--- In [email protected], "ED" <seacrofter001@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Hi Steve,
>
> Thanks for the information.
>
> I could say a little about my (positive) experiences with The Vedanta
> Society and the writings of and about Plotinus, but I am short of time
> right now.
>
> Do you have reservations about using the Internet, or Wikipedia in
> particular to educate oneself? Can you suggest better or more accessible
> sources?
>
> ---ED
>
> Hi ED. Oh, no, actually not. It's a lot faster than going through
stacks of books! However, in my opinion, logical analysis can only
take one so far. Here is what Plotinus had to say about this:
"The analytic intellect, if it is to say anything at all, must
seize first one aspect of the matter and then the next; such are
the conditions of analytic thought. But how can this ever apprehend
the uncompounded?" So you can see from this quote that he used
intellect to refute intellect! IMO, that is the proper use of the
analytic intellect in regards to enlightenment. A number of people
here have bandied back and forth the question of what method we can
use to achieve enlightenment. But, imo, enlightenment cannot be
achieved. Anything that has a beginning will have an ending. People
just want to trade one mental state for another, one wave for
another, bigger and better, wave. The Unborn is not just another
mental state. Buddha never entered Nirvana. I talk a good deal
about de-conditioning Kleshas, but please do not think that I
believe that has anything to do with enlightenment. In fact,
although it is very useful in it's own right, it is really, to
use a phrase from Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, just "rearranging
the furniture in one's prison cell." Mike mentioned those charming
optical illusions which look like one thing, and then shift to look
like something else. People don't really do anything to make the
shift happen. It just does. A fruit that ripens and then falls off
the branch may imagine that it worked at ripening and then caused
itself to fall off of the branch. A man in a dream may think that
he can cause himself to wake up by pinching himself in the dream.
But when it's time, the Sun rises and the man does, indeed wake up.
In my opinion.
Steve
>
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