Feeling pretty stupid, yet somehow, enlightened!

[Cadcam]

When I was 22 I had an existential crisis. I was disillusioned with myself, and the world. I didn't trust academia, had no idea what to study in school or how to get a good paying job. I didn't know who to be.

 

I laid in bed depressed. Then my spirit guides visited me and as I fell asleep, they said when I wake up, to imagine a new beginning,  to imagine that life started over.

 

I awoke and didn't feel burdened by my past. I asked myself what did I know? I decided I believed in God, and that God was love. God made the world, and so the world was love.

 

I found myself open to trusting people.  I became curious about everything,  and wasn't afraid to ask people questions about life.

 

I became a thinker, and would spend long hours contemplating simple ideas, and meditate on them. 

 

Finally, years later, I started studying philosophy.  I journeyed through a two year course, and it affirmed a lot of what I had thought about in my 20s and 30s.

 

However, I couldn't understand why it seemed that love did not prevail in the world. I had blamed God, for if God was love, then why do we hate, and why do we diminish others, and why is there violence and poverty and suffering?

 

It too k a few years, and as I went along trying to learn and understand,  I was afflicted by demons, and made insane many times.  Then one day as I tried to defeat this chaos, it occurred to me that it was the act of desire that was to blame. It was humanity's ability for free will; that we all had the ability to choose. I saw the world then, and still do, as chaos and order, and our ways of responding to it, and how we choose to react. 

 

This enlightenment is not much different than what I knew before, but it is the journey of knowing,  and then having that knowledge destroyed, and the rebuilding that is important.

 

Now I have my evidence of God, and I understand life and people, and have my peace.

[Keith108]

Very nice post, but wrong forum? Maybe looking for the Abrahamic Religions Discussion forum?

Edited January 29 by Keith108

[Cadcam]

When I was young, Chaos was a motive: it was a power. It was the act of shaking up the status quo. I would mentally harness minds of others and mix them, as if trying to break down prejudice. It was a tangible thing.

 

Now I understand that there is a set of ideals for thought and behavior, and that there is the free will not to engage in that order, and so, there is Chaos.

[Mark Foote]

On 1/29/2025 at 7:13 AM, Cadcam said:

 

... it occurred to me that it was the act of desire that was to blame. It was humanity's ability for free will; that we all had the ability to choose.

 

 

 

Gautama the Shakyan, who came to be known as Gautama the Buddha, spoke of three “cankers”, of three desires or cravings, and of their destruction.  The three cankers were “craving for the life of sense”, “craving for becoming”, and “craving for not-becoming” (DN 22; PTS vol. ii p 340). When the cankers are “destroyed”, the roots of the craving for sense-pleasures, the roots of the craving “to continue, to survive, to be” (tr. “bhava”, Bhikkyu Sujato), and the roots of the craving not “to be” (the craving for the ignorance of being) are destroyed.

 

As to what the cankers have to do with free will--much of Gautama’s teaching revolved around the action of "choice":

 

‘Deeds should be known. And their source, diversity, result, cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation should be known.’ That’s what I said, but why did I say it? It is intention that I call deeds. For after making a choice one acts by way of body, speech, and mind.

 

(AN 6.63, tr. Bhikkyu Sujato)

 

“After making a choice"—when a person exercises volition, or choice, action of “deed, word, or thought” follows.

What is the practice that leads to the cessation of the deeds born of intention? The actions that occur out of intention cease in the states of "absorption", of concentration, first the acts of speech, then the acts of the body (in particular habit and volition in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation), and finally the acts of the mind (in particular habit and volition in the activity of feeling and perceiving):

 

For someone who has attained the first absorption, speech has ceased. For someone who has attained the second absorption, the placing of the mind and keeping it connected have ceased. For someone who has attained the third absorption, rapture has ceased. For someone who has attained the fourth absorption, breathing has ceased. For someone who has attained the dimension of infinite space, the perception of form has ceased. For someone who has attained the dimension of infinite consciousness, the perception of the dimension of infinite space has ceased. For someone who has attained the dimension of nothingness, the perception of the dimension of infinite consciousness has ceased. For someone who has attained the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, the perception of the dimension of nothingness has ceased. For someone who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling, perception and feeling have ceased. For a mendicant who has ended the defilements, greed, hate, and delusion have ceased.

 

(SN 36.11, tr. Bhikkyu Sujato)

 

And how does one attain the first absorption?

 

… making self-surrender the object of thought, (a person) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness. (That person), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein. 

 

(SN 48.10, tr. PTS vol. V p 174)

 

 

And how does self-surrender lead to "one-pointedness"?

 

So (in seated meditation), have your hands… palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction:  place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of ‘navel gazing’.

 

The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your center of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.

 

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site)

 

 

Edited February 1 by Mark Foote

[Lairg]

On 1/30/2025 at 1:13 AM, Cadcam said:

Now I have my evidence of God, and I understand life and people, and have my peace.

 

I sometimes wonder if humans are made/designed to be decorative or functional or perhaps both.

 

If humans were only decorative, free will would provide extra entertainment to the audience.

 

If humans were made to be functional, it would be better to know the functionalities and design intent.

 

A functionally refined human might find that free will is central to the design intent of the species.

 

What might humans have that can contribute to the cosmos?

 

Meanwhile 53 nations have signed the ethical principles for managing this solar system

 

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords/

 

 

[Cadcam]

I wonder if anyone else has experience with conjuring and harnessing chaos?

[Cadcam]

The way harnessing chaos works is, you appraise a situation and understand the way it is running. Then you imagine the confusion and change, and opportunity to realign it with new ideas and actions, and you mentally apprehend the energy that this would create and direct it onto the environment.