Why Get Enlightened?

If you haven't yet read the first part of this post series, check out my explanation of what Enlightenment is in philosophical terms (or what it is NOT, more accurately) viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13538

Now, I am going to do the same thing, describe Enlightenment, but from a "what's good about it?" perspective. If you talk about Enlightenment, you are ALWAYS talking about what it is, since cause (doing it) and effect (what it gives) are synonymous (figure out why this is and you'll be enlightened).

Prefatory Warning: I will be saying things that might seem mystical or whacky. If you have a predilection to dismiss anything that isn't scientifically demonstrable or "logical" (according to your probably very rudimentary understanding of logic), then do not read further. I have no interest in debating with hard materialists why materialism is silly and falls apart quite quickly under logical scrutiny. I've demonstrated that quite clearly in the previous post. In other words, I assert that anything is possible and so being skeptical about things like Enlightenment or higher dimensions of existence/consciousness (which aren't enlightenment, btw) is quite literally the equivalent of being skeptical about 2 + 2 = 4 or that you have 10 fingers. Either accept it all or reject it all - there is no middle. Either way, the truth is the truth whether you like it or not.

Also, my views on Enlightenment have no ill-bearing on my views of seduction, love, and sex. If anything, my love for seduction, women, and sex has GROWN from my journey to Truth. I don't think sex or carnal desires are any more or less holy than being a chaste monk in a monastery for your entire life - all acts are holy (and I will explain this in another post).

If this post makes you doubt my sanity, I agree with you - I am insane. But so are you. You believe that you are this body and mind, which is kinda silly, consider the same thing that gives you so much confidence in this belief (thoughts, logic, emotions, and experience), can all themselves demonstrate the exact opposite - that you are not this body and mind. But it's okay, I know why you think that - hard materialism is all the rage nowadays and anyone who has "mystical" or "religious' beliefs are considered illogical/dumb/naive/weird (and most of them are, btw). It's just the cycle of beliefs. In one century religion is glorified. In another its hated and despised, while things like science are worshiped (almost as if it's just another religion ).

It's quite silly. People think that being pro-science/logic and anti-religion makes them cool, smart, etc. It's not. And being pro-religion and anti-science/logic is just as dumb too. In fact, all beliefs are dumb (some more than others).

But enough on that. I hopefully have made myself clear If not, okie dokes, we probably wouldn't have gotten along anyways...doo doo.....

So I mentioned in my first post that I am not Truth-Realized (i.e., Enlightened) and while it is true, it is also slightly misleading.

I am semi-Realized. I am, from my intuition, experience, and from the records of different Enlightened teachers, beyond the point of no return. Around Spring 2012 I took a class on Buddhism and took a 4 month break from sex, alcohol, and drugs and dedicated myself to understanding it all very clearly. Somewhere in there I became aware of the fact that Truth exists, and that it is beyond all words, concepts, emotions, experience, etc.

This is what is called Entering the Stream by the Buddha (according to the Pali canon) or taking the First Step, if you read Jed Mckenna's books (you should). It means that you are totally convinced that knowing Truth is possible and you become obsessed with it. Kinda like realizing that getting laid is possible - you can't think of anything else after that and no matter how hard you try, you just keep thinking about pussy, ass, and titties.

What happens here is that all of your troubles get super-shrunk. All depressions, anxieties, and paranoias become manageable, because you have the sense that in comparison to Truth, they are False, and false things shouldn't be too concerning. You're not TOTALLY free from them, but it's kinda like getting rejected after you've banged a ton of sluts - you realize it's not a big deal and is just part of the process.

Since my educational training is primarily in Buddhism, I usually use Buddhist terms (in the same way that if you are a Christian, you use Christian terms to explain religious beliefs or if you speak Italian as a first language, you're usually going to speak in Italian when talking about really deep beliefs of yours). So bear with me on this, I'll try to explain.

There are Four Stages of Enlightenment in Theravada Buddhism (and really Pre-Sectarian Buddhism). All of this can be found in the Pali canon, btw, which is a monstrous collections of discussions, rules, and doctrines of Buddhism (the discourse third of the canon is called the Sutta Pitaka, or basket of discourses). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stag ... ightenment


Stream-Enterer (Sotapana). When you get this, you are from from

- Identity View (believing that you are this body/mind or some other ethereal belief of self-hood); this is awesome because you start thinking in third-person and become very detached from your troubles. You see yourself as a puppet that you can do pretty much anything you want with. Sure, you feel and think things, but there's thing really vague sense of detachment from it all. Things like rejection really don't bother you too much.

- Attachment to rites and rituals: you no longer believe that there is only "X" way to do things (e.g., you must pray 5 times a day to receive salvation). You realize that rites and rituals are just hard-rules for beginners to stay disciplined but now, you can take quicker and more efficient paths that might not be orthodox, but are better.

- Doubt about teachings; you really, truly believe that the Buddha (or any Enlightented teacher) is telling the truth. No matter what anyone tells me or any counterarguments they have (or that I try to come up with; trust me, I'm always trying to argue with myself about ti), I sincerely have no doubt that Enlightenment is possible, like not even a little bit. You can call this close-minded if you'd like, but saying that is sorta like telling a guy who bangs 4 girls a day that he can't get laid. he just can't conceive of that even if he tried. and why would I think differently? I have seen the Deathless state, have felt the peace of Nirvana, and know it's attainable - why would i doubt myself just to make a skeptic happy? that's all you're essentially asking me to do. You don't believe in it and if I would turn back and agree with you, all it would do is make you feel like you "converted" me back to non-belief and saved me, when really that's not what I believe. This is a tricky subject because a lot of people believe really dumb things based on horrible logic, so you could always turn around and say "well, why can't they believe that, if you can believe your crazy enlightenment stuff!" And you're right. I try too often to show people why their beliefs are silly and as the years pass, I care less and less about converting people. But I have two responses: my confidence in Nirvana isn't a belief - it's a direct knowledge, more secure than any belief, thought, feeling, or concept. Don't believe me? Try it yourself. And secondly, if all beliefs are bullshit (and they are), why not believe the one that is coolest? Even if I'm wrong, this is the coolest belief I can think of, that it's possible for me to find Ultimate Truth, something that only a fraction of a fraction of humanity has ever done.

If those don't sound cool, then don't worry about this Enlightenment business. It's not for you (or so you think ). Personally, it's made me better at everything - seduction, life, etc. I am one of the most carefree people i know and even when I'm severely depressed (I'm manic/depressive so my depressions can get pretty dark), I am never fully "sucked into it," meaning that while I'll be dark, brooding, and contemplating suicide, etc, there's another "half" of me that is outside of the darkness and sorta laughing at myself and the whole situation. In an effort to be fully vulnerable to everyone here, I've been pretty close to suicide a few times. Last year was the roughest year of my entire life and a pretty shitty event made me question everything in my life. I almost veered my car off the road a few times, held knives up to my throat and eye, punched myself, headbutted mirrors, and was reduced to tears for days on end and lived in darknesses that I didn't know were possible. All very dark shit.

