On Jul 25, 2007, at 10:17 AM, new.morning wrote:
Can you absolutely know that it's true?
I hate to bring up what seems obvious to me, but there are objective ways to test states of enlightenment which have been used successfully for thousands of years. These are simple tests. If you claim to be enlightened thru an approach that used samadhi--nitya- samadhi (permanent samadhi, CC) as MMY called it, it is easy to test. Rather recently there was a rather famous western Tibetan Buddhist who claimed a high stage of enlightenment and it was interesting the type of verification they used. The person had to be capable of performing certain siddhis at will. When he did not meet any of the criteria, HHDL's office issued a statement essentially saying this person was not who he claimed to be.
