This question popped into my head today. Since I began interest in philosophy, etc, I've always taken as a given that achieving greater levels of "enlightenment" is a noble purpose in life. But I don't even understand what this entails. What do we hope to gain by obtaining this so-called enlightenment? What are we getting closer to? I admit I am young, I'll be a senior in high school this year, but I consider myself to be pretty intelligent for my age (I don't mean to sound cocky by any means). Maybe I'm still too young and naive and will understand better when I have more life experiences, but is there anyone who can give a good response to this question to point me in the right direction? I think there are many more people like me who are seeking the answer to this question as well, whether they realize it yet or not. I believe it's a topic that warrants discussion.

Hi Steve,

I wouldn't worry too much about becoming 'enlightened'.

Have you noticed that nobody has yet defined just what it is anyway.

There are vast amounts of Truths out there for each us to find, and I mean 'absolute Truths', not just what we each individually accept as truths.

Life allows a long search for details about so many questions to which we seek answers.
Each time we realise another Truth I believe we are 'more enlightened'.

I dread the day that I 'know it all'. Can you imagine what it would be like not to be able to try and tackle another unknown?


Life would be most boring; so keep searching, and as long as you continue to learn be grateful and hope, as I do, that more remains to be discovered.


All the best, Bill.

it's all about feeling that you understand. If you feel that way, you are 'enlightened'.

LIVE and become enlightened through growing and changing. If you are not changing are you living or are you forcing life to meet your ego needs? Someone wisely advised you not to pay much heed to words and though this is true it is also false. A great truth has an opposite with is also true. (Neils Bohr said that)

Most people are programmed to behave and yet our behavioral programmers or parents are at the least a product of flawed beliefs. Belief is closure so guard against it and the wiles of ego. To fulfill one's potential requires giving and the greatest giving can be observed in words of those who gave a lot - but judge them by their acts and not words put in their mouths by others.

The Question: What are we searching for?

The Answer: Answer to the Question "What are we searching for?".

The Realization(or knowledge): We are searching for the searcher. Rather the searcher is searching for himself.

Why is it difficult: As long as the the searcher keeps searching, he will find everything but himself. And if he does not search, he is not going to find anything.
(Then what on the hell should he do?!)

When does it end: The question should rather be "How does it end?". My rational thinking doesnot help me here. It must end in a weird, mysterious, irrational way.

What's the Big Deal: We get what we are searching for.

The Confusion: Why dont we just stop the search and be happy with what we are/have (if we are actually searching for ourself)

The Clarity: Every time you find yourself, you find more of yourself.
Less of "me" finding more of "me". I am searching for more of "myself"

"MORE!!!" in what sense: That is exactly What we are searching for.

I am not searching for the searcher.

And, though I do search for myself, it is not myself that I seek.

Hi Rajesh,

My response was brief and I apoplogise for that.

The language is, I find, ambiguous.

To try and clarify:-

I am searching for the Truth to questions like:-

Is there a God [or more]?
Why is life existent?
How did it come about?
What purpose does it serve?
What is conciousness?
What is Self?

In considering these questions, I search.
'Myself' is me. I am not searching for 'me', so I am not searching for myself. I do search by myself though - and employ nobody else to search for me!
If I wanted to search for myself I would start with a mirror and a psychiatrist.

Indeed different people search for different things I suspect. Some people may be unable to face up to or cope with some of the Truths of life, so exclude these avenues; hide them behind mental walls as is necessary to cope. Others feel stronger and able to delve deeper with whatever skills they have been able to develop. In my case answers are not coming easily!

So, I have defined the type of questions I seek to answer, and you will see that I do not seek 'myself'.
I know myself. I am found. And I look outwards. I do also look inwards on the conciousness issue, however.

The Mayabs say:

'Do not put yourself in front of your SELF'.

Hello Robert,

I call my SELF 'Essy'.

Essy is quite happy that I search and try to explain to 'it' just what is going on.
Most times Essy takes little notice, but my control is improving dramatically, especially regarding my health.

Essy does look after me, however, so I have the greatest respect for it!

Did the Mayabs say anything about putting oneself behind ones SELF?

yes, the b is next to the n on the keyboard

Dear Rhymer

Putting one's self behind, or in front, or above, or at the side of, inside, and 'without', are all perspectives that the saying contemplates. In fact the saying is quite suggestive of the fact that there is no self outside of the SELF to one who is aware.

The personality is not the consciousnes or the soul and yet it has energy that continues in some way to be able to come back and re-learn or learn again what it failed to learn. Still the personality is not immortal and must seek to dis- solve as it solves the nature of awareness.