But what's funny (yes, funny) about all of this is that while I was going through it, I also had a pretty good sense of humor about it all. I would have a knife to my throat and think "Lol, what are you doing, silly goose? You think this is gonna solve anything? Aww, pooor little baby is upset and wants to end it all. Well, now you're going to just reincarnate again, in a probably much shittier situation, and you still haven't completed what you were here to do. But go ahead, do it. go ahead, pussy baby" and then I'd drop the knife, start laughing to myself hysterically and then go do something fun.

What's great too is that none of this was very volitional. Since I am "in the stream," this is all pretty effortless. If I just let go, all depressions are dealt with on their own. In fact, the quicker I just submit to them and say "yep, this sucks," the quicker it goes away.

Then, sometime earlier this year (I'd say mid-january), I almost had my appendix rupture. And during the entire ordeal, talking to the hopsital staff, I kept joking about my death. They were all kinda freaked out at first, but you gotta remember, I really don't view myself as myself. I'm pretty detached from all of this at the end of the day (and anyone who knows me personally can attest to you how insane I am in this regard). The staff at the hospital went from "wtf?" to laughing alongside myself and even being quite enamored with my light-heartedness. Here were people who were so routinely used to pain and death, but still not quite detached from it, and then here's this cocky little bastard who's just laughing at the fact that he was a day or two from having an organ explode inside of him and was in excruciating pain (I'd say I was at a constant 7 to 8 out of 10 in pain).

Don't mistake me - I was in pain, shit sucked, and I didn't want to deal with it, but I wasn't fighting against it. It was just "meh, this sucks" for me and not much more really. The idea of dying wasn't too frightening and was even mildly exciting (how could you be scared when you are pretty sure that you are immortal, since you aren't this body/mind? It's like getting upset that some character on TV died).

If this doesn't sound awesome, I don't think you know what awesome means. And what's great, is that days after this, I took the next step.

Once-Returner (sakadagami). The markings of a Once-Returner are a great accentuation )lessening of intensity) of

- Sensual desire. Woah, the hedonist and sex addict Hector?! Bullshitttt. Okay, sure, I agree with you too. If anything, I'm even MORE hedonistic than I used to be, but now it's a very calm desire (and desire isn't the right word; craving is). In other words, I'm quite outcome independent. For those who don't know my personal day to days with girls, I have so many really close shots with girls and if I was more consistent/knew how to close properly and didn't text like an Autistic retard, I would be fucking 3 to 4 new girls a week. And I see very clearly how I fucked up, too. You'd think this would upset me, but it doesn't. Sure, would I LIKE to be fucking these girls, hellz yeah! But I'm very "if we smash, cool; if not, cool too" about it all and though my desire is great, my craving isn't (the distinction is important; the second noble truth of buddhism isn't that DESIRE is bad, but that CRAVING/ATTACHMENT is. The word is "tanha" which means "thirst." Desire isn't bad at all and never was. Desire is holy and wonderful. I also like to smoke weed, drink, and jerk off a lot, play video games, and other "sensual desires" (sensual desires = anything involving emotion, lol), but am very detached from them now. In fact, any close friend can attest that I can sit and stare at the wall and watch paint dry for hours on end and have no complaint. If i'm fucking a bitch, that's cool, if I'm staring at the wall, that's cool too. Sometimes I'll even be having sex and wish that I was doing something else. I am a hedonist, and if anything, even more than before, because I'm honest now about what I want and don't feel guilty, but there is no rabid, drug-addict fiending any more (though occasionally still I'll get super thirsty, since I'm not TOTALLY free from this shit).

- Ill will: I don't really feel too much hatred for anybody anymore. There are a few select people on this earth I wouldn't mind seeing tortured and dismembered, but again, it's a very laid-back desire for destruction. When people are rude or mean to me, I'll give them a "lolwut?" face or laugh at them. If girls blow me out, I don't have too negative of a reaction to them and usually laugh in their face. I guess the best way to describe this is think about emotions like paint: you are a canvas and when emotions come at you they splatter. If you're mad, red paint will fill your canvas and all you can see is red. Well, for most people, their canvases are super absorbant. They stick and will hold onto their grudges for a long time. Me? Well, it's hard for red paint to stick. When it does, it'll be intense if it's a lot of red paint (because I don't hold back emotions and let them do their thing), but it'll quickly slip off. This is what is meant by non-attachment. People think that they somehow "disprove" enlightenment because the Buddha still had feelings, did things, etc. But that's a really bad understanding of what enlightenment and non-attachment means. The Buddha got sick, got angry, got sad, etc. But they wouldn't LINGER and that's the entire point. Without emotions, he couldn't function as a human being or empathize with people. He was a splendid teacher (as evidenced from how little resistance he faced and that his religion is the most dominant in recorded history), which means he had to appeal to people's emotions. He obviously had empathy and emotion, but he wasn't a slave to them. If he needed to chastise a follower for breaking a rule, he would get angry, make them feel like shit, and then be done with it. The purpose of the emotion was exhausted and was no longer needed. In the same way (but not to the degree that he did, since he was fully liberated), I feel emotions, sometimes very intensly, but they fade quite quickly, especially ill-will. Most of my ill-will is a prankster like desire. For those I do hold ill-will against, it's more of a "I can't wait to laugh when you realize that you were wrong...and then I'll wink at you and if you wanna hug it out, we can."

The next-step is Non-Returner (Anagami) and allegedly, I'll be completely freed from all sensual desire and ill-will. Not even sure if I WANT to go here, but like I said, I'm kind of on a path of no-return, so even if I do get there, I promise I won't pull a St. Augustine and get all "screw women!" on ya. He just found a new source of satisfaction (meditation and God) that trumped getting his dick wet and decided to chastize that former sense enslavement he had. The Buddha too would criticize women as sources of suffering, but I think this was mostly pedagogical - celibacy is just a way of redirecting your libido to other, more refined states of pleasure. But at the ultimate level, the pleasure of a blowjob and the pleasure of a meditative state are still just pleasure states - different degrees but still not Truth. I like both and so did Walt Whitman (an enlightened guy who was also bisexual). It would be fun to be an Enlightened Playboy (Osho was also pretty supportive of sex), but if I no longer have the DRIVE for sex, not much I can do about it. guess we'll see????? I do luv my bitches.

Isn't it interesting that the more freedom you have from something, the better you are with it?

And the final step is of course Enlightenment (Arahantship) and you bust out of all the following -

6. Craving for fine material existence
7. Craving for existence on the level of formlessness
8. Conceit
9. Restlessness
10. Ignorance

Total freedom. From what everyone Enlightened person says, it's like, the coolest thing ever. The great irony I keep seeing though is that you since you're finally free, you can do anything you want, but you really have no inclination to do one thing or another and kinda just go with the flow, because, well, everything is good.

It's also described as being the most chill and non-cool thing ever too. It just IS the way it IS. If you're really good at something, be it music, women, etc and you do something dope, you don't freak out TOO much about it, since it's, well, normal.

If you're a biollionaire, getting a million dollars is pretty bleh.

Well, if you've seen Ultimate Truth and there's nothing higher than it, because there is no high, low, left, or right, and you KNOW that more than you've ever known ANYTHING EVER, then how could anything impress you?

