What is Enlightenment?

Hi HighWolf,

No offense, if this logic offends you :stuck_out_tongue:
totally not + on the contrary, since language is my profession (though not English), this is easily the most interesting post I read on this forum. :smiley: I will most surely look deeper into this, and already did a brief research, as I wasn’t even aware of “-ment” stemming from “mens” = “mind”. My research so far only turned up just that, but no explanation, why “mind” would be used here. So please:

This is a part of a linguistic theory I came accross, which explains that there is no “-ment” used as suffix in Old English.
Where do you have that theory from? Can I read it too? If not, what exactly does it say? Was the -ment in Old English not understood as a suffix, were there two words where now is one? Like “the enlightened ment”? Then why not “the enlightened mind”? Or was it used as a compound in the same way like “waterfall”, here “enlighten(ed)ment”? Again: Why not “enlightenmind” then?

Therefore, I still fail to agree with the idea, that enlightenment actually should contain the word “mind” in a way like this:

Thus enlightenment becomes that "which enlightens mind/a state of mind."
It would, though, be very interesting to see, how that suffix was adapted by the English language, and why. There are obviously many words that one can only link to the mind with a lot of imagination, like “payment” or “pavement” or “basement” or “movement” or “element” or “instrument” etc. etc.

In German (I’m German) there are only a few words that end with -ment, I think all or a large majority foreign words like “Experiment”, “Appartment”, “Sakrament”, “Monument”, Medikament", of course “Moment”, “Instrument”. There is no word formation like “payment”, which comes from “to pay”. In German this is done via “-ung”: “to pay” = “bezahlen”; “payment” = “Bezahlung”. In case of “enlightenment” it’s “to enlighten” = “erleuchten”; “enlightenment” = “Erleuchtung”. “light” here is “Leuchte” - however. :wink:

This sounds totally boring, yet you see that while we have the same word for “enlightenment”, there is no “ment”/“mind” in German language, just the “light”. So it does not say “Erleuchtment” or “Erleuchtgeist” (“Geist” = “mind”), but “Erleuchtung”, with the suffix “-ung” being used for all sorts of nominalizations verbs, I guess it’s the “ing” of English (for example “schreiben” = “to write”, “Schreibung” = “writing”).

Well… I just wondered how the English language came to “payment” -> it’s actually imported from France, as well as “to pay”. Hm… Same counts for “agreement” and “to agree”. I bet as well “environement”. Yeah. Now what about “movement”? No wait, that latin, “movere”. But English got it indeed from France again. So far it looks like the “-ment” was adopted from France. lol Why take the easy way?! That having said, here’s “enlightenment”. Quite interesting, comes from German “Aufkl?rung”, that would be “Auf-kl?r-ung”, with “auf” = “open” and “kl?r” being the morpheme “clear”, so it would literally mean “openclearing” (lol). Oh, and indeed English uses the word for that age of, didn’t know that: Age of Enlightenment. So German has different words here, “Aufkl?rung” (generally used for explanations, for example “Sex education” ist usually just called “Aufkl?rung”) and then “Erleuchtung”, which only refers to that spiritual enlightenment. So this word is a true own creation in English, as it seems, “light” is not Latin or French. So I must agree that it’s indeed a valid hypothesis to say:

Who created the word “enlightenment” in English did want to bring the “mind”-aspect in.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the word was used in the 1660s already, there as - as I said it in my first “I know stuff”-post - the “action of enlightening”.

I think the next question has to be: Why and for what kind of words did the Latins use the suffix “-mens”/"-ment"/"-mentum", etc.? Element? Experiment? Ligament? Firmament? Pigment? Are there records from when these words were created? Did they have one equal to “enlightenment”??

Well, if I had not to go, there would be more text. :o :smiley:

[QUOTE=AmirMourad;57505]

This too, has very little to do with the action itself. You murder other forms of life all the time just so that you can survive. The plants and animals are just as much a part of this existence as you are, but yet you gobble them up into your mouth and deprive them of living their full life span. In fact, that is how the whole food chain is surviving, everybody is swallowing everybody up. Murder in this sense, is needed for survival, but you never think when you are eating a meal that you are a murderer, because you assume that it is your right to have taken this beings life.

