Enlightenment

[Milktoast Bandit]

Not every path teaches how to achieve this properly so it doesn't make sense to put all paths under same category.

Practising religion can lead to peace, yes. But not all religions teach how to realize Ultimate reality

It really seems this thread took off while I was away. I don't see a need to contribute my perspective anymore. It has pretty much been covered. But for what it's worth, the video I posted did not say that all are the same but there are many that do reach the summit. If I have any advice to give, it would be look into various spiritual practices/religions if only to engage in productive discourse. You may find that many of these traditions that you say are wrong, are saying much the same thing in a different language...
For example in Buddhism and Eastern philosophy you have what is called 'mindfulness' and 'enlightenment'. In Orthodox Christianity those same ideas are called 'watchfulness' and 'illumination'. Just a little something to think about.

 

[April]

Thanks John, I’m working at it.
Yes...I agree that pain is necessary.
I still find that Gibran says it best:

On Pain
Kahlil Gibran

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.


Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
​

Beautiful, thank you Skare

 

[Skarekrow]

Beautiful, thank you Skare

Thank the great poet for his amazing words of insight!!
I wish I could take more credit than copying and pasting it hahaha.

 

[Misty]

Thank the great poet for his amazing words of insight!!
I wish I could take more credit than copying and pasting it hahaha.

Hey copy / paste can be a difficult task! 0.0 Give yourself creds, man.

 

[Milktoast Bandit]

"palpable intangibles" as someone wise has said. Indeed there are a vast plethora of things in Heaven

Psh. This wise man sounds like a real douche.

 

[Misty]

Psh. This wise man sounds like a real douche.

 

[Milktoast Bandit]

 

[Ren]

Can you give me concrete example where cause and effect is not involved?

The point is not to look for examples where cause and effect is not involved, but to call into question the very concept of causation. To look for examples would still presuppose that the concept is valid.

I recommend reading this influential little essay: B. Russell, 'On the Notion of Cause' (available here on Wikisource for free).

Russell recaps in his conclusion:

"We may now sum up our discussion of causality. We found first that the law of causality, as usually stated by philosophers, is false, and is not employed in science. We then considered the nature of scientific laws, and found, instead of stating that one event A is always followed by another event B, they stated functional relations between certain events at certain times, which we called determinants, and other events at earlier or later times or at the same time. We were unable to find any a priori category involved: the existence of scientific laws appeared as a purely empirical fact, not necessarily universal, except in a trivial and scientifically useless form. We found that a system with one set of determinants may very likely have other sets of a quite different kind, that, for example, a mechanically determined system may also be teleologically or volitionally determined. Finally we considered the problem of free will: here we found that the reasons for supposing volitions to be determined are strong but not conclusive, and we decided that even if volitions are mechanically determined, that is no reason for denying freedom in the sense revealed by introspection, or for supposing that mechanical events are not determined by volitions. The problem of free will versus determinism is therefore, if we were right, mainly illusory, but in part not yet capable of being decisively solved."

 

[Skarekrow]

Hey copy / paste can be a difficult task! 0.0 Give yourself creds, man.

Okay...thanks!
LOL

Here’s another one that is fitting right about now...lots of effort went into the copy/paste let me tell you!!

On Religion​

Kahlil Gibran​

Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection,
but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul,
even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying, "This for God and this for myself;
This for my soul, and this other for my body?"
All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.
The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut,
has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.


Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,
The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.
For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.
And take with you all men:
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.


And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud,
outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.



​

 

[Lady Jolanda]

Psh. This wise man sounds like a real douche.

 

[Misty]

Okay...thanks!
LOL

Here’s another one that is fitting right about now...lots of effort went into the copy/paste let me tell you!!

On Religion
Kahlil Gibran

Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection,
but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul,
even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying, "This for God and this for myself;
This for my soul, and this other for my body?"
All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.
The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut,
has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.


Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,
The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.
For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.
And take with you all men:
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.


And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud,
outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.



​

Great stuff. Flawlessly pasted too, I might add!

 

[Skarekrow]

Great stuff. Flawlessly pasted too, I might add!

 

[Milktoast Bandit]

Lololo!

 

[Dado]

You do seem very sure of where you are going, for someone who is on the path of enlightenment. Here are two passages from Herman Hesse's Siddartha, a book that I really recommend to you.

"When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”

"Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."

As long as Siddartha (in the book) is sure of where he is going, in the same way that you are sure, or seem to be (especially about the 'right' and 'wrong' paths), he precisely doesn't find enlightenment. It is when he surrenders this belief, and decides to go live in the world and then with the old man that runs his boat across the river outside the city, that he eventually rearches nirvana. Maybe your certainty itself, about the right kind of path, is a delusion.

Yes, I am pretty sure about where I am going and what is my goal. I tried many paths, philosophies, religions, spend a lot of months doing comparison between various teachings, ideas and only this make sense, everything other just leads to more delusion and suffering which I saw in my direct experience and life of others.

