no momentum - things happen but not "to you". A being begins speaking and you see them and hear them - you are not actively engaged in resonance and resistance with them and the fluttering comingaling of assessing and sniffing each other in judgement and ancestral instinctive pecking orders.

 

The comprehension of fear and just how completely it douses our reality is impossible to have a view of during ones practice and prior to Awakening. Viewpoints along these lines take on a sort of knowing glow in comraderry among those seeking but the tiny morsel of what they allow as fear based is microscopic by comparison to the pervading entirity of its paralysis within the minutia of vanities and pecking status.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Spotless

[satsujin]

I guess thats the problem with personal experiences, Spotless. Only YOU know what they are like. However the opening of your third eye even involves elements like weight change which I have not heard other so called Awakened ones speak of but it is a way to prove to others that something significant, even if only physical, happened.

 

Also, it seems to me that for all your claim of being in communion with everything, you still say you see things like pecking orders in people when they speak to you. I may not be Enlightened but fortunately I don't automatically see this when I speak to someone so maybe Enlightenment isn't all it's cracked up to be.

 

As for "willing to consider what as a possibility", I just meant the initial thrust of my first post which was the "Oneness with All" might be an effect of Herd Mind in the brain.

Edited January 29, 2015 by satsujin

[GrandmasterP]

Herd mind implies a herd to belong to and identify with.

It's not necessarily a negative thing.

For example basic training in the services inculcates a certain group think and strong identification with one's comrades essential for large groups of people to function efficiently especially under pressure.

I'm not sure what 'enlightenment' is but those who talk it up strike me as very individualistic people because each seems to have their own individual take on what enlightenment means to them.

Hence I don't think that 'herd mind' and 'enlightenment' sit comfortably together.

Edited January 29, 2015 by GrandmasterP

[Spotless]

I guess thats the problem with personal experiences, Spotless. Only YOU know what they are like. However the opening of your third eye even involves elements like weight change which I have not heard other so called Awakened ones speak of but it is a way to prove to others that something significant, even if only physical, happened.

 

Also, it seems to me that for all your claim of being in communion with everything, you still say you see things like pecking orders in people when they speak to you. I may not be Enlightened but fortunately I don't automatically see this when I speak to someone so maybe Enlightenment isn't all it's cracked up to be.

 

As for "willing to consider what as a possibility", I just meant the initial thrust of my first post which was the "Oneness with All" might be an effect of Herd Mind in the brain.

 

Please reread my post to you which you appear to believe you responded to above.

Also - what are you really here for?

 

[vonkrankenhaus]

Re:

-----

"I have recently been considering the concept of the herd mentality of humanity. Science has put forward the idea that this element exists as a leftover from our evolution from a herd species."

-----

 

It's a "switcheroo" sort of mind trick that takes advantage of the fact that individuals and families were (and are) being minimized and disbanded, and new formations are pushed to replace them - citizen, consumers, and so forth.

 

Public education, Radio, and TV were the focus of this effort, and these are where this idea has been propagated.

 

It is almost impossible to govern and run a mass of people who are rugged individualists and/or have solid family identifications.

 

So, after 12 years of primary brainwashing plus maybe 4 additional years of specialized brainwashing, plus all the hours and hours of "programming" in education and entertainment - is it any wonder a "herd" results?

 

What were these people being fed?

 

Cows. They were taught to drink the milk and eat the flesh of cows.

 

Is it any wonder a "herd" results?

 

One guy on a horse (media, authority), or a guy and a dog - that's all it takes to run a herd.

 

We are each Infinity itself manifested on this Earth. Our Infinite Spiritual Memory, which is inside and all around us, can never fully accept these suggestions and stipulations. We see "family" redefined as two gay guys and a toaster, for example, and some of us don't fully believe it.

 

So now there is a herd seeking "enlightenment".

 

Having been taken so far off from real life and our real development, what else could result?

 

Meanwhile, decades and centuries of control are achieved.

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[3bob]

What are you really here for Spotless, grinding your variation of an axe that you have twisted into superiority?

(which is how it sometimes sounds)

Edited January 29, 2015 by 3bob

[satsujin]

Please reread my post to you which you appear to believe you responded to above. Also - what are you really here for?

