Mental and physical routes to enightenment

[thelerner]

In my current paradigm I believe there are physical routes to enlightenment and there are mental routes.  Doc Glenn Morris said his test for enlightenment was purely physical, if you had all the circuits open and flowing.  Versus  an Eckhart Tolle type whose focus, like say Buddhism is on mental aspects.. understanding the mind and the universe.  

 

Without looking for specifics, what do you think?  Are they both enlightenment?  Is one better easier or more real then the other?

[Everything]

You are primarily non-physical consciousness, a small part of which is focused here through your physical extension and lens of your physical being.

When your perspective is in alignment with your greater non-physical being, then you become a total fully realised, co-harmonized co-blended physical and non-physical being, working as one whole total being.

This enlightenment is not a degree that you can take and it's yours evermore. You are enlightened many times everyday, but mostly it happens without you noticing it. When you meditate, you notice it more and so you allow it more, consciously.

 

To meditate is a very universal tool to allow oneself to release resistant perspective, and thus naturally allow the alignment and enlightenment that is natural to you. And indicators of releasing resistance are, relief and feeling better.

 

Now your imagination, and mostly and primarily, always your emotions are always best guidance for you personally to find your own path of least resistance towards your own finding a permission slip that works for you, to more fully allow yourself to be who it is you truely are as the totality of all that you have truely become in every single here and now moment and again.

 

So sometimes, someone thinks and feels what resonates with them. And they see sex as the ultimate path of least resistance for them to allow themselves to be all that it is that life has fully caused them to become. And in doing so they allow the totality of all that they've truely become to fully flow through them here and now.

 

Sometimes, one watching video clips of funny and cute animals to allow themselves to fully align with the totality of all that they've become, with the fullness of all of their physical being in full alignment with their own greater non-physical consciousness.

 

But why meditation is always universal, is because you don't have to do anything in order to allow yourself to be who it is you truely are. You just have to stop offering the resistant thoughts that are the only thing that can pinch and lessen your connection from your own greater non-physical consciousness. Because that state of being inlightened is natural to you. So you don't have to do anything in order to allow it. But you do have to allow it. Wei wu wei.

 

So it's a surrendering into who you truely are. As the totality of all that you've truely become here and now, physical and non-physical. When those two blend and co-harmonize, you simply feel that synergy, synchronisity, alignment, loving resonance, bliss, relief, enlightenment, freedom, lightness, joy, positive emotion. That positive emotion is simply indicating that your perspective is in full agreement with your greater non-physical conscious knowingness in that moment. It is the energetic alignment of your physical and non-physical being, due to your offering of energy by virtue of focus and perspective and how it relates always in the here and now moment, energetically energy in motion, emotion ally, to your greater non-physical being.

And that you are allowing it to be so, that's it. You can still always choose to think thoughts of resistance, that causes a lessening of your full conscious connection with the totality of all that you've truely become. But ofcourse, you would never even care to do that, once you feel how good it feels to be enlightened, you just let yourself be enlightened more of the time, by simply allowing yourself to enjoy being enlightened more of the time.

Edited April 16, 2019 by Everything

[lifeforce]

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Edited April 25, 2019 by lifeforce

[Everything]

27 minutes ago, lifeforce said:

I don't like the term enlightenment, it's such a loaded word. However, I'm of the opinion, that there is a chemical reaction in the physical organism which produces a return to the source. Without that reaction, however it's brought about, there can be no return.

In all cases, it is simply a releasing of resistant perspective within oneself that causes discord and lessening of your own enlightenment, that doesn't require one to do anything in order to allow it, which causes one to experience this relief, first emotionally, and secondly, all the secondary manifestations are simply secondary, no matter how beautiful you make them out to be, because they were always already beautiful prior to your own self allowed full realisation of all of it, by virtue of aligning your thought in full agreement with your greater non-physical conscioussness and all of the infinite knowingness, fully flowed through you and fully allowed by you.

 

But the primary manifestation of enlightenment is simply emotional relief that causes one to feel enlightened. So if you simply lighten up on yourself, you will feel enlightened.

 

Once enlightenment, the actions, physical actions, are inspired actions, that is in alignment with the totality of all that you are. They are joyous actions.

Edited April 16, 2019 by Everything

[freeform]

Enlightenment is both physical and mental.

 

The Buddhism that is openly shared with the world is not the Buddhism that leads to enlightenment. The real spiritual cultivation practices are always behind closed doors.

 

Just as you might be able to read about all the organs of the human body freely - only behind closed doors would you be able to learn how to dissect a human body.

 

These practices behind closed doors always have some ‘training’ of the body.

