Comment below: **
--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <jflanegi@> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> > > wrote: > > > > > > I sure did. As a result, I find it difficult > > > to think of the periods of so-called unenlight- > > > enment as "unreal." They were just as real as > > > the periods of enlightenment. > > > > "Periods of enlightenment"? Is your Self realization > > transient; it comes and goes? > > Well, duh. Someone wasn't paying attention > in class. :-) > > I've been saying this since I first arrived > on this group. It comes, it goes. Big deal. > The periods of realization are, to me, no > more interesting than the perids of non- > realization. > > I really *don't* think hierarchically. > **end** This is a great subject (or so I feel). My experience (and general attitude) mirrors Barry's. Don't claim to be Awake, but can't figure out how I'm not. In my life there have been enlightenment episodes (an interesting paradox in itself) that have grounded me in an unshakeable conviction re the Reality of Self as I first learned of it from Maharishi, and articulated by others, and in the wisdom traditions, and in my experience. 'Being' is just fine; I am never not; and I feel that if anyone here on this forum would look into it they would be hard pressed to deny that for themselves, as well. For myself it feels like it did when I was a little kid, even before I learned to talk. Nisargadatta posits the inquiry as (paraphrased): Were *you* born, or was the body born (in consciousness)? And: Who were you before this identity (the name and the form) was given to you (and drew your attention to it)? I might differ from Barry's position in that, if this isn't being Awake, I'm totally stoked about what That is. So, in that sense, I do place a value on the state of enlightenment as opposed to ignorance of It. But then again, it all seems to be good and as it should be, so maybe we're not so far apart on this subject as it might seem. And certainly, within Totality, how can there be hierarchy?