Yeah, that's pretty, or maybe that's a bit ugly, but you know it's all the same - Truth.

So why get Enlightened?

Idk, I just sorta have the drive for it inside of me it seems. And the further I go, the less it seems necessary.

The only thing i can personally report is how it's helped me so far and what it feels like to be Semi-Realized. If I had to describe it any way, it would be that you just gradually lose all fucks.

Do you believe me? Do you care? Do you want this too?

I don't know. I still KINDA give a fuck if you believe me, but even if I do, it won't last long and everyday the fucks continue to drain away...and somehow, that makes me better at pretty much everything

And I assure you that no response to this thread or anything in it will do you any good unless you go out and try to find this for yourself (and you don't even have to go anywhere to do it - just sit there and watch your thoughts).

Come see for yourself.

Hekky

EDIT: All this "returner" business in the names of the different stages do refer to reincarnation, but that's a whole other bag that I didn't feel like addressing here too deeply.

I love these posts Hector - it's not very often I come across people who are as into Enlightenment/mindfulness stuff as I am and who have done the research and put the time into sifting through information so, for that, I must seriously thank you for posting this kind of stuff.

I'd like to pose a question from the onset, and it's one I haven't seen an answer to; Buddhism and other Enlightenment paths say that eventually, to reach true Enlightenment, you must detach yourself from all Earthly desires; women, etc. included so is it possible to be detached from these things but still interact with them? I'll stream of consciousness reply and get thoughts down from here on out;

If this post makes you doubt my sanity, I agree with you - I am insane. But so are you. You believe that you are this body and mind, which is kinda silly, consider the same thing that gives you so much confidence in this belief (thoughts, logic, emotions, and experience), can all themselves demonstrate the exact opposite - that you are not this body and mind. But it's okay, I know why you think that - hard materialism is all the rage nowadays and anyone who has "mystical" or "religious' beliefs are considered illogical/dumb/naive/weird (and most of them are, btw). It's just the cycle of beliefs. In one century religion is glorified. In another its hated and despised, while things like science are worshiped (almost as if it's just another religion ).

Click to expand...

If you haven't read it already; check out chapter 5/poem 5 of the Tao Te Ching; Lao Tzu talks about "straw dogs" and how they are discarded; just as people are discarded over time. One interpretation is that our bodies are just superficial and meaningless forms. The example I like to use is with a treasure chest; take a beautiful one and a ragged one and pick one that has the gold and jewels in it; most people think the beautiful one has the treasure but the exterior form/body gives no real indication as to what's inside. The form, and everything attached to the identity of the form is absolutely meaningless.

What I've found for myself though, is that I'm not obsessed with Enlightenment but from the get-go the teachings and ideas from Buddhism/Taoism/extension branches of the two have all drastically changed how I think about things. Problems I face, situations, etc. all become very small when approached with that mentality. One of the biggest lessons I've ingrained into my life is that "Everything is a lesson, and it doesn't go away until you learn it" so the negative situations that occur to me all have silver linings and I'm no longer overwhelmed because I know that there is a lesson/experience in everything; even if that means having your car stolen, getting an STD, losing a job, etc. Everything happens right on time, and right when it's supposed to.

Actually, I just re-read your post and it seems we've had the same questions and have had some of the same experiences. My goal, though, isn't to reach Enlightenment currently but the idea of it does sound very up-my-alley and it's something I might seek out when I'm older; as of now my main goal is to bridge Western psychology with Eastern philosophy (which is becoming more popular) as a means to help as many people as possible. There is a lot of practicality for the average person to learn even small portions of Buddhist/Taoist/Enlightenment-style thinking and views.

On top of that, thankfully I said I'd be on a stream-of-consciousness writing, I'm a firm believer that emotions don't exist and that they are instead bodily reactions to thoughts (usually uncontrolled/assumptive/unrestricted thoughts) and as such they are created from within. Anger is the emotional response to thoughts of feeling powerless, etc. There's a difference between emotions and states though; might've been Eckhart Tolle who said that emotions carry within them there exact opposite (it's why you can go from loving something to hating something almost instantaneously) whereas states can be mitigated but cannot be changed; like joy, pure love, peace, etc.

So, my assumption is that in Enlightenment you transcend the swing/pendulum of emotions and are no longer affected by their motions. But, do you retain the ability to have states like joy, love, peace, etc.? Either way I don't think I'll ever reach full-on Enlightenment but I do find a lot of it's teachings and wisdom to be very practical which is what the Buddha said in all of his teachings; use only what serves a purpose for you. Bruce Lee adopted this same approach when developing his martial arts prowess.

Anyhow, I think my rant is over. I sincerely hope that people who read this explore it for themselves because it really is immensely powerful and exciting to learn and become involved with.

-Richard

hey Hector I think the reason of many woe for humans is thinking their soul and body are same and in modern western society and much of rest of world which is false and flawed.
but I think leaving world is necessary to understand that all materialistic conditioning we have gone through childhood is also false we need not a brand new Mercedes or new shiny shitty gizmos to be Happy.
and I think a person feel a need for getting enlightened after having enough social and financial base.
haha now my rant is finished.
some questions I have
1) you believe in reincreation of soul.
2) do you believe in supernatural phenomena like ghosts , sprits etc
3)what about people healing incurable shit like cancer with meditation. (IMO it happens only with meditation done with outcome dependence)
4) astral projections ???
6) astrology???

Great writings, and must add my 2 cents as it interests me

Thousands of great books will be written about enlightenment, in addition to thousands that were already written. The vast knowledge is already out there, it is pointless to keep rewriting them in nicer and nicer words… The important thing is practice...

Enlightenment has different stages, there is no such thing as "I am enlightened and that it is, I know it all". There is lots of knowledge to gain and especially lots of practical experience one should work diligently on to gain... Reading one biology book and digesting one frog doesn't really make anyone a scientist, and having a doctorate in biology only makes us realize how little of overall science we know... The same with enlightenment, reading couple of books and meditating here and there doesn't make us enlighten... Should we chose to believe Buddhists texts, one will need even several lifetimes of intense effort in order to reach true enlightenment and true knowledge...

It is all good, but here is one big difficulty with enlightenment in today’s western civilization though. We are mostly raised to think materialistically, everything around us is based on materialism, and in essence we are just seeking different pleasurable sensations everywhere. Because of that, unfortunately, many think that enlightenment is just another form of sensation to reach. So we grasp the concept of meditation and full mindedness, we read couple of books, we meditate here and there, we feel some pleasurable sensation brought by meditation, and perhaps we feel that we are enlightened...

But are we enlightened? Yes, we are, we all are, at least in initial stages. We read instructions and we gutted the frog; now we see that there is something that others call moving heart beneath the skin... Each of us carries enlightenment inside, it is our nature...

