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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: EvilGir]
    #8442216 -

EvilGir said:
Does anyone feel here no matter how many drugs you take or how many years you spend thinking and trying to work stuff out that enlightenment cant be reached while your alive.


I don't know whether enlightenment is attainable during life. But drugs are not the way to get there. For me psychedelics have always just uncovered deeper questions, and never provided answers (that I could remember or understand once I came back to reality).

I read about tibetan buddhist monks that were given LSD, and they said that it brought them to the first bardo, which is where they believe the spirit goes immediately after death. That seemed to be about all they got out of the experience.

Psychedelics are an intense and insightful experience, but they're not gonna give you the answers to the great questions.

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: BoneMan]
    #8442783 -

while you are thinking things through, you hold the image or cadence of one idea in your mind and then bring up another idea or process and fit them together
- usually, for me, I like to hold one still, and I fit the other around, a bit like a child playing with lego, but sometimes both ideas are moving.

these mental excercises are possible with natural intelligence and plasticity.

people on psychedelics seem to have more mental plasticity than normal, and all varieties of things can be surmized:
it seems easier to hold more than one thing in mind at the same time, and it is easier to find them fitting.

the elated mind does not check very much for inconsistencies, but rolls along happily making connections.

When so many things fit together, is it enlightenment or delusion?
When one goes with the flow without annoying doubts is it enlightenment or delusion?

Many say that the buoyant easiness and openness that "can be achieved" on psychedelics (a fraction of the time) is simmilar to a preview of what enlightenment is like.

I think it relates to the plasticity of mind, and the understanding of the essential sameness in the potential of all people, however I don't think enlightenment is an inebriated state/stasis.

plasticity and understanding can operate in all states, from cold sober, through normalcy of ho-hum pain & pleasure, tipsiness, debauched, discombobulated, and even sleep as well, or heavily layered "ego-loss" type dreams.

there is no need to call it enlightenment, except to contrast with the alternative which is entanglement and suffering.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: Sev]
    #8442875 -

I also agree enlightenment is an illusion. For one thing, why are people so obsessed with it? Also, I don't necessarily believe in souls and the belief in a soul must be made before the belief that enlightenment is achievable must be made.

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: Boots]
    #8442909 -

Past research has found that subjects can identify a word faster if the previous string of characters is a closely related word. For example, subjects can recognize the word "black" more quickly if it has been immediately preceeded by the word "white." This effect is known as semantic priming. In normal subjects, semantic priming occurs only with closely related words. However, indirectly related words ("sweet" and "lemon," for example) produce semantic priming in thought-disordered schizophrenic subjects (Spitzer et al 1993a, 1993b).

Semantic priming

The researchers found that psilocybin slowed the subjects' reaction times while at the same time producing a semantic priming effect for indirectly related words ("sweet" and "lemon"), similar to that seen in the schizophrenia research. The finding that psilocybin slowed reaction times was not unexpected; past research with psychedelics has found the same effect. However, the finding that psilocybin produced indirect semantic priming is more interesting. In their discussion, the researchers point out that their findings are relevant to claims that psychedelics "enhance creativity" or "broaden consciousness":

Although most objective measures have failed to support these claims, our data suggest that the [hallucinogenic] agent in fact leads to an increased availability of remote associations and thereby may bring cognitive contents to mind that under normal circumstances remain nonactivated; however, the generally decreased psychological performance under hallucinogenic agents suggest that the increased indirect priming effect is due to a decreased capacity to use contextual information for the focusing of semantic processing. Hence, subjectively experienced increases in creativity as well as the broadening of consciousness have been found to parallel decreases in objective performance measures (p. 1056-1057).

Thus, the researchers suggest that psychedelics may in fact "broaden consciousness" by making remote mental associations more available. However, this involves a trade-off. Although remote mental associations are more available, subjects are less able to focus, which slows their reaction times.

Semantic neural networks

The researchers interpret their findings using a model which states that the brain contains semantic neural networks which can become activated by semantic information. The spread of this activation through the networks determines the amount of semantic priming that occurs in the word-recognition task. Activation spreads further and faster in thought-disordered schizophrenics and psilocybin users than in normal volunteers. One explanation for this unusual amount of activation is decreased efficiency in the cortex where semantic information is processed (Servan-Schreiber et al 1990, Cohen and Servan-Schreiber 1992, 1993). There is evidence that this inefficient processing is related to the decreased dopaminergic modulation. In support of this theory, the researchers have found that L-dopa, a precursor to dopamine, reduces the spread of activation and therefore reduces indirect semantic priming (Kischka et al 1995). In the context of this theory, psilocybin (which acts on the serotonin system) can be seen as increasing activation of semantic networks.

