Enlightenment

[swilow]

You would think that enlightenment would probably bring about some physical changes to the brain. Has there been any studies verifying that enlightenment is an actual 'thing' and not simply another idea?

I don't believe in sudden, transformative enlightenment as someone like Eckhart Tolle claimed to experience. The brain, as an organ, is not as flexible as that. Aspects of behaviour and personality take years to form and create deep, complex structures in the brain. I believe we can certainly re-learn things (neural plasticity) and reach different states of awareness, but I feel like the physical nature of the brain at least partially precludes sudden, rapid change that isn't either drug induced or trauma-induced.

 

[Ninae]

David Hawkins wrote some good things about this. Specifically that the body increases its production of endorphins more and more, along with decreasing the production of stress hormones. His books are brilliant, by the way, if only for the psychology.

But they say it mainly involves developing new neural pathways in the brain. There has been a lot of studies on what meditation can do for brain development and chemistry. So it would be closer to something like that.

Have you heard about the gamma waves measured in Buddhist monks? I agree it has to come gradually.

 

[swilow]

David Hawkins wrote some good things about this. Specifically that the body increases its production of endorphins more and more, along with decreasing the production of stress hormones. His books are brilliant, by the way, if only for the psychology.

Okay, I'll have to look him up, I have not heard of him before. I assume he has documented these physical changes?

But they say it mainly involves developing new neural pathways in the brain. There has been a lot of studies on what meditation can do for brain development and chemistry. So it would be closer to something like that.

I can definitely attest to meditation being immensely helpful to me, so I agree there.

Have you heard about the gamma waves measured in Buddhist monks? I agree it has to come gradually.

Heard a bit but AFAIK, science hasn't even really determined what gamma waves truly are so I'm unsure if this represents a benefit or evidence of enlightenment.

I think buddhist recognised that this state must emerge gradually and that is why they postulate reincarnation.

 

[Ninae]

Hawkins was more of an academic type, I think psychiatrist. He also claimed some kind of enlightenment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7k1dxdv10g

I don't know about Eckhart Tolle and how enlightened he was. Maybe he made it up to sell books. But he obviously studied Zen Buddhism and made that accessible to a lot more people.

 

[RDP89]

When you really study all the accounts that have been left about it, it slowly starts to become more real for you. Not that many have really read the bible or the Eastern texts. It's more like they've heard of it.

Even Jesus travelled the world to study and learn before he started to have a good idea about it.

That is, if he ever existed, which alot of peope highly doubt.

 

[Ninae]

Most scientists recognise Jesus as a historical figure.

 

[swilow]

^I'm not so sure about that Ninae. That's a broad statement really. I don't think its a statement you will be easily able to back up; there's millions upon millions of scientists and there opinions on Jesus is really the same value as your's or my own.

I think there is immense doubt about the historicity of Jesus. There simply has to be. For such a momentous figure, he sure didn't feature in many contemporary recountings of history. And, his philosphy or that attributed to him is hardly enlightened or especially novel- idea's of compassion and atonement and vengeful punishment existed well before Jesus. Jesus is overrated.

Hawkins was more of an academic type, I think psychiatrist. He also claimed some kind of enlightenment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7k1dxdv10g

I don't know about Eckhart Tolle and how enlightened he was. Maybe he made it up to sell books. But he obviously studied Zen Buddhism and made that accessible to a lot more people.

I don't know that much about Tolle but did read 'The New Earth' some time ago and found it relatively interesting. I felt his tale of enlightenment was very tantalising; that, in a very brief space of time, one can reach a kind of nirvana without real intent. I've always hoped for that to happen to me.

I've always hoped that there is a sequence of thoughts, like a sort of zen koan, which is able to completely rewire one's outlook, kinda instant enlightenment. But, my better judgment tells me such a thing probably doesn't exist and instant, deep, lasting enlightenment is not a real thing; like everything of value, it requires effort and work.