Enlightenment is like having ten pounds of gold under the pillow that we sleep on each day, but because we are not aware of it we are running from neighbor to neighbor and borrowing fifty pennies... Fifty is much more than ten, isn’t it? …astute scientist would claim…

There is no difference between you, me, Buddha or Jesus, between billions of other beings... If we can compare all of us to waves in the vast ocean, all of us are just some wave – one bigger, other smaller, one last longer, the other parishes in seconds, one is flat, the other one with high peak… But the true nature is the same for all of us – the true nature is the underlying Ocean, the one-ness of the Vast Reality, that thing that I will call here “true self”… The “true self” is the Ocean, we all are the Ocean – and not the couple of billions of silly waves… All the waves will eventually disappear, but the Ocean is always there, creating new and new waves…

From this point of view, there is no sense to ask which wave is better or worse, this one or that one. The essence, the "true self", the "I" is not within us - it is us. You are “true self” the same way as I am “true self”, the same way Buddha or Jesus were... Any focus or attention "within self" will brings us closer and closer to the “true self”… Focus “within self” is as if the wave (you) stopped looking around at other waves, and stopped looking at the exciting winds and clouds - but look beneath the wavy surface, look calmly into the immense depths…

The problem - ugh, not again! - is that our focus and concentration is usually directed outward, to the external world. We seek different excitements outside, we seek different pleasurable stimuli outside - money, nice clothes, women, alcohol, degrees, investments, knowledge, books, recognition, social circles, you name it and it is all out there... Most of us direct our focus constantly to the “outer world”. But that is all 'out there', just like those neighbors that we are borrowing some pennies from them, just like those other waves... We don’t look at the gold beneath the surface, and that’s the only reason why we can’t see it…

So there is different world, in the opposite direction of "outward". This is inner world in which those who starts understanding more enlightenment begin working more and more intensively on themselves, respectively on discovering the "true self". See, the "true self" is always there, we just can't see it clearly because we are looking into outer world...

When Jesus talked about Kingdom of God, that's the world he meant, the inner world. When others talk about Tao, Zen, Yoga, Buddhism, Nirvana… that is what they talk about, they talk about the inner world...

When people believe and pray to God they sort of feel that "there is something", "there is God", "there is another world on the other side"... When people meditate, or sometimes when they are just tired and go for a nice walk in nature, they just feel it, they feel that "there is something else". Or perhaps better: We just feel it, we know that something else is there... Even scientists know it, they always search for new and new discoveries - out there... We can't see it in outer world, we can't prove (or disprove for the sake of argument) whether God exists or not, but we know that "something is there"... We can see clearly the other waves because we are looking at them, but can’t see the ocean below because we don't look…

Materialist of course denies anything, because all materialist sees is matter, he sees only mass, light, speed and gravity; Materialist can measure all different waves with great instruments; he measures their speeds, length and height, movement in time, but he really cannot measure in any way the "true self" beneath, because he is just not looking...

People who were here before us discovered this "true self" long time ago. They already discovered it thousands of years ago, they discovered the gold on which they slept each night... Those people had it much easier than us, they were not distracted by all those advances we have today (such as phones, travels, news, porn, ease to reach anybody within minutes)… they were naturally much closer to the "true self" because they were not so distracted by the "outer world"… and they were also much tougher...

Even today many people are discovering and feeling the "true self"; They go to church and pray to God, they read books about enlightenment, they meditate, some who are even closer are even becoming priests and monks because they intuitively understand that the "Kingdom" is not really out-there, but it is "within"... They sort of understand that the only way to get closer to "true self" is simply cut the focus "outward" and redirect the focus (or if you want awareness) inward, to self...



... People in the past were much closer to the "true self", and they were much tougher than we are today. By hard work and analyzing, by long meditations in caves, by becoming monks and totally rejecting the "outer world", by constant mantras and prayers, by living primitive and simple lives, and by worshiping God they've discovered ways how to reach what we call enlightenment today…

Jesus was much tougher than we are today, he himself spent 40 days and nights in desert fasting and rejecting "temptations of Devil". Does it even make sense to today's reader what is meant by Devil and his temptations here? Devil is not mad and ugly little creature that is flying around and spiting flames, and then dragging everyone to Hell… Devil is simply all temptations caused by the "outer world"… Devil is dissipation of focus into the "outer world", and enlightenment (followed by salvation, Nirvana, Kingdom of God,…) is then redirecting the focus "inward" by meditation, concentration, prayers and mainly awareness... 40 days, can you imagine? Can we even spent 40 minutes today? 4 hours or 4 days..? That is what I mean by 'tough', and with all probability, he probably was far away of being the 'toughest one' out there....

Buddha was another one close to "true self", he was able to describe it and leave understandable path behind on which millions of others can safely walk… He also mediated, he was even determined to die just so he can reach the enlightenment… That is how focus he was, he would die just to reach his goal. Another 'tough one', and finally he understood…. Buddha and Jesus were giants in spiritual world, yet there are thousands, perhaps even millions of great people who also reached "enlightenment", who reached the "true self"…

There were great people before these two giants who at least gave some insight into how to reach the "true self", or the enlightenment if you want. Some original texts related to enlightenment are estimated to be as old as 5,000 years; other texts are estimated to originate even 10,000 years ago... just imagine, people 10,000 years ago were already writing about enlightenment...

And there are also great people from recent history who gave us ingenious insight into understanding of "true self"; for example Svami Vivekananda and Osho are great (I don't mean to suppress other authors in any way, I'm simply most familiar with these), they described in plain words how to reach enlightenment in the most optimal way…

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In summary, there are couple of good and fairly reliable ways to 'reach enlightenment' systematically and step by step instead of waiting for it to appear out of nowhere; There is not just one way, there are several, for example they are summarized in yoga (see the above authors) under 4 different branches:

Bhakti yoga - Yoga of love, devotion, yoga of worshiping God... When you think about it, Christianity in its essence nothing else than Bhakti yoga and Jesus was just Bhakti yogi. It sounds weird and many Christians would die just to prove that it is not true, that I am lying, that they have nothing to do with yoga, but think about it – it is all about worshiping God and following commandments... the same as in Bhakti yoga… Perhaps Bhakti Yoga it is one of the oldest, simplest and most reliable ways to reach enlightenment; some say it is also the fastest way… Perhaps the only yoga that is truly using God, however knowing other yogas we know that God is only an object of worship in order to achieve the final result (enlightenment, salvation, Nirvana,...); this God is only a personal God and not real being somewhere in the universe (if that makes sense). Also read Bhagavad Gita, it is an excellent work, everybody should read Bhagavad Gita and learn from it…

Jnana yoga - yoga of knowledge, yoga of intellect, yoga of knowing, yoga of understanding, yoga of knowing "who am I?"… Lots of knowledge in Jnana yoga, one life is not long enough just to understand the vast knowledge of yoga…

Karma yoga - yoga of actions, what you do today will come back to you tomorrow. Reincarnations into better and better spheres or higher beings; Understanding that your today's actions will return to you in the future… perhaps in this life, perhaps in another… Liberation through work, through voluntarily giving up fruits of your actions, liberation through serving…

Raja yoga - yoga of focus, concentration and meditation... Known as Royal yoga, yoga with eight pillars... Yoga of mental work, focusing on single point(s), controlling life's energy (prana), observation of outer and inner worlds... Disconnecting the "self" from senses (simply turning focus inward). Reaching Samadhi, sort of super-conscious state which others call God, realization that there is no difference between you (true self) and God, that both are the same... Realization that you, I and everybody else are just waves in the vast Ocean…

Hatha yoga - yoga of positions. Perhaps what most in western world consider as yoga. Hatha is hatha, there is nothing special about hatha. By practicing hatha yoga you might achieve great health, you might avoid or perhaps even cure many illnesses, you might live way longer than every person you know, you might calm your mind and achieve great focus - but at the end it is just hatha, there is nothing special about it. Perhaps it shouldn't even be called yoga, not even considered as a branch... Quite sad that Hatha is usually the only one known in western society...

