Why is enlightenment a mystery?

[dwai]

Why is there so much mystery, so much confusion about enlightenment? Only because the Truth is sought as an object.

 

Balsekar, Ramesh (2014-08-06). The Ultimate Understanding (Kindle Locations 396-397). Yogi Impressions. Kindle Edition. 

 

[Karl]

Truth is a concept, it is when conception agrees with perception. X is X and a thing is a thing regardless of our thoughts about those facts. Only a conceptual being has the power to inquire if, what he thinks, agrees with what he senses; how he can come to know it and what he should do with that knowledge.

 

Where am I ? How do I know it ? What should I do ?

 

If truth were consciousness manifesting reality, then truth would be entirely subjective and a subjective truth is an oxymoron. There would be no point looking for something that could never be. It would be to decide that it was entirely unnecessary to know where you were because you couldn't know it and there would be no knowledge on which you could rely to decide what to do.

[C T]

you missed out 'Who am I'

[Marblehead]

Hey Karl, although that post is a little difficult to read I think it is a good response.

 

Enlightenment is one of those concepts that is difficult to speak to because there are so many different opinions of what enlightenment really is.

 

And I agree, if we view enlightenment subjectively we have already started down a path that leads to nowhere.

[Geof Nanto]

Inside the Dharma gates where form and emptiness are not two

A lame turtle with painted eyebrows stands in the evening breeze

[Gerard]

The problem is that most practitioners don't put the enough effort and time using mostly ONE METHOD for an extended amount of time to find out what enligthenment is all about. Getting there is the hardest part and also...I'll stop here since it's your duty to find out.

[Boy]

Let me add to the confusion by saying that the consciousness Balsekar speaks of is the one behind consciousness What people make of the former is in my opinion the source of all this confusion. I'm with Buddha in thinking you should mostly keep quiet about it and instead point out the way for those interested.

[Kar3n]

There is a breezeway to enlightenment, a gentle place that we get glimpses of what it is like to truly just be in our purest form. That place for me has been when bodhicitta and sunyata meet. In that place, if we are truly looking, we meet and see ourselves as we truly are and can forgive, accept ourselves and let go. We must first start within and then reach outward.

[Karl]

you missed out 'Who am I'

Only for the narcissistic and the mentally ill who are incapable of answering the three questions anyway.

[Kar3n]

Only for the narcissistic and the mentally ill who are incapable of answering the three questions anyway.

 

The true nature of self begs the question...    Who am I?

 

Sometimes, Karl, you seem to have some depth, and then you make comments like this.

I know, you know...

[Karl]

The true nature of self begs the question... Who am I?

 

Sometimes, Karl, you seem to have some depth, and then you make comments like this.

I know, you know...

It's a null question. You would only ask it if you believed you were something other than what you are, or indeed you were unable to determine who you were through illness or trauma. I don't say this in an off hand way. People who have suffered brain damage, multiple personality disorders, Alzheimer's disease truly don't know themselves. To lose ones mind is not to know self and that is a truly frightening proposition.

 

We are not stones which lie in a steam and are shaped by water. We make ourselves. We shape and are shaped by our will, by our capacity to reason in relation to reality. You need only answer those three questions; where am I ? How do I know it ? What should I do ?

 

It is pointless to try and reduce axioms. Existence exists and you are conscious of it. That's the starting point, the twin axiomatic truths which cannot be further broken down. It isn't possible to be conscious of consciousness, or conscious of unconsciousness, or conscious of nothing at all. Consciousness is something, it has identity, because it has identity it is capable of identifying. Consciousness isn't a fixed shape, it encompasses what we learn and expands as we integrate concepts logically. This is us making ourselves. We don't ask why the body requires food rather than poison, we know we must eat and must choose carefully what we eat in order to avoid death and increase health. It is exactly the same with the mind. We must be careful what we are digesting in order that we don't poison our consciousness, or leave it shrunken or disintegrated.

Edited July 21, 2016 by Karl

[Kar3n]

It's a null question. You would only ask it if you believed you were something other than what you are, or indeed you were unable to determine who you were through illness or trauma. I don't say this in an off hand way. People who have suffered brain damage, multiple personality disorders, Alzheimer's disease truly don't know themselves. To lose ones mind is not to know self and that is a truly frightening proposition.