From: http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v07n1/07110bag.html


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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: backfromthedead]
    #8443018 -

i.e. associative mentation
== pattern simmilarity

elevation in the serotonin system makes things fade more slowly
this allows more easy matching (up to a point)
though it does not promote distinctions
some things are taken as good matches which normally are only mediocre matches...


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: EvilGir]
    #8443526 -

EvilGir said:
Does anyone feel here no matter how many drugs you take or how many years you spend thinking and trying to work stuff out that enlightenment cant be reached while your alive. I think that during life stuff may be worked out but its only realy when your dead you can permantly change things and escape the physical existence or maybe we all have to wait for somesort of technological advancement/evolution to free us all.


So you don't think this thought of your is enlightening at all?


--------------------
The best way to live
is to be like water
For water benefits all things
and goes against none of them
It provides for all people
and even cleanses those places
a man is loath to go
In this way it is just like Tao        ~Daodejing

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: BoneMan]
    #8443569 -

The Icelander is as enlightened as it gets.:satansmoking:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: Cracka_X]
    #8443648 -

Ahhh... good ol' enlightenment. 

In a society of spiritual seekers, is there any word that is more loaded with meaning than enlightenment?

I liken the concept of enlightenment to the Greek story of Tantalus.  The more you strive for it, the further away it seems.

Here is something my Teacher wrote that I find gives great insight into the moment of awakening:

Quote:
Dogen zenji says, "At that moment, our eyes have become black beads."

This phrase means that in actualizing the ten directions as this bodymind we are not excited, are not overcome or overwrought. An equivalent might be the English phrase, "we are steely-eyed" except that this has the sense of being braced and prepared. Dogen means that in recognizing, at that moment, in this moment, the wonders of the ten directions that are completely this bodymind and completely the ten directions, the realization is so deep that we do not regard it as something separate from us. It is not merely an experience that we are having. It is a moment in which experiences are there without us getting in the way. Sometimes there is an opening or a kensho in our practice and we might find ourselves laughing or crying or feeling very joyful. This is fine. But these reactions also often mean that the opening is narrowing and fading and we are reacting to it, are separating ourselves from it. They can also be ways of venting away the energy of the opening and a way of closing it down. Deep openings on the other hand are often so radical that they seem ordinary. We might arch our brow and smile slightly when we realize that we are always already beyond birth and death and have utterly transcended the Total Field of All Possibilities.



It is like the process of trying to see your own eyes, which can cause quite a strain.  Waking up can be like saying "fuck it" and just seeing with the eyes instead.  So much easier.

:hippie:

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: Boots]
    #8443840 -

Boots said:
I also agree enlightenment is an illusion. For one thing, why are people so obsessed with it? Also, I don't necessarily believe in souls and the belief in a soul must be made before the belief that enlightenment is achievable must be made.

Souls exist in the same way as ocean waves and clouds exist -- they are transient phenomena whose boundaries are defined by convention.

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: Rhizoid]
    #8443907 -

Rhizoid said:
Souls exist in the same way as ocean waves and clouds exist -- they are transient phenomena whose boundaries are defined by convention.


Nice :cool:

The same can be said of the human body, and everything else for that matter. 



:hippie:

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: Quoiyaien]
    #8444001 -

Knock your head on the wall for me, real hard, and tell me it's just conventions.

:hippie:

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: deimya]
    #8444032 -

i think when a trouble is overcome it is a kind of enlightenment
i.e. the load is lighter.
so many entanglements can be overcome to make the load much lighter.
those are just habituated options at each turn (of your broom).
this is hard to see, but if you see it (while sweeping), you are enlightened.



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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: deimya]
    #8444152 -

deimya said:
Knock your head on the wall for me, real hard, and tell me it's just conventions.

:hippie:


I was referring to the transient phenomena of the body.  The convention here being birth and death. 

If I hit my head on the wall, the pain would be "born", it would dwell, "Son of a bitch, that fuckin hurts" and it dies.

Convention here perhaps being a clinging to the concept of pain, rather than the fading sensation itself. 

Ultimately the pain arose out of prior circumstances, (me proving a point by hitting my head on a wall, due to your post, which was preceded by my post, which ultimately goes back to the threadstarter, then whoever is in charge of creating the philosophy forum, back the the birth of the shroomery, preceded by a desire to create a community of likeminded individuals, etc etc...) 

When viewed in this manner, where did the pain ultimately come from?  What was the initial cause?  I have heard the theory for God as being the initial cause in an infinite line of cause and effect. So I blame God for the pain in my head.  "Do you see what God did to us man?"