Integral yoga - simply yoga that combines various aspects of the above yogas… Can one truly reach enlightenment in one life? Ten lives would be needed just to understand what these yogas are about, and sixteen lives would be needed just to introduce somebody to yoga… Ten thousand years we already have that knowledge, yet there are so many unknowns…



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So as we can see, there are lots of things to consider for one who is seeking enlightenment. Enlightenment can be reached as something random that could come in some unexpected moment of surprise out of nowhere, or it could be systematic and goal oriented approach by following footsteps of giants… As far as I can say, one grain of practice, one grain of "knowing self" brings you more knowledge of "self" than ten thousand books about the external world...



Great readings, love this topic!

Dude, haven't sifted through this post, but I've been meaning to get myself educated on this topic for a while. Thanks for making these intro posts!

Nick

Richard said:

I'd like to pose a question from the onset, and it's one I haven't seen an answer to; Buddhism and other Enlightenment paths say that eventually, to reach true Enlightenment, you must detach yourself from all Earthly desires; women, etc. included so is it possible to be detached from these things but still interact with them? I'll stream of consciousness reply and get thoughts down from here on out;

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Yes, in the end, you must lose everything.

But that's only so you can see everything for what it is - nothing. And then you must go right back to interacting with everything AS IF it is real, even though you now KNOW it is not Ultimate Reality. And that's totally okay, because Ultimate Reality isn't something you can experience. It just IS and you KNOW it via identity ("I am that I am" - God's response when Moses asks him his name). Empiric reality must be lost for that to become clear. Does that make sense?

So yes, you lose everything, but then go right back into it if you want to operate within the plane of experience (sight, sound, etc). If not, then just drop this body and go back to being Eternal Everything/Nothing.

Richard said:

Actually, I just re-read your post and it seems we've had the same questions and have had some of the same experiences. My goal, though, isn't to reach Enlightenment currently but the idea of it does sound very up-my-alley and it's something I might seek out when I'm older; as of now my main goal is to bridge Western psychology with Eastern philosophy (which is becoming more popular) as a means to help as many people as possible. There is a lot of practicality for the average person to learn even small portions of Buddhist/Taoist/Enlightenment-style thinking and views.

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Be careful, then. Once you hit the Stream Entry, you will become obsessed with it..

If you just want to apply the fruits of mindfulness to your life, then read Jed Meckenna's books and get his notion of "human adulthood." You're probably already there, but it's all about manifesting your desires within the dream (i.e., non-realized reality). Even once you're truth realized, you still live within the dream, but now you look from without as a permanent outsider. What this means, then, is that truth realization/enlightenment has nothing to do with any particular pursuit - it's the fruit of all pursuits. Start digging with any field or study and you'll come upon paradox/the walls of what you can know, and then if you jump in regardless, you'll start the journey.

Now, complete freedom will come from Enlightenment, it seems, but you really won't care what's what and will just follow the inclinations of this personality, whereas right now, you're concerned about choosing X or Y. In a truth realized state, there is no distinction between X and Y, except for the fact that X seems like the right thing to do. But if you work towards X and Y still happens, okay cool, that's what was supposed to happen.

Richard said:

On top of that, thankfully I said I'd be on a stream-of-consciousness writing, I'm a firm believer that emotions don't exist and that they are instead bodily reactions to thoughts (usually uncontrolled/assumptive/unrestricted thoughts) and as such they are created from within. Anger is the emotional response to thoughts of feeling powerless, etc. There's a difference between emotions and states though; might've been Eckhart Tolle who said that emotions carry within them there exact opposite (it's why you can go from loving something to hating something almost instantaneously) whereas states can be mitigated but cannot be changed; like joy, pure love, peace, etc.

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Emotions don't exist but are bodily reactions to thoughts? Then that's what emotions are. You've simply given them a different mechanistic structure. I don't know where emotions come from, but I'll present a few different theroetical frameworks and explain why none of them are essentially different

Neurochemist comes along and says "emotions are just chemical reactions in the brain." The "just" or definitive reduction of "emotions are X" here is funny, because explaining the efficient cause of something (e.g., nice emotion 5 is 3 seratonins + 4 dopamines) doesn't explain what it IS.

The poet says that emotions are eternally unknowable - they are just that, a mystery and should remain so, just be appreciated and accepted...oh look at these pretty words here.

The physicist tells the neurochemist he didn't go deep enough and should think more fundamentally; and he tells the poet he's being a fucking hippy.

The philosopher says that emotions are an inherent function of consciousness and can only be understood through the lens of logic, observation, etc.

But these are all just blueprint arguments. The neurochemist's blueprint has lines and polygons (chemical structures), the phycisist has some other pictures with math scribbled around them, the poet put his hand over his eyes and sang a song, and the philosopher thinks until he dies.

All approximations. Blueprints. Signposts. Some maybe more consistent than others, but still ultimately not the answer, just signposts.

In buddhism, this is called Praticca-samuppada in Pali or Pratitya-samutpada in Sanskrit, and it means "codependent origination" or "interdependent arising." You always have to explain something in terms of something else. You can't use white on white paper - you have to draw lines and symbols so that the unique form or shape points towards the thing you're referring to. Blueprints.

Someone might say "well, that's just too detail-focused and hyper-critical." And for anything that isn't ULTIMATE TRUTH, I'd agree we're overthinking things.

But this is Ultimate Truth we're talking about here. We're saying "Emotions ARE X," definitively. And definite answer is a stake in the ground. If we substitute the predicate ("emotions") for a variable, like we did X, then we have a reflexive statement. In propositional logic, this is a hypothetical viewpoint, but it holds (it's just considered "weaker" since you're not asserting anything particular; it's true for everything and therefore weaksauce. But it's the simplicity that is important when you go to the source of things).

However, you will never answer the question "what are emotions" definitively. Saying "x is x" is still just a signpost (albeit a much more refined signpost - has some nice paint and looks sturdy).

I didn't pick on this sentence just to be a prick either, it has a point!

If everything is just a schematic approximation of the truth, which do you pick?

Well, which one do you like the most? That answer will make you look cool around physicists, that one will make you look cool around hippies, and that one will convince a university to give you a $40,000 grant to do some research.

In a very specific nutshell, I just answered every question you could ever have (on an Ultimate Level) - which belief suits your fancy? I like super detailed answers, because I dig them.

If the answer "emotions are bodily reactions to thoughts" is the one you like, then it's as good as any (at least in relation to the Ultimate; in relation to other paradigms, it may or may not be more consistent/complete).

