--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter <drpetersutp...@...> wrote: > > Enlightenment is not what you think.
Hey, Pete, mind if I rephrase your one-liner? Enlightenment just is. What you think *about* it is not what you think. I'm more than open to the possibility of altered states of consciousness that many people in the past have experienced and described as "enlight- enment." I have no problem with the altered states having been real, for the people doing the describing. It's just that I think that the descriptions were fanciful imaginings based on a combination of what they had been told about "enlightenment" and the subjective effects of the altered states themselves on the describers' mental state and thinking processes. What I suspect is that they were having real subjective experiences, experiences that don't quite "map" to everyday reality as most people experience it. But then they try to describe these altered states and fail, relying on either old descriptions from the past of what the altered states "mean," or equally invalid new descriptions, based on solipsism. In other words, the experiences are real, if only in a subjective sense. But anything that the person says *about* the experiences and what they "mean" is bullshit. I'm not just being contrary or argumentative here. This is actually what I believe. Today, anyway. :-) > --- On Tue, 1/27/09, ruthsimplicity <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote: > > > From: ruthsimplicity <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> > > Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: More definitions of enlightenment > > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com > > Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 5:10 PM > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, enlightened_dawn11 > > <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > > > > > enlightenment is that state of consciousness in which > > a person no > > > longer identifies with, and gets lost in, the objects > > of perception. > > > > > > > This sounds like the "I don't care anymore" > > definition of enlightenment. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > > > To subscribe, send a message to: > > fairfieldlife-subscr...@yahoogroups.com > > > > Or go to: > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ > > and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > >
