dis astral project is hard

[Xbalanque]

What is Enlightenment anyway?

I hope you won't mind my take on this question. I asked the same question for many years, and then I had my own experience and I'd like to say that it is very much like the moment when one experiences a *moment* of transcendence, perhaps while sitting on a mountain top, engaging with nature - when all of a sudden, you feel like you're one with everything. These moments are rare and fleeting, but IMHO they capture the spirit of enlightenment.

More to the point, the Ashtavakra Gita states:

"Liberation is when the mind does not long for anything, grieve about anything, reject anything, or hold on to anything, and is not pleased about anything nor displeased about anything." 8.2

This is most certainly true for my own experience - where I experienced a state of absolute zero desire and this state existed within for about 5 months. It is a state that practically everyone who's had an enlightenment experience describes in the same way.

Here's another thing, namely duality. I had studied Zen for nearly 30 years and kept hearing about duality. That there is no separation, yadda, yadda, yadda. This really didn't mean anything to me until my own experience with enlightenment.

Here are some key quotes of enlightenment that I have discovered since my own awakening. They not only capture enlightenment as well as words can do but show that all of the great teachers of the past were really saying the same thing.

From the Ashtavakra Gita:

Truly dualism is the root of suffering. There is no other remedy for it than the realisation that all this that we see is unreal, and that I am the one stainless reality, consisting of consciousness. 2.16

An object of enjoyment that comes of itself is neither painful nor pleasurable for someone who has eliminated attachment, and who is free from dualism and from desire. 3.14

One established in the Absolute state with an empty mind does not know the alternatives of inner stillness and lack of inner stillness, and of good and evil. 17.18
............

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense."

— Sufi mystic and Islamic theologian, Rumi (1207-1273)

...........

"When You make the two one, and when You make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when You make the male and the female one, so that the male will not be male nor the female female ... then will You enter the Kingdom." —Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas (22)

............

Three pounds of flax in front of your nose,
Close enough, and mind is still closer.
Whoever talks about affirmation and negation
lives in the right and wrong region.

—Zen Master Mumon (1183-1260)

..............

The great teachers of the past also explain that it is our reliance on reasoning and thinking that keeps us trapped in the paradigm of duality:

In The Compass of Zen, Zen Master Seung Sahn wrote:

"If you are attached to your thinking, then everything has name and form. This is the world of opposites."

............

"Every time a thought is born, you are born. When the thought is gone, you are gone. But the 'you' does not let the thought go, and what gives continuity to this 'you' is THINKING.

"Actually, there is no permanent entity in you, no totality of all your thoughts and experiences. You think that there is 'somebody' feeling your feelings - that's the illusion. I can say it is an illusion but it is not an illusion to you."

—U. G. Krishnamurti

.............

In Sanskrit scripture, the Tripura Rahasya, we find the following instruction:

"The sole necessity for Self-Realisation is purity of mind. The only impurity of mind is thought." 16.48

"He whose thinking mind is dissolved achieves the indescribable state and is free from the mental display of delusion, dream, and ignorance." 17.20

...............

The bottom line is that the state does exist, but words cannot truly describe it- only point at it. When U.G. says that there is no enlightenment, he is speaking from the enlightened state - a state that goes beyond our understanding. The Ashtavakra Gita says similar things. In fact, many descriptions of enlightenment are contradictory because the state transcends description and is both true and untrue at the same time.

For ex.:

"He by whom the Supreme Brahma is seen may think "I am Brahma," but what is he to think who is without thought, and who sees no duality?" Ashtavakra Gita 18.16

"For me, established in my own glory, there are no religious obligations, sensuality, possessions, philosophy, duality, or even nonduality." Ashtavakra Gita 19.2

The first statement seems to say that nonduality is the key and the second says that there is no nonduality as well. Words simply fail when trying to describe the state. As Rumi says:

"...the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense."

[Mina-Laura]

Dear Xbalanque,

Thank you for your answer and the time taken to reply in such wonderful depth. But see...

My question was rhetorical. And this almost describes it:

The bottom line is that the state does exist, but words cannot truly describe it- only point at it.

Reaching there it may look/feel different to everybody depending on the experiences needed to be integrated in the being (us, creation).

Thus at some level I disagree with a lot of the Enlightened descriptions. I.e "the mind does not long for anything" for instance. That is a state of non-creation and in my humble opinion one reaches it when it had to much of the neverending cycle of suffering and the Mind needs to still itself (for that required time in order to heal of the trauma induced by existence).
But if you think about it (with your heart senses) that is a state of nothing and is only related to ego.

When is not about the Ego, is only about the others, not us, not "my mind" or - mind period. In this sense we do not 'think' inside of us for us (my enlightenment etc...) , but only on how can you help others getting out of the neverending cycle of suffering.

And the thing about the Creator (towards which we aim to be/become like) is that there is no end to it, meaning there is always something 'after'... thus true enlightenment is an ever reaching towards neverending state that can never be qualified, quantified, compared to, or described state.






love

[Goonie]

theez all sum great cumbaks, but i only wanted to lern astral project cuzz baki hanma kept suggestin it will help me change the physical world. this forum haz over 3000 members an not one of ya ever had an astral experience wher it can change anything in the physical relm?