Xeno, Thank you for this reply.
I find very little to take issue with, and quite a few of the lines, made me smile, , so thank you for that. There are things you've brought up, that I am going to mull over. (that's how I do things) Thank you again for a perspective I had not considered! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> wrote : Steve, You do need to pay attention to what other people say about enlightenment, otherwise there are no markers as to whether you have made progress or not. But then, who has the 'right' markers? There are lots of descriptions of enlightenment in various traditions. Jim's experience is one of them, but it has me being suspicious because he has said rather little of it in detail, other than he has it, and he knows others do not. The only teacher I know of who describes enlightenment in great detail from start to finish, from a more 'personal' perspective, warts and all, is Adyashanti. There may be other teachers I do not know of, undoubtedly. Maharishi's system appears to have some general benchmarks, but it seems many have had experiences that are of another quality. The jury is out on this for me, but Jim seems to avoid going into much detail about his experience. 'Silence 24/7', a big release when it dawned, 'every perception sees the infinity of the object, unity prevailing', but generally not particularly creative in going beyond stock phrases that could be lifted from Maharishi's tapes. Because he seems to be interested in creativity and expression, I think he could do better at this and make up his own words for this, because then you get more of a feeling of a connexion with a person's mind. To me Jim seems more bluster than Brahman, but I do feel he had a profound experience from his point of view. I would just like to know more about it, and he seems reluctant to go into more detail. Also Jim seemed not to understand descriptions of enlightenment from other perspectives, such as Vedanta, which should not be a problem. Just something seems missing to me. Jim's performance strikes me as low resolution bravura, and seems more interested in telling the tale of it and how it compares to others' than in using it to illuminate our understanding about it. And Jim also said of Barry 'Barry told a silly little story about some western-bubbleized person having a good time, and then realizing instead they were a victim of karma, with a mind full of thoughts'. This was a cut and paste a friend sent to Barry from Sam Harris's book. It was an illustration that we can have experience which we misinterpret as enlightenment, but the story was part of a larger context in the book. I do think Barry was making a veiled reference to Jim, for Barry thinks Jim's enlightenment is faux enlightenment, and the story Sam Harris told was just that. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote : Like a big "so what" I think it's you, Barry, who seems pre-occcupied with people's enlightenment. A prime example is Jim's. No one seems overly concerned about it, except for you. Again, with the story below, a big "so what" I think what you've forgotten Barry, is that the enlightenment game, the spiritual game still comes with all the same caveats as life. Keep your eyes open, and bove all, take responsibility for your own life, material and spirtitual. It's not complicated. Oh, you're welcome. (-; ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : Seems like everybody's reading this book, except the people here on FFL who assume they already know everything and don't need to, that is. :-) This is a great quote that I'll pass along because 1) my friend already did all the typing so I don't have to, and 2) I love the simple and perfect way that Dzogchen deals with the kinds of faux enlightenment we see often on Fairfield Life.