 

Now ‘awakening’ which is another thing altogether is different. It can happen spontaneously. It can also be brought about a number of different ways. Most confuse awakening with enlightenment. They are very different from what I’ve been taught.

[lifeforce]

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Edited April 25, 2019 by lifeforce

[freeform]

32 minutes ago, lifeforce said:

All forms of Buddhism have the same goal, enlightenment.

 

You're right of course. That is the whole purpose of Buddhism.

 

The purpose of an anatomy book is the same as the purpose of a medical degree - to understand the human body.

 

The approach, the depth of study is very different though.

[dwai]

21 hours ago, thelerner said:

In my current paradigm I believe there are physical routes to enlightenment and there are mental routes.  Doc Glenn Morris said his test for enlightenment was purely physical, if you had all the circuits open and flowing.  Versus  an Eckhart Tolle type whose focus, like say Buddhism is on mental aspects.. understanding the mind and the universe.  

 

Without looking for specifics, what do you think?  Are they both enlightenment?  Is one better easier or more real then the other?

First we have to define what "enlightenment" means. 

[thelerner]

12 minutes ago, dwai said:

First we have to define what "enlightenment" means. 

maybe, but that varies from Superbeing to living and dying in a state of smooth flow.  There's such diversity I was hoping to side step it, on the other hand, it'd be valuable to have people mention what there definition of enlightenment contains. 

 

Hoping that this thread doesn't get hung up on a definition though.  That'd be a fine other thread, I was aiming this one at the mental state versus energy cultivation path. 

 

It may well be the mental path gets you that state of smooth flow, and the energy cultivation aims towards levels of immortality.  I get the feeling they converge under some roads.  

Edited April 17, 2019 by thelerner

[thelerner]

9 hours ago, freeform said:

Now ‘awakening’ which is another thing altogether is different. It can happen spontaneously. It can also be brought about a number of different ways. Most confuse awakening with enlightenment. They are very different from what I’ve been taught.

I may be doing this.  What is the difference between them-  awakening and enlightenment? 

Sometimes we're conceptually hamstrung by our language. 

[dwai]

49 minutes ago, thelerner said:

maybe, but that varies from Superbeing to living and dying in a state of smooth flow.  There's such diversity I was hoping to side step it, on the other hand, it'd be valuable to have people mention what there definition of enlightenment contains. 

 

Hoping that this thread doesn't get hung up on a definition though.  That'd be a fine other thread, I was aiming this one at the mental state versus energy cultivation path. 

 

It may well be the mental path gets you that state of smooth flow, and the energy cultivation aims towards levels of immortality.  I get the feeling they converge under some roads.  

The reason I brought it up is because it really does vary. For instance, there is a group of people who aim for alchemical enlightenment - aka immortality (rainbow body, etc).

That is a different ideal from enlightenment that is the goal of wisdom traditions such as Advaita Vedanta or Buddhism.

 

 

 

[freeform]

3 hours ago, thelerner said:

What is the difference between them-  awakening and enlightenment?

 

As you can probably tell it’s a difficult task to do that. As Dwai says it’s different in different lineages.

 

Daoism doesn’t have a term like enlightenment. 

 

What comes close is Zhen Ren. A fully realised human. A zhen ren has transformed and balanced his acquired mind to such an extent that he radiates all the virtues and functions fully from his primordial nature... This is the highest form of attainment available on the earthly plane. 

 

A Sheng Ren is someone who is awakened. Normally they have had a transformative glimpse of Wuji and have a deeply embodied sense that the Acquired Self is not the true self. It’s not an intellectual understanding, it’s a deeply transformative ability to see through the illusion of self.

 

There are levels beyond the Zhen Ren attainment though  

Edited April 17, 2019 by freeform

[freeform]

3 hours ago, thelerner said:

It may well be the mental path gets you that state of smooth flow, and the energy cultivation aims towards levels of immortality.

 

Not quite.

 

There are three ‘vehicles’ of cultivation in Daoism.

 

The ‘lower vehicle’ is the path of energy cultivation.

The ‘middle vehicle’ is the path of cultivating the consciousness.

The ‘higher vehicle’ is the path of cultivating on the spiritual realms.

 

There are crossovers. In Daoism you generally work on all three but usually not at the same time. Alchemy plays a role in all the vehicles - but most heavily in the lower and higher vehicles. Meditation plays a big role in the middle vehicle.

 

All three vehicles are necessary.

 

In Buddhist lineages they’re achieved differently - often the energetic and physical aspects are achieved through transmissions, empowerments and ingesting of herbal/mineral preparations for example. Other lineages will have inner door practices. 

