Ah, okay, "non-reflective" in Phil's sense. The word that always baffles me I believe that's the same as what I call "preverbal" consciousness. No words in the mind, just immediate contact with present-moment sensory input.

I just read up a bit more on Adyashanti's teachings. His idea of enlightenment differs significantly (totally) from the idea of enlightenment in Tibetan Buddhism: I quote from wikipedia:

Adyashanti:
The nature of these spiritual awakenings was seen as liberation from the sense of an "I", "me" trying to be happy. He views, like many of his contemporaries, enlightenment as dis-interested in the quality of experience of life, "who cares". As such, it is possible to be enlightened and still experience anger, depression, regret, envy, hatred, sorrow, grief etc. This diverges from the view many have long held about enlightenment - in Buddhism,

Compare this with the idea of enlightenment in Tibetan Buddhism:
Buddhahood is defined as a state free of the obstructions to liberation as well as those to omniscience.[8] When one is freed from all mental obscurations,[9] one is said to attain a state of continuous bliss mixed with a simultaneous cognition of emptiness,[10] the true nature of reality.[11] In this state, all limitations on one's ability to help other living beings are removed.

I'm prone to trying to work out each stage in the k journey, and the reason for all the suffering. Hence the interest in reincarnation. But when all's said and done, any trial is best seen in the light of the cross, and the miracle of love that emerges from it. That we are able to share Christ's suffering, and he ours, and love all the more because we understand the suffering of others, is the only way to deal with pain. That's its reason, its meaning. That's why k is a trial at times. Any emergence from blockages and transformation that occurs is most certainly for me the victory of resurrection. So even enlightened consciousness, pre-verbal consciousness is an aspect of resurrection because it hints at eternal life. Not the same maybe, but part of it. My thinking however, is fuzzy on this.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: samson,

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Originally posted by samson:
So even enlightened consciousness, pre-verbal consciousness is an aspect of resurrection because it hints at eternal life. Not the same maybe, but part of it.

"Eternal life" was the phrase that came to me in the bliss period after awakening, during which it resembled a "heart awakening" in Adyashanti's terms.

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Originally posted by samson:
My thinking however, is fuzzy on this.

My thinking is fuzzy, too, but that won't stop me from expressing an opinion

As the reward or end point of the Christian life, "eternal life" seems to occupy the same place in St. John's gospel that "the kingdom" does in the Synoptics.

I find it odd that, after the Gospel period, there is rarely a clear and explicit focus on this goal, a point I mentioned in another thread a while back.

Perhaps as Christianity grew it attracted more and more "carnal Christians," who were not able to receive the material aimed at "spriritual Christians," which then become lost to us, at least in the written records that have survived from the first century:

"And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able." -- 1 Corinthians 3:1-2.

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Ah, okay, "non-reflective" in Phil's sense. The word that always baffles me Big Grin I believe that's the same as what I call "preverbal" consciousness. No words in the mind, just immediate contact with present-moment sensory input.

Not just sensory, Derek: it's noting the contents of consciousness as well, without getting involved with them. The more common term used for all this is, of course, "awareness," but referring more to open rather than focused awareness.

When I speak of it, I also note that there is a subjectivity implicit in awareness -- a see-er, which is what I call the "I."

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Adyashanti:
The nature of these spiritual awakenings was seen as liberation from the sense of an "I", "me" trying to be happy. He views, like many of his contemporaries, enlightenment as dis-interested in the quality of experience of life, "who cares".

Tara, people obviously use "enlightenment" in different ways. I do agree that Adyshanti isn't affirming very much, here. E.g., "I" and "me" are two different experiences: one the subject of attention, the other an object. I do not see enlightenment ever relieving one of "I" as I have noted many times. If that were so, there would be no telling the tale, and "enlightened" people do tell the tale.

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Compare this with the idea of enlightenment in Tibetan Buddhism:
Buddhahood is defined as a state free of the obstructions to liberation as well as those to omniscience.[8] When one is freed from all mental obscurations,[9] one is said to attain a state of continuous bliss mixed with a simultaneous cognition of emptiness,[10] the true nature of reality.[11] In this state, all limitations on one's ability to help other living beings are removed.