They believed there was soul in rock and in all matter (as the separation of muons experiment does suggest). They knew it could collectivize and act on other design constructs and be energized to do things or make certain things appear to be according to their imprint but they also knew they (!) were only part of something far greater.

They knew the ego or personality had to refute the meaning in the saying before it could understand the meaning in the saying. They understood how stupid people can be and why wisdom equires looking past ego better than most. My research shows they had contact with Buddhists from Barabudur since the sixth century AD and they may have been associated with these Buddhists from where Buddhism or Hinduism originated long before that.

Hi rajesh,

You paint an interesting picture by trying to prove that I search only for myself.
But, I am a different sort of investigator to that which you conjure up.

Take my first and second and third points.
Is there a God and why is life existent?
When I think of this question, I see history as a sequence of events (quite naturally).
I consider whether a life form (not just Man or Me), did not exist at some time, and then came into existence.
What caused it. Why was it caused, or why was it possible. I am not considering reproduction, but creation or evolution, etc., or even invasion (just moves the problem back).

Take my fourth point.
What purpose does life serve?
Again, you limit the search to me, when in fact I consider all life-forms in my search for answers. I happen to believe that for the individual, the best way to consider 'purpose' is, when on ones deathbed, to recall everything one has done in ones lifetime, and to accept that list to be ones purpose in life. This may give a warm feeling, and is quite probably false, but I start from there and consider other possibilities. I suspect that there is no purpose to life! Many questions can be asked, to which there is an answer which is indeterminable and some questions can be asked to which no answer exists.

Take my fifth point.
I am bound to consider my own conciousness for the simple reason that I cannot witness that of anybody else - only it's effects on them. But you unnecessarily narrow the field by presuming to try and prove that I am doing the thinking only to find out something about myself. Most of my reading is of things that go wrong with the brain, ie., things which are not applicable to me! I happen to believe that my existence is of little consequence in the worldly scale of things. I might be able to change that for the good of all by realising something which no-one has realised (a most unlikely, but none-the-less worthwhile activity in my opinion). I would not seek any reward or fame!

So your conclusion that I am only seeking information about myself is false; I do not consider myself to be above anybody else, but as useless as everybody else, thereby not worthy of consideration in general. Some people do, however celebrate my existence, and I others. When it comes to negative thoughts about others I strain to hate their behaviour or thoughts rather than the person and can usually understand why they behave the way they do. (These comments do not refer to you for your post, by the way)!

I shall now consider why you should conclude that my search is self biased.
Namaste, Bill.

After listening to you two debate about this I think that you're both right. We strive to understand the universe (and ourselves). The thing is, though, we cannot possibly understand ourselves outside the context of our part in the universe. And in the same way we can't understand the universe without considering our own existence in it. It's a bit of a catch-22. So I guess the conclusion I'm coming to is that we have to look without and within at the same time to get anywhere. While natural tendency is to study everything objectively, but matters like this must be observed without disregarding our own part in it.

I think the answers to these questions are exceedingly simple.

We are searching for the everlasting good life.

The so-called 'enlightenment' is just a grandiose mythos of 'salvation'. Those who claim 'enlighenment' usually guide people into self-satisfying isolation.

What we are getting closer to is uncertain, there are no guarantees except that we will end up somewhere.

Eternal Bliss
Eternal Love
Unity (along with diversity)
OmniScience
Omnipotence

Each of the above are terminal and limiting conditions.
I suspect that if and when attained, ones appreciation of life may be very limited.
We only really appreciate anything when its opposite interferes and reminds us of a valuable something!

I prefer to look forward to not wanting to improve any aspect of what happens in my life on a day to day basis. That is to say that I seek satisfaction, and I guess that is what we all seek and at the same time realise that we all have different 'aiming points' or judgements of what will satisfy us. [I do not presume to accept a 'sit back and enjoy it' attitude or approach. There must have been the consideration of an aiming point].

Enlightenment will never be had through SALVATION - that concept is a crock like all the other fear fomenting Self-Inflicted Nonsense borne of religion. One must lose their self before becoming able to get enlightenent in the many stages it comes - see Celestine Prophecy for one approach - it comes from the Enneagrams.

just so people don't get the wrong ideas,...

when I say 'salvation', I am referring to transcendence of suffering. nothing more

when I say 'the good life', I am referring to a life where suffering has been completely transcended. I should mention that such a state cannot be reached in isolation, thus the 'whole' must transcend suffering for 'the good life' state to exist. salvation is an all-or-none proposition

Aristotle referred to happiness as the most we can achieve.

