What is the most significant thing about enlightenment?

Answer 1

THE most significant thing about enlightenment is that it is the most insignificant thing in the world.
The scriptures are full of great attributes, qualities, about enlightenment. It is the highest peak human consciousness has ever achieved. Naturally, logically, the scholars have been thinking how to describe it. They have found many words. For example, it is arriving home.
As far as I am concerned you have never left home in the first place. Nobody can leave; there is no way to go anywhere except wherever you are. And that is the home. It is not like a departure and arrival. Who is going to depart -- you? How can you depart from your nature? There is no possibility of division, it is indivisible.
Wherever you go your nature will be within you. In fact to say "you" and "nature" is not right, but what to do if all the languages are wrong? You are nature. "You" does not make you a separate entity. You can call yourself a thousand and one names; still you will remain the same forever.
So although very great scholars, pandits, theologians, philosophers, even the so-called mystics, have described home-coming as one of the attributes of enlightenment, ninety-nine percent of these people are simply unaware of what they are saying. When there has been no departure, how can you talk of arrival? But these ninety-nine are only knowers of words, scriptures, principles, philosophies; they can be forgiven. The real trouble is with the one percent, the mystics. But they have also to be forgiven for the simple reason that language is so impotent. What can the mystic do? He wants to give you a certain sense of being yourself, but there has been a gap; you were present but you were unaware. You were at home but fast asleep and dreaming of faraway lands, fairylands, utopias, paradises.
The word paradise reminds me that it is very ugly. It was used in Persia for the gardens of the kings. In Persian, firdaus means a walled hunting garden. In countries like Persia gardens can only be walled. They have to be protected from the desert, and only kings could afford them. They could live in deserts as if they were living in gardens; for miles they could manage to have walled gardens.
And of course for their joy, play, entertainment, all kinds of wild animals were brought into their gardens. And they were living very freely -- of course within the border, within the wall, but it was a vast territory. And the kings used to hunt those imprisoned wild animals. It was sheer slaughter. They could not escape, they could not go anywhere. They were caught anyway, and above all they were being slaughtered.
From firdaus comes the English word paradise. They have forgotten about the hunting completely, they have only remembered the walled, beautiful gardens of the kings. But the purpose was hunting; the garden was secondary. But that has been forgotten in English completely; otherwise it will be very difficult to describe paradise. A walled garden it can be described as -- but who is the hunter there? And who is to be hunted?3
Perhaps God is hunting the saints? I don't see any other kind of animals there except the saints; they are the only animals allowed there. If it is a hunting place then saints must be really suffering, in tremendous misery: their whole life they suffered to enter into paradise -- and now this is the paradise!
You cannot get out of it, it is a walled garden. Out side is desert and death; inside you may try to hide, you may survive -- not all animals are going to die. But thinking of yourself as a hunted animal will take all the air out of the balloon of the Christian paradise. It is all hot air.
Very foolishly they have chosen the word paradise. But ninety-nine percent of those people were scholars only trained in words, knowing nothing of reality, knowing nothing of themselves, knowing nothing of enlightenment. They were blind people, utterly blind. They had never seen light, and they were talking about light. Naturally they can be forgiven; they are foolish, but forgiveable.
The one percent knew perfectly well what they were talking about; their trouble was even bigger than that of the scholars. Scholars were at ease describing things that they didn't know. There was no problem for them because there was no contradiction in their minds; they were clear. Hence the word mystic: it comes from the scholars, theologians, philosophers; they are saying that this man talks in such a way that you can't make any sense of it. The mystic is one who talks nonsense.
But the mystic is really in trouble. He knows the truth, but he does not know any corresponding word for it, so he is compelled to use words which have been used by others. So he also calls it "coming home."
But the true mystic will immediately recognize that what he is saying is not right. In fact, he will not lose a single moment in saying it, that "whatever I say, don't start believing it word for word. Try to read between the words, between the lines: the silences, the semi-colons, the full stops -- read there. Drop words as much as you can and create gaps."
There is a Sufi book, at least seven hundred years old; it is simply called THE BOOK. It is an empty book, nothing is written in it. It has been given from generation to generation of mystics, with great reverence; from the Master to the disciple: "This is our message. I have read it my whole life, now you read it. I will go, you will go, but the readings should continue. The book should be preserved."
One can understand preserving the KORAN, the GITA, THE BIBLE, the TORAH; there is something written in them, something significant, meaningful. But the Sufis have been insisting on preserving a book in which nothing is written. And it is given only by the Master to the succeeding disciple, to the chief disciple, who is going to be the next Master. Perhaps these people were trying their hardest to say something without words. At least they made the effort.
The same has been the situation of all those one percent of mystics around the world: they have to find some vehicle to express that which is inexpressible. The word enlightenment is also invented by the scholars -- scholars have been doing great work. And mystics have to use it knowing perfectly well that the experience has nothing to do with the light you are acquainted with.
The enlightenment that is being described by the word is beyond light and darkness, because it is beyond duality. You cannot call it darkness, you cannot call it light, and yet it has the qualities of both.
In light you can see. The enlightened person has eyes that you don't have. He can see things the way you can never see. And you can try to understand it: A painter sees a painting; you also see it. As far as colors are concerned, your eyes reflect the same colors as the painter's eyes reflect; but do you think you are seeing the same painting as the painter? No, that is not possible, because to see a painting like Picasso's one needs that kind of genius. It is not in the paints, it is the whole organic unity of all those paints. Those paints are only parts.
It is as if you take a car apart. Every part is separated; all over the ground you spread it, and you see it. You are seeing the car, but is it the car that you are seeing? no, only parts. When you see a Picasso painting you are seeing it in the same way as the car: you just see fragments, pieces.
You don't have the genius to make a whole out of it, where all those colors lose their individuality and start functioning in a harmony. To see that harmony is to see the painting. It has nothing to do with the colors, nothing to do with the canvas, nothing to do with the frame. The frame may be golden, it doesn't matter. The question is of the organic harmony. But for that you need a totally different kind of eye -- just as a musician needs a different kind of ear.
But these are small things compared to enlightenment. I am just taking examples to indicate something which is beyond examples. It has some quality which happens in light, not of light -- mind you well. It has some quality which happens in light. If the lights are put off, what disappears? Your capacity to see disappears.
When enlightenment happens, a certain capacity to see happens, which has been completely unconscious within you. It is fully ready to function any moment, but you won't even turn to look at it. Just your very turning will turn the switch on. But it is not enlightenment. Let me repeat: enlightenment is not enlightenment, not just enlightenment. It is a way of saying that you attain to a certain capacity of seeing, knowing.
It has also the quality of darkness in it, so there has been a school of mystics who call it the ultimate darkness. And they are as right as those who call it enlightenment; But it is not darkness. In darkness there are a few things which you miss in light.
A light gives a certain kind of tenseness to your being; darkness relaxes you. That's why in the night, if all the lights are on, you cannot sleep. You need to be surrounded by darkness as if you are in the womb of the mother. Darkness has a certain silence, a certain music to it, which we are unable to know because of our fear of darkness. We are so afraid of darkness that we have lost the capacity to make any intimate contact with it. And it is such a profound experience.
If you compare light and darkness -- light comes and goes; darkness remains, it is eternal. Light is temporal, it has a time limitation. In the morning the sun rises, in the evening it sets. And whatever kind of light you manage, it has a certain limitation: once the fuel is finished the light will be gone. It is dependent, it is not an independent phenomenon. Even the light of the sun will one day be gone because it is being dissipated every moment.

