Are - you - enlightened?

Spirituality Religion
#141

Surya,

“But surely for one to dedicate their time and energy to do your methods in the first place requires some faith in you and faith in the possiblity of your enlightenment or even the notion of there being enlightenment.”

No, faith in the sense of a belief is not needed. To believe simply means that one does not know. If one comes to know, then the very need to believe disappears. So all that is needed is a certain inner atmosphere which is receptive to explore, combined with a scientific spirit of inquiry. As one practices the methods and witnesses directly their results as the teacher has described, then one’s trust increases both in the teacher and the methods. And in this way, with one thing verified after another, and one’s one-pointedness in the discipline is solidified, eventually what will arise is not faith or trust, but clarity.

#142

Asuri,

“So then it has a business purpose. I see. You should try focusing more on the buddha in others.”

There are in fact many similarities between business and expounding the teaching of the Way. Both require skillful means, both require an understanding into the workings of the human mind, both require you to adapt according the needs of those you are serving (“marketing”), a certain practical mind which is centered around producing immediate results - as well as being capable of creating a situation where human potential can unfold to new dimensions.

#143

No, faith in the sense of a belief is not needed. To believe simply means that one does not know. If one comes to know, then the very need to believe disappears. So all that is needed is a certain inner atmosphere which is receptive to explore, combined with a scientific spirit of inquiry. As one practices the methods and witnesses directly their results as the teacher has described, then one’s trust increases both in the teacher and the methods. And in this way, with one thing verified after another, and one’s one-pointedness in the discipline is solidified, eventually what will arise is not faith or trust, but clarity.

If somebody approached me on the street and told me he promised me in 6 months he could awaken my kundalini and his own kundalini is awakened, provided I follow him for 6 months and practice his methods - but yet had nothing to show for himself - would I be a fool to take him up on his offer?

#144

“If somebody approached me on the street and told me he promised me in 6 months he could awaken my kundalini and his own kundalini is awakened, provided I follow him for 6 months and practice his methods”

I am not promising anything whatsoever. On the contrary, even if you practice these methods through infinite mechanical training - it cannot produce even a single drop of your own naturalness.

“would I be a fool to take him up on his offer?”

Again, if one has not awakened a natural desire for awakening which is such that it is like one’s own breath - ever present in the moment, then you should not take anybody up on their offer, whether awakened or asleep.

If such a desire has arisen, then if the teacher is really awakened, then his very presence is a testimony in itself. No miracles are needed, no walking on water or turning water into wine - just the living presence of the man. If you ask for the demonstration of great magical powers, then he is perhaps nothing more than a magician. If you ask for a demonstration of knowledge, then perhaps he is nothing more than knowledgeable. These are not the criterea for seeing into the inner awareness of the master. If you are receptive to it, then there will be a natural falling into communion. And it is this communion which has been called the mind to mind transmission. What evidence did Ramana Maharishi have as to his awakening ? What evidence did Mahavira have ? What evidence did Gautama Buddha have ? What of Tilopa, Rinzai, or Jiddu Krishnamurti ? Transformation is such - that it is impossible for it not to have an impact upon every dimension of one’s personality or not to be reflected through every word, action, and gesture.

Once once of Gautama Buddha’s disciples became awakened. The other disciples who were already awakened asked, “Why don’t you inform the master?”

The disciple said, "I prefer not to bring it to his attention, because I know that if what has happened to me is not just my imagination, that he will be able to recognize it.

The following day the disciple was sitting silently under a tree, and Gautama Buddha happened to be passing by. Gautama saw the disciple, laughed, and said, “Do you think that you can hide fire ? All around you there are flames declaring your enlightenment”.

All that is needed to feel the silence of the master is just a bit of receptivity, to lower your defenses and simply be willing to listen. That does not mean you have to drop your own intelligence, on the contrary you will have to employ your own intelligence to find out if the teacher is capable of bringing you to your own awakening. If such a receptivity has not happened - then one will have to settle for your own intellectual investigation, ask questions and see if the answers of the master strikes you in a particular way. Even in such a case, the master may satisfy you intellectually, but nothing more. Naturally, if your doubts had been severed temporarily, unless one settles the root causes of one’s own ignorance, they will soon immediately come flaring up to the surface once again. That is the very nature of doubt. Because what you are seeking consciously or unconsciously is not knowledge, but something else which is far more essential which cannot be satisfied through knowledge. Sooner or later, you will have to take a leap of trust just temporarily, until one starts cultivating one’s own wisdom.

#145

[/quote]If such a desire has arisen, then if the teacher is really awakened, then his very presence is a testimony in itself. No miracles are needed[/quote]

You just said only a master can recognise a master. So how would I the seeker recognise the master? What you are saying to me sounds like you want faith from the seeker for the master but you are not saying it directly.

