Enlightenment

[Vajradhara]

Namaste knowledge,

thank you for the post.

Originally Posted by Knowledge

I once read a Philosophy book

do you recall which one?

that said - "Enlightenment is the emergence of man from his self imposed infancy."

how.... unusual.

I liked the qoute so much, that for days, I repeated it until it was imbedded in my memory. It is because of that mantra style practice that I actually remember that qoute today.

does it provide you with any value? if not, i'd say that you should, to borrow a term "flush your RAM" and get this out of your head. personally, i'm not all that keen on retaining information that is not beneficial to me.

The funny thing however, is, I no longer adhear to that qoute. You see, as a born again Christian, who is aided with the help of the Holy Spirit, I see the truth.

let's say that you see "a" truth. whilst it may be "the" truth, our subjectively oriented thinking processes wouldn't be able to really get to the "the" non-subjective truth.

The truth is this: Who has real knowledge, wisdom, or real understand? Who is truely enlightened?

we'd probably have to define those terms just a bit more before we could answer them. for instance. i have real knowledge of Windows file systems. i mean by "real" and "knowledge" that i can demonstrate certain aspects of the file system upon request, thus it is "real" in that you can see it and it is "knowledge" in that it's something that is learned.

i really don't know what the term 'enlightened' is supposed to me, however.

The answer is that none of us know 1% of ALL the truth that there is to know. If there is 99% of truth out there for us to find, how then can we say that we're enlightened?

ah... ok.. so you are defining enlightenment to be the equilivent of knowledge of phenomena. typically, this is not how the term is viewed... it's usually a bit more esoteric than that... especially in the traditional exegesis where the term is Awake.

The truth is, there is none wise, but God!

well... i can see that as a monotheist, one may come to this view. naturally, i would disagree with nearly all aspects of the premis.

Only he knows all that there is to know.

within the traditional exegesis of Buddhism, Buddhas, too, possess the trait of omniscience.. however, not in the same way as a God, which simply knows all without discernment. within the paradigm of Buddhsim, Buddhas know what they turn their attention to know.

And, those that know him, know truth.

perhaps.. perhaps not. it is difficult to really say that one "knows" a being that is, essentially, posited as beyond human conception and thought. typically, i have the feeling that the term is meant to signify some type of emotional connection or response felt in the mind stream of the individual.

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by Vajradhara

perhaps.. perhaps not. it is difficult to really say that one "knows" a being that is, essentially, posited as beyond human conception and thought. typically, i have the feeling that the term is meant to signify some type of emotional connection or response felt in the mind stream of the individual.

As a strange kind of monotheist, I would agree with you here. When I say I "know" God, what I mean is that I have an emotional and spiritual connection to the glimmers of God that I experience. Personally, I do not mean that I know God the same way I know, for example, how the science of archaeology operates. That is why I try to avoid using the word "know" and instead say that I "experience" God, and always try to remember that God is far greater than I can comprehend. I can only get glimmers of the Divine. If I claimed to know 100% truth, or 100% of what God is, then I would be saying that I am equal to God in understanding.

I'm no expert in Buddhism, but after taking a few classes, I would have to say that enlightenment is quite different from experiencing God. The former deals with becoming awake to ultimate reality, as it were, whereas the latter deals with experiencing an external being. Not that the two cannot be entwined on some paths, but that one is not dependent on the other.

For me, what I have learned from my readings in Buddhism so far have been the value of living each moment in full consciousness of what I am doing and the value of compassion without attachment. That we can learn to love (and I mean this in the agape sense) without expectation. It is something I am trying very hard to comprehend on an emotional and soul level, because I think it is right. As I also believe in the Divine, this means for me that I learn not only to love those in this world and reach out to them in compassion but without attachment, but also that I learn to love God without expectation. That I detach from my own desires of heaven, paradise, whatever, and simply love God in each moment because in my path, the Divine One is worthy of my love.

[Master]

Our souls are constantly evolving over time via constant reincarnation and choices that we make.These choices decide how much closer we get to our destination. These choices are made by our soulmind during this life, after this life, and during the next life and so on. These choices are made based on experience and knowledge that our soulmind has gained from previous lives.



We must choose what type of life we will have before we are born, e.g. poor,rich,happy,sad,good,evil. We must experience all of these different types of lives plus more before we can make choices to learn so we can reach our destination. For example: we must experience being evil to understand it, and therefore appreciate good, so we can then make the decision to be good in our next life.



Our destination will be light or darkness these 2 sides must have an equal number of souls so there can be a balance.



The light of course is what we understand to be GOD, this light will be full of love, one thousand times the greatest love you have ever felt in your life,

you will become one with the light (GOD) and become a helper to bring others closer to the light.

[Ciel]

Interesting Master,
How did you come to your conclusions?
Can you tell us about your own journey so far.

[Master]

It would take a very long time for me to explain my journey so that you can fully understand.

I have not come to any conclusions, most of what i believe is theory based on experiences, knowledge, intuition and discussions with other people that are on a spiritually enlightenment path similar to myself. i believe this theory to be closer to the truth than any religion, but still far away. Although i do believe in most religious teachings.
I believe when you know the truth is when you become one with GOD.

I believe that intuition and true faith are memories stored in our soulmind from from past life experiences, spiritaul experiences and energy which connects us all together including GOD.

This energy is also our connection between our physical world and spiritual world or dimension

I also believe that we are all connected by energy, in the physical world and the spiritual world

[Ciel]

Thank you for your response Master, and welcome to CR.

And I may well understand.
I see oneness with God as the real reason why humanity is here at this given time. And truth the reality that God is real. As we awaken more also to understand who and what God is that we choose to be at one with.
Concerning memories of past existence, I see these as lines of evolving maintenance. As colours in a box of paints, some stay true to their original colour essence and others as a mix and match of blending. With certain vision it is possible to see these colour eminations and feel their presence.
And yes all is connected through fields of energy and the physical, for every thing manifests through frequency and vibration.
Do you see it is possible this thing of understanding, because even through words on a computer screen it is possible to detect a certain frequency.