Also, sometimes killing can be out of compassion. When an animal or a human being is suffering slowly, and he is certain to die, you understand very well that to kill him in a single moment is far more compassionate than leaving him to die slowly in an agonizing torture. Or, sometimes you murder yourself for different reasons. In Japan, samurais used to kill themselves before they would be killed by their enemy, because it was considered honorable. They call it harakiri, very painful for a few moments. You are to draw the knife in a particular area, either a few inches below the navel, or sometimes perform three cuts from left to right. The method of cutting your belly from left to right had been considered the most honorable simply because it was the most painful - you have to stab the knife in the body, pull it out, stab it again, pull it out again, and perform the final stroke. It is a ritual kind of suicide. I do not consider suicide as something which is different than murder, you are murdering yourself. But in Japan amongst the samurais, there was nothing wrong with it. Even several yogis, in a far less violent way, commit suicide through Maha Samadhi, they consciously leave the body according to will. But their kind of suicide is very different than that suicide of a person who is just seeking an escape from reality.

So again, there is nothing right or wrong in killing, [B]what determines its quality is not the action - but the quality of the mind beneath the action.[/B][/QUOTE]

Precisely. But the people who kill without act of remorse kill with “murderous intent,” which determines their state of mind. Soldiers kill each other everyday, but they follow orders. Chimpanzees are cannibals, and they kill and eat each other occasionally. For them morality doesnt exist. They live by instinct. However, humans have choice. They have “states of mind.”

So what Amir says is what many masters previously said, particularly, Chuang Tzu and Boddhidharma: morality does not exist at the personal level. There is only ethics that determines one’s personal karma.

[QUOTE=Quetzalcoatl;57510]

Where do you have that theory from? Can I read it too? If not, what exactly does it say? Was the -ment in Old English not understood as a suffix, were there two words where now is one? Like “the enlightened ment”? Then why not “the enlightened mind”? Or was it used as a compound in the same way like “waterfall”, here “enlighten(ed)ment”? Again: Why not “enlightenmind” then?
[/QUOTE]

Then you should read Heidegger, Lord Byron, Shakespeare and John Locke :slight_smile: This isnt exactly a theory. Its my logical deduction, based on the points made by those English poets I pointed out. English poets put a lot of emphasis on “we borrowed so many words from Greece, Rome, and Germans and French” and sarcastically question " so, what is English then? The mischief of drunken Gaels (Celts)?"

I think you could find the German equivalent of this deduction in Heidegger’s texts. He is the master of German language along with Schelling and Goethe, in my opinion.

I like bodhidharma. Who needs eyebrows?

Unless you have teleported yourself, and have verified it again and again several times through means of certain methods of testing, it should not be assumed that such a thing is possible. Yes, one may have heard many second hand reports about such things, but a second hand report is nothing more than a story which somebody tells you.

I do not have to have everything verified myself to believe they are there. I have never personally experienced atoms, but it is obvious atoms exist. This is because I have looked at the evidence by scientists, and the only reasonable conclusion to make is atoms are real. Similarly, I have looked at the evidence from scientists on siddhis on teleportation etc, and the reasonable conclusion I have come to is they are real.

Even if I were able to do such a thing, be certain that I would neither speak about it, much less demonstrate them. People are ordinarily far more fascinated by such superficial tricks, and even more if they themselves have awakened such capabilities. Then it can be used as an excuse to feel better than others, superior than others - and seeing most people carry deep down in their unconscious a great desire for power, it can become very easy for such a desire to surface. And there is another aspect as well - that even if somebody demonstrates such things, it does not mean that he has become awakened. All that it means is that certain parts of his own consciousness, which have always been there but in a dormant state, have now become active.

