Was Jesus Not Enlightened ?

[Trevor Salyzyn]

brokie, you broke the analogy.

[Alex Jacob]

Trevor asks:

"Alex, is there any justice apart from just people? Can a person talk of principles of justice, what it means to be just, without explicitly mentioning anyone in particular".

The conversation about 'justice' arose in a human context, if I am not mistaken. Once existant as an idea about 'justice', it can be spoken of abstractly, and can be applied to other non-human relationships, it can be spoken of in any context. It can take on a general idea, a justice-idea.

You could have all sorts of theoretical conversations about 'justice', and you can go anywhere you want to go with it. The sky's the limit. But actually there are no limits.

It is therefor relevant to speak about a principal or idea of 'enlightenment', but the conversation, to make any sense, would always have to return to the subject of this 'enlightenment'.

Maybe I have not been reading right, but conversations of 'enlightenment' rarely seem to focus on the individual, it is always broached abstractly.

This makes Alex very, very angry.

:-(

[Trevor Salyzyn]

It's easier to identify a law-abiding citizen than it is to identify a person without delusion. You don't even need to be just to recognize justice. Coming up with examples for enlightenment is difficult.

[Alex Jacob]

Yeah it is, especially if you have no real sense of what in fact you are talking about. Your definition, as I have said, will start off in search of its subject, and get lost.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

It's not too difficult to recognize that deluded people are everywhere. It's natural to suppose that there is an opposite.

Determing how this opposite would appear is not too much of a challenge, either. Compare those who refuse to walk under ladders for fear of bad luck with those who only refuse to walk under precarious, wobbly ladders. The non-superstitious mind is lacking something: the emotion-laden delusion.

Whether or not it is possible to abolish all delusions, in the non-trivial sense where true beliefs are maintained, does not seem that important for any but the wisest men (where it might actually be a possibility). For most people, getting rid of nearly any amount of delusion is good.

[mikiel]

Gnosis is synonymous with enlightenment, meaning *knowing* God as our True Identity. ("Selflessness."... see http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/ ... l#teachers )

This is what Jesus meant when he said, "I and the Father are One." This is what I mean by "conscious unity." This is the Truth expressed in, and the whole purpose of my website.

This page addresses the point directly:
http://www.consciousunity.org/Beyond%20Belief.HTML

Here is the most *common knowledge* about gnosis expressed on the net... Wiki of course:

Gnosis (from one of the Greek words for knowledge, γνώσις) is the spiritual knowledge of a saint or mystically enlightened human being. In the cultures of the term (Byzantine and Hellenic) gnosis was a special knowledge or insight into the infinite, divine and uncreated rather than into the finite, natural or material world. [1] Gnosis is a transcendent as well as mature understanding.[2] It indicates direct spiritual experiential knowledge[3] rather than that from rational or reasoned thinking.

It really doesn't matter if Jesus or any other person who inspired a religion was an actual historical figure.

One of the founders of this forum claims that he was never born. (He is of course either fucking with us or actually deluded enough to believe it himself.)

The point is that any individual who still believes in his/her "separate identity" remains unenlightened, while, conversely anyone who actually *knows* (by direct revelation!) his/her identity with/in/as God-manifesting-as-"I Am" locally as the individual (as I do) *is* enlightened.

---------------------
An aside:
("Knows" is distinct from "thinks" as in the moronic ref above to someone thinking s/he is a bird, which does not enable one to to fly. Duh!...And this guy has been on my case for well over two years... a clear case of obsessive compulsion... even reflected in the name, "Ramayana"... who laid siege against the bad guy in the story... mik, in his sick mind... look it up. He is the Six Strings of "Myspace" from which my confrontational, radically honest style got me banned. But he came over here to continue dogging me. Which one is sick? That judgment may be in the eye of the beholder, but I stake my career and reputation as a psychotherapist on the correctness of the above diagnosis of this persistent pit-bull.)
--------------------------

The rest of you can beat around the bush all day trying to "define" enlightenment away, but the above will still be True.

[Alex Jacob]

You seem almost to equate 'enlightenment' with scientific rationalism. For you, 'enlightenment' is something quite different from all other definitions of enlightenment. You have appropriated the term, you bend it to your purposes, when other far less problematic terms would suffice. Mikiel appears---like a Black Cat on your path---to drive the point home. The question is, Who sent Mikiel, Jesus or Satan?

[Trevor Salyzyn]

You seem almost to equate 'enlightenment' with scientific rationalism. For you, 'enlightenment' is something quite different from all other definitions of enlightenment. You have appropriated the term, you bend it to your purposes, when other far less problematic terms would suffice.

What other terms have you heard defined as "lack of all delusion"? I've certainly heard enlightenment described as such before.

Mikiel appears---like a Black Cat on your path---to drive the point home.

Mikiel seems to think that knowing his one, randomly generated, pet truth is the essence of enlightenment. He knows this one pet truth (by divine revelation, no less). Therefore, he is enlightened. I can't even take his post seriously enough to give it more of a reply than that.

Is that your point? Is enlightenment usually that ridiculous?

[Jason]

What other terms have you heard defined as "lack of all delusion"?

How 'bout "lusion"? Or should that be "dedelusion"?

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Undelusion leads to adelusion, via the process of dedelusion. If you get bored, just redelude yourself.

(Latin ludo, deludo, and illudo all have very similar meanings.)

[mikiel]

You seem almost to equate 'enlightenment' with scientific rationalism. For you, 'enlightenment' is something quite different from all other definitions of enlightenment. You have appropriated the term, you bend it to your purposes, when other far less problematic terms would suffice. Mikiel appears---like a Black Cat on your path---to drive the point home. The question is, Who sent Mikiel, Jesus or Satan?