Do you really mean to be saying "omniscience" here? That's an attribute that Christians assign only to God. Surely enlightened Tibetan Buddhists do not know everything, and are not aware of everything going on in the universe. Could something else be meant by "omniscience" -- maybe "direct knowing" or intuitive knowing?

And one more . . .

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So even enlightened consciousness, pre-verbal consciousness is an aspect of resurrection because it hints at eternal life. Not the same maybe, but part of it. My thinking however, is fuzzy on this.

Stephen and Derek, could you maybe say more about "eternal life" here. It has a specific meaning in John's Gospel. One of my spiritual directees is a Johannine scholar and we've discussed this many times. You have to consider its usage through the whole Gospel to get a full sense of its meaning. You can also parse the term by noting that "eternal" is beyond time and applies only to God, and so "life" would mean "God's life," which is, in John, highly personal and even individuating. From what I've read through the years, it's not different from "kingdom of God" in what it indicates.

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Originally posted by Phil:
Not just sensory, Derek: it's noting the contents of consciousness as well, without getting involved with them. The more common term used for all this is, of course, "awareness," but referring more to open rather than focused awareness.

Ah, okay, Pali sati or Sanskrit smrti.

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Originally posted by Phil:
When I speak of it, I also note that there is a subjectivity implicit in awareness -- a see-er, which is what I call the "I."

Okay, so for you, this see-er is part of "awareness." For me, that sense that there's someone there doing the watching is something added to "awareness" by a trick of the mind.

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Originally posted by Phil:
people obviously use "enlightenment" in different ways.

Just taking Adyashanti alone, I found a whole page where he gives different definitions of enlightenment. And that page doesn't even mention the definition from Fr. de Mello that Adyashanti so often quotes. Even in Pali Buddhism, we find different terminology used: extinction (of the asavas), which I believe may be the earliest, since it is the source of the very word nibbana (Pali) or nirvana (Sanskrit); freedom from the ten fetters; crossing to the far shore; awakening; and maybe others I'm not aware of. Daniel Ingram, in his Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, lists some thirty different enlightenment-models he's found. That Wikipedia page referred to by Tara seems to draw mainly on the writings of a single author, Pabongka Rinpoche. Given the profuse nature of Tibetan Buddhism, I find it hard to believe that there is only one definition of enlightenment in the entire tradition.

This profusion of enlightenment-models may in itself be instructive.

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Originally posted by Phil:
could you maybe say more about "eternal life" here.

"Eternal life" was just the expression that came to me to describe what exists in the absence of a separate self. It wasn't the result of a word-study, interesting though that might be.

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Okay, so for you, this see-er is part of "awareness." For me, that sense that there's someone there doing the watching is something added to "awareness" by a trick of the mind.

Derek, for me the mind is not something separate from awareness. How could that possibly be, as everything the mind acts upon it must in some manner be aware of? Awareness, intellect/reason and will are inseparable aspects of the human spirit, though we can "lean" more into one than the other at times.
- https://shalomplace.org/eve/for...8910625/m/4144063228

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This profusion of enlightenment-models may in itself be instructive.

Yes indeed! Do you have a sense of some commonality among them -- some core affirmation?

My sense is that they all call attention (minimally) to a state of non-reflecting attentiveness where one experiences directly the interconnectivity of reality. So this is basically the awareness aspect of the human spirit perceiving with the intellect and will silenced and therefore not reflectingly acting upon what comes into the field of awareness (the mind is quiet). I think every kind of enlightenment experience includes at least this. Contemplative experience would be similar, only the will would be also lovingly engaged with God as well.

- - -

Now here's the BIG question. What's the "point" to enlightenment aside from the appreciation of interconnectivity/oneness (I refuse to say "nonduality" -- oops! ). Is one who lives more in such a state for longer periods supposedly more human than one who, say, also lives authentically and faith-fully in reflecting Egoic states (yes, my friends, such is possible)?