 

We are not stones which lie in a steam and are shaped by water. We make ourselves. We shape and are shaped by our will, by our capacity to reason in relation to reality. You need only answer those three questions; where am I ? How do I know it ? What should I do ?

 

 

Do not all three of your questions involve I? After you have answered those three, in a spiritual sense, which you seem to be avoiding, there is a who am I question. You can disagree all you like, but before one can meet and see enlightenment we truly need to know who we are first. You know this as well as anyone, you choose to ignore it.

 

I will not argue, Karl. The truth is the truth. Who am I is a valid question to be answered on the path to enlightenment. 

 

You already know the answer <3

[3bob]

because it is not in or of the mind...

[Karl]

Do not all three of your questions involve I? After you have answered those three, in a spiritual sense, which you seem to be avoiding, there is a who am I question. You can disagree all you like, but before one can meet and see enlightenment we truly need to know who we are first. You know this as well as anyone, you choose to ignore it.

 

I will not argue, Karl. The truth is the truth. Who am I is a valid question to be answered on the path to enlightenment.

 

You already know the answer <3

You were born with the capacity of cognition and emotion but you were born a blank slate that began experiencing the world around you from the moment you could and then attempting to make sense of the chaos. How you build your conceptions, what values you choose, what rules you choose to live by, that is who you are. There is no need to look for something else, you made yourself in conjunction with your experiences. You are always expanding, ever evolving, you are not the you that you were at birth, only the axiomatic consciousness of existence remains like a hunger which must be fed.

 

There, I've answered your question. If you insist on trying to see your own eye you will be at it until the day you die. Your nature is a living organism, an animal that reasons. Your only means of survival is your mind. That is the beginning and end point of who you are. Your consciousness expands always to encompass the new integrations you make.

 

Seriously you are looking for something that never was hidden, you built it, you installed the flaws and the foundations. It's all you in every sense. Your experiences will shape those conceptions, if those were bad experiences then the conceptions can be disintegrated and disconnected from reality. We can be broken, we can lose our grip on reality if we suffer abuse/trauma particularly as children. I don't wish to psychologise, but I think much of the need for finding the self is related to avoiding who we are in favour of some fantasy of who we could be. Life is struggle.

Edited July 21, 2016 by Karl

[C T]

You were born with the capacity of cognition and emotion but you were born a blank slate that began experiencing the world around you from the moment you could and then attempting to make sense of the chaos. How you build your conceptions, what values you choose, what rules you choose to live by, that is who you are. There is no need to look for something else, you made yourself in conjunction with your experiences. You are always expanding, ever evolving, you are not the you that you were at birth, only the axiomatic consciousness of existence remains like a hunger which must be fed.

 

There, I've answered your question. If you insist on trying to see your own eye you will be at it until the day you die. Your nature is a living organism, an animal that reasons. Your only means of survival is your mind. That is the beginning and end point of who you are. Your consciousness expands always to encompass the new integrations you make.

 

Seriously you are looking for something that never was hidden, you built it, you installed the flaws and the foundations. It's all you in every sense. Your experiences will shape those conceptions, if those were bad experiences then the conceptions can be disintegrated and disconnected from reality. We can be broken, we can lose our grip on reality if we suffer abuse/trauma particularly as children. I don't wish to psychologise, but I think much of the need for finding the self is related to avoiding who we are in favour of some fantasy of who we could be. Life is struggle.

these are merely ideas unique to your own make-up - you carry them to make your world more logical and categorical. 

 

But its far from being logical and/or categorical. This world... 

 

 

Its not clear that you are speaking from a place of contentment and peace. Maybe you are at such a place, but its not showing in your words. 

 

You said you dont wish to psychologise, but in essence, that is precisely all you have - Karl's psychology. 

Just because it works for you, you form the insistence that it should work as a rule. 

Such a stance has its limits, and does not have the capacity to tolerate much, like a brittle, rigid stick. 

 

 

To question 'who am i' requires no answers, and yet you were quick to tie it up neatly and even put a little bow on it. 

Its a question that turns rigidity on its head. It leads to the dissolution of contracted thinking and unhappy pursuits. 

 

You brought up the term 'narcissistic'. 

 

Touche, i say. 

Edited July 21, 2016 by C T

[blue eyed snake]

nice thread

 

'I' am not

 

about enlightenment,

well, I suppose it is as telling a child about orgasm, words will never convey the experience, but they hint that there is an experience to be experienced, but only after you've grown up a bit

[Karl]

these are merely ideas unique to your own make-up - you carry them to make your world more logical and categorical. 

