--- Rick Archer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> More on this: Have these half dozen enlightened
> people who live within a
> 15-mile radius of you reached the pinnacle of human
> evolution? Must be
> something in the water. To my understanding, there
> is a vast range of
> spiritual growth possible, and many awakenings along
> the way. People often
> experience a few of these and assume theyre
> enlightened, like
> grade-schoolers assuming theyre educated. Of
> course, they are, to a degree,
> but it would be a shame if they assumed that they
> knew all there was to know
> and stopped there. To extend the analogy, a few
> people manage to
> self-educate to the Ph.D. level, but its very rare.
> The vast majority will
> benefit from formal education. And in that, there
> will be a vast differences
> in quality between various teachers. Because some
> are duds doesnt mean all
> are, nor that the teacher-student tradition on the
> whole is bogus. You might
> say that attaining enlightenment is different than
> becoming educated,
> because the latter involves developing relative
> skills and accumulating
> relative information, whereas enlightenment involves
> realizing what you
> already are. But the rarity of enlightenment,
> notwithstanding your locale,
> says to me that it doesnt just happen to the
> average person, just as
> education doesnt, and that disciplined instruction
> is advantageous for most.
I like Ramana Maharishis comment when people
spontaneously awoke," They did the needed work before"
By before he meant a previous lifetime.
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