Enlightenment

Hello

I decided to open this thread because i didn't find one thats strictly about enlightenment.

I had spiritual awakening before few years and since then on I have been reading, reasearching and practising everyday with aim to become liberated one day.

This thread could serve everyone who is genuinely interested in enlightenment by sharing their stories, ideas about what liberation is and a way how to achieve it.

For me, theravada buddhism and advaita vedanata(hinduism) are the most closest ones when it comes to enlightenment, epescially buddhism.

 

Even after enlightenment, person would still have desires(to eat, walk, sleep, etc) but he would not have cravings which are compulsive desires that lead to stress(negative emotions) and suffering.

Yes, desires push us to act, to achieve. Without desire, enlightenment can not be achieved. Walking the path is not denial of life, but rather seeing the futility in temporary pleasures that we want to experience.

Also, path is not about removal of ego, but recognition that Ego is just an illusion...

 

Everything sentient in universe seeks happines and wants to avoid pain, thats instinctual to every being. Because human possess intellect, he is capable to make sense of his suffering and use that suffering to achieve higher states of consciousness. A lot of sages on east see human life something as very special because human can experience very high peeks of bliss but also low sides of suffering. That enables person to recognise his true nature which is pure love, but we cant feel it because our hearts are covered with negative emotions. Everyone who did drugs, can experience this because what they do, they suppress negative emotions in subconscious mind and our true nature is revealed which is peace and love.

Problem arises in case with Nietzsche because he reprogrammed his mind to enjoy pain. He developed attachment towards pain and suffering. That happened because he wasnt able to totally confront and resolve deeper existentials fears, so through intellectualisation, theories he learned how to cope with it. Enlightenment is opposite, aim is to resolve every attachment and aversion, to stop clining onto everything and see reality as it is.

Thats one of the reasons why i dont read stuff written by wester philosophers. Its filled with confusion and with not that much practical use.

Enlightened person would experience physical pain but not psychological one.

 

Exactly!

 

In my marxist days, after some time i started to read about east when i got fed up with western philosophies, i started with china, read about Confucius but then later as I stopped being politically involved, switched to Taoism which is just beautiful, very natural.

I don't know much about Warring States period, but i would be glad to hear about it from you

 

Feel free to share

 

I like Spinoza, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and their contribution to western philosophy. They also played huge factor in my life and awakening but non of them still got really to the "point", they didn't realize Ultimate. Their minds were still bound to this Relative reality when they died. They were still dependent on ideas and concepts, they didn't reach "zero" like Buddha and other Arahants did, in experiential sense, not intellectual. Just because of that for me westerners don't matter that much, maybe they do for the mundane aspects of life but supermundane? nope

 

That's what got interested me in enlightenment when I started reading about eastern philosophies, possibility to realize supermundane, "that" which is beyond existence it self, beyond experience and yet, human can realize it, because we are it, but we are not aware of it so we think that we are this body/mind, we suffer and feel limited but deep down we are limitless.

I am glad that you are open to think about this. It changes life when you grasp some of eastern concepts and combine that with meditation practice. My thinking mind is almost 80% quiet throughout day, actions become spontaneous, sense of doership is seen as illusion and it feels like everything is happening on its own. Social anxiety, fears and anger dropped at very low levels, no more depression, body always feel light like feather.

 

I like this quote : "Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us."

Nietzsche was one of my first favorite philosophers from whom I learned how to accept pain and use suffering to progress. To not avoid it and see it as a part of life. But problem with Nietzsche is that he made identity out of his suffering, he made it personal, which reveals it self in his prideful talks about how suffering is good thing and wanting to provoke another people with his ideas, that was his agenda. That also shows that he wasn't able to fully surrender him self to abyss, but rather he choose to hold onto his ideas because it made him feel alive in a some sense. That was his major obstacle to confront inner emptiness and transcend the Ego, identity or sense of self...