--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > You know what they say, "you can't have your cake and eat > > > > it too". > > > > > > The cake is structured in enlightenment. You are > > > structured in enlightenment. *Nothing* in the > > > relative can be any barrier to enlightenment because > > > everything in the relative IS enlightenment. Where's > > > the problem? :-) > > > > Only one little problem Unc, I have no idea what "you are > > structured in enlightenment" means. :-) > > What is the fundamental level of you? If you follow > the TM philosophy I remembered, it is pure conscious- > ness. What is pure consciousness' nature? Enlight- > enment. > > Some other traditions avoid using the phrases "attain > enlightenment" or "become enlightened," because they > believe there is nothing to attain, nothing to become. > Everyone is always already enlightened. What we refer > to as enlightenment is merely the subjective realization > of something that has always already been present.
This is similar to the analogy of a person asleep in a bed having a dream. One observer could say that the person is asleep, lost in a dream and will think the dream is reality until they "wake up". Another observer could say that it's only a dream, the true nature of the dreamer has never changed therefore they are already awake. To some degree both observations are true but to the dreamer who is suffering from a limited perspective and may feel the desire to wake up, one of them is more semantic then practical. > > You know the Adam and Eve myth? Where they ate of the tree of > > knowledge and were banished from the Garden. Most myths go > > pretty far back and have at their core a clear and > > unadulterated meaning. > > And that meaning is dualistic in nature -- there is a > difference between the relative and the absolute. Not > all spiritual traditions believed that; the myths of > the ones that did not rarely contain a "fall from grace" > myth. I think that at their core these myths are about prajnaparadh, the mistake of the intellect. The eating of the apple from the tree of knowledge represents intellect identifying with that which is known instead of as the knower. Identifying as the screen of the mind and losing it's essential nature which is silence. There is no difference between the relative and the absolute until the mind see's one. Rick Carlstrom To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