The logic tells me this

  1. One cannot recognise the master, because one is not a master themselves
  2. One has a desire for awakening
  3. One meets somebody who claims they are a master and can awaken them, provided one follow them and their instructions

Therefore because one cannot recognise the master there is no way of knowing whether that is a real master or not. As there is no way of knowing, if one agrees to follow that person, then it can only be an act of faith. One would have to believe, “Perhaps he really is a master and can awaken me” in order for them commit themselves to them.

You do not seem to realise your are making statements that are contadictory

  1. One cannot know the master

  2. The very presence of the master is the proof of the master

  3. One must not believe

  4. One must practice the methods, which means one must have a belief in the method and the instucter to take them up in the first place.

#146

Surya,

“You just said only a master can recognise a master. So how would I the seeker recognise the master?”

He cannot recognize him. When I say master, I do not mean a master over somebody or some particular subject. It just simply means one who has come to know oneself, through and through. The disciple will not be able to recognize the master, but it is often the case that he will feel a certain sense of magnetism arising from the master which can be a seed for other possibilities.

“Therefore because one cannot recognise the master there is no way of knowing whether that is a real master or not”

When you are groping in the dark, as far as seeing into things as they are, how can you know anything at all ? One must begin from the space in which one already is. Certainly, if one is seeking the help of a master, then one will be coming with all of ones assumptions, imaginations, attachments and delusions which are the result of the egotism in which one has been living for almost ones whole life. The function of the master is not to tell you what to do, that would simply be replacing one kind of ignorance for another. It is to help shatter your delusions which have been preventing oneself from coming to more awareness. So the disciple will arrive with all kinds of veils over his eyes, but if there is even a spark of desire to transcend all of this, then he can give the master a try and see what he has to offer - not in the far away future, but in the immediate present. If he is not satisfied, he can seek elsewhere - there is no obligation that he must remain with the master. If one wants, one can even abandon this whole process of seeking a master and start doing the work entirely by oneself. When Gautama Buddha was an ascetic, he learned from two yoga “masters”. One was master Alara Kalama, the other was master Udaka. He learned from them all of the techniques they had to offer as far as dhyana was concerned. From the first, he learned of a depth of meditation which the master considered the ultimate. From the second, he learned of another depth of meditation which was beyond the first, which the master also considered the ultimate. And in both cases, Gautama felt that these were falling short of true awakening. Both of the masters asked Gautama to succeed them, and he rejected both, deciding to settle the matter of his enlightenment entirely through his own exploration. And that is how it happened - with what he had already learned as a foundation, he explored into a totally different kind of approach which eventually lead to the breakthrough. But by the time he had come to his enlightenment - both of the masters had already died, so he was not able to share his discovery with them.

He learned what he could from them, and then continued on his way. In Zen as well as the yogic traditions, this moving from one master to the other as part of the search for Truth until one can come into contact with one who rings a bell somewhere in your heart and strikes a chord somewhere in your mind, is as ordinary as ordinary can be. But I would not recommend hunting for masters, even to come across just one is a rare experience and one may be wasting valuable time. But one should be receptive to learn as much as possible from others in this whole affair of the transformation of consciousness, which a human being only rarely decides to pursue while the masses prefer to remain living in their ignorance as to the realities of existence.

“1. One must not believe
2. One must practice the methods, which means one must have a belief in the method and the instucter to take them up in the first place.”

Belief is, again, not necessary. You can have a willingness to explore without any belief, and without forming any conclusions. A belief means that you have already formed a conclusion.

#147

The disciple will not be able to recognize the master, but it is often the case that he will feel a certain sense of magnetism arising from the master which can be a seed for other possibilities.

So now you are saying you can recognise the master? The mark is the “magnetism”

Belief is, again, not necessary. You can have a willingness to explore without any belief, and without forming any conclusions. A belief means that you have already formed a conclusion.

A willingness to explore requires belief in the possibility the act of exploration is going to be fruitful. So belief is still involved.

Asuri nailed it when he said you are doing business. You are making a proposal to seekers that you can help them awaken, but provided they follow you and do your methods.

So we must first accept your enlightenment claim has possible truth in it in order to start following you. So you are indeed asking for our belief in you. As for your so-called magentism - i sure ain’t feeling it :wink:

#148

I am sorry, but reading this thread really gives me a headache. Can the people who are enlightened just raise their hands, please.

#149

There are only two people on this forum who claimed to be enlightened: Amir and Seeker.
Seeker is enlightened by default because hes a devotee of Shri Mata Nirmala Devi and she has opened up his crown chakra and activated his kundalini :wink: Amir on the other claims to be the Buddha himself.