Richard said:

So, my assumption is that in Enlightenment you transcend the swing/pendulum of emotions and are no longer affected by their motions. But, do you retain the ability to have states like joy, love, peace, etc.? Either way I don't think I'll ever reach full-on Enlightenment but I do find a lot of it's teachings and wisdom to be very practical which is what the Buddha said in all of his teachings; use only what serves a purpose for you. Bruce Lee adopted this same approach when developing his martial arts prowess.

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Some sources say you lose the affective system and only feel emotions in a completely practical way (they last until their energetic value is lost - boredom got used up to get me moving, and I no longer even think about having been bored). And yes, wanting to feel good just becuase you want to feel good is a practical reason. Everything becomes play. Also, apparently introspection becomes impossible. This is one I'm just now beginning to understand. My ability to go inward is fading. I mean, I can watch my thoughts, follow memories down the rabbit hole, play out theoretical scenes in my head, and space out on Mars, but it doesn't...feel like inwards. I feel like I'm just going somwhere else.

The philosophical answer to this and my intuitive answer is that since I'm becoming increasingly aware of no-self, I realize that there is no "inside." Everything that is is within consciousness, so that wall over there and this feeling of anger aren't literally separated by anything other than how my consciousness is making one seem "inwards" (in my head) and the other "outwards" (4 feet in front of me). And given that everything is codependent on something else (infinitely), there is no separation, and thus no "here or there." Everything is just "nowhere," because if there is no self, there is no anything in and of itself (if I don't have a self, that apple over there sure as hell ain't carrying around a self either...and if nothing has an independent existence, then everything has a DE-pendent existence i.e., everything is connected).

The point here is that anything that isn't Ultimate Truth is just your fancy but it's really all the same anyways. All is vanity. Why is this important to what you said? Well, one the Buddha had only one goal - give you enlightenment.

“Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so also this teaching and discipline has one taste, the taste of liberation" (can't remember which suta it is, but it's a legit buddha quote if anything is).

The Buddha isn't interested in anything but Truth. love, compassion, friendliness, ethics, philosophy, etc., none of that matters. They are all just rafts. So yes, use what is useful to you, but everything is just a raft for the Highest Goal (if you want to stay true to the Buddha. Buddhism is only about one thing - Nirvana. Nothing else at all, not even a little bit; just like Christianity is about nothing but becoming Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven/uniting with the Godhead).

disciple99 said:

1) you believe in reincreation of soul.
2) do you believe in supernatural phenomena like ghosts , sprits etc
3)what about people healing incurable shit like cancer with meditation. (IMO it happens only with meditation done with outcome dependence)
4) astral projections ???
6) astrology???

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1. Sure; but who's soul is it?
2. Sure
3. Yep
4. Yep
6. Yep

If you can think it, it's possible, because thinking is happening with consciousness and anything in consciousness is equally real in the fact that it is only phenomenally existent. It has no independent existence, only dependent existence, and thus it is not Ultimately Real. 99% real is still fake. And anything can happen when everything is fake. In a way, thinking it IS doing it. When you think about some girl, you are with that thought, and if thoughts are just as unreal as the sensory data you get when you're "in person" with her, then you're just as Ultimately There in both situations. But when you're "with" her physically, your fed MORE data (not just thought, but sight, sound, smell, touch ,etc). This makes the illusion look PRETTY real, but remember, truth is ALWAYS right, so if there's a change, then it's just a scene. Impermanent, and therefore not real real (true true).

That's some trippy shit, right? But it holds better than anything else. If everything else is reduced to absurdity, and this is the only thing that isn't, it must be true.

Drck said:

Enlightenment has different stages, there is no such thing as "I am enlightened and that it is, I know it all".

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Is that true? Nirvana is non-dual. It's not one, two, or nothing - it is but has no sensory existence. And if it doesn't have sensory existence, it can't have multiplicity. There is no "all." One, two, all, none - these signifies have no existence at the level of what Enlightenment is suggesting.

In other words, done is done. You can have experiences afterwards that deepen and refine your signposts (your theories) in cool new ways, but it's just signposts. So you're "done," but SOMETHING keeps going (it's not a self, though).

Fields like biology will eventually reach a wall where you figure out what you can't know within that field (you stop once it gets on the level of chemistry, that leads to the physics wall, and then the metaphysical wall, and then you just jump).

Nirvana is not something you can explore, except for the fact that Samsara = Nirvana in FORM, because Samsara IS the form of Nirvana. But all form is ultimately unreal. It's once removed from Reality.

Drck said:

Should we chose to believe Buddhists texts, one will need even several lifetimes of intense effort in order to reach true enlightenment and true knowledge...

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The Buddhist texts explicitly state that Nirvana can be achieved in this life, and in little as 7 days. There are many reports of people hearing the Buddha's sermons, becoming monks, going out into the wilderness, and very quickly attaining Nirvana. Of course they probably were already quite introspective and mindful, and just needed that last push.

Drck said:

When Jesus talked about Kingdom of God, that's the world he meant, the inner world. When others talk about Tao, Zen, Yoga, Buddhism, Nirvana… that is what they talk about, they talk about the inner world...

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Yep!

Drck said:

... People in the past were much closer to the "true self", and they were much tougher than we are today. By hard work and analyzing, by long meditations in caves, by becoming monks and totally rejecting the "outer world", by constant mantras and prayers, by living primitive and simple lives, and by worshiping God they've discovered ways how to reach what we call enlightenment today…

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Check this shiz out

I have heard that on one occasion, when the Blessed One was newly Self-awakened, he was staying at Uruvela on the bank of the Nerañjara River, at the foot of the Goatherd's Banyan Tree. Then, while he was alone and in seclusion, this line of thinking arose in his awareness: "This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise. But this generation delights in attachment, is excited by attachment, enjoys attachment. For a generation delighting in attachment, excited by attachment, enjoying attachment, this/that conditionality and dependent co-arising are hard to see. This state, too, is hard to see: the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding. And if I were to teach the Dhamma and if others would not understand me, that would be tiresome for me, troublesome for me." - Ayacanna Sutta

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Every generation has suckers and every generation had winners. Maybe slight percentages moving one way or another, but I don't suspect anyone's ever been better in any age, just in different ways.

Drck said:

Jesus was much tougher than we are today, he himself spent 40 days and nights in desert fasting and rejecting "temptations of Devil". Does it even make sense to today's reader what is meant by Devil and his temptations here? Devil is not mad and ugly little creature that is flying around and spiting flames, and then dragging everyone to Hell… Devil is simply all temptations caused by the "outer world"… Devil is dissipation of focus into the "outer world", and enlightenment (followed by salvation, Nirvana, Kingdom of God,…) is then redirecting the focus "inward" by meditation, concentration, prayers and mainly awareness... 40 days, can you imagine? Can we even spent 40 minutes today? 4 hours or 4 days..? That is what I mean by 'tough', and with all probability, he probably was far away of being the 'toughest one' out there....

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Jesus is definitely a landmark guy. His attainment was equal to any other Realized Person, but he was better at marketing, I guess. Got super popular. Also, there's a work by Bernadette Roberts that I'm reading through right now that suggests Jesus the person was a very special vehicle in the history of man (she's also enlightened). Franklin Merell Wolff, another enlightened scholar, asserts that Jesus was the reincarnation of Adi Shankara, and Shankara was helped by Gautama Buddha (our "buddha").