[Fa Xin]

I've always thought enlightenment is an infinite evolving process... like there is no ceiling or destination... just more subtle refinements, and continuing movements.

 

Therefor there's nothing to arrive at....

unless you define the term in some way - which I don't want to do

 

[lifeforce]

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Edited April 25, 2019 by lifeforce

[Vajra Fist]

Most of the people who claim to have achieved enlightenment say it was a sudden, dramatic experience. Doc Morris said it felt like his head was being blown off. 

 

I think the most in-depth account of what enlightenment is and what the experience of it was like on this forum came from dawg. Also he's the only bum here who claims to have attained it. It's a great read.

 

Edit - interesting parallel I saw with the Doc was the unconsciousness as an almost seperate entity. A higher mind. Doc said he had a sort of conversation with the subconscious, before reaching an agreement to merge both the conscious and unconscious mind ('like a fist being pushed through another fist').

Edited April 20, 2019 by Vajra Fist

[EmeraldHead]

What is different? Are you religious?  religions make distinction there...artificial

[Rara]

I never feel that I am truly aligned, until I have done something in the day that has challenged me physically.

 

This can be a cardio workout, external or internal martial arts training, making a meal or guitar practice. Sometimes it is nice to sit after...this can be quite humbling and I can feel a better connection to myself and my universe.

 

I don't know, maybe it's because we all have different make ups that we can achieve enlightenment in our own way. Some are built for mass hours of meditation, some for military, some for being a nomad etc etc....

[Starjumper]

On 4/18/2019 at 9:10 PM, Fa Xin said:

I've always thought enlightenment is an infinite evolving process... like there is no ceiling or destination... just more subtle refinements, and continuing movements.

 

What about the word enlightened, which has the letters 'ed' at the end, which means it's in the past?     

 

(this place needs a lil' devil emoticon)

Edited April 23, 2019 by Starjumper

[Fa Xin]

1 hour ago, Starjumper said:

 

What about the word enlightened, which has the letters 'ed' at the end, which means it's in the past?     

 

(this place needs a lil' devil emoticon)

Haha, Nice 😁

 

I was enlightened, then I had to go back to work... it happens every weekend !

[ilumairen]

2 hours ago, Rara said:

I never feel that I am truly aligned, until I have done something in the day that has challenged me physically.

 

This can be a cardio workout, external or internal martial arts training, making a meal or guitar practice. Sometimes it is nice to sit after...this can be quite humbling and I can feel a better connection to myself and my universe.

 

I don't know, maybe it's because we all have different make ups that we can achieve enlightenment in our own way. Some are built for mass hours of meditation, some for military, some for being a nomad etc etc....

 

This is soo very simple and soo profound at the same time. 

 

Thanks. 

[freeform]

On 21/04/2019 at 12:19 AM, Vajra Fist said:

account of what enlightenment is

 

I think this highlights the issues of doing spiritual practice outside of a classical lineage.

 

I don’t mean to downplay the achievement described, but it is not enlightenment (at least according to classical Daoist path).

 

What’s described is known as ‘glimpsing Shen Ming’. That’s what the bright inner light flashing is. It can be a very transformative experience. In Daoist training this is where ‘meditation’ actually starts. Specifically ‘meditation’ is abiding in the light of Shen Ming. When the light is constant and all encompassing then other processes can be moved into. This is very far from what ‘enlightenment’ from the Daoist or Buddhist perspective actually is - but it can cause an experience of awakening that can then lead to a stable awakening (the achievement of Sheng Ren) - but more often than not it fades back to normality.

[silent thunder]

In regards to this topic, I hear @rene very clearly.

and she's saying...

Spoiler

both... same time. 

 

[EmeraldHead]

Most of you are describing body here. That stuff is beyond. Pre and post are both of body. Subcon and conscious that is.

[MIchael80]

On 17.4.2019 at 9:34 PM, dwai said:

The reason I brought it up is because it really does vary. For instance, there is a group of people who aim for alchemical enlightenment - aka immortality (rainbow body, etc).

That is a different ideal from enlightenment that is the goal of wisdom traditions such as Advaita Vedanta or Buddhism.

 

 

 

Hi dwai!

I do not aggree with that statement.

Highest yoga tantra and dzogchen ...both budhist traditions mention the rainbow body and see it as the highest expression of enlightenment. Even in the yoga sutras i think there is a line like "perfection of the body comes last".....there is also this light body phenomena in sufi sects.....a lot of traditions see the transformation of the body as the hightest form of enlightenment as it is the deepest form of embodying the absolute. Some modern teachers like David Buckland or Lorne Hoff speak also in that direction and say that the transfomration of the body happens naturally if allowed but takes a long time.

best