What is your definition of 'enlightenment'?

Answer 1

enlightenment is when one no longer falsely identifies with one's ego and simultaneously has the realization that one is pure being beyond all cognition.

Answer 2

Losing 50 lbs....

My definition is that it's gaining greater understanding that you did not have before. It's a process, not a eureka moment. It's a state of being, trying to be as open as you can be to new ideas and perspectives, finding connections you hadn't considered possible. It's a being an eternal student of ideas and life.

Peace

Answer 3

Enlightenment

Achieve The Self Realization
That one detaches from the Reality.
Feeling cling to nothingness.

Cheers
Yee Cs

Answer 4

It is an awareness to the true nature of reality, defined by knowing what is truly permanant based on knowing the things that are not. Thus although the experience all of life's problems are possible, one cannot say that "I have a problem."

If this is hard to understand, i will present a logical reasoning within the scope of my own physical intelligence:

When enlightened, it is a feeling of balance, there is no duality between what one "should" and what one "shouldnt" feel like. Most people base their "happiness" in relativity to something else external, or some set qualities - so happiness becomes conditional. They do not simply assume that the natural state of being is a completness rather than a "happiness." Enlightenment is commonly seen as a very significant issue, but this can create problems. It is better to see it as something very simplistic, and as skill that can be taught and learnt.

For example:
We will base our "happiness" in relation to the idea that we have of ourselves - i.e. "i am this...." "I should be that....". We get these ideas from the values in the soceity in which we were born. For example, "success" or "achievement" is important to western soceity and is seen as the pinnacle of "happiness". This is because western soceity is based on the economic system of capitalism and competitiveness, material wealth is what defines "happiness" for people, and the way that we can get a soceity to increace its material wealth is to get all individuals to be competitive with each other, and this competitiveness creates efficiency and motivation. So success through "achievement" in western soceity is because we have defeated the "competition". Also, intellectualism is responsible for our advances in efficiency and healthcare and our material dominance over the world, and thus it is also an identity, so people also compete to be the most intelligent, and "success" or "achievement" can be seen as if one is the most intellectually dominant. A person who needs to "achieve" might say "I should be intelligent...If i am not then i will be worthless....", but the "successful" can confidently say - through the evidence of his "achievements" in life (i.e. academic achievement) that "I am intelligent...so i am a very important individual", and thus he will be "happy".

"Enlightenment" is seen as such a big issue (aided by religious beleifs who glorify such an understanding) because of our very nature having been brought up in this soceity. The very fact that we think that enlightenment is some awesome happiness or blissful state, immediatley will make us think that it requires alot of "work", which will ruin the approach right from the start and thus will make it much more difficult to "achieve". Thus, enlightenment it is seen as something that takes "many years of meditation". The word 'enlightenment' can create a false impression of what it is as well. Enlightenment is really not an "answer" to our problems (an "answer" makes us "happy") but a complete understanding that all our perceived problems have simple and a precise cause, which when understood completley make our problems themselves seem incredibly incredibly trivial and insignificant. They only seemed large because we just became personally attatched to "our" problems. When we experience enlightenment we will just naturally "be" and be content.

People do not seem to really understand (contrary to science and psychology) that our "personalities" can be directly attributable to biology and all the events in our upbringing. There is actually nothing more to our "personalities" than that. No matter how much of an "individual" you are, your personality is still shaped by your past experiences, and biology. People will thus think that there is a specific "personality" that is "right" out of all of them, so if they adopt the personality of the "enlightened" then they will be "enlightened" - which is also false.

Enlightenment is the state of conciousness, where the thoughts running through our minds are viewed like the output on a computer, mere products of the biological processes of our bodies (i.e. chemical processes) and the structure of our brain. When we understand this, we look at others through new perspective, that "we are one" - because we realise that conciousness exists as a permanant component of the universe, and our biological bodies are merely just tools which interpret this one counciousness - given our particular biology and its interaction with the environment in which it is exposed to. The conciousness could be called "God", however in many religions, "God" is defined as a personality, so it is more accurate to think that there is a universal "us" and that God is just "one of us". So the "personality" of the total conciosness is mereley the fact that a conscious perception can exist, nothing more than that. It is the soil that allows us to plant our own unique perception in it. When we attatch ourselves to this perception, we become slaves to it and suffer because of the false hope that there is some level of "perfection" that we can achieve in our lifetime, based on what we percieve to be personally important. This naturally yields the logical conclusion that we are not (or not yet) "perfect".

All our "feelings" are due to the chemistry of our bodies (particularly our brain), but we interpret them and give them "meaning".

Enlightenenment is not blissfullness. However it can allow us to control our mind and perception to such a state that (if we wanted to through meditiation for example) we can get our brain to release all its endorphins in the emotional centre of the brain (this has been scientifically shown with master meditators). Combine this with enlightenmened and we can create permanant and unconditional "happiness" - if we wanted to - and still not rely upon or be tied to this feeling in itself.

When you are enlightened you realise that "us" is just the same as "I". It should not be interpreted logically, because it does not make logical sense, however, as an example - before we saw what the earth looked like it was only logical to think that the whole thing was flat, a "top" and a "bottom" - a duality, but in fact its round and has no top or bottom, yet when you stand on it, you feel as if you are on the top of the world - even though this is not technically correct.

To maintain "enlightenment" permanantly will require alot of mental training, but it is not hard to somtimes experience short periods of it when one knows how. It is surprisingly simple to achieve once you know what it is, and also possible to maintain it permanantly and not sink back into non-enlightenment - through practice.

View enlightenment as a skill to be learned and its much easier to experience it somtimes.

Answer 5

a philosophic, movement of The 18th century marked by a rejection of traditional social , religious & political ideas.to furnish knowledge, give spritual insight. ? buddhism: a final blessed state marked by the absense of disire or sufering. in my recovery ive reached a sense of enlightement: i know longer suffer about what people think of me, i am over the pain of needing to be excepted by so called people of this world, my beliefs are my own my God is my God he takes me to my enlightenment.

Answer 6

For me it is self realization(self discovery) or inner peace which is actually the samething. Once you achieve this you will get your Nirvana. You aren't an enlightent person if can tell the future or past but instead you a fortune teller.. You are an enlightent person if you can tell who we truely are and what our purposes are in life.

Answer 7

A moment of realization that starkly separates all the past understanding from the future.

Answer 8

Becoming more aware of our real essence. Seeing the real rather than the illusion. Perceiving rather than seeing. Becoming wise rather than smart. Awakening would be a close synonym.

Answer 9

Living in the moment.

Answer 10

Experiencing an epiphany.