Answer 2

Ah why not. It's the nothingness and accepting it. That's it. Kind of disappointing when your looking at it, that's what puts most people off. There has to be more! But there isn't.
Once your there it can be great! Your free, because you've accepted that nothing. Nothing is, nothing matters; never to be; never was. Your enlightened. whatever happens or doesn't happen makes no difference. Once your there it can be horror! Free in the knowledge that it's all so much dust and mirrors, it makes no difference what happens because it doesn't really happen. Thank God were humans and we can believe in anything that will even remotely shield us from this ecstasy/terror that lurks at the edge of what must be all our collective consciousness. Searching for enlightenment is okay for some, I'd rather search out a good dinner; coffee and pie don't keep me up as late.

Answer 3

maximum folk responding to this question do not even understand what the Enlightenment is. The Enlightenment handed off contained in the early 1700s. Are they implying that Buddah lived contained in the 1700s? GEEEEZZZ!!!! All respected historians agree the most influential American in the course of the Enlightenment became Benjamin Franklin--there is not a lot serious debate on that element. And there you've it.

Answer 4

The most significant thing is in knowing if it is true enlightenment.

"And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" (2 Cor 11:14).

"...believe not every spirit, but try the spirits..." (1 John 4:1).

Answer 5

That it's unending and unachievable. We're more "enlightened" than our forefathers of 100 years ago; and they moreso than theirs of 100 years before, etc.

Perhaps the most significant thing about enlightenment as that we continue to seek it.

Answer 6

Knowing a mere human can never truly reach it in a single or even a million lifetimes.
It is a path, a journey not a state of being

Answer 7

That it is a journey, not a destination. No matter how enlightened you are, there is always another with something to teach you.

Answer 8

this is a very intelligent , excellent question it will take me time to come up with a answer to this one, the significance to me to enlightment is coming to the realization of whatever the situation may be

Answer 9

Life.

Answer 10

Meuli,
That a sinning mortal can recieve grace from God, and defeat death to become not only immortal, but be an heir to the Throne of Christ. To be the Sons of the Living God.

Answer 11

enlightment is mastering your physicality have your ego melted down live in total bliss and see everything in oness and have one desire to be free.and live in ultimatum of uncondition love and live only in the moment .and your brain is filled with 80% of light.there higher level of enlightment to my knowledge from 1 to 36 jesus is about 18-20 level sai baba 33 and so on god bless you