--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "ispiritkin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > > What I couldn't agree with less is his sugges- > > tion that the enlightened can do "anything they > > want" and actually be enlightened. In my book > > the enlightened still produce karma, and thus > > still can create negative karma and suffer the > > results of it if they perform negative actions. > > > > Being able to do "anything they want" is lazy > > philosophy, <big snip> > > Turq, regarding "enlightened" people doing whatever they > "want", it's important to define "enlightened" and "want".
Indeed. And there we run into the potential differences between the descriptions of what enlightenment entails across different spirit- ual traditions. For the purposes of these discussions, when I use the term enlightenment, I'm settling for the "lowest common denominator" similar to Maharishi's definition of CC. That is, the subjective awareness of the infinite (Being, the Absolute, eternity, whatever you want to call it) 24/7, coexistent with waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. I *don't* consider any of the other stuff associated with MMY's definitions of GC or UC. IF one assumes this state of a person, *then* the definition of "wants" depends on what *else* one assumes about having realized enlightenment. If one follows the MMY model, then at that point one's individual "wants" become "in tune" with the cosmic "wants." The enlightened individual (*because* he/ she is no longer an "individual") has *no choice* but to "follow the laws of nature" and do what nature "wants." I don't believe that. I've met and worked closely with too many people I suspect of having realized their enlightenment to believe it. I've also had my own fleeting experiences with enlightenment, as defined above. They didn't "abide" and become perm- anent; it's more like they come and go. But in a sense I feel that I've "been there done that" enough to have a feeling for whether individuality and thus individual "wants" still exist after that state is realized. I think they are. I think that the enlightened individual still has pretty much the *same* "wants" that he or she had prior to realizing enlightenment. Before enlighten- ment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. (Or "Sport wood and carry condoms," as a friend of mine rephrases this saying.) Based on my observation and my experience, and on readings in Tibetan books that speak of the enlight- ened *losing* their enlightenment as a result of improper actions, I firmly believe that...uh...to put it delicately...the enlightened still have the ability to fuck up. IMO there IS still ego present, coexistent with the subjective awareness of the infinite 24/7, enough so that that ego can sometimes act AS ego, and perform some action that is NOT appropriate. And when that happens, the enlightened being suffers the same karma that someone who has not realized their enlightenment suffers. Perform the inappropriate actions enough times, and the person who has realized his or her enlightenment could actually LOSE it, have it "fade" and "go away." These are all MY feelings and opinions on the subject, although there is support for them in other spiritual teachings. I am not trying to "push" them or "sell" them or declare them as any kind of "truth." It's just that you pinpointed some definitions that have to be agreed to before discussing a subject like this, so I'm trying to define what those terms mean to me. > Perhaps an enlightened > person would not *want* to do something harmful to someone else. In > other words, their motives may be different. My feeling is that "motives" don't really enter into any discussion of karma. All that matters is the action, not the intent behind the action. One could say, and find support for the idea in his writings, that Adolph Hitler had benevolent *motives* for his actions. In his way, he was trying to create an "ideal society" for the supposed benefit of all who lived in it. But in terms of karma, he is going to accrue the karma of the actions themselves, not the intent behind them. Again, this is Just My Opinion. > Maybe enlightenment, in > this sense, is a lot more rare than other definitions would have it. Or more common. I'm really not sure. All I know is that if *I*, with my lifestyle and my samskaras, can have had the clear experience of realizing enlightenment, even if those experiences lasted only weeks at a time, then anyone can. Therefore it could be far more common than we hear about in traditional spiritual circles. Whether these "more common" experiences of realization *persist* and remain in place 24/7 for the rest of the experiencer's life is a larger question. > This theory would also mean that since some actions would not be > wanted by the aforementioned enlightened, then people taking those > actions would thereby not be defined as enlightened. > > In my fifth spin around the spiral, I'm getting a bit of a > headache. :-] It doesn't get any better when you are in the middle OF one of these periods of enlightenment. The same issues of whether this action is appropriate or not *still* are present and *still* have to be dealt with, at least in my opinion. "Getting off the wheel" doesn't mean that we get off the bicycle and someone/something else does the pedaling and the steering, at least IMO.