I see you didn't bother to read the links I provided. Morwood on selflessness as "E." Jesus on unity with God... (See my bible lesson in the "Understanding God" thread for more detail.). Wiki on gnosis as "E."
I "equate 'enlightenment' with scientific rationalism?" You didn't even need to click a link to find Wiki saying:
"Gnosis is a transcendent as well as mature understanding.[2] It indicates direct spiritual experiential knowledge[3] rather than that from rational or reasoned thinking."

Then, of course you ignore the quotes I've shared recently from enlightened mystics of all six major traditions... 50 or so quotes in all.
(See Morwood's "Mystic Traditions" section for a refresher course.

Yer a quick draw cowboy with no aim, Alex. And all you do is practice in front of the mirror. (No serious dialogue on what "E" really is. You obviously don't even care.)
(Very witty tho... I'll hand you that contest.)

[Alex Jacob]

Mikiel writes:

"I "equate 'enlightenment' with scientific rationalism?"

This may or may not take the air out of your sails, but I wasn't even talking to you. I was talking to Trevor. Quick on the draw, you say? ;-)

I have indeed read not only your links but what you write about 'enlightenment'.

I care about 'enlightenment' only as it pertains directly to the choices we make. Any notion of 'enlightenment' must be---is---dovetailed directly to ethics.

On this I stake my reputation and my career.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

I care about 'enlightenment' only as it pertains directly to the choices we make. Any notion of 'enlightenment' must be---is---dovetailed directly to ethics.

With so many different facets to philosophy, why single out ethics?

[Alex Jacob]

"With so many different facets to philosophy, why single out ethics?"

Any other focus would be...deluded.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Okay, humour me. Why is an epistemological approach to enlightenment deluded?

[Alex Jacob]

It isn't, if it all comes to bear on ethics.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Is there any particular Ethic that makes the difference?

[Alex Jacob]

Yes, the major strain of Ethics that comprise the 'temporal modality' of this Age.

[soham]

I am impressed by the way Eckhart Tolle is going around teaching the 'Power of Now'. He speaks from his personal experience and the books written by him are based upon what emerges from his own Being.

[Dan Rowden]

I don't see Tolle saying anything that isn't pretty much garden variety "western Zen". And as I've said elsewhere, if Oprah likes him, something is deeply wrong.

[soham]

I don't see Tolle saying anything that isn't pretty much garden variety "western Zen". And as I've said elsewhere, if Oprah likes him, something is deeply wrong.

Oprah Winfrey is a negroid girl who teams up with the german spiritualist Eckhart Tolle. Seems to be quite an uneasy & unhealthy combination!

[Carl G]

Oprah Winfrey is a negroid girl who teams up with the german spiritualist Eckhart Tolle. Seems to be quite an uneasy & unhealthy combination!

Why?!

What about an Indian boy who teams up with some Australian philosophers?!

___________________
Let Consciousness Matter

[1otherS]

I don't see Tolle saying anything that isn't pretty much garden variety "western Zen". And as I've said elsewhere, if Oprah likes him, something is deeply wrong.

Oprah Winfrey is a negroid girl who teams up with the german spiritualist Eckhart Tolle. Seems to be quite an uneasy & unhealthy combination!

What's wrong with a black woman seeking spiritual answers her self?

[Dan Rowden]

I don't see Tolle saying anything that isn't pretty much garden variety "western Zen". And as I've said elsewhere, if Oprah likes him, something is deeply wrong.

Oprah Winfrey is a negroid girl who teams up with the german spiritualist Eckhart Tolle. Seems to be quite an uneasy & unhealthy combination!

I don't see any relevance in her race - or was that a Nazi/Jesse Owens kind of joke?

The point is she's a dopey New Ager with a clear prejudice against rationality. The main reason Tolle is popular is what he advocates is essentially a form of spontaneity that appeals to the feminine mindset, because that mindset is a form of "now" spontaneity. That's why Oprah likes him, aside from her new found fascination with eastern mysticism (or the New Age version thereof).

[1otherS]

I don't see Tolle saying anything that isn't pretty much garden variety "western Zen". And as I've said elsewhere, if Oprah likes him, something is deeply wrong.

Oprah Winfrey is a negroid girl who teams up with the german spiritualist Eckhart Tolle. Seems to be quite an uneasy & unhealthy combination!

I don't see any relevance in her race - or was that a Nazi/Jesse Owens kind of joke?

The point is she's a dopey New Ager with a clear prejudice against rationality. The main reason Tolle is popular is what he advocates is essentially a form of spontaneity that appeals to the feminine mindset, because that mindset is a form of "now" spontaneity. That's why Oprah likes him, aside from her new found fascination with eastern mysticism (or the New Age version thereof).

I somewhat agree with your point, Dan.

This Tolle-fellow seems to ignore the importance of subjects like philosophic history or just history in general. He also ignores the relevancy of working in hypotheses.

I think this indeed betrays a mindless spontaneïty. I wouldn't call it 'feminine' though:
Men employ this mode of thought just as often as women.
e.g.

Where woman slave away in a dead-end job to get that shiny new hairbrush or cellphone to wow men, men get a motorcycle or an HDTV to impress and suck up to women.

Hell, there are so many men buying cosmetics and GSM's+so many women riding a Harley the gender-blurring provides many satirists and comedians material.

Whether that's a tragic or good thing, I leave up to every individual...