--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "jim_flanegin" <jflanegi@> > > wrote: > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > You're enlightened, and you refuse to even *think* > > > > that you might not be. Did I get that right, Jim? > > > > > > > You are missing what I and many others have already said again and > > > again here. Enlightenment is not experienced on the level of > > thinking. > > > It is a state of Being. This is not my original expression-- All of > > > the gurus and spiritual teachers say this also. Given your > > background, > > > I am surprised that you don't know this yet. Your level of > > ignorance > > > astounds me.:-) > > > > It's a little like accusing somebody of refusing > > even to *think* they might be dreaming rather > > than awake. When you're awake, it's self-evident > > you aren't dreaming. (Not "self-evident" meaning > > "obvious," but rather evident in terms of itself.) > > I am not so sure. Some interesting literature an > epistimologies makes that very presumption -- that > we are dreaming but think we are awake. Parallel > to Plato's cave, perhaps.
Sure, but that just moves the whole thing back a level; it doesn't address or challenge my point at all. If what we think is waking is actually dreaming, then what is what we think is dreaming? There are still two different states of consciousness involved. > I think some here, perhaps Rory and Jim, have expressed > something of that sort. I do know that when you are > dreaming, its hard to accept that you are dreaming -- but > assume you are awake. Yes, but that doesn't affect what I'm saying either. The point is that the difference between waking and dreaming is the *quality of consciousness*. Even the most vivid dream doesn't have the same quality as waking. If you had a really weird experience, you might ask yourself whether you were dreaming, but you wouldn't wonder for long; the content of the experience is trumped by the quality of consciousness. (I don't mean quality as in "good-better-best" but rather what your consciousness "feels like.") Though sometimes in the dream, you > can be aware its a dream. But not so often, i think.