Siddhis is your way of proving to others you are enlightened. Just because you say you are enlightened does not prove it to us. We will know you have reached the near final stages of your practice when you can demonstrate total mastery of cosmic intelligence. Again, because scientists have mapped out all the stages of meditation, we know how far you are.

If you have mastered the very first stage the prana body you will get ordinary powers yogis develop like being able to move prana to any part of their body for purposes like self-healing. To be able to receive and transmit prana from various sources like people, trees, animals, the sun, stars, planets. You will be able to at will withdraw your prana from your senses and enter into pratyahara. You will be able to regulate every function in your body from the temperature of your body, to your heart beat, to bone formation.

The mastery of prana body stage alone takes 10-20+ years of sadhana. These abilities are only demonstrated by what we call advanced yogis.

If you have not mastered the very first stage, then how could you have mastered the final stages?

As you know, that is what the word siddhi means, an accomplishment. But you can go on collecting so many accomplishments, but that does not mean that one has become awakened.

It does if you can do samyama. It means you have mastered asana and pranayama, mastered pratyhara and dharana and dhyana. As Samyama only happens after you have mastered the final stage of dhyana. If you have siddhis, even as basic as walking on water, it means you are at a very high stage and very near the final stage of Yoga.

To develop such capabilities only requires enough training, just like developing a muscle. Any idiot can develop a muscle with enough repetition. The same is the case with the mind - with enough concentration, you can build the muscles of the mind and sharpen your concentrative power in a way where you can even gain control over your physical system in ways which ordinarily is not possible. But that does not mean you have come to any insight, or that you have seen directly into your true nature. On the contrary, the more siddhis you awaken is more and more dangerous the path can become, because if you have not yet come to a space where you can remain meditative, without becoming identified with these things, it can cause such damage that it may have been better to remain ignorant about these things completely.

Spiritual practice is training. In this case you are not developing a muscle, you are training your mind. In the mind-matter continuum, mind is the most fundamental and subtlest aspect of reality. So training the subtle mind and the very gross body is a world of a difference. It is anything but easy. In fact, it is the hardest thing you can do ever do, and hence why most people don’t even attempt it. In this continuum you need to pass from the grossest level of reality and enter to the most subltlest. There are many levels you are going to have to penetrate. It sounds like my friend you have not even penetrated through level 1.
I already told you why you have such a resentment to siddis - because you don’t have any. The absence of siddhis falsifies your claim to enlightenment.
Siddhis are such an integral part of the entire history of yogis that have walked on this planet that we are not going to stop believing they are real, just do we can entertain your claim you are enlightenment.

You have nothing to show for your enlightenment other than your own faith that you are enlightened. You should not even go around making this claim, unless you are mentally ill.

Even if I were to demonstrate it to you - also because you do not have any trust, but great suspicion, you will just make up excuses - perhaps you were just hallucinating. I do not expect that all of a sudden, because of a simple trick, you are going to drop your suspicions and doubt. That is not in the nature of doubt. Unless something else awakens in you which brings a quality of surrender into ones experience, or some insight - then the doubt is going to remain.

Haha, if you teleported into my room, shook my hand. I would fall at your feet, beg forgiveness and fly off to Montreal to join your ministry. But that the chances of you being able to teleport into my room are as good as Aishwariya Rai(major Bollywood actress) abandoning her husband and running off to me in slow motion Bollywood style, with violins playing, and appearing at my door step and then ripping my clothes off and having passionate sex with me there and then(oh…)

Compassion, love, truthfulness, kindness, wisdom - not that it has anything to do with morality, it is just a side-effect of being in tune with nature. If one wants to call this “morality”, it is fine. But I prefer not to refer to it as morality because generally it is very difficult for people to handle the idea without bringing in their own likes, dislikes, attachments, and opinions about morality.

This is exactly what morality is. The opposite of the qualities you mentioned are: apathy or not caring for anybody else, hate, deceit, cruelty and ignorance. It is qualities which lead to actions like rape, murder, genocide, wars, violence, lies, oppression etc. These actions are not done by beings of higher natural morality, unless the action itself serves the ends of higher morality. Such as telling a white lie to save somebodies life, or going to war against a cruel force, or murdering one to save hundreds - these are special exceptions but they are still driven by a high morality.

