Why are so few enlightened?

[Sid]

Enlightenment is a very special gift given to a small group of people... It is by an unconscious process in which the conscious mind has little control... Unfortunately humans need to develop a social environment based on fabricated belief systems... We become imprisoned in these belief systems and do not have a key to free ourselves from our prison... Religions by and large have developed their own belief systems which only complicate the situation... But maybe science will discover the lost key and finally make liberation available to everyone.

[lightmystic]

I respectfully disagree in that Enlightenment is simply recognizing who and what we are and have always been. It's not a gift, because it's not a thing. It's more like the lack of a thing. "Other people" are just an aspect of our own self.

I feel very strongly that Enlightenment is not on some pedestal that the "lucky" will receive. It's there waiting for anyone who is innocent and honest and serious enough to get it.

The only catch is that the price of Enlightenment is everything. Absolutely everything.

Sept 21, 2009 17:58:37 GMT -5 Sid said:

Enlightenment is a very special gift given to a small group of people... It comes from an unconscious process in which the conscious mind has little control... Unfortunately humans need to develop a social environment based on fabricated belief systems... We become imprisoned in these belief systems and do not have a key to free ourselves from our prison... Religious by and large have developed their own belief systems which only complicate the situation... But maybe science will discover the lost key and finally make liberation available to everyone.

[divinity]

I think it is very human of us to measure each other with our own yard sticks, although the measurement is never accurate.

[lightmystic]

What are you talking about? Who's measuring who by what yardstick?

Sept 29, 2009 10:42:26 GMT -5 divinity said:

I think it is very human of us to measure each other with our own yard sticks, although the measurement is never accurate.

[divinity]

It is a common human trait to compare one's beliefs to another's beliefs and to use their own experiences to determine whether or not the other person's belief is valid or not. This is what I see in some of the posts on this site. I didn't think using the yard stick metaphor would not be understood. Sorry.

[divinitys shadow]

these are just words

and we are only dreaming

or are we being dreamed?

or is the dreamer dreaming a dreamer?

or is a dreamer dreaming the dreamer dreaming a dreamer?

words nonetheless

yet here we are



metaphors can be for understanding the dream

others for stumbling into a/the dreamer face to face

into awakened life



you asked

"what is it that's perceiving"

LM agreed



youre wanting

to understand your question

LM is pointing



no apology necessary

dreams seem surreal

or so real?

[Peter]

Oct 8, 2009 2:32:40 GMT -5 @divinitys shadow said:

words nonetheless

yet here we are

I think that's your best one yet, Shadow. If you'd tied yourself to the hideously limiting notion of a username/account, I'd have bestowed a rare karma point.

Consider it held in escrow.

[lightmystic]

Firstly, nothing to apologize for. You cannot possibly do it wrong Divinity! <hugs> I did understand the meaning, it just doesn't make sense to me. Beliefs must be assumptions, or they wouldn't beliefs. I don't have to believe in this keyboard, because that's a direct experience. How the keyboard works, facts about it, etc. may be beliefs (although logical ones), because you never know for sure until you actually go look for yourself. But, based on that, how can any belief be true? Even if a belief fits a description of a similar-sounding direct experience, it's still just a belief. If I eat a strawberry and explain it to you (pretending you've never actually eaten one), and then you believe me, how is that useful to anyone to go around describing someone else's experience of a strawberry, or saying "hey! I believe that strawberries are juicy also!"? It's only practical if it's a direct experience. And if it isn't, then it's finding the way to get it. (e.g. "Where can I get strawberries? I want some!") There are no such thing as "right beliefs", because what is real is an all encompassingness that cannot be conceptualized, cannot fit into a thought or a belief. So whatever we think it is, by definition, isn't it. It has to be so much deeper and more direct. And that is all I'm saying. I'm much more interested in your direct experience, whatever it is, than any belief. And if your comfortable poking other's experience and having your own poked, then that's even more fun. But please don't take this as a criticism, because it's not coming anywhere other than appreciation of you.

Oct 7, 2009 21:00:26 GMT -5 divinity said:

It is a common human trait to compare one's beliefs to another's beliefs and to use their own experiences to determine whether or not the other person's belief is valid or not. This is what I see in some of the posts on this site. I didn't think using the yard stick metaphor would not be understood. Sorry.

[lightmystic]

I have to agree with Peter in that I really like this post. I particularly like the part quoted below, although I couldn't say why exactly. It hit me as just right for reasons unexplained. The experience truly does come through the words.

And when it does, well that's some good pointing.

Oct 8, 2009 2:32:40 GMT -5 @divinitys shadow said:

these are just words


no apology necessary

dreams seem surreal

or so real?

[beliefs shadow]

beliefs

not true

not untrue

not resourceful

not unresourceful

back and forth

just beliefs

until none



consistency is most people's worldly desire

between their belief and what IS



suffering

is the symptom of separation

simple, yet unyielding

the truest teacher



to people of worldly desires

methods of maintaining separation

is energy spent on maintaining separation

will not last

no thing does

eventually, always eventually

everything surrenders



belief in no belief

there is no other

sitting at the feet of ones true teacher

alone at last

truly alone at last



you

the feeling

courses through nothingness

feeling nothingness

through and through

everything


you

the feeling

courses through everythingness

feeling everythingness

through and through

nothing



keep watching

keep playing along

here

always here

without beliefs

[lightmystic]

Yep, the idea that no belief is true is just another belief until what is being pointed to is seen directly. When it comes down to it, it means trust only what is directly experienced, and be open about the rest... How else can we let go of misconceptions and really see what has always been going on this whole time?

[divinity]

Do you think Mother Theresa was enlightened? How about Ghandi?

[fear]

I can't say for sure but if they didn't go all they way through it was for the sake of mankind.

Mother Teresa may have still been attached to her people, the poor. So maybe she still had a purpose and that kept her from being fully awake but who knows.

Gandhi was at it's door. He spoke like an enlightened man but yet may have been attached to his indian people as well.

I'm no authority on people who are definitely on a higher level than I am. To me it makes no difference if either of them were fully awakened. As long as they were more awake than me, I cannot judge their state and they were obviously more awake than me.

[zendancer]

G & T were both attached to a wide range of ideas, some of them rather bizarre. Three years ago Time Magazine reviewed a book about T's conversations with her priest/confessor. Pscyhologically she inhabited a very dark place and much of the time felt abandoned by God. She clearly thought that God was "out there" and that she was" in here," so she didn't have much unity of mind. Ironically, the path of service can sometimes lead to enlightenment, but only if the involvement is so total that the sense of self and other disappears. Both T& G were unusual individuals with strong convictions, strong willpower, and deep compassion, but there is nothing in the record that indicates they transcended selfhood (not that it matters one way or the other). Like T, G was attached to lots of ideas, and after he spiritually divorced his wife in old age, he reportedly tested his new commitment to celibacy by going to bed nude with teen-age girls. Like many Indians, he considered the life of a sannyasin (world renouncer) the ideal life, and when he was older he tried to live up that ideal (a nice fantasy). At least he recognized Ramana's enlightenment, and he sent several of his friends in the government to sit with Ramana at his ashram in order to calm their minds. He also visited Ramana.