What does it feel like to be Enlightened?

[Dontaskme]

I understand. This forum is less about exploring ideas with genuine and open curiosity and logic, and more about arguing against the lies and nonsense of delusional whackjobs and toxic assholes.

I need to take breaks from it at times too. When it's not fun, it's just stupid.

I mean I'm going to leave the experiment, not the forum.

It's hard to get past the Toxic Assholes...I agree. But that's men for ya!

[Dontaskme]

I want to hear your shocking reality in case any of it rings true for me.

Do you believe in a supreme being who created all things? ...like a God?

I do not...I used to, but not now after another awakening, probably my last awakening.

So even though I do not believe in God, I am still interested in those who do, and am still curious to know what they are seeing that I am not, if that makes sense?

[Atla]

Enlightenment is kinda overrated. It's the end of seeking, but overall, the truths turn out to be rather dull and shitty. But it comes with some unexpected upsides, overall I have to say it feels rather calming and pleasant, lot less anxiety. And you finally get what's going on.

But it's without a future. Overall, that may not good enough, so after enlightenment, one can still look into other kinds of umm.. "possibilities", that might lead to amazing futures. Even if the chances are marginal.

[Lacewing]

I want to hear your shocking reality in case any of it rings true for me.

Do you believe in a supreme being who created all things? ...like a God?

I do not...I used to, but not now after another awakening, probably my last awakening.

No, I do not believe in anything like that.

So even though I do not believe in God, I am still interested in those who do, and am still curious to know what they are seeing that I am not, if that makes sense?

That makes sense to me. I find value and interest in all sorts of directions. It's fascinating seeing what people are capable of (for better and worse), and how they can so completely delude themselves somehow, while being exactly that which they claim to detest/condemn in others. There are some on this forum who appear to be raging against what they, themselves, demonstrate. They simply use different costumes.

[Walker]

To do otherwise would be fair.

[odysseus]

Dontaskme wrote:
Do you believe in a supreme being who created all things? ...like a God?

I do not...I used to, but not now after another awakening, probably my last awakening.

So even though I do not believe in God, I am still interested in those who do, and am still curious to know what they are seeing that I am not, if that makes sense?

God has to be delivered from bad thinking. As with all "threshold" claims about the world, the way to think clearly about this is to determine the what it is in the world that is actual and real which is the existential basis for the idea at issue. God, in other words, is certainly not entirely myth and narrative. Find this actuality and you will find what is real about God and then you can proceed to elucidate it and argue about it, for you are have now removed the dogmatic silliness.

God is NOT an existentially empty concept. Quite the opposite.

[Dontaskme]

God is NOT an existentially empty concept. Quite the opposite.

The opposite is also true.

I've gotten rid of my addiction for believing in fictional characters for good. It was easier than I thought it would be.

[odysseus]

Dontaskme wrote
The opposite is also true.

I've gotten rid of my addiction for believing in fictional characters for good. It was easier than I thought it would be.

Well, read the brief paragraph I wrote. Bad thinking: The first thing to go is the personification. Forget all this. Look at the world as it is in its presence, dismiss the presumptions of knowing, and you find yourself, if practiced "religiously" in a different world. People have no idea how much their thinking is conditioned implicitly so in all they do and say. Ideas about God and Christian metaphysics are culturally internalized, and our job is to ignore all this and allow, as Husserl put it, the "things themselves" to appear.

This "epoche" (see Husserl, just the basic idea if you have any interest) is, putting all else aside, the bottom line for enlightenment. Ask a Buddhist, or a Hindu. Of course, what is said about this has a very long and complicated history.

[Lacewing]

Enlightenment is kinda overrated. It's the end of seeking, but overall, the truths turn out to be rather dull and shitty. But it comes with some unexpected upsides, overall I have to say it feels rather calming and pleasant, lot less anxiety. And you finally get what's going on.

But it's without a future. Overall, that may not good enough, so after enlightenment, one can still look into other kinds of umm.. "possibilities", that might lead to amazing futures. Even if the chances are marginal.

Interesting, yes! It may be imagined that everything becomes boring and pointless and dreary when there is no longer seeking. But it's actually very freeing and expanding. For many people, life without a belief in a god...

> Inspires recognition of connections with all else
> Reveals a broader network without borders/division
> Empowers naturally
> Increases accountability
> Expands potential and sight
> Broadens appreciation and reverence
> Dissolves fear and limits
> Feels like love...for what is

There is no future or belief to cater to nor be limited by. There is, instead, opportunity to bask in the current moment, ever-present, living creatively and accountably, without relying on anyone or any particular ideas. The resulting potential for exploring and manifesting can bring ever-increasing levels of amazement and fulfillment. There's really no reason for a god -- except for what humans want to use it for.