If I asked anybody would they want to be in the company of a compassion, loving, kind and wise and blissfull person or would they rather be in the company of a selfish and apathetic, hateful, cruel, ignorant and angry person - 99.9% of people would opt for the former. This is because we have natural intuitions about what is right and what is wrong(In Vedic terms we have the power of varuna) We naturally gravitate towards the good. It takes an unnatural force to pull us away from that.

Humans are naturally good and moral people because their essence is good and moral. It is the conditioning we receive that makes us seem otherwise. Remove the conditioning and you will come back to your essential good and moral nature. Hence why the qualities you mentioned naturally appear.

Surya,

“Similarly, I have looked at the evidence from scientists on siddhis on teleportation etc, and the reasonable conclusion I have come to is they are real.”

No, your “evidence” in this case is nothing more than the writings of scriptures and literature, all of which are second-hand reports which may or may not be true.

“Siddhis is your way of proving to others you are enlightened.”

If you need a man like Jesus Christ to walk on water, or turn water into wine, then what you are interested in is not wisdom, but just the egotism of attaining to power.

“Again, because scientists have mapped out all the stages of meditation, we know how far you are.”

A map is very different than the space it is describing. In fact, most of the things you will experience through traveling on the land will not be included in your map - the colors of the trees, the sound of the wind or running water, the sun, the moon, you will not find any of these things on the map. A map can only give you a skeleton like model of the territory, but it can never transmit the space itself. Unless you have traveled to the space itself, it cannot even be said that such a space exists. All that you have is a map, it may simply be a fiction. Plato used to speak in his writings about Atlantis, a city which had met a disaster and fell to the bottom of the ocean. And there are many people who believe in it’s existence and have created expeditions to search for it, and although Plato is not the only one, there have been several references about it, nobody can say for certain whether it exists because there is no tangible evidence. Particularly with the yogic sciences, if you look in different traditions, you will find different maps which appear to be saying things which are opposite. Some say that there is a trace of the ego left in nirvikalpa samadhi, others have said that there is no ego left in nirvikalpa samadhi, who is correct ? The Buddhist says that your true nature is Anatman (no-self), the Hindu says that your true nature is Atman (self), who is correct ? You have assumed far too many things just through second-hand knowledge, not understanding that the Way cannot be transmitted through knowledge. What can be transmitted is a method, and a useful model, but not the Truth. For that, you need eyes to see.

"If you have mastered the very first stage the prana body you will get ordinary powers yogis develop like being able to move prana to any part of their body for purposes like self-healing. To be able to receive and transmit prana from various sources like people, trees, animals, the sun, stars, planets. You will be able to at will withdraw your prana from your senses and enter into pratyahara. You will be able to regulate every function in your body from the temperature of your body, to your heart beat, to bone formation.

The mastery of prana body stage alone takes 10-20+ years of sadhana. These abilities are only demonstrated by what we call advanced yogis.

If you have not mastered the very first stage, then how could you have mastered the final stages?"

If you want to be fascinated by such superficial tricks, that is your own doing. But that is not my understanding. The siddhis have very little to do with enlightenment, and you can awaken as many powers as your being is capable - and still remain in a deep sleep.

“Spiritual practice is training.”

There is something which cannot arise through training alone and constantly pedaling the wheels of your effort. Effort is needed for nothing more except preparing the space. Once the space is prepared, then to continue pedaling your effort and training would in fact become an obstacle. Revelation is never something that you do - it happens. You receive it without any warning, without even an expectation of when and how it is going to happen. Do not think that just through mechanical training alone, that is enough. There are many yogis who have remained practicing and practicing for their whole life, remaining as blind as they ever were, simply because they were not able to move beyond this simple but entangling barrier, that something much more is needed than just mechanical and repetitive training.