What do we mean by enlightenment anyway? I can use the term in context and yet feel like it is subjective enough to have very ambiguous meaning. Are the people who have no spiritual practise or sense of it and yet go through life happy-go-lucky born enlightened? I cannot fathom how to avoid being crushed by the weight of existence and feel like life is more a burden than a gift (atm at least). And yet, there are people that seem to be lucky enough to not be plagued by worries and existential doubts- but then again, appearances are deceiving.

 

[Foreigner]

I don't know for sure what enlightenment is, but here is what I suspect.

Our physical bodies are formed out of our non-corporeal spirits. We are essentially spirits wearing a physical, material skin. We come into each life with a learning plan. Not every single thing that happens in our life was pre-written, but the general theme of our experiences is based upon a desired structure built into our corporeal consciousness through the intervention of the spirit. We have free will to follow this plan, which would put us into alignment with our spirit, and thus with God; or, we can do things that run counter to our spirit, which we must atone for later -- not because of punishment, but because we deviated from our own learning plan and we need to go back and figure out what that was about.

The process of living many different lifetimes, if we experience good progress, brings us closer and closer to God. It is a process of learning, and in the case of rising and falling, it is also about purification. Most of us rise and fall repeatedly. You can't be born into a society or consciousness that is too above your pay grade. You may be born into a lower consciousness, either as self-punishment (to learn from your mistakes) or to help a segment of humanity to elevate.

I think it is far more common for spirits that have already reached a high level to be re-born into lower level surroundings in order to elevate humanity, than it is to witness a new enlightenment taking place. Forget whether or not Jesus was real, just try to picture the level he would be at. We perceive linearly that someone has "achieved" enlightenment through some life pattern, when actually it's because their spirit is already at a high level that their corporeal circumstances seem like they figured it out. Spirit comes first, then the material existence. That's why everyone wants enlightenment but no one can describe how to get there through material means. You actually have to do the work over many lifetimes and with each new incarnation the corporeal personality will appear more and more enlightened to the material world.

It must be possible to get to a spiritual progression point where coming back to Earth is totally superfluous, and moving on to other realities equivalent to your level makes more sense. The only reason to come back to Earth would be to help Earth elevate, it's the only reason I can think of. It also means that there comes a certain level where petty things like jealousy, greed, anger, etc... all become purified, and a spirit becomes just goodness. Those spirits would then want to help humanity -- because if those petty emotions which drag spirits down to lower levels can be purified, then the whole Earth elevates. Such is the function of enlightened people. That is what Jesus was about. Here on Earth, such advanced beings would be called enlightened, but on other planes there are still various degrees. There's always someone higher and lower than you, even in the spirit realm, until of course spirits become so high level that they rejoin with God. Jesus and others like him are just beings with an advanced level of attainment who incarnate to serve as examples for humanity.

So my conclusion is that enlightenment isn't some riddle whose answer, once solved, makes you ascend. You ascend through earned work, over a very, very long time. But what is cosmic time to a spirit? It's nothing. Also, everything I described here is crude. It probably makes a lot more sense in the spirit world. The best thing you can do is live a life according to your Virtue, or your true self. It's sin to suppress or operate in contradiction to how God made you. You were made the way you were to do a specific kind of work and learning. You can't change that hard coded path, but you can use your free will to work against it, and it will cause you to suffer. And if you die having lived out of alignment, you'll just have to come back and do it again, albeit with a plan that has likely been modified by you, your spiritual kin, and possibly God, so that the workshop is more achievable. God is forgiving like that. All that "awakening" is, ultimately, is doing you without the extraneous confusion and ego bullshit. With that alignment, you can fulfill your plan, and you progress to the next level... whatever that is for you. When your spirit detaches from this body and returns to its realm to process the lessons of this life, it will do so to accolades or to constructive criticism, based on how much you honoured your own path. But either way, you have all of eternity to figure this out.