[Atla]

Enlightenment is kinda overrated. It's the end of seeking, but overall, the truths turn out to be rather dull and shitty. But it comes with some unexpected upsides, overall I have to say it feels rather calming and pleasant, lot less anxiety. And you finally get what's going on.

But it's without a future. Overall, that may not good enough, so after enlightenment, one can still look into other kinds of umm.. "possibilities", that might lead to amazing futures. Even if the chances are marginal.

Interesting, yes! It may be imagined that everything becomes boring and pointless and dreary when there is no longer seeking. But it's actually very freeing and expanding. For many people, life without a belief in a god...

> Inspires recognition of connections with all else
> Reveals a broader network without borders/division
> Empowers naturally
> Increases accountability
> Expands potential and sight
> Broadens appreciation and reverence
> Dissolves fear and limits
> Feels like love...for what is

There is no future or belief to cater to nor be limited by. There is, instead, opportunity to bask in the current moment, ever-present, living creatively and accountably, without relying on anyone or any particular ideas. The resulting potential for exploring and manifesting can bring ever-increasing levels of amazement and fulfillment. There's really no reason for a god -- except for what humans want to use it for.

Wouldn't say that enlightenment has anything to do with no belief in a god.

[Lacewing]

Wouldn't say that enlightenment has anything to do with no belief in a god.

You said this...

it's without a future. Overall, that may not good enough, so after enlightenment, one can still look into other kinds of umm.. "possibilities", that might lead to amazing futures.

That's what I'm speaking to -- other possibilities.

[Dontaskme]

Dontaskme wrote
The opposite is also true.

I've gotten rid of my addiction for believing in fictional characters for good. It was easier than I thought it would be.

Well, read the brief paragraph I wrote. Bad thinking: The first thing to go is the personification. Forget all this. Look at the world as it is in its presence, dismiss the presumptions of knowing, and you find yourself, if practiced "religiously" in a different world. People have no idea how much their thinking is conditioned implicitly so in all they do and say. Ideas about God and Christian metaphysics are culturally internalized, and our job is to ignore all this and allow, as Husserl put it, the "things themselves" to appear.

This "epoche" (see Husserl, just the basic idea if you have any interest) is, putting all else aside, the bottom line for enlightenment. Ask a Buddhist, or a Hindu. Of course, what is said about this has a very long and complicated history.

I can only understand God as the unnamed one. Not as the named one - the one that is known to be named cannot be God, for only God knows. So in this sense God is an empty concept, he is the immaculate conception. The named one is the fictional character that pretends to be the one. And God allows for that spotlight to be taken because he knows it's just him anyway. That's how I see it anyway.

I do not in anyway know this is true for absolute certainty, I only write the story as it appears to be arising from within which is very REAL...aka this direct experience of being and knowing that I AM.

.

[odysseus]

Dontaskme wrote
I can only understand God as the unnamed one. Not as the named one - the one that is known to be named cannot be God, for only God knows. So in this sense God is an empty concept, he is the immaculate conception. The named one is the fictional character that pretends to be the one. And God allows for that spotlight to be taken because he knows it's just him anyway. That's how I see it anyway.

I do not in anyway know this is true for absolute certainty, I only write the story as it appears to be arising from within which is very REAL...aka this direct experience of being and knowing that I AM.

The "unnamed one" is not unlike what God said to Moses on Horab. You may not be a Bible reader. I took a course once called The Bible as Literature, though I am certainly not a "reader". My thinking begins here:

This "I am" is played out in different ways, and I am led to believe there are three kinds of people in this world: one is the kind that takes this acknowledgement as an intellectual and analytical challenge. They do the very hard and fascinating work of examining the "I" and I can tell you first hand that until one goes through some of this, one will be interpretatively in the dark, and by that I mean, it will be a serious limit on what can be said, reasonably, responsibly. It's bit like a physicist sitting on a hill and just looking around making observations. Read Heidegger's Being and Time, and your thinking will never be the same. Massively insightful.

The second is the kind of person has what I call an existential gift, and this is very weird, inaccessible to most. These are people who have a strange intimation of "the world", that is, of Being Here, that is intuitive and powerful. It is the "sense" of a meaning and depth of existence that they were born with and it is alienating, creates distance between the usual habits and familiarities that most find simply unproblematic and routine, and the self, looking out, wondering (Kierkegaard thought that this is the beginning of self realization) what everything is all about, not at any particular level of a discipline's inquiry, but in the sheer openness of Being here. These people tend to seek out religion early on, and they get trapped in very bad interpretations of what the world is about. They know they have something others do not, that they are somehow beyond the analytic work, the speculative theory, but they cannot speak it and, well, and we find them on street corners with Bibles in their hands.

