--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@...> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@>
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@> wrote:
> >
> > > We all understand what it means to say everyone is
> > > enlightened, Xeno. As true as it may be on one level,
> > > some of us think it's unhelpful and counterproductive,
> > > even obfuscatory, when used in an exchange like that
> > > quoted above. [post #343925]
> >
> > As you present this Judy, yes. But it is not ultimately
> > unhelpful.
>
> My comment was on your use of it in the quoted exchange,
> and your remark suggesting that more Buddhists understand
> it (than the folks on FFL, presumably).
>
> There are things to be said along these general lines
> that could be helpful, ultimately or immediately. But the
> flat statement "Everyone is enlightened" has no
> informational content in and of itself. It's only
> informational as a counter to the statement "Not everyone
> is enlightened," but it doesn't *negate* that statement:
>
> (snip)
> > I wasn't trying to bamboozle Nabby. Nabby and everyone else
> > has the full value of being inside, outside, through and
> > through. We could not discover it if it were not. The only
> > difference is if you think it is something other than what
> > you are experiencing as ordinary everyday experience,
> > something you have to look for, you do not see it.
> >
> > All the practices we do are just to get the mind to stop dead
> > and give up looking. It is so odd it can take such a long time
> > to come to a truly persistent standstill.
>
> And it's this difference that validates the statement "Not
> everyone is enlightened."
>
> While I'm at it, though, I'd like to suggest that you make
> it clearer that you're talking about *your* experience. You
> make a lot of general statements as if your experience is
> the "final answer," the standard, and I'm not at all sure
> that's something you could possibly know.
>
I can make statements if I want. I do not think there is a final answer. Each
generation that comes along finds a way to express this thing we call
enlightenment. What human beings think and do changes, technology changes, our
ideas of the universe change. Maharishi did a good job of translating many of
these ideas into a more modern venacular, but he was a product of the mid-20th
century. More recent teachers, and I presume (since by this time I will be
dead) teachers to come with succeeding generations will find news ways to
express this, what Aldous Huxley called the perennial philosophy. And yes, I am
generally talking about my experience. It is far clearer than it used to be,
but there is plenty of room to get clearer.