 

[Ninae]

Yes, that's a good way of putting it, and I think a right perspective on Jesus. When I said that most people haven't really studied the bible, I meant just that.

Having parts of it forced upon you as an adolescent isn't the same as reading the whole thing with an interested and open mind in adulthood. When I read The Aquarian Gospel last year (don't know if it has more of Jesus words, but seems like it) I was literally awestruck by the sense of divinity that game through in his words. It's utterly unmistakable if you have any sensitivity to it.

He comes across as not only enlightened (I also believe there are degrees of enlightenment) but being so at one with God's will that's all he desired to do on Earth and was capable of total sacrifice. I.e. he became zealous and very hard for most people to relate to. Although I see him as higher than Buddha, who was more laid back or detached.

Most might not perceive it that way as that kind of attitude is the ego or lower self's worst nightmare. Before you're ready for it it will be irritating and feel unnatural in all ways. The only way it makes any sense is from the perspective that he was speaking as an enlightened person. In reality, it's something that only really makes sense between an enlightened person and another.

But Jesus wasn't just about extreme moral rules or judgements (although I think he tried to teach us about love and karma). I think that's the part of it the Church choose to emphasise, as it was used as a vehicle to rule. He also taught about many deep esoteric things, like manifesting things directly out of the ether, and the battle between the higher and lower self. But it's like you need to already be initiated to appreciate it.

 

[swilow]

As much as I found your writing beautiful and inspiring Foreigner, I can't really get behind it. There really does not feel like there is a plan to this, that we are on a path to learn something for some reason.I think it almost inspires helplessness. I do not think we are helpless, I think we have enormous, untapped capacities. I feel like it is anthropocentric because it seems to suggest that the universe has come about as a place for us to learn and develop. Rather, I think we have learned and developed capabilites to enable us to live within the unvierse, for a very brief time.

Ultimately, I don't really see evidence of the spritual realm as postulated here. What is it that makes you think these things? The more I look at reality, the more I start to see that it is something very different to the way my brain seeks to structure it. It is weirder than fiction.

 

[Nixiam]

The more you look, the less you see.

That is, unless that there is nothing to see at all, but I've met some devout spiritualists who gave me countless anecdotes and told me to try (this and that) for myself.

 

[Ninae]

The thing is, you need to look to see evidence. God doesn't force himself upon you. But many seem to want it the other way round.

 

[swilow]

The more you look, the less you see.

That is, unless that there is nothing to see at all, but I've met some devout spiritualists who gave me countless anecdotes and told me to try (this and that) for myself.

I try really hard to keep an open mind about these things, I try to modify my initial reactions which tend to be sceptical.

The thing is, you need to look to see evidence. God doesn't force himself upon you. But many seem to want it the other way round.

IME, it is in looking for God that I noticed an absence. Innately, I believed in god and was raised in a catholic family. I've never encountered evidence that this situation, reality and the human condition, is part of something greater or has greater meaning except what we impart on it ourselves. I would like to discover something supernatural and unearthly and have looked for years in various ways, through meditation, through aspects of buddhism, through psychedelics, through occult/thelema stuff- I've only ever really gazed upon an empty throneroom. The more I think about this and read so many different and individual stories of spiritual experience, the more I think that spirtuality is not objective or external and takes place within the indivdual.

Hence, I would say that enlightenment is probably different for everybody. I don't think it requires a theistic or spiritual belief to manifest.

 

[Ninae]

Maybe not a theistic belief. Depends on how you define it. But the essence of enlightenment is to bring your spirit through in human form and is basically about removing the obstacles to that.

Although you wouldn't necessary need to know this to accomplish it. You could just be performing your practice and it could unfold as a consequence of that.

I don't know if you've read the Law of One, but it has a pretty interesting perspective on the Service-to-Self and Service-to-Others paths and explains that people come here to develop both negatively and positively.