 

But its far from being logical and/or categorical. This world... 

 

 

Its not clear that you are speaking from a place of contentment and peace. Maybe you are at such a place, but its not showing in your words. 

 

You said you dont wish to psychologise, but in essence, that is precisely all you have - Karl's psychology. 

Just because it works for you, you form the insistence that it should work as a rule. 

Such a stance has its limits, and does not have the capacity to tolerate much, like a brittle, rigid stick. 

 

 

To question 'who am i' requires no answers, and yet you were quick to tie it up neatly and even put a little bow on it. 

Its a question that turns rigidity on its head. It leads to the dissolution of contracted thinking and unhappy pursuits. 

 

You brought up the term 'narcissistic'. 

 

Touche, i say.

 

My choices of value and ethics are certainly unique, but not the underlying reality that we all face. Reality does not alter according to perspective. Reality isn't subjective.

 

I don't seek to speak from a place of perfect contentment because no such place is possible, life is movement and survival. You must obtain the values that are critical to you and there is effort involved in that action. For some this comes more easily, for others it is a struggle, but for all it comes as a necessity if you hold your own life as a primary value. You must do something and you must discover what to do by using your mind.

 

It is nothing to do with 'it working for me' I'm not telling you what values you should have, what principles you need to obtain them or how you should go about obtaining and maintaining them. I'm simply setting out reality, existence, consciousness and reason. I'm telling you only how you function as a human being like a mechanic would tell a driver. I'm not the driver, nor the car, not the colour, not the route it shall take, nor the speed at which it will travel.

 

This is not about me telling you I have some perfect life, or that this is what you should choose. I'm telling you that reality is what it is, that there are facts, natures, identities and laws that are fixed absolutes. These include existence exists; existence is identity; consciousness is identification. That your only tool of survival is your mind, that your senses must be trusted and that your perceptions are truth, but that your conceptions can vary with respect to those perceptions. You can make errors in conception, but none are possible in perception. That you were born a blank slate except for your cognitive/emotional faculties and that everything must be experienced and learned. Everything you know must be based on perception, that this is the only way you can define proof/truth.

 

Reality is rigid. First obey nature then adapt nature. The flexible part is our cognitive apparatus, our ability to solve problems, to be logically deductive and thereby make inductive leaps.

 

You are talking of an emotional flexibility, an ability to absorb shocks, that is psychology, I don't speak to that. You may be more or less flexible in regard to adversity just as some men are physically more resilient, just as some cars are faster than others, some offer more safety and reliability. When you talk of contentment then that is what you are talking about. You call this 'spiritual' but it is emotional contentment that is sought. That is an act of hedonism. Contentment and happiness are the result of obtaining values, they are not values that you need to seek, first seek a real value, then contentment comes to let you know that you achieved that value according to your principles. As long as you are required to choose, then each choice will necessarily be a moral choice.

 

Why would you ask 'who am I' when you already know. You are defined by the way you use your mind, the experiences you have had, the values you hold and the principles (moral choices) you choose to obtain those values. Your emotions give clues to how closely you conform to your principles and your gain/loss of values. To wander the earth trying to find out who you are is like a man who says he has lost his spectacles, when in fact they are sat on his head. It is like counting the number of men crossing a stream and forgetting to count yourself and declaring that one of your number is lost.

[Marblehead]

I don't seek to speak from a place of perfect contentment because no such place is possible,

 

I agree.  However, when I speak of contentment I am speaking of inner contentment.

[Karl]

I agree. However, when I speak of contentment I am speaking of inner contentment.

There can only be inner contentment, but it is impermanent. You get hot, cold, hungry and thirsty. If you were perfectly contented there would be no desire to improve your situation by seeking the values of shade, a blanket, some food and a drink. Life is constant discontentment and the need to gain/keep values.

 

That you accept this to be true might be regarded as having contentment with discontentment, which I will rename as forcing oneself to accept reality as it is. ;-) that there are absolutes which you cannot change and other things that you can.

 

Funnily enough this thought of contentment with discontentment was my first ever glimpse of enlightenment. I realised that reality was really reality, that I got unhappy, sad, angry, happy regardless of how I thought I should be.

Edited July 21, 2016 by Karl

[Marblehead]

But Karl, most of what you spoke to there regards contentment with external contentment and in this case I agree with you.  Our externals are constantly changing as you described.

 

Yeah, when discontent we change those things we can change and accept or ignore those things we cannot change.

 

I will suggest that inner contentment can be permanent.  (I'm not saying I'm always there.)

 

So yes, there can be external discontentment while there is also inner contentment.

[C T]

There can only be inner contentment, but it is impermanent. You get hot, cold, hungry and thirsty. If you were perfectly contented there would be no desire to improve your situation by seeking the values of shade, a blanket, some food and a drink. Life is constant discontentment and the need to gain/keep values.

 

That you accept this to be true might be regarded as having contentment with discontentment, which I will rename as forcing oneself to accept reality as it is. ;-) that there are absolutes which you cannot change and other things that you can.

 

Funnily enough this thought of contentment with discontentment was my first ever glimpse of enlightenment. I realised that reality was really reality, that I got unhappy, sad, angry, happy regardless of how I thought I should be.

Now, this is something i can fully agree as containing the hallmarks of a maturing stability in understanding reality.

There is a clear indication of a certain willingness to allow for things to be as they are, not how they ought to be. 

 

Except perhaps that idea about having to induce force of acceptance as a fixed paradigm. It need not be, not as an eventuality, anyhow. 

[rex]

The fundamental existential questions:

Who am I?

Where have I come from?

Where am I going?

 

The fundamental advice from the Chaldean Oracles:

Know thyself

[Karl]

Now, this is something i can fully agree as containing the hallmarks of a maturing stability in understanding reality.

There is a clear indication of a certain willingness to allow for things to be as they are, not how they ought to be. 

 

Except perhaps that idea about having to induce force of acceptance as a fixed paradigm. It need not be, not as an eventuality, anyhow.

 

We are talking about different things. I have no willingness to allow things to be as they are, things are either absolutes or they are not. Things that I can change I must be willing to change and have the capacity to alter. I know the atom can be split, but I am incapable-at present, and unwilling to apply the effort required to affect the action. However I can and do obtain and prepare food for my consumption. I cannot alter gravity, but I can utilise gravity to obtain values I desire. If I fall from my bike I would wish to annul gravity, but as I cannot, then I wear protective clothing, maintain the motorcycle and ride skilfully. Without gravity a motorcycle would be completely useless.

[C T]

We are talking about different things. I have no willingness to allow things to be as they are, things are either absolutes or they are not. Things that I can change I must be willing to change and have the capacity to alter. I know the atom can be split, but I am incapable-at present, and unwilling to apply the effort required to affect the action. However I can and do obtain and prepare food for my consumption. I cannot alter gravity, but I can utilise gravity to obtain values I desire. If I fall from my bike I would wish to annul gravity, but as I cannot, then I wear protective clothing, maintain the motorcycle and ride skilfully. Without gravity a motorcycle would be completely useless.

 

Contemplating the question 'who am I' has nought to do with that. 

It instigates and motivates internal shifts, something that you have missed addressing by making allusions to examples of an external nature. 

[Karl]

But Karl, most of what you spoke to there regards contentment with external contentment and in this case I agree with you.  Our externals are constantly changing as you described.

 

Yeah, when discontent we change those things we can change and accept or ignore those things we cannot change.

 

I will suggest that inner contentment can be permanent.  (I'm not saying I'm always there.)

 

So yes, there can be external discontentment while there is also inner contentment.

I don't see how you can have an external contentment. I is I. Everything you think and feel is confined to self. The moment you believe you have permanent contentment is the moment reality can prove you wrong.

 

I don't go by 'if it isn't permanent then it's not real'. Certainly contentment is real. The more certain and confident that you are, the more you gain values and hold them, the greater your contentment becomes. I do not in anyway deny that, it is my philosophy and it is objectivist philosophy. If you have access to everything that you need, if you are comfortable with who you are then you will maximise happiness. Hurrah for that :-)

 

The problem comes with evasion. When surrender becomes the goal. When you try to banish the ego or end the mind in order to feel nothing, to try to be in a permanent kind of anaesthesia. To be unconcerned with reality and desires, to become a mindless zombie with a smile permanently etched on its face. This is the suicider, the Nihlist who has given up and seeks living oblivion.