Hi RMJ —
Your questions pose a whole lot of other questions / reflections ...
Ok, I get this. Enlightenment is the realisation of universal and personal connected awareness?
Well this goes right to the heart of the issue ... that is a kind of enlightenment, but it's not the kind spoken of in the Abrahamic Traditions, where the whole is underpinned by the notion of the Union of the individual self with the Other, or with Selfhood as such, that is the union with a contingent, ephemeral, transient, momentary and fragmentary being, with Being-As-Such, a union of self with the source of Beingness in all its myriad forms, both formal and formless ... key text in the Christian Tradition is John 1:4-5, and the hymn of Colossians, the 'now I see darkly' of St Paul and, for me, the most luminous of the lot: "We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2)
Enlightenment seems to imply a sudden Eureka? Oh, NOW I understand. Oh NOW I see.
Well that seems to be the assumption, but I'm not so sure? I know people like to phrase it that way. On the flip side: 'soon ripe, soon rotten' or 'easy come, easy go' ... the sources I read seem more the 'chop wood, carry water' type.
The Buddha's moment of enlightenment. Suddenly he knew and understood everything. This is the traditional understanding of the term?
I'm not fully
au fait with the life of the Buddha, and his epiphany might well be the case, but there must have been a path to that point? I recall a popular singer once saying, "Twenty years in the industry, and I'm an overnight success". And then, once the moment has passed, we have to make of it what we can ... If you read Acts, Saul of Tarsus is enlightened on the road to Damascus, the effect is so profound he is addled and struck blind ... If you read Galatians, after this moment, he went to Arabia, where he stayed for about 14 years, before coming back and making his journey to Damascus, where he was instructed in the Christian faith and baptised by Ananias. Then he starts preaching ... so one blinding moment and 14 years to come to terms with it ...
Can enlightenment be a process, not a single event? This seems to be the current understanding? Is it possible to see and understand everything?
Yes, I'd say it's dynamic process. Is it possible to see and understand everything? Not the enlightenment that I have in mind. You can't contain the Infinite. Is it possible to understand and be content with that? Yes.
Every day we learn a little bit more. Sometimes in a hard way. Just an expanded understanding? It's not always purely rational. Often intuitive. So at what point can the word enlightenment be applied to a person in the 'spiritual' sense.
Right from the beginning.
I suppose I'm really referring to the oh-so-enlightened new-age types out there. Especially the teachers. No reference to anyone here.
Well I'm sure everyone can guess my views on that!
What's the deal with enlightenment anyway? is it the point of religion? No. Is it the point of spiritual practice? No. In today's world it's seen as just that, as the reward, it's very much driven by the desire for
experience, and often on very dubious grounds: If I do this, I want that. I should have it because I'm worth it kind of thing.
I'm more in favour of the apophatic, the Darkness of the Divine, Divine Ignorance, call it what you will. There's a great, great lesson in the Tanner of Alexandria, but it's an unpalatable one in the current climate:
When blessed Antony was praying in his cell, a voice spoke to him, saying, "Antony, you have not yet come to the measure of the the tanner who is in Alexandria." When he heard this, the old man arose and took his stick and hurried into the city. When he had found the tanner...he said to him, "Tell me about your work, for today I have left the desert and come here to see you."
He replied, "I am not aware that I have done anything good. When I get up in the morning, before I sit down to work, I say that the whole of this city, small and great, will go into the Kingdom of God because of their good deeds, while I alone will go into eternal punishment because of my evil deeds. Every evening I repeat the same words and believe them in my heart."
When blessed Antony heard this he said, "My son, you sit in your own house and work well, and you have the peace of the Kingdom of God; but I spend all my time in solitude with no distractions, and i have not come near the measure of such words."
And this, another from the Paradise of the Desert Fathers:
God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers or unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from passions or those caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated and the illitrate, of the healthy and the sick, of the young or the old. He is like the outpouring of light, the glimpse of the sun, or the changes of the weather which are the same for everyone without exception.
Abba Pambo said, "If you have a heart, you can be saved."
Story:
There was an old man living in the desert who served God for so many years and he said, "Lord, let me know if I have pleased you." He saw an angel who said to him, "You have not yet become like the gardener in such and such place." The old man marvelled and said, "I will go off to the city to see both him and what it is that he does that surpasses all my work and toil of all these years."...
So he went to the city and asked the gardener about his awy of life.... When they were getting ready to eat in the evening, the old man heard people singing in the streets, for the cell of the gardener was in a public place. Therefore the old man said to him, "Brother, wanting as you do to live according to God, how do you remain in this place and not be troubled when you hear them singing these songs?"
The man said, "I tell you, abba, I have never been troubled or scandalized." When he heard this the old man said, "What, then, do you think in your heart when you hear these things?" And he replied, "That they are all going into the Kingdom." When he heard this, the old man marvelled and said, "This is the practice which surpasses my labour of all these years."
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What I mean is, the basic messages of any authentic Religious Tradition should be reason enough in themselves, without the need of (paradise) carrots or (perdition) sticks.