It is easy to be happy without all the things we obsess over. The balance of our constituent selves and the possibility of participation in creating a whole or in conjunction with that WHOLE is going to be hard to beat for enlightenment. But most people over the last little blip of human existence have bought into systems that deny the whole or any sense of ONENESS. We have seen a 5000 year 'nightmare' as James Joyce wisely stated. The thoroughly amazing thing about this - it is those elites who have told us they speak for God or are Divine Kings who in fact have used or led us into this soulful wasteland.

Barthold Niebuhr (I think it was) said that bringing something back from the past or discovering anything is a high that is akin to the greatest creativity. It is so wonderful to learn and see the way of those we have denigrated as barbarian or primitive as they frolic in the joy of adventure and oneness with Nature as they nurtured each other.

I think the nightmare is not without value. we are literally creating through this nightmare technology that will enable a paradigm shift in the progression of consciousness. while one might be blissful in primitive slumber for a time, the life of meaning aims aims to the end of complete transcendence of suffering. without a means to this end, we hope in vain

There is a hierarchy - that is true. But through all PATHS (Tao means PATH or WAY) I find the ancients knew better and all the talk of suffering is mere BS (see Milarepa or the Tibetan Tulkus approach - maybe I should put it up here). Dan is right to say will can easily be lost through manipulation but worse than that is the loss of creativity and many other things. All these Paths lead to the same stages and converge harmonically. I guess by now you know I could give two shits for the money I once had in excess. I value these things far more.

Let me ask you if you would consider yourself more enlightened or happy if you knew you could talk to (not at - that is easy) the animlas like the Australian aborigines that taught Crocodile Dundee to do what he did with the Water Buffalo?

What greater JOY is there than knowing you healed a loved one who had a major operation scheduled? How does one measure the awesome sense of WHAT IS and Divine Providence when one is into competing for the ONE PIE rather than creating MORE?

James was not referring to technology as he spoke about a 'nightmare'. For most of those 5000 years technology was kept in the hands of the few and like all other insights and power made subject to a hierarchy or forced plan of non-egalitarian manipulation including the destruction of soul and women who were not allowed to be educated because the Greeks and others feared their greater spiritual insight and nurturing ability to focus on the WHOLE.