The third is the a person who has both of these: the disciplined thinking and the existential gift. These are what I call enlightened. The reason I revised my assessment of your thoughts earlier is that I realized you were perhaps a threshold type, disillusioned of both Bible and books, and this is the only way to become among the third. But then, it is not so much the massive reading that makes this happen. Rather, it is a commitment to being clear and earnest in one's beliefs: to question everything and discover in what is called an apophatic inquiry that the world is nothing that can be said, but only encountered, and when the, if you will, "Clouds of Knowing" are lifted, one sees, magnificently so.

[Atla]

Dontaskme wrote
I can only understand God as the unnamed one. Not as the named one - the one that is known to be named cannot be God, for only God knows. So in this sense God is an empty concept, he is the immaculate conception. The named one is the fictional character that pretends to be the one. And God allows for that spotlight to be taken because he knows it's just him anyway. That's how I see it anyway.

I do not in anyway know this is true for absolute certainty, I only write the story as it appears to be arising from within which is very REAL...aka this direct experience of being and knowing that I AM.

The "unnamed one" is not unlike what God said to Moses on Horab. You may not be a Bible reader. I took a course once called The Bible as Literature, though I am certainly not a "reader". My thinking begins here:

This "I am" is played out in different ways, and I am led to believe there are three kinds of people in this world: one is the kind that takes this acknowledgement as an intellectual and analytical challenge. They do the very hard and fascinating work of examining the "I" and I can tell you first hand that until one goes through some of this, one will be interpretatively in the dark, and by that I mean, it will be a serious limit on what can be said, reasonably, responsibly. It's bit like a physicist sitting on a hill and just looking around making observations. Read Heidegger's Being and Time, and your thinking will never be the same. Massively insightful.

The second is the kind of person has what I call an existential gift, and this is very weird, inaccessible to most. These are people who have a strange intimation of "the world", that is, of Being Here, that is intuitive and powerful. It is the "sense" of a meaning and depth of existence that they were born with and it is alienating, creates distance between the usual habits and familiarities that most find simply unproblematic and routine, and the self, looking out, wondering (Kierkegaard thought that this is the beginning of self realization) what everything is all about, not at any particular level of a discipline's inquiry, but in the sheer openness of Being here. These people tend to seek out religion early on, and they get trapped in very bad interpretations of what the world is about. They know they have something others do not, that they are somehow beyond the analytic work, the speculative theory, but they cannot speak it and, well, and we find them on street corners with Bibles in their hands.

The third is the a person who has both of these: the disciplined thinking and the existential gift. These are what I call enlightened. The reason I revised my assessment of your thoughts earlier is that I realized you were perhaps a threshold type, disillusioned of both Bible and books, and this is the only way to become among the third. But then, it is not so much the massive reading that makes this happen. Rather, it is a commitment to being clear and earnest in one's beliefs: to question everything and discover in what is called an apophatic inquiry that the world is nothing that can be said, but only encountered, and when the, if you will, "Clouds of Knowing" are lifted, one sees, magnificently so.

Or maybe you lack the third element: a huge amount of experience with unusual states of mind. That's why you don't see that you built a castle out of psychological illusions, one of them is the inherent God-experience of humans. The certainty with which you preach your beliefs...

[odysseus]

Or maybe you lack the third element: a huge amount of experience with unusual states of mind. That's why you don't see that you built a castle out of psychological illusions, one of them is the inherent God-experience of humans. The certainty with which you preach your beliefs...

Sorry Atla. I do seem to get under your skin. You are what you read, and if you stick exclusively with texts that have no respect for this kind of thing, you will inevitably come away from this with a cynical point of view. It cannot help you here accept to say, just look at your own influences. Skinner, a while back, wrote Beyond Freedom and Dignity, and while he wasn't talking about ideas and their influences, he did talk about conditioning, and ideas we are exposed to certainly determine how we think.

Try reading Lev Shestov. He is an early existentialist and quite accessible, his All Things Are Possible. If you really want to know beyond the simple (and banal) conceptual analyses of analytic philosophy, check out Kant.

Ever wonder how it is that the current political conservatism has become so stratospherically absurd? Typically conservatives, if they read at all, never read outside of their comfort zone, the very definition of a parochial mind.