I am not alone on this path, I am together with ~100 people who also aim to achieve enlightenment. We are together on discord group, where we have people from all around world, coming from various religious backgrounds and life experiences uniting together and contributing. We have translators that help with translating old scriptures but also people who posses supernatural powers that can read energetic states and various other stuff. It is open group, anyone can join who is genuinely open and wants to attain enlightenment.
---
Back to your text. Well, to come somewhere, first you need to seek and find a way that leads to destination and only when you reach your destination seeking stops. In case of enlightenment seeking stops only when delusion, greed, hate and other destructive states of mind are totally extinguished. You don't stop seeking before you reach your destination and then claim that there is no goal or destination, that is just more delusion. Fiery desire for liberation is what is most important thing that enables person to eventually become enlightened.

Hermann Hesse was delusional, and his quoting of Buddha's words are misrepresentations of what was really said by Buddha him self. Same with other sects of Buddhism today. That's why there wasn't any enlightened being in last 2 thousands years because people are following wrong ideas and doing wrong practices.

I agree what you said about wisdom and I am aware of that. I opened this thread with aim to share knowledge and not to impose my views on others but to have open discussion. For now it is not going great, everyone is defensive and point fingers without replying and giving any valid arguments.

 

[Dado]

The point is not to look for examples where cause and effect is not involved, but to call into question the very concept of causation. To look for examples would still presuppose that the concept is valid.

I recommend reading this influential little essay: B. Russell, 'On the Notion of Cause' (available here on Wikisource for free).

Russell recaps in his conclusion:

"We may now sum up our discussion of causality. We found first that the law of causality, as usually stated by philosophers, is false, and is not employed in science. We then considered the nature of scientific laws, and found, instead of stating that one event A is always followed by another event B, they stated functional relations between certain events at certain times, which we called determinants, and other events at earlier or later times or at the same time. We were unable to find any a priori category involved: the existence of scientific laws appeared as a purely empirical fact, not necessarily universal, except in a trivial and scientifically useless form. We found that a system with one set of determinants may very likely have other sets of a quite different kind, that, for example, a mechanically determined system may also be teleologically or volitionally determined. Finally we considered the problem of free will: here we found that the reasons for supposing volitions to be determined are strong but not conclusive, and we decided that even if volitions are mechanically determined, that is no reason for denying freedom in the sense revealed by introspection, or for supposing that mechanical events are not determined by volitions. The problem of free will versus determinism is therefore, if we were right, mainly illusory, but in part not yet capable of being decisively solved."

I am open for discussion about new possible ideas and views but this is another big text which doesn't say too much and doesn't give anything concrete. Yes, we find about natural laws through our subjective experience which doesn't mean that they don't objectively exist. My opinion is that everything is predetermined and free will is just an illusion. Science also agrees with this, the Third Law of Motion states, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." which is causality. Also modern neuroscience reveals that there is no free will and that everything is out of ones own control. People on east already know that, that's why enlightenment is ultimately end of doership, person gains full realization that he is not in control but that everything is happening on its own.

 

[Misty]

 

[Misty]

Lololo!

I love those damn monkeys.. I literally see them and die laughing. I can admit I likely overuse them & probably need treatment. O.O

 

[Milktoast Bandit]

I love those damn monkeys.. I literally see them and die laughing. I can admit I likely overuse them & probably need treatment. O.O

Monkey treatment?

 

[Misty]

I am open for discussion about new possible ideas and views but this is another big text which doesn't say too much and doesn't give anything concrete. Yes, we find about natural laws through our subjective experience which doesn't mean that they don't objectively exist. My opinion is that everything is predetermined and free will is just an illusion. Science also agrees with this, the Third Law of Motion states, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." which is causality. Also modern neuroscience reveals that there is no free will and that everything is out of ones own control. People on east already know that, that's why enlightenment is ultimately end of doership, person gains full realization that he is not in control but that everything is happening on its own.

Lol... Do you really think we have no free will? 0.0

Why do you read verses from scripture, a bible whose proclamations your theory outright denies? All in an effort to fit your own ( man-made definition of "enlightenment" ?

"
The Bible’s answer
God dignifies us with free will, the power to make decisions of our own rather than having God or fate predetermine what we do. Consider what the Bible teaches.

• God created humans in his image. (Genesis 1:26) Unlike animals, which act mainly on instinct, we resemble our Creator in our capacity to display such qualities as love and justice. And like our Creator, we have free will.
  
  
• To a great extent, we can determine our future. The Bible encourages us to “choose life . . . by listening to [God’s] voice,” that is, by choosing to obey his commands. (Deuteronomy 30:19, 20) This offer would be meaningless, even cruel, if we lacked free will. Instead of forcing us to do what he says, God warmly appeals to us: “O if only you would actually pay attention to my commandments! Then your peace would become just like a river.”—Isaiah 48:18.
  
  
• Our success or failure is not determined by fate. If we want to succeed at an endeavor, we must work hard. “All that your hand finds to do,” says the Bible, “do with your very power.”(Ecclesiastes 9:10) It also says: “The plans of the diligent one surely make for advantage.”—Proverbs 21:5.
  

Free will is a precious gift from God, for it lets us love him with our “whole heart”—because we want to.—Matthew 22:37.

 

[Misty]

What an utterly boring game for God "predetermined" life would be..