Neither want to submit themselves to any tests :wink:

#150

If I wanted to meet enlightened godmen I would just go the mental asylum, at least they give food and a place to sleep.

#151

Surya,

"So now you are saying you can recognise the master? The mark is the “magnetism”

Anybody who is charismatic enough can have a certain magnetism in his presence. That is not the critereon for recognizing a master, although certainly the master will have a certain magnetism if you are receptive. All that had been said was that a certain connection is needed to remain with a master, otherwise why remain ?

“A willingness to explore requires belief in the possibility the act of exploration is going to be fruitful. So belief is still involved.”

If you want to put it into those terms, it is fine. Belief in this sense can be useful. But I want to emphasize that the approach of yoga is a scientific approach, and a yogi is not different than a scientist. In the realm of science, perhaps some faith is needed as far as being open to certain possibilities - but fundamentally things have to be seen directly and verified through trial and error. Unlike external laboratories, the yogi has done this work of trial and error within himself - so he cannot provide external evidence. But there are other means of verification as far as the inner sciences are concerned.

“You are making a proposal to seekers that you can help them awaken, but provided they follow you and do your methods.”

No, I have always found the idea of following another repulsive. It implies a kind of slavery at the expense of your own intelligence. If a person is a disciple, it is not because he is following somebody. A disciple may not even have a teacher, it just means one who is initiating a discipline as a means towards preparing oneself for the moment of enlightenment. I can assist in the process, but that does not mean that one should stop functioning out of ones own intelligence. And perhaps I may simply be deceiving you. Nothing should be accepted without question, but if you are truly willing to explore into the process, then certainly some trust is also needed in the beginning. Yes, you may run the risk of being deceived. But unless you are willing to take risks, you should not become involved in the spiritual process.

“So we must first accept your enlightenment claim has possible truth in it in order to start following you”

You are the one who is obsessed about this whole issue of whether I am awakened or not. I have said before that you should doubt whether even such a thing as enlightenment exists. Given that so many people have spoken about it, with so many different opinions, how do you know that there is such a thing ? Even before my speaking, you accepted it without question. As far as I am concerned, I would much rather be speaking of meditation. You do not have to be interested in enlightenment to be interested in meditation, I would not restrict everything to the small subject of enlightenment.

#152

Okay, so we have a muslim on board asking yogis to doubt their belief in enlightenment. Why bother about enlightenment, aren’t waiting to meet your 72 houris?

#153

Surya,

“tests”

You are pretending as though tests would settle the matter. It is not possible, but even if it were possible, even if you could test enlightenment and verify it - your ancient doubt is not just simply going to disappear into thin air.

#154

No, I have always found the idea of following another repulsive.

But yet you want people to accept you as the teacher, listen to what you have to say and practice your methods.

And perhaps I may simply be deceiving you. Nothing should be accepted without question, but if you are truly willing to explore into the process, then certainly some trust is also needed in the beginning. Yes, you may run the risk of being deceived. But unless you are willing to take risks, you should not become involved in the spiritual process.

Yes, of course one should be willing to take risks, but those risks should be taken intelligently as well. I could for example try a pill a salesman is giving me who says it will increase my energy by 500% if I trial it over 6 months, only $300 per bottle of 30 capsules, at one capsules per day, I would need 6 bottles or $1800 in total. But don’t you think I would be the most gullible person in the world to give $1800 to some random salesman with nothing to show for himself? Surely, I would need to see testimonials, scientific results and do research before I make this investment.

Similarly, before I invest my time and energy in you Amir and accept you as my teacher and spiritual master, you need to have something to show for yourself. And you have nothing to show for yourself. I would be the most gullible fool in the world if I accepted you as my teacher based on nothing but your word that you are enlightened and can awaken me.

#155

[QUOTE=AmirMourad;58949]Asuri,

“So then it has a business purpose. I see. You should try focusing more on the buddha in others.”

There are in fact many similarities between business and expounding the teaching of the Way. Both require skillful means, both require an understanding into the workings of the human mind, both require you to adapt according the needs of those you are serving (“marketing”), a certain practical mind which is centered around producing immediate results - as well as being capable of creating a situation where human potential can unfold to new dimensions.[/QUOTE]

The fact that you think you can do this shows just how foolish and naive you really are.

#156

Surya,

“Similarly, before I invest my time and energy in you Amir and accept you as my teacher and spiritual master”

Even if you had the desire, I would not accept you as a disciple.

“But yet you want people to accept you as the teacher, listen to what you have to say and practice your methods”

Certainly if I am speaking, it is because I want others to become aware of what it is that I am pointing towards. Whether one likes it or dislikes it, that is not my concern, I am not in the least bit interested in your likes and dislikes.