“If you have siddhis, even as basic as walking on water, it means you are at a very high stage and very near the final stage of Yoga.”

You have assumed that such a thing is possible. There is no such thing as transcending nature, and for a human being to walk on water is just like a man trying to give birth to a woman. Even almost infinite siddhis will not be capable of ever allowing a man to give birth to a woman, or having the sun revolve around the Earth.

Do not become entangled in the descriptions of siddhis such as “flying in the sky”, or “walking on water”, particularly when it comes from a culture which has always been highly symbolic, imaginative, and mythological. There are some yogic texts which have said that through practicing mula bandha, that the yogi conquers death and becomes immortal. If you interpret this as conquering physical death and becoming immortal in the body, then you are just being foolish, and many fools have interpreted it in such a way. So far, there has not been even a single yogi who has managed to escape physical death. You can become liberated through death, but you cannot escape it. Every creature who has been born is going to die, and any siddhi which claims otherwise is just deceiving you.

“I already told you why you have such a resentment to siddis - because you don’t have any”

I do not have any resentment to siddhis, or anything in particular. It is just that awakening siddhis is not the way to liberation, and is often a great excuse for your ego to run on a power trip, and has been an excuse for ones ego to run on a power trip. The only difference is that rather than working out of a lust for power towards the outer world, now it has all been channeled towards the inner world. While one was running outwardly like a beggar, now one is running inwardly like a beggar, and in both cases you remain the slave rather than centered as the master. But if you want to speak of siddhis, then to you, perhaps you may be impressed by somebody walking on water. As far as I am concerned, besides wisdom itself, there is no other siddhi which is capable of bringing you into communion with existence.

Once, a master was speaking to his assembly of disciples. Amongst the assembly was a priest. As the priest listened to the master, he grew increasingly envious. Because the master was radiating such a presence, and speaking with such authority and insight, that he found it almost impossible not to be jealous. As the master was speaking, the priest made a sarcastic noise.

“Who has made that noise?” said the master.

The priest said, “I have. I have listened to your teachings. I come from a school in which my master was able to stand on one side of the river bank while his disciple held up a piece of paper on the other side, and the master signed the holy name of Amitabha Buddha. Can you do such a thing ? What is your miracle ?”

The master said, “That may be the case for the fox of a master that you are familiar with. But my miracle is that when I am hungry, I eat. When tired, I sleep”.

“Siddhis are such an integral part of the entire history of yogis that have walked on this planet”

They are side-effects and nothing more. And moreover, if you are just dependent upon borrowed knowledge, then you will be unable to discriminate what is just the mythological and symbolic way of expression which is particular to the culture, what is veiled in occult language so that it is only accessible to the initiate, and what is a scientific documentation of a certain capability.

“Haha, if you teleported into my room, shook my hand. I would fall at your feet, beg forgiveness and fly off to Montreal to join your ministry. But that the chances of you being able to teleport into my room are as good as Aishwariya Rai(major Bollywood actress) abandoning her husband and running off to me in slow motion Bollywood style, with violins playing, and appearing at my door step and then ripping my clothes off and having passionate sex with me there and then(oh…)”

Yes, Bollywood is capable of such siddhis.

Surya,

“This is exactly what morality is. The opposite of the qualities you mentioned are: apathy or not caring for anybody else, hate, deceit, cruelty and ignorance”

What may have one effect in one context, may have a totally different effect in another. In one case, perhaps some greed will be helpful as a stepping stone towards your liberation. In another case, perhaps it will become a stairway towards a deeper unconsciousness. Even hate can become a ladder towards one’s liberation when approached in a certain way. In fact, one’s hate is not separate from love, they are two extremes of the same energy. Ignorance too, need not necessarily be seen as a hindrance. It is only because one is ignorant, that there is a possibility of moving beyond it, just as sleep is a pre-requisite for becoming awake.

Your thinking in terms of straight lines may be useful in other areas, but it is of no relevance here.