My response is that we need both, and that, especially, it is the Ego that develops our human potential, and even our relationship with God. I am writing a book about this right now and hope to be done within the next couple of months. Perhaps I could share this with those of you who are interested as I consider what I am doing now only a first draft, and will consider feedback for a second.

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Ego is the movement of the mind toward objects of perception in the form of grasping, and away from objects in the form of aversion. This fundamentally is all the ego is.

That's from Adyashanti, but that's so out-of-sync with modern psychology's understanding of Ego that one wonders what to do with it. This would represent an immature, wounded Ego fixated on its Persona, or mask -- a false self Ego, said in another way.

One must ask even regarding that kind of Ego -- from whence comes the awareness, intelligence and will that moves it to do this or that? It is naught but the very same human spiritual consciousness that we find more authentically expressed in other states..

And to what part of our human nature is Adyashanti "pitching" his teaching as he so clearly denigrates the Ego?

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After all, who is suffering? The "me" is suffering. And who is this me? It is nothing more than a sense of self caused by identification with grasping and aversion.

So who, then, is he speaking to?

I would also note, here, that this "me" he refers to is not the same as the "I," which is the subjectivity that is integral to awareness itself.

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You see, it's all a creation of the mind, an endless movie, a terrible dream. Don't try to change the dream, because trying to change it is just another movement in the dream. Look at the dream. Be aware of the dream. That awareness is It. Become more interested in the awareness of the dream than in the dream itself. What is that awareness? Who is that awareness? Don't go spouting out an answer, just be the answer. Be It.

That "It" is what I mean by "I". But this is not yet God.

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Daniel Ingram, in his Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, lists some thirty different enlightenment-models he's found. That Wikipedia page referred to by Tara seems to draw mainly on the writings of a single author, Pabongka Rinpoche. Given the profuse nature of Tibetan Buddhism, I find it hard to believe that there is only one definition of enlightenment in the entire tradition.

Good point, Derek! I think the variety of definitions is due the fact that so many people who are NOT enlightened want to believe that they are - and then come up with some watered down explanation of the real thing. (if the wikipedia quote is correct, Adyashanti would be a point in question.)

I myself had many moments or even hours when I thought 'surely, this must be enlightenment!', only to laugh at myself hours later when I caught myself in a silly ego game. Having said that, we can and do experience glimpses of enlightenment relatively early on. The point is to STABILISE this experience and that, my friends, can only be achieved with sufficient amount of kundalini (which brings us nicely back to the topic of the threat).

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Do you really mean to be saying "omniscience" here? That's an attribute that Christians assign only to God. Surely enlightened Tibetan Buddhists do not know everything, and are not aware of everything going on in the universe. Could something else be meant by "omniscience" -- maybe "direct knowing" or intuitive knowing?

Phil
Tibetan Buddhism really does affirm that we can find in the depth of our mind everything that Christians assign only to God. So, yes, there is true omniscience (not that I know it myself but that is what the scriptures say. I have, however, developed a lot of clairvoyance, which shows me how this works in principle).

However, this does not mean that you could go with every scientific or personal question to an enlightened master and receive a correct answer. Enlightened beings are very choosy what they talk about.

Anandamayi Ma, the fully enlightened Hindu teacher, for example, would say, 'this body (meaning 'I') can only talk about spiritual things.' Despite having only one or two years of schooling she excelled in the most in-depth spiritual/philosophical debates, which brought her the respects of all the pandits of her time.

I personally refuse to give future predictions to my clients even though some of them ask me sometimes.

I agree with you, Phil, that the I is preserved in the enlightenment experience but it is so utterly different from our normal I that it can be highly misleading to call it that way. It is an I free from attachment and aversion as Adyashanti says but it's main quality is its all pervading love that sees all beings as part of one's own self.

Before we achieve this 'divine I' we go through the experience of non-self, where our old sense of self dissolves and we experience ourselves as luminous space. This is where quite a few practitioners stop and believe that they are enlightened, when they are not. This luminous space is just a place where we change gears before we adopt the divine sense of I.

