Enlightenment is considered to be a form of spiritual harmony with yourself and the world. Alot of religions believe it is something we all should try to strive towards. It would make us complete, whole and effectively peaceful. It's one of the toughest things we can do in our lifetime, since it takes decades of discipline and commitment to attain and in the end we may just be left with a lot of time considered wasted. But, does anyone believe that humans are capable of being peaceful at an enlightened point?
umm im not sure but if you are enlightened how would that work? but anyways being enlightened is such a relative term so yes and no.
Sure it is. How would it not be possible? An epiphany is a form of enlightenment, and people get that all the time. Rapid-fire epiphany's (which I've gotten) is sort of like enlightenment; when you become aware of a whole system of processes in reality one after the another, due to their consistency of logic and rationale, regardless if there is a dead end at some point to its self-evident system. I hope that makes sense to everyone. Of course it is deeply subject to individual understanding, and only goes as far as to how adept you are at language (since we think in terms of language a lot of the time). I'm not sure how relevant this part is, but do you ever have an understanding that sort of goes beyond your scope of explanation? That kind of understanding is very self-evident. It can't be pre-cognitive or anything, it is just an understanding that follows through with itself, without there needing to be a proof. This sort of "identity-existence" is what makes it hard for some people to explain things coherently to one another. Due to this I very much feel like past enlightenment era's (renaissance, etc.) for philosophy and sociology and the like are all misrepresented a lot of the time. They seem more extreme than they need to be in some cases, even. Of course it is also possible to not be enlightened if we view enlightenment as a self-evident process, naturally occurring in human life consistently (which it does). Through this logic you might as well say every instant you accept, resulting in the acceptance of all of existence, is it's own enlightenment, making every instance enlightenment, therefore defeating the entire purpose of trying to reach enlightenment. The Buddha probably wouldn't be too happy to hear that part, though. So there is a very large paradox here where you can't determine if enlightenment is possible, all because of reality's role in the game of existence. How mind-numbing. :l
But that's just it. The purpose of trying to reach enlightenment is the process. It's all about the journey, and the things you find along the way. I like the idea that everything is its own small enlightenment. Because it's true. If you ever stop to think about how complex and intricate even the simplest-seeming facets of our daily lives are, it'd probably blow your mind. People scratch the surface of that feeling when they watch the sun set and see the beautiful colors it produces, or when they realize how small they are compared to all the heavenly bodies out there. Imagine experiencing that same rush of understanding from every little thing in life; that's my vision of enlightenment. It is constant. And if that journey never ends, I'll be all the more satisfied.
At the bold: what do you mean? If enlightenment is a journey that never ends and goes on forever, making every instant enlightenment, then where does the process of trying to reach enlightenment come in? I agree with you completely. Life is filled to the brim with enlightenment and complexities. It makes me feel like I'm never 100% satisfied with life, but every instant makes me more and more satisfied as I go along the path. It's always about the journey, I agree. :]
Well, to be honest, I was sort of mixing terminology. "Enlightenment," as in the journey of discovery, is the definition to which I subscribe, whereas "enlightenment" as a state of mind to be reached through that journey is the definition as a majority of people understand it. What I meant to convey by that statement is that people are looking for enlightenment in some sort of "holy grail" form that will come in some great epiphany where everything suddenly comes together, while the actions, discourse, and observations made in the course of trying to discover this single, solitary force of "enlightenment" are, in fact, the enlightenment they seek. Does that make more sense? Probably not. >_>'