“love”

Even things something like love can be tremendously dangerous if you become identified with it. The moment the mind becomes identified with anything at all, even love, one’s vision becomes clouded. When Patanjali has said that both attraction and aversion are amongst the greatest psychological hindrances for one’s awareness, that is what he is saying - keep the stream of awareness moving without abiding anywhere, without becoming identified with anything whatsoever.

"This is exactly what morality is

Call it what you want, but my intention is to make it clear that is has very little to do with ideas of “right” and “wrong”, “good” and “bad”, which are just the relative likes and dislikes of the mind and it’s identifications. Electricity is not right or wrong, it is simply energy. It can kill you, but it can also give you life. If it kills you, it is not a bad seed which does not grow because of a lack of sunlight. If it gives you life, it is not a good flower which blossoms in the proper season. If everything in existence is the same energy manifesting itself in various different ways, then what are you doing creating these divisions between “right” and “wrong”, “good” and “bad”, “moral” and “immoral” ? There is not a single atom of this existence which is not divine. Since you are fond of the Upanishads, that is one of it’s most essential insights - that there is nothing in existence which is not “Brahman”. Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita says :

"An enlightened person looks at a learned Brahmin, an outcast, even a cow, an elephant, or a dog with an equal eye. ( 5.18 )

No, your “evidence” in this case is nothing more than the writings of scriptures and literature, all of which are second-hand reports which may or may not be true.

Keep telling yourself that. Nope, my reports are from my own scientific tradition of consciousness researchers and metaphysicians who have proven their assertions and been validated over and over again throughout our history by yogis. I have personally validated the scientific logic as to why what they say is possible and have found it to be reasonable. As supplimentary evidence we have the hard empirical evidence from quantum physics, where by the way we are indeed teleporting objects today. The current technology only allow for microscopic objects to be telepored, but theoretically we can teleport any object of any size - including a human.

About a century of research into parapsychology, that is the effects of mind on matter have proven that this is a real phenomenona. The mind can control matter. Duh, isn’t that obvious from how we can control our body :wink:

I told you before I a man of science. I go where the scientific evidence takes me. In my hands I have the consciousness research and metaphysics research from my own tradition, and the hard empirical scientific research, as well new consciousness research from modern science to prove this is very much real.

In order for you to maintain your delusion that you are enlightened, we need to throw away millenias of research in Yoga and a century of empirical research in modern science.

If you need a man like Jesus Christ to walk on water, or turn water into wine, then what you are interested in is not wisdom, but just the egotism of attaining to power.

Let us add in order for you to maintain your delusion that you are enlightened we have to declare that everybody in the history of the world that has ever shown siddhis is an egomaniac. This list would then include Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, Mahavira, Guru Nanak, countless saints, mystics and yogis.

Face it Amir, you put down siddhis, because you don’t have any. The absence of siddhis falsifies your claim to enlightenment. This is why though you say you don’t later on, you resent them. You rile against them.

A map is very different than the space it is describing. In fact, most of the things you will experience through traveling on the land will not be included in your map - the colors of the trees, the sound of the wind or running water, the sun, the moon, you will not find any of these things on the map. A map can only give you a skeleton like model of the territory, but it can never transmit the space itself.

You say the most obvious things. Yes, of course we know the map will not give us the experience of the journey. But what the map will tell us is the the way and the signposts along the way. Now, millenias of consciousness research have produced several maps, of which the most useful and effective is Patanjalis. There are also modern consciousness researchers like Robert Monroe and Ken Wilber, but they are not at the same level of Patanjali, so they can only tell you about the earlier stages.

Patanjali’s map delinates the entire journey from the moment you sit for meditation to the final goal. He identifies many important signposts. Again modern consciousness research has verified his signposts. Indeed, so have I through my own direct experience. I have entered the stage of pratyhara proper about 3 times in my life and indeed it is exactly what he said it was.

Some say that there is a trace of the ego left in nirvikalpa samadhi, others have said that there is no ego left in nirvikalpa samadhi, who is correct ? The Buddhist says that your true nature is Anatman (no-self), the Hindu says that your true nature is Atman (self), who is correct ? You have assumed far too many things just through second-hand knowledge, not understanding that the Way cannot be transmitted through knowledge. What can be transmitted is a method, and a useful model, but not the Truth. For that, you need eyes to see.