:hippie:

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: Quoiyaien]
    #8444190 -

"Do you see what God did to us man?"

:lol:

Its okay...  He sent his only son to die for you.:what:

:shrug:

:thumbup:


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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: Rhizoid] * 1
    #23123899 -

Enlightenment is being absolutely aware of all. Once attained you have reached superiority over all others.


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It’s not personal

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: EvilGir]
    #23124162 -

EvilGir said:
Does anyone feel here no matter how many drugs you take or how many years you spend thinking and trying to work stuff out that enlightenment cant be reached while your alive. I think that during life stuff may be worked out but its only realy when your dead you can permantly change things and escape the physical existence or maybe we all have to wait for somesort of technological advancement/evolution to free us all. 


How old are you? You sound impatient and young enough to be making assumptions about Reality. Firstly, "drugs" are just medicines if used correctly which can facilitate change. Certain medicines can direct consciousness to turn in upon itself in persons who are too extraverted and non-reflective. But the work with consciousness involves the personality to a large extent, and you assume that personality continues post mortem. I think this is a gross misunderstanding of ANY scheme of Eternal Life that one wants to seriously consider. In Christianity, Eternal Life does NOT mean personal immortality. One 'enters into' Eternal Life, Realizing a mystical Union, either during one's lifetime in mystical Union, or ostensibly when the physical body and its ego undergoes physical death. Not only does the physical form perish, but the personality of that body along with all memory and referents to the life of that body. What apparently DOES continue (according to Christian theology) is Pure Identity - the "I AM" that Jesus refers to himself as Being in the Johannine material, and love, agapé, which is said to be God (1 John 4:8), which are one and the same Reality. One could add Light to these transcendental attributes. 

But EvilGir, and MarkostheGnostic as separate personalities comprised of compounded psychic aspects (sensations, emotions, thought, memories, etc.) perishes. What arises to the dying 'us,' is that Eternal "I AM" that is the common Ultimate Identity of you and I and every self-conscious sentient human being. I suspect (based on personal mystical experience) that when we encounter the self-effulgent Clear Light (as in Buddhism) or the Beatific Vision (in mystical Christianity), we experience our True Nature (another Buddhist reference) with warm, ecstatic familiarity. Life will end just as an ordinary dream ends, and we awaken to our True Identity. Sometimes that True Identity manages to be glimpsed in physical life during profound mystical Union. I've had the experience once, my favorite philosopher Plotinus had it 6 times, his student Porphyry had it once also.

Technology has nothing to do with consciousness (the modern term for spirit, although Plotinus didn't like the identity of these terms - but that was 270 CE). technology deals with physical nature and consciousness, unlike everything in nature (Greek: physis), has neither mass or extension in space or time. Consciousness is non-substantial, and the non-quantifiable language of philosophy, theology, and transpersonal psychology speak more to it than the idioms of science.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: idontknow1]
    #23124978 -

idontknow1 said:
Enlightenment is being absolutely aware of all. Once attained you have reached superiority over all others.


Well I like it in theory.  Having been a landlord for 30 years, I think you may be on to something as well.  I like it.  I was going to mock it, but I like it.  I fucking like it a lot.

Awareness.  Yes man that is it!  Being aware.  Superiority follows logically.  If I am aware, I know, and you are yet another asleep zombie like most, then I am superiour.  I can even be a Brit, and put in an extra u just to confuse.  Just to be a Brit with a better pot to piss in, ass it were.


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Anxiety is what you make it.

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: EvilGir]
    #23126270 -

the unenlightened are not in a position to have a viewpoint on enlightenment except to be attracted or repulsed by the proposition.

personally I am attracted to it, but I am not attracted to claims of enlightenment or to manipulation games that surround groups, congregations or societies, who profess enlightenment.

we need more enlightenment to help with heavy dark moments - these ideas may or may not help you with your questions, but if you are attracted to the proposition, learn insight meditation and practice it for yourself.


--------------------
:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: EvilGir]
    #23126298 -

EvilGir said:
Does anyone feel here no matter how many drugs you take or how many years you spend thinking and trying to work stuff out that enlightenment cant be reached while your alive. 


firstly the long term tool of choice is meditation, not therapy, drugs or thinking, for deepening concentration leading to deep insight & Dharana—contemplation, Dhyana— absorption, & Samadhi—oneness


secondly just because you can't be Arnold Schwartenegger you won't lift weights, or won't enjoy playing the guitar cause you can't be Hendrix?

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Re: Enlightenment Cant be reached [Re: laughingdog] * 2
    #23127820 -

enlightenement is seeing that the question was asked 7 years ago and he's probably dead :facepalm: :yinyang2:

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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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