And that would all be super cool, but it's just that, super cool to us. Gautama Buddha says explicitly in the Pali Canon that there's been an infinite number of Buddhas throughout what we call "history."

Your cataloging of the Yogas is super dope! You're well read in this field.

@Nick

You're welcome, homie!

Hector

"Is that true? Nirvana is non-dual. It's not one, two, or nothing - it is but has no sensory existence"
>>>> Enlightenment is at first something like understanding, like seeing the Light without your eyes, it is sort of understanding of what is called Truth... There are different levels of understanding, we can understand differently; the same way we can see one ray of Light or we can see the whole Sun… If you allow more Rays of Light enter your dark Soul, you will simply be more enlightened

But reaching it, reaching the Nirvana is another thing. We may understand what Nirvana or Salvation is, we can “see” it or “touch” it in our Minds, but because of Karma we usually have to wait till the wheels stop turning… So we can actually “see” what Nirvana (or Kingdom of God) is, but because of Karma we are sort of still stuck in this material World… We can masterfully learn how to avoid consequences of our actions, we can learn how to avoid crushing wheels of Karma, which is certainly doable, but one must also ask - Why? After all, Life is not that bad...


"Franklin Merell Wolff, another enlightened scholar, asserts that Jesus was the reincarnation of Adi Shankara, and Shankara was helped by Gautama Buddha (our "buddha")"
>>>> I wouldn't be surprised at all. There is no materialistic proof, but in my opinion it is quite logical that Jesus understood and practiced some form of Buddhism. Where was he since the age of 13? He disappeared, then he appeared years later with "his teaching". IMO he was somewhere amongst monks or in some temple studying and mainly practicing... Maybe he was somewhere in caves, practicing yoga, meditating and concentrating… It's just pure speculation with no materialistic proof at all, but it makes sense. One simply doesn’t gain that much knowledge out of Nothing…

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Nirvana can be entered in different ways. If we understand true geniality of the above authors (Vivekananda, Osho, and probably bunch of others), there are simply more ways to achieve one's enlightenment and the final Salvation, the Kingdom of God, or if you want Nirvana...

To continue on the examples above, one can for example practice Bhakti yoga, total devotion to God. Every living moment he or she worships God, and the more he worships the closer he gets. He forgets all the worries, by constantly thinking about God and by praying he fills his Mind with love and devotion… From point of view of yoga, he simply suppresses the external world, leaving it somewhere in background and focuses inward, on the Blissful “True Self”. This worshiping of God will eventually develop certain prerequisites for him to enter the Nirvana...

All he usually needs then is something that will sort of push him in. He knows that there is Kingdom of God, he knows that there is Nirvana, but he doesn’t know how to get in. The Gates are still closed… Maybe he can for example meet some guru, he can read some text, he can read one sentence of what Jesus said two thousands of years ago... He can read one page and suddenly he gets it. Ha! He says, I am enlightened now! And this sudden understanding, this sudden "push" is strong enough to open the Gate … Now enLightened, he sees the Light, and he follows it until he reaches it... There is just no other way, once you see the Light you follow, once you see the Truth you follow... You just can’t un-follow the Truth…

But in this case, he sort of enters unknowingly, he knows that he somehow entered Kingdom of God but he doesn't really understand how. He thinks that it was some random act, perhaps act of God or act of Jesus. He can enter in one moment, only one moment it takes, it doesn't even have to be seven days....

When we understand yoga, we really know that there was nothing random on it, there was really no external influence and Jesus really didn't save him… but his Mind was ready as he started looking inward into the Light...

Think about why priests were visiting dying persons, and still doing it. When we are dying, we are much closer to the Truth, to the Light as we are leaving our bodies... When I say "we", I don't really mean our Egos, our names or our attachments to this world, I don’t mean our thoughts and our memories, I don’t mean our hates and our loves... All these stay with the dying body, all these little individualities that we call "I" will perish forever, all these great Egos we have today will be once forever gone…. I rather mean the Awareness itself, the Observer that doesn't really have any characteristics or any Ego is ‘leaving’, that thing that is by some called Atman, that thing that I call here “True Self”... Well, it is not really ‘leaving’ or ‘going’ anywhere in the physical world either, it is not floating to other planets - it is simply dis-attaching itself from the physical body as the body is dying… and now, at the moment of physical Death, the “Self” is realizing that there is another, different world…

This dis-attachment is actually quite Blissful. We lose all the bounds to our physical bodies, to our Egos, to our loves and hates... We dis-attach ourselves from physical world… That’s why some who went through Death and came back to Life describe it as Light; as tunnel with light at the End… That’s why some described it as “floating” above the body…

You can’t really describe it the same way you can’t describe to someone who never tasted salt in his entire life how salty water taste – he needs to taste it himself. All descriptions, all thousands of books about Enlightenment and Nirvana that were and will be written are just pointless, one simply need to experience… Through meditation and concentration, through yoga one can also experience the same Blissfulness, one can die to this world and be born again in Kingdom of God as Jesus says – all that while still in this body…

Imagine for a moment, that there is a substance, we can call this substance Awareness. According to the scripts, this substance is the God, the Truth, the Brahman or whatever label we want to put on it. The substance is everywhere. We as individuals are simply part of this substance... Brahman is the immense Ocean itself, and we are the Waves in it, we are the waves that have physical characteristic, shapes, mass and durations... But in the essence, we are the Ocean itself as well… we just don’t see it because we now think we are just these amazing Waves, if that makes sense...

When we are dying, we are much closer to the Truth, to the Brahman, to what some call God if you will, because we are leaving our bodies - we are leaving the shape and physical characteristics of the Wave; we are becoming the Ocean again… In simplest words, we are simply entering the Nirvana, the Kingdom of God...

This Ocean, however, also has different layers, different spheres, different qualities, different "purities"... The same way water can have different properties (ice, fluid, gas), the same way this Ocean have different layers, qualities and spheres…

Then, based on individual characteristics of the physical Wave, of characteristics of us and our Egos, of our “I”, of sums of our all actions and behaviors (simply of our Karma) we then enter different layers of the Ocean...

Some Waves enter higher and more quality levels, other lower layers (which perhaps could be described by some as Hell)... Some Waves have to re-appear on the surface, again and again... So Kingdom of God, or Nirvana are rather pure and more quality levels. Other levels are not so pure, perhaps we can call them Hells...

People in the past were usually believers in God, and even though they may have committed sins and crimes, realizing that they are in last moments of their lives and by denouncing sins and accepting Jesus, they were forgiven and allowed to enter the Kingdom, the higher levels of the Ocean in the moment of Death... All they needed was that sort of a "push", that acceptance and Love of Jesus... Today we probably laugh because it all sounds like fairy tales, but we only laugh because we just don't understand...

So true giants such as Jesus or Buddha could have taken thousands or millions of people to Nirvana with them in one moment, and they can still do it today, thousands of years later... All people had or have to do is accept them as their leaders and saviors, simply renounce their sins, simply see and follow their Light, till they finally reach it...