This is not a contradictory map, this is contradicatory interpretations of the final goal. Can the absolute be called atman, because it is the highest self of who we are, and yet it is nobodies exclusive self, therefore it is anatman at the same time. This is a philosophical and more so linguistic issue, not an ontological one.

If you want to be fascinated by such superficial tricks, that is your own doing. But that is not my understanding. The siddhis have very little to do with enlightenment, and you can awaken as many powers as your being is capable - and still remain in a deep sleep.

Again you keep telling yourself that. You call a yogis 10-20 years of sadhana they have done and their attainments along the way “superficial tricks” but what do you have to show for yourself? Nothing. Only a fool goes around boasting of their greatness when they nothing to show for it. The wise remain silent and only declare their greatness when they have something to show for it. I would never in a million years say I am enlightened if I could not prove it.

If siddhis have nothing to do with enlightenment, then why would Patanjali say they only come after you reach the first stage of object samadhi? Why would Patanjali say that in order to activate any siddih samyama is required, and samyama only becomes active when you reach object samadhi.

So Patanjali is a liar now, eh?

There is something which cannot arise through training alone and constantly pedaling the wheels of your effort. Effort is needed for nothing more except preparing the space. Once the space is prepared, then to continue pedaling your effort and training would in fact become an obstacle. Revelation is never something that you do - it happens. You receive it without any warning, without even an expectation of when and how it is going to happen. Do not think that just through mechanical training alone, that is enough. There are many yogis who have remained practicing and practicing for their whole life, remaining as blind as they ever were, simply because they were not able to move beyond this simple but entangling barrier, that something much more is needed than just mechanical and repetitive training.

Tell me something I don’t know. Even Yogis who you are calling blind here know that samadhi cannot be forced with effort, but rather it is something which blossoms within you when you create the right space for it to happen. Of course the catch 22 here this requires a lifetime of spiritual training. Training the body so that it can sit still. Training the prana so that it flows smoothely. Training the senses so that you can bring them inwards. Training the focus so that it become one-pointed. This is a lifetime of practice, not just 6 years in the comfort of your home :wink:

Like I said at the very very least if you passed stage 1 of Yoga you should be able to control your prana. It takes yogis 10-20 years of intense sadhana to do that alone.

You have assumed that such a thing is possible. There is no such thing as transcending nature, and for a human being to walk on water is just like a man trying to give birth to a woman. Even almost infinite siddhis will not be capable of ever allowing a man to give birth to a woman, or having the sun revolve around the Earth.

You are talking about things which are illogical like a man giving birth or the sun revolving around the earth. I am talking about things which are possible like levitation, teleportation, and we know they are possible, because we can already do them, albeit at a microscopic level, but that is technological issue.

I am not assuming this is possible. I know it is possible. By the way do you know that we are already levitating above the ground? This is because we never really touch the ground, because the electrons in the ground and electrons within our body repulse one another. Do you know that it is possible to generate a subtle force from the quantum field which can push objects up(any objects) we are currently using this technology in nanoengineering.

I am afraid you are ignorant about where science is today. And yet you claim to be all knowing :wink:

Do not become entangled in the descriptions of siddhis such as “flying in the sky”, or “walking on water”, particularly when it comes from a culture which has always been highly symbolic, imaginative, and mythological.[/quote]

Don’t talk to me about my culture, because I know my culture better than you do by a wide margin. I already warned you in the past. The text which describes flying and walking on water is neither a poetic text or a mythological text, it is a text on psychology by Patanjali. It is credible as any other text on psychology. Thus it belongs to scientific literature. If it is saying these siddhis take place when one reaches samyama then it is obviously something real.

Let us add: To maintain your delusion of enlightenment, in addition to everything else we have to throw out, we also have to call Patanjali a liar.