The eastern philosophies such as Yoga have well described the benefits of 'shakti' and 'chhi' which are as the soul to the oversoul. No adept or spiritual person can deny the power or the beauty available through the 'union' (Yoga) of the soul and what is called 'Holy Spirit' or 'Aum'. The Noble laureates like Schrödinger and Wigner from the field of physics are convinced there is great meaning in the words and heart of they who always focus with breath as a vitalizing force. But is it acceptable to actually see breath or 'chhi'? Would you be regarded as a demented fool if you were to threaten a dross and physically oriented person by making note of the vagaries and imbalances in their 'energy'? Yes, it would possibly land you in an institution if you did share your vision!
"The mystic, by the help of exercises, develops and purifies the breath. Therefore to him after a certain time all things become clear in the outer and inner world. There are some who see light before them, there are some who notice colours before their view, also there are some who see forms before their sight. {There are many who sense these 'forms' and structures in other ways.} When they talk about it to others who cannot observe the phenomena, they are considered imaginative; people often laugh at them. The Sufi therefore does not speak of any such experience to others; he thinks it is not their world and they will not be able to understand, unless they also rise to that sphere.
There is no motive for speaking about one's experiences to others except pride {There may be reasons but not 'motives'.}. And if someone does this out of vanity, his next step will be exaggeration. If something makes anyone feel himself above others, it is natural for him to feel inclined to make it still more impressive. Besides, it is in human nature to wish to interest one's friends in one's pleasure, and if someone is pleased with something he sees, he will surely try to make it more interesting by a little added exaggeration.
Therefore there are these two dangers on the spiritual path of which the adept must be aware before making the journey. It is for this reason that mysticism has been made a secret cult: that it may not be for everybody to play with.” (2)
The breath of truth is there in Sufism but also the breath that mystifies and magically devolves the mind into ego is there. When they seek to seclude or separate women they use gracious terms to appeal to 'womanly fineness and delicacies of sentiment.’ (3) or they say a woman is more important than a man when she does the work of a mother. As long as the 'free' thinking person is subjected to such socializing idiom how can mankind unite his dual creative nature and perceive the greater good for all of our 'sisters'. We only prove our lack of belief in the immortality of the soul when we diminish or limit women. Because each of us is bound to become carnate or re-incarnate in the garb of womanly flesh; if for no other reason. There are many other reasons to concern ourselves with the seduction of power between sexes and the violence that forfeits all goodness and reason. But the greatest wisdom is in 'feeling' the awesome beauty of one you respect and know is at least your equal in every way. Thus their Sufi words of wisdom about 'vanity' that puts one 'above others' are suspect.
THE STILLNESS IN YOGA (UNION):
Here we have a book on Yoga telling us how to really live. It is also necessary to have this energy to really and properly go to one’s death or to make it possible to astrally or dimensionally travel to the Bardol states and places that we go when we actually die.
“It is difficult to pay attention to something if you are not interested in that thing. But it is also difficult to be interested if you are not paying attention. For example, you may be watching the best film in the world. But if you are thinking of something else and are not paying attention, you will miss the subtle nuances that make the film so good, and you won’t appreciate or enjoy it as much as you might. Interest, attention and enjoyment are obviously interrelated. Of course, if you are not interested in doing yoga at the moment, you should really be doing something else. Or you may be interested but unable to maintain a focused attention for an extended period of time. Ujjayi breathing can create that focus.
Each breath you take can remind you to be here now, to treat this moment as important, and repeatedly to affirm the fact that right now you are exactly where you want to be, doing exactly what you want to be doing. You will probably be amazed at how much energy is suddenly at your disposal the moment you realize this. When you are no longer wishing you were somewhere else, doing something different, you will discover that energy is the given and that energy is abundant. What would you expect but the fullest enthusiasm and response when your body, mind, heart, attention, and interest are all in one place? When your attention is no longer splintered and dissipated through conflict, indecisiveness, or half-heartedness, you will experience and increase in energy and feel more alive.
This is especially interesting because, unless you are an absolute beginner, you’ll find your mind tiring long before your body. When your mind begins to tire, only then does your body start getting tired. {My older brother used to run long distances and it took until his second mile or more before he reached past tiredness to a meditative state. I remember once when he came back from a five mile run with Marty Liquori and I ran alongside him for the last quarter mile. That was about all I could really run. His breathing was in sync with something I never really got to understand. He had the same sense of this in boxing and other sports, as well as the ability to superannuate his hormones and become far more powerful. He could sense the center of gravity of ‘both’ people in a fight and thus know or sense the next move before it happened. He never studied spirituality as we think of it. He did not need to, in some ways. But each person should find these second and third ‘winds’ or altered states in whatever way works best for them. I think sex was one area where we both knew this. I certainly never lost interest in sex with someone I loved unless I was drunk or for some other less than appropriate reason.} As your interest begins to flicker and wane, you become less attentive. You start thinking of other things, wishing you were elsewhere. Your energy goes elsewhere. {N. B.} You treat your body and your Yoga with less care, less respect; and automatically but not surprisingly, your body—following the dictates of your mind—loses its energy and also gets tired. But as you stay clear within yourself that this is what you want to be doing right now, you will be able to sustain interest and attention for far longer periods of time. As your capacity for attention increases, so does your energy, your actual physical energy. {Nowadays it is ‘creating’ which brings this intent to a high focus for me – and my energy still remains high despite being older and in far worse physical condition.}
Your mental attitude, therefore, is the real source of energy and enthusiasm, and you will learn this very quickly in yoga… It’s worth the small effort required to discipline yourself mentally to be attentive and present with whatever is happening each new moment.” (4)
I have spent time reading Alan Watts as part of doing these books lately. People always used to say I sounded like him. Now I understand the reason—we both lived in the ‘Zen of the moment’. But this energy that physics calls Dark Energy or Zero Point and all so many other names is still not easy to say we ‘know’ how it works in scientific terms. The fields are becoming more evident and Tesla and Faraday would be happy to see where we are going in science despite some died-in-the-wool reductivists and naysayers.