#157

Asuri,

Ok.

#158

@Amir,

Others do not have to be enlightened to take advantage of the presence of the enlightened

…Nor does that presence need to be announced, Amir. Think on that.

As a teacher, declaring one’s own enlightenment does have a particular function

However, the question here isn’t “does it have a particular function” but rather what - pray tell - is that function; how enlightened is that function?

@SD,

Haha, thanks Amir (OC so much for “your” clinching argument). Just as Amir has rationalized it, you are now going to rationalize why your genius argument (which you had to point out was yours) did not work

I?m sorry to disappoint you, SD, but I simply will ? not - be defending my so-called ?genius argument?, because there really is no need to; I cannot force Amir to face the facts, after all. That said, the argument has another - perhaps more important - function besides. It is amusing that you?re just so quick to trash-talk my argument; you didn?t look hard enough at the move I played.

?Haha, thanks Amir (OC so much for your pitiful g5-g6). Amir?s just going to eat your pawn and be up one piece and what will you have to show for it??

Once again: it?s like a game of chess. Think on that.

@Amir,

No, faith in my enlightenment is not going to be of any help whatsoever

Indeed ? now let?s take this line of reasoning a bit further, Amir. If you announce your enlightenment to the unenlightened, who ? as we?ve already considered - cannot possibly discern your enlightenment anyways, they really only end up having two viable options in terms of their reactions:

A). Doubt
B). Belief

…Neither of which helps the individuals along the path ? precisely - because neither are certainties. By announcing something the unenlightened cannot possibly discern you do them a great disservice in that you ? force - them into a position of faith. Thus, the question: why bother to announce ones enlightenment in the first place; is it so difficult to teach others without having to wave your ?credentials? about?

What I can do is describe the path from my own experience as well as the method, then it is up to you to explore into it out of one`s own intelligence. If one wants evidence for what I am saying, then one will have to practice the method, there is no other way. This is how trust develops, you will slowly have to verify everything that I am saying through direct experience, from the beginning of the path to the ?end?

So all that is needed is a certain inner atmosphere which is receptive to explore, combined with a scientific spirit of inquiry. As one practices the methods and witnesses directly their results as the teacher has described, then one’s trust increases both in the teacher and the methods. And in this way, with one thing verified after another, and one’s one-pointedness in the discipline is solidified, eventually what will arise is not faith or trust, but clarity

Right, but you do not need to claim enlightenment to do any of this ? you can teach without claiming to be a Buddha, Amir.

I am not promising anything whatsoever

By virtue of the fact that you announce your enlightenment, you are. Think on that.

…If the teacher is really awakened, then his very presence is a testimony in itself

…Actually, SD has you here Amir:

You do not seem to realise you?re making statements that are contradictory

  1. One cannot know the master
  2. The very presence of the master is the proof of the master

Logically, points 1. and 2. cannot both be true in terms of the unenlightened.

Perhaps I’ll deal with the rest tomorrow…

Thanks for your time.

#159

…Before I forget this:

Once, I was taught by animals frolicking in the wilderness - interestingly enough, they never claimed to be enlightened.

Thanks for your time.

#160

Even if you had the desire, I would not accept you as a disciple.

I don’t have to worry about that, because I am not ready to stop everthing I am doing, cancel my plans of going to India and buying a ticket to Montreal Cananda to come and see you, because you’ve given me no reason to. To me you are just some guy on the internet claming to be the Buddha. As I said I cannot take you anymore seriously than a guy in a mad house claiming to be Napolian unless you can prove yourself. But you cannot.

The truth is your argument for your enlightenment is a circular argument - You are enlightened because you are enlightened. Your argument for why we should accept you is again the same - because you are enlightened. Your argument for why we should not test you is the same - because you are enlightened.

It is clear you have no reason for why myself, or anybody on this forum should accept you as a teacher. So you keep changing your story slightly. First you said only the enlightened can know the enlightened, now you claim that we will be able to know you by your “magnetic” presence. You said that you don’t want people to follow you and that you don’t want them to put faith in you, but yet you talk of accepting and rejecting disciples and and asking your disciples to accept you as their master and as the one who will help awaken them.

You are saying this pretty much and you are not hiding it well:

  1. You are enlightened because you are enlightened
  2. The unenlightened cannot know the enlightened, but they will know you by your magnetic presence
  3. You do not want people to put faith in you, but you want them to accept you as their master and eventual liberator

You are speaking nonsense. No, I don’t mean that as an insult. I literally mean non-sense. You are not making sense. You say something, and then in same sentence contradict it

Speaking incoherently is a symptom of something, and no, not your enlightenment.