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Now here's the BIG question. What's the "point" to enlightenment aside from the appreciation of interconnectivity/oneness (I refuse to say "nonduality" -- oops! ). Is one who lives more in such a state for longer periods supposedly more human than one who, say, also lives authentically and faith-fully in reflecting Egoic states

Phil
the point of being enlightened from a Tibetan Buddhist view is not being more human or more this and that because that would be an egotistical perspective that looks for ways of self-aggrandisement.

The point is merely and solely to be able to do more for others, to liberate more beings more quickly and thoroughly from suffering.

It is a common Tibetan Buddhist teachings that we are admonished to try to get enlightened for the sake of others - not for ourselves.

We are told over and over that what we can do for others in an unenlightened states is very limited (quite common sense, really) and that we can do more for others the more we advance on our spiritual path.

For that reason we must always keep working on ourselves and never relent our effort for our own awakening - for others, not for ourselves. The bliss and the confidence and all the nice powers we get in the process are only a nice by-products, so to speak.

They would quickly get stale and boring if we used them solely for our own egoic pleasures.

The point of it all is to help others!

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...Now here's the BIG question. What's the "point" to enlightenment aside from the appreciation of interconnectivity/oneness (I refuse to say "nonduality" -- oops! ). Is one who lives more in such a state for longer periods supposedly more human than one who, say, also lives authentically and faith-fully in reflecting Egoic states (yes, my friends, such is possible)? ...

I have been thinking lately that the whole "enlightenment pursuit" is so self-involved. What is the point of that (for many modern seekers) but to hope to reach some place where they can kick back and say "check it out, I've got it now, no need for anything anymore, no one to need it, no one needing, just this, life's problems solved!"

I meet priest after nun who are so charitable, generous, kind, patient, gracious, giving, devout. I know some of them well enough to know they do NOT have any significant transformative experiences. And yet it is irrelevant.

That's the work: love of God, love of neighbor. And it's the work before, during, or after any shifts in perspective, great awakenings of wisdom, etc.

Oh, wow, so many questions! I'll just pick one to start with.

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Originally posted by Phil:
Yes indeed! Do you have a sense of some commonality among them -- some core affirmation?

My sense is that they all call attention (minimally) to a state of non-reflecting attentiveness where one experiences directly the interconnectivity of reality. So this is basically the awareness aspect of the human spirit perceiving with the intellect and will silenced and therefore not reflectingly acting upon what comes into the field of awareness (the mind is quiet). I think every kind of enlightenment experience includes at least this. Contemplative experience would be similar, only the will would be also lovingly engaged with God as well.

The core feature is what I call disindividuation. During the first couple of years of life, the human being forms a notion of itself as separate from everything else. This is the individuation process, described for example in Margaret S. Mahler (1975), Psychological birth of the human infant : symbiosis and individuation. Disindividuation is the opposite: realizing that there is no separate self.

I believe that one reason there are so many enlightenment models is that human development after disindividuation can proceed along any number of dimensions. It can become deeper, rounder, or more thorough in any number of ways. Moreover, people assume their own development is normative for humanity as a whole. That's why you get all these different models. The proponents of each model assert that anyone who doesn't fit into their own pattern must have missed the real point. I don't think that's true. "There are more things in heaven and hell then are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio."

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I have been thinking lately that the whole "enlightenment pursuit" is so self-involved. What is the point of that (for many modern seekers) but to hope to reach some place where they can kick back and say "check it out, I've got it now, no need for anything anymore, no one to need it, no one needing, just this, life's problems solved!"

I meet priest after nun who are so charitable, generous, kind, patient, gracious, giving, devout. I know some of them well enough to know they do NOT have any significant transformative experiences. And yet it is irrelevant.

That's the work: love of God, love of neighbor. And it's the work before, during, or after any shifts in perspective, great awakenings of wisdom, etc.

I feel compelled to defend myself, Ona. You make it out as if all search for enlightenment is selfish and that Christians have a monopoly on love. As I have explained in my latest point the Tibetan Buddhist perspective is the MERGING of those two aspects of development, which results in a much greater ability to help others.