That evening led to the events that make this story difficult for most people to believe. At about the same time as the night before I felt Ed wanted to reach me and I told John that he was 'in touch'. Each major subject that Ed broached I told John about as best I could. ESP isn't as imperfect as words nor as specific. Knowledge is far more integrated than the cubby-holing of regurgitated pablum that most people pass between each other.
The wind would pick up and beat the tree branches to strike the roof of our cabin whenever I put up defenses to try to deflect his deeper probes. If I still didn't wish to share, it rained on our roof. It only occurred at these junctures. John thought it was someone outside with ropes and garden hoses. That is how intermittent it was. There was no rain anywhere in New England that night according to the news. It stopped when Ed was through. John was perhaps a little afraid, as he tried to exhibit total control and a knowing attitude. He wouldn't go outside to check his stupid theory. He confirmed the facts of the wind and rain for years thereafter but would never buy into my explanation of the way energies connect in levels that adepts like Ed can provide a stimulus to. Ed was not trying to affect the wind and rain. It might even be that the wind is my ally and that is why nature chose this particular way of getting its desired result.
Ed and I talked on a few occasions before I left. I was trying to get him to do more with his massive prowess and knowledge. He seemed to me like he was about to 'give up'! We talked of many things that I did not fully incorporate. Sometimes I engaged in the following kind of possibility thinking. Snails have been taught how to go through a maze. The researchers then grind them up and feed them to other snails - which have never seen a maze. These snails go through the maze as if they knew all the original snail knew. Harvard has found that over a four hundred year period that 87% of the family tree of many families engage in very similar professions and life interests. A couple of mathematicians having difficulty making a baby took fertility drugs like estrogen in England in the late 60's and their offspring was able to communicate through advanced mathematical theorems before being able to speak a language; I think it was around the age of eighteen months. Some element of the human profession lineage is environmental but there may be genetic or other information transfer.
The Minnesota Twins Study which I believe is still on-going was already in possession of impressive data about twins separated at birth and the commonality of their knowledge and experiences as well as dreams. To me this proves ESP and other connectiveness. But somehow that kind of thing isn't adequate to the psychiatrists and other reductivist 'world of seems to be' people who say 'if you can't see it, IT doesn't exist'. Ed was far more aware of the Hindu and Egyptian cosmogony and the elemental or dimensional forces than I was. He may have known more than I do today. He certainly was more in tune with the elemental forces. Rituals have a long term benefit that keeps the pathways open to the numerous other energies once met or communicated with. That is not to say that it is an open door or that a ritual performed once or even ten times guarantees the natural communion that Ed had with nature. COMMUNION has a ritual associated with it that some in the ecclesiastical constructs call 'transubstantiation'. The rituals of witchcraft that Ed engaged in brought him to a communion more real and far more useful on the physical plane of reference than the Catholic communion.
There is a Qabalistic root to Revelations and the High Mass as well as communion that many Christians would freak if they knew. The Tree of Life that orthodox Jews like the Hassidim and Sephardic Jews study has much more than just some kind of disciplined worship of a one GOD. Jungian archetypes and Campbell's anthropological influence are not at odds except by nature of cubby-holing. The Bardol Thodol or other sidpa state planes of dimensional energy out side the perceptual range of human existence are not separate from us as the old image of Heaven suggested. The cosmic soup is all around us and in the time of Christ most Mediterranean (and North American till much later) peoples set plates for the dead at the dinner table so that they might feel welcome to join this communion. People were not programmed to deny the spirit world and everyone freely associated and gave their energy to the spirits. The idea that ghosts and these spirits are EVIL is the true evil plan of those who would have us cower in fear as they exorcize these spirits in disgusting displays of power and suggestive symbology wrought with dangerous portent. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, it just dissipates and reforms. The theory of entropy has been disproved at some levels just as almost all other scientific theories are only partial. Ghost and spirit world entities require our thought energy to be able to maintain at a level of ectoplasmic or lesser visual reality.

Dear Dan

We can agree about technology but not about its roots. James was aware that technology and other knowledge was used against people by the elites and to what degree he understood it is hard to tell. Jung was a big fan of James as was Campbell so I can be pretty sure (because they knew) that James knew the elites used technology (including things we have yet to let out of Pandora's Box) to effect the things they do and continue to do.

I just don't believe in the myths of ancient hyper-technology. At best, I can concede that rudimentary technology (by today's standards) existed and was used skillfully by 'elite' (people with the upper hand) toward the end of influencing society to favor their agendas

Professor Heischelheim at the U of T did a book tracing the origin of all technology to the Altaic region - long before we really kew much about those Tarim Basin Red-Heads. I have not read his book but my assistant who has his Honor's Classical History degree was one of his students.

Don't know what hyper-technology is - are you denigrating my comments about Harmonics which we are only now starting to understand as well as the builder's of the Pyramid?

Ancient Inventions by an engineer named Thorpe says anything we could do up until 1950 the ancients could do. They give a long list of examples - from artifacts. They do not go to the really advanced stuff that is evident on the caves of Hathor, in the Puranas or elsewhere. Just things like Steam engines, calendrical computers, geared mahines and better than modern harbours - I don't even think they mention Numa's electrical machines - two in the British Museum - or the printed circuit in Damascus and many other things that solid archaeology and science does provide.

Maybe I should provide you with my biblio of about ten more of my books - I have provided one earlier - and you can start researching and then talk with some modicum of factual background rather than the trite crap you and most people learned in school.

I don't want to waste my time reading silly nonsense. I'd like to see proof that the 'ancients' were even remotely capable of producing radios, televisions, nuclear reactors, jet aircraft, etc... Show these facts instead of telling me that I lack knowledge of them due to incomplete study