All it takes is only one second to grasp the Truth, the same way it takes one second to see one Ray of Light... and when we are dying, respectively when our “I”, our Ego and our bodies are dying, we are much closer to the Truth... We are closer to it like never before...

Let's think for a second, what actually are Sins? From the point of view of yoga, Sins (in simple words) are nothing else then attachments to external world - being attached to money, power, women, fame, ego, being attached to “I” and Ego... Having desires for the fruits of physical world that we live in are simply described as Sins in Christianity, and Suffering in Buddhism... Dropping these desires, dis-attaching ourselves from materialistic world (and thus turning our focus inward) we are removing our Sins, we are removing what Buddhists call Suffering, we are beginning to life in Eternal Blissfulness, in Kingdom of God…

Once one is ready to dis-attach himself from physical world, once one is ready to leave the Sins where they belong, once one is ready to leave all the Suffering, he is also ready to enter the Kingdom - or submerge himself into the Eternal Nirvana if you will...

But there is also lots of problems with Bhakti yoga, especially today. The problem is called Mind, or rather the Great Ego of which we suffer…

We people are not as true believers in God as we used to be. We are much more skeptical, we are more distant from God because we are too busy by constantly focusing too much energy into the external world - we spent too much time on iPhones, playing games, watching porn, studying ten thousand of different business ideas to make money... We cannot sit and enjoy quietness of Nature, we always have to run someplace, we always have to run and be late for something anyway…

…We are studying science which only brings more doubts about existence of God into our minds, we are figuring out how to sleep with one hundred girls in the most efficient way... From this point of view, we are simply much greater sinners than our ancestors used to be, we are attached to more Sins, we are attached more to the materialistic world…

But it's all good, we are also 100x smarter than our ancestors, we are cleverer and we can do all these things. We sort of pay high price for it though, as we are also 100x more distant from God then our ancestors used to be...

So Bhakti yoga, although the best, fastest and easiest way to Truth is not suited well for most us. We are busy with the external world, we have no time for Blissfulness. We have hungry minds that feed our big Egos, we want to know, we want to understand; we want to know one hundred different answers to the same question... We are skeptical scientists, we nourish our Great Egos thus we are no longer able to follow that simple and blind beliefs in God...

In other words, we are just too much submerged in the material world, blind belief and devotion is well below us. So not many of us can really do it... I'm no longer stupid, your Amazing Ego says, I just can't just simply believe like a primitive need to know, I really have to understand...

No problem then, yoga has many more tools to feed our hungry Minds, more tools that we can use. That is Jnana yoga, yoga of knowledge. Knowledge that leads to final understanding of Self. We think and think, we figure things out, we think so much until we are finally understanding what Enlightenment, Nirvana and Kingdom of God, and God himself actually are…

Through science we understand... Jnana yoga is also a science, it is skeptical science; skepticism is needed in order for one to practice Jnana yoga...

In this science called Jnana yoga, you don't have to believe in anything. You are more than welcome to deny God, deny Kingdom of God, deny Nirvana, and you should deny them all. Total disbelieve in God is needed in order to recognize the Truth. As a true scientist you should claim that none of these exist, you should even deny the existence of your own Self. It's a nonsense, it's fairy tales, that's how you should approach it. The whole thing called Life is nonsense, none of it makes any sense…

The difference between Jnana science and classical science is that classical science studies the outer world, the matter, the light, the universe, the quantum mechanics, the atomic particles, the relativity of different Waves… whereas Jnana yoga studies "Self", the inner world, the Ocean... Jnana yoga studies "What am I?"; it analyzes and analyzes, it becomes more and more skeptical, it still refuse to believe what it finds, then it studies more... Nothing is true, nothing is real, you don't even exist, Jnana yoga can easily claim...

Jnana yoga gives your mind a good work up, it gives it the food that it is searching for… And your Mind then goes in circles, and once you come up to the point where the circle ends and where it begins you also realize the Self, you realize what God, His Kingdom and Nirvana means...

How long does it take before one gains all of that knowledge, before one understand the whole enlightenment?, perhaps you ask... As long as your Mind is hungry, as long as your Mind keeps seeking the Truth… It could be one hour, or it could be one hundred lives...

The knowledge is vast, there is a huge and bottomless Sea of knowledge out there… all you have to do is to have a will to swim... If you have the will to keep discovering, you can easily swim another one hundred lives, two hundred more lives you can swim; and the more you swim the more you realize that you actually just swim in Great and Blissful Nothingness...

And then there is Raja yoga, the classical meditation, focus and concentration that we heard about from people with painted blind eye on their foreheads...

But don't be fooled, Raja yoga is not about sitting down for couple of minutes, letting go of all the worries, and imagining being somewhere on the beach, being on another planet, being in peace and having some never ending mind orgasms... That's only the beginning, that's only what western people who all they seek is pleasure see in this yoga... They can't see any further with their blind eye because all they are looking for is just another pleasure, another happiness that can satisfy their hungry Desires...

Raja yoga is hard work, hard focusing and concentration, self discipline, total control of self, control of Prana (life's energy), and perhaps even control of the Universe as the claim is... All this work starts with morals though; morals (meaning, respect, truthfulness, honesty, purity, non-harming and so forth) are the pillars of Raja yoga, without morals there can never be a true Raja yoga...

If you want to be a King study Raja yoga, that's what Kings do. It's a hard work that also ends in Samadhi, Nothingness, Nirvana, Kingdom... You don't screw around, you don't waste too much time on gaining knowledge of Jnana, you are not a follower of Jesus or anyone else, you are simply The King - walking your own way, walking directly to Nirvana...

While practicing Raja, if your Mind could be compared to a knife, your Mind cuts through the Reality; it dissect the Reality by focus and concentration, it engulfs the whole Truth by Awareness, it recognizes itself as The Awareness, it finds itself swimming in Nirvana... That’s Raja yoga…

But how long does it take to become a true master of Raja yoga? one might ask... And how long does it take for one to become a true King? the answer is. Maybe not just seven days, but seventy seven days are needed... Or lives, for the sake of the Truth...

So we can see that people with primitive minds who are true and honest believers have it actually quite easy to get to Nirvana, to enter the Kingdom... “Those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last”, Jesus said… See the geniality in those words?

…We can enter the Kingdom in any moment, perhaps even not having a clue how and why... All we have to do is believe and wait... That's the geniality of Bhakti yoga, that's the geniality of Jesus who can save millions of people who accept him as a savior...

We can also see amazing powers of the other yogas that give us understanding, knowledge and even control over of what we call Life...

We can also see that for true seekers of Truth there is really not many differences in approaches; we can see that Buddhism, Christianity, Yoga and others are just silly names; they are just labels, different clothes, different Saints, different traditions, different believes, different Egos… different ways of seeking the Truth… We can actually even see that Buddhism, Christianity and Yoga have lots in common. If we omit the superficial differences such as traditions and believes, the core of these is pretty much the same, or at least highly suggestive that it comes from the same source couple of thousands of years ago…

And we can also freely chose to follow any of the great paths that lead to Salvation, Nirvana, Kingdom of God, the "True Self", the Blissful Piece of Nothingness ... Or none of them at all, LOL