 

[Foreigner]

As much as I found your writing beautiful and inspiring Foreigner, I can't really get behind it. There really does not feel like there is a plan to this, that we are on a path to learn something for some reason.I think it almost inspires helplessness. I do not think we are helpless, I think we have enormous, untapped capacities. I feel like it is anthropocentric because it seems to suggest that the universe has come about as a place for us to learn and develop. Rather, I think we have learned and developed capabilites to enable us to live within the unvierse, for a very brief time.

Ultimately, I don't really see evidence of the spritual realm as postulated here. What is it that makes you think these things? The more I look at reality, the more I start to see that it is something very different to the way my brain seeks to structure it. It is weirder than fiction.

Hard to justify what I just wrote with more words. It's through experiences and realizations. If you bring it all down to Earth and just look at single lifetimes, Daoism does a great job of explaining what Virtue is, or True Nature. The more I debunk false egos and realize true nature, the more I feel at one with my spirit, which becomes reflected in my surroundings. I can only describe it as God. I can't accuse you of not doing "the work" to figure it out because your path may be different, but I've noticed a common thread among people who have done their share of inner work and have some degree of attainment. They all remark on the same experiences.

I've been around enough children to know that they come in with talents and capacities that neither parent knows or has taught them. And some children grow up to be completely unlikely their parents, or unlike the virtues/morals their parents tried to teach them. You can't just explain all that with DNA analysis.

Going by pure logic, it makes no sense that our lives have no purpose, that we toil through lesson after lesson only to die and go into oblivion. I don't need the comfort of meaning due to fear of death. My body is disposable and I don't really care. I believe it because it's true, not because I have an agenda. This body and personality dies forever, sure, but something lives on. It's just so obvious to me. I'm incredibly skeptical that evolution is self-guiding, on a merely material level. There is clearly a spiritual component guiding it.

I'm not trying to convince you, nor do I care to... everything I said above would be flimsy testimony to an empiricist. But it's what I know to be true, not just on an intellectual level, but with the core of my being. We are more than meets the eye. And anyway... if I'm wrong then it won't matter, and if I'm right you'll remember one day anyway once you die.

 

[swilow]

TL;DR version- skepticism, objectivity, DNA, science, matter, Universe.

Hard to justify what I just wrote with more words. It's through experiences and realizations. If you bring it all down to Earth and just look at single lifetimes, Daoism does a great job of explaining what Virtue is, or True Nature. The more I debunk false egos and realize true nature, the more I feel at one with my spirit, which becomes reflected in my surroundings. I can only describe it as God. I can't accuse you of not doing "the work" to figure it out because your path may be different, but I've noticed a common thread among people who have done their share of inner work and have some degree of attainment. They all remark on the same experiences.

I dunno, I've done a bit of what I consider inner work and its what has lead me to this outlook. I've tried to make eye contact with god- I've been desperate to, at times- I've seen little that is anything like what people describe. Perhaps I am on a lower level, or perhaps these other people are imagining things. God knows (ha) the human imagination is utterly astounding in what it can conjecture.

I've been around enough children to know that they come in with talents and capacities that neither parent knows or has taught them. And some children grow up to be completely unlikely their parents, or unlike the virtues/morals their parents tried to teach them. You can't just explain all that with DNA analysis.

Yet. We've barely scratched the surface of what DNA is, or what scientific exploration can present us. Spiritual seekers have existed for at least 10,000 years and yet nothing has really been presented that everyone agrees upon, that could be called a singular, objective truth. In terms of explaining the universe and reality, I don't think spirituality has been able to do this... Scientific enquiry has bought about many more truths than the thousands of years of spritual exploration have. But I don't neccesarily want to derail this thread with the science vs spirit debate. The two can coexist, its just that one is actually useful.

The differences between parent and child has a few explanations, namely that a child is the emergence of a single entity based upon the combined chromosomes of two other individuals and completely unique in that sense. Factor in environment, changing social structures, and there really is no need to introduce reincarnation or past lives or god. None of these things is that useful an explanation IMO as each idea raises billions of questions. I like questions, but I don't neccesarily like recursive dilemma's that always end up being based upon faith.

