Thursday, August 7, 2008

Levels of enlightenment

It seems to me that there has to be more levels of "enlightenment" than one. Just for example, Arten and Pursah says that Buddha only ended his trek in a later lifetime "which the world doesn't even know about". Clearly he had not undone all the guilt yet in the Buddha lifetime. And yet we would call him enlightened.

Also in reading about various people who have reached what seem to be stable levels of oneness and peace, some of them say that they still have phenomena like falling in love and being upset at a breakup.

Maybe we could call it levels of enlightenment, or maybe we could guess that for some there are restful plateaus on the way which are mistaken for real enlightenment.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"plateaus mistaken for enlightenment".
I'd subscribe to that !

On the other hand one could argue that to be consciously in touch with the Holy Spirit is already enlightenment, since in that view we are in light already, although being still enmeshed with the troubles of the world.

I have came in touch with the spirit at the age of 24 and there was definetely nothing in my life that had brought me so much joy before.

If everything else is gone (saying the Universe has disappeared) there will be nothing left but this joy. Right ?

What else will matter then ?

Discussing levels of enlightenment easily ends up as an Ego issue I feel.

To me it feels best to say that there are levels in intensity of happiness and levels in life experience.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes, all well said.