I understand your post to be your outline of what enlightenment was for you. What is enlightenment for one possibly need not be the same for another even though many recountings from different people have very similar elements.

 

As to your question, I'm not sure what you are asking. If you mean why I am in this forum, it's just an interesting place to bounce weird ideas that occasionally pop into my head.

If you are asking for my purpose in life, I'm not sure I have one. I realize society generally deems one necessary to find happiness in life but I am not sure this is true. It certainly makes life more interesting, I'll give it that.

[3bob]

Interesting ideas. Maybe the herd instinct is involved in clinging to transcendent self. It's the greatest combination of unity with the group with there still being an individual body/mind that anyone could imagine - you get to satisfy the need for group belonging absolutely, but still keep the individual's individuality.

 

IMHO, when someone loses the view of individual self (I am this body/mind) but then clings to a view of a transcendent self (we are all one, all the Self, etc), it is because they aren't ready to completely let go of all ideas of self, they are still clinging on to the idea that there is some sort of self.

 

So imagine reality as an infinite net. Belief in individual self is thinking that the part of the net marking your body/mind is substantial and lasting, separate from the rest. Belief in transcendent self is thinking that you are the infinite net, with each body/mind just being part of your true self. Letting go of the view of self entirely is accepting that there is just string, arranged as an infinite net.

 

"Imagine" dropping Buddhism which is what a Buddha does in the end...

[3bob]

This is the first time I have seen (heard) of the concepts of "enlightenment" and "herd mentality" linked.

 

And no, I still have not heard a good definition of what "enlightenment" is or is supposed to be.

 

But I do understand the concept of "herd mentality" from Nietzsche's writings.

 

And even though I most times speak negatively of "herd mentality" I really do understand that there are many who need to be a part of something greater than themselves. That's basically what "herd mentality" is. The need to be accepted by other members of the herd. So they "act" like the rest of the herd.

 

Enlightenment, as far as I can tell, is a personal thing. It has nothing to do with the herd. Just because we can say the same words someone we consider enlightened does not mean that we are enlightened. All it means is we are being a member of the herd.

 

"And no, I still have not heard a good definition of what "enlightenment" is or is supposed to be." By MH

 

Is that so? Have you not heard a good concept for it is as being very well pointed to in the T.T.C.?

[3bob]

I understand your post to be your outline of what enlightenment was for you. What is enlightenment for one possibly need not be the same for another even though many recountings from different people have very similar elements.

 

As to your question, I'm not sure what you are asking. If you mean why I am in this forum, it's just an interesting place to bounce weird ideas that occasionally pop into my head.

If you are asking for my purpose in life, I'm not sure I have one. I realize society generally deems one necessary to find happiness in life but I am not sure this is true. It certainly makes life more interesting, I'll give it that.

 

"...If you are asking for my purpose in life, I'm not sure I have one. I realize society generally deems one necessary to find happiness in life but I am not sure this is true. It certainly makes life more interesting, I'll give it that" By Satsujin

 

This bringing up of individual "purpose" is a very important subject and is linked with group purpose, or as it might be downgraded to "herd mind" for the purpose of taking it on a ride. Anyway, all beings have dharmas to fulfill both individual and group and the fulfilling those undeniable dharmas is also related to the working out of undeniable karmas, for only then does freedom hatch out of the egg shell it was contained in, an egg shell (or ego) that also had a purpose.

Edited January 29, 2015 by 3bob

[satsujin]

Not sure I understand what you are saying, 3Bob. Is it that the idea of purpose is an illusion that we can break free from?

[Marblehead]

"And no, I still have not heard a good definition of what "enlightenment" is or is supposed to be." By MH

 

Is that so? Have you not heard a good concept for it is as being very well pointed to in the T.T.C.?

Nope. I can wu wei all day long but that's not enlightenment, is it?

 

I can chop wood and carry water but supposedly that is what one does both before and after enlightenment.

 

First there was a mountain and all that but still, if you want to get to the other side you either have to walk over or around the mountain. The mountain will still be there even if you say there is no mountain.

 

To know when one has enough: Is that enlightenment?

[Marblehead]

Is it that the idea of purpose is an illusion that we can break free from?

Beautiful question.