Going by pure logic, it makes no sense that our lives have no purpose, that we toil through lesson after lesson only to die and go into oblivion.

Using logic takes me somewhere totally different. Logically, one would think that our lifes purpose would be rather clear- it would be illogical to send us into a lesson and yet not tell us what the lesson was or what the end-point was, or even that we were in a lesson. What use is the idea of a purpose or agenda in our lives if we have no way of being certain what it is? If we had a clear purpose, would it not be self-evident? Why is it so obscure? When you say 'lesson', in what sense? Do you think that situations are engineered for you to learn from, specifically? How would situations be presented to you that do not transgress the physical laws that are objectively true in the universe? Or do these lessons manifest by utilising the same laws that govern all phenomena?

There is clearly a spiritual component guiding it.

But its not clear, at all. If something is guiding evolution- what an asshole! :D

Anyway, if you say it is clear- in what sense? There does not seem to be an obvious goal of evolution, besides the propogation of the species. Or if you have read the soul-crushing book by Richard Dawkins 'The Selfish Gene', evolution is solely about the replication of random pieces of protein-based code. I don't like the idea at all, but my likes and dislikes are clearly meaningless to the universe.

I'm going to repost this quote from Schopenhauer and see what you think:

“Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no
real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.”

That's one fo the truest things I've read. Rather than being swamped by the bleakness of it, I see it as liberating. Reality is neutral and valueless land upon which we can do what we will- or not. Ultimately, our suffering means nothing to the universe, I wonder if it should therefore mean nothing to ourselves.

And anyway... if I'm wrong then it won't matter, and if I'm right you'll remember one day anyway once you die.

I look forward to that day

I hope you don't mind all my questions- they are honest questions- and I ask them because you have clearly spent along time, if not your entire life, pondering these things. I'm always open to being convinced. I have had experiences that I cannot explain too-yet.

Also, if you don't want to answer, that is fine...

***

If I was to posit a deity or a guide and you were to ask me where it is, I would say that we are living within it. I think there IS something deeper ocurring within our universe that has given rise to the structure we see; the potentiality that the universe's formation has bought about. I wouldn't worship such a thing, I believe it to be utterly indifferent and impersonal, but I do feel in awe of the structure we live within. I also believe that our universe exists within a deeper structure- perhaps it continues infinitely, who knows. A delight to consider though.

 

[swilow]

I feel like I must come across as tiresome and repetitive to the more spiritually inclined. I would love to believe these things, I simply can't. When I present the evidence to myself, I can draw no other real conclusion...

 

[belligerent drunk]

^ of course a child is not the same as its parents. That's how evolution works - offspring differ from its parents. If they were exact copies, then everyone would have just died off a very long time ago.

 

[Xorkoth]

My current belief is that all life, in all times and places, is a unique instance of the universe experiencing itself subjectively under a given set of dimensional constraints, and that every one of them is the same "soul" or awareness, which is the universe itself. In that way, I don't believe we have a sequential series of lives that is unique to "me". Every individual is a unique point in time and space that is as connected to another specific life as it is to any other. Xorkoth will not live on as something else after I die, except that I/we exist as everything always. I did not have a past life, except that all life that existed before I was born was a "past" life.

That's just where I'm at based on my own experiences and intuition, so of course I could be wrong. I will agree that there are some cases of young children displaying puzzling awarenesses or skills. Of course I believe we all have within us the ability to access all of the information there is to access so it doesn't have to mean any mysteriously-gained information is from a direct chain of unique past lives.

 

[sigmond]

^^ sounds like a combination of Bill Hicks (who probably got the idea from someone else) and "cosmic consciousness" The only 'out there' theory i think is possible, which isn't much different to what you believe, is you could be experiencing a 2D or flat plane of existence in 3D. As if you had a TV embedded in yo head.