There are some yogic texts which have said that through practicing mula bandha, that the yogi conquers death and becomes immortal. If you interpret this as conquering physical death and becoming immortal in the body, then you are just being foolish, and many fools have interpreted it in such a way.

You could remain in the physical body indefinitely if you could conquer the aging process of the body. Lots of scientific research is going on this field.

You say you have no opinions or assumptions, but it is clear you assume many things: you assume physical laws and the impossibility of going against them. You assume that will never be able to control the aging process.

“I already told you why you have such a resentment to siddis - because you don’t have any”

I do not have any resentment to siddhis, or anything in particular. It is just that awakening siddhis is not the way to liberation, and is often a great excuse for your ego to run on a power trip, and has been an excuse for ones ego to run on a power trip. The only difference is that rather than working out of a lust for power towards the outer world, now it has all been channeled towards the inner world. While one was running outwardly like a beggar, now one is running inwardly like a beggar, and in both cases you remain the slave rather than centered as the master. But if you want to speak of siddhis, then to you, perhaps you may be impressed by somebody walking on water. As far as I am concerned, besides wisdom itself, there is no other siddhi which is capable of bringing you into communion with existence.

Even ultimate wisdom is a siddhi and Patanajli mentions it :smiley:
It is clear to any reasonable reader that you have resentments to siddhis; you call them superficial tricks, side-effects, you say only egomanicas want them and demonstrate them, you calls yogis who have them blind and you claim all yogis who have experienced them liars, including Patanjali.

Why all this resentment? Like I said it’s because you don’t have any. The very absence of siddhis in you falsifies your claim to enlightenment.

They are side-effects and nothing more. And moreover, if you are just dependent upon borrowed knowledge, then you will be unable to discriminate what is just the mythological and symbolic way of expression which is particular to the culture, what is veiled in occult language so that it is only accessible to the initiate, and what is a scientific documentation of a certain capability.

Again, you pretend this is all symbolic, veiled, occult, esoteric - and yet anybody who has read the Yoga Sutras or the Hatha Yoga Pradapika knows that it is very out in the open, clear and concise, practical.

What may have one effect in one context, may have a totally different effect in another. In one case, perhaps some greed will be helpful as a stepping stone towards your liberation. In another case, perhaps it will become a stairway towards a deeper unconsciousness. Even hate can become a ladder towards one’s liberation when approached in a certain way. In fact, one’s hate is not separate from love, they are two extremes of the same energy. Ignorance too, need not necessarily be seen as a hindrance. It is only because one is ignorant, that there is a possibility of moving beyond it, just as sleep is a pre-requisite for becoming awake.

Your thinking in terms of straight lines may be useful in other areas, but it is of no relevance here.

You are playing useless language games. Selfishness and apathy, hate, cruelty, greed ignorance and stupidity are negative mental and emotional states. They are never good things and will never lead to good. In what circumstance is hate good? Hate saps you of your energy, clouds your intellect, creates blockages in your pranic body and complexes in your mind. How can that ever be a good thing?

Certain actions a person of high character, meaning of a more purified mind, would never do: he would never kill an innocent person, he would never rape somebody, he would never be a party to a genocide, he would never steal from an innocent person and he would never tell lies to serve his ego.

The cause is purely scientific: the causes that lead to these actions are not present in a purified mind.

Even things something like love can be tremendously dangerous if you become identified with it. The moment the mind becomes identified with anything at all, even love, one’s vision becomes clouded. When Patanjali has said that both attraction and aversion are amongst the greatest psychological hindrances for one’s awareness, that is what he is saying - keep the stream of awareness moving without abiding anywhere, without becoming identified with anything whatsoever.

When we say love here, we are talking about love that arises naturally from a purified mind. That love is never dangerous.

Call it what you want, but my intention is to make it clear that is has very little to do with ideas of “right” and “wrong”, “good” and “bad”, which are just the relative likes and dislikes of the mind and it’s identifications.

Again we are not talking about ideas here of what is right and wrong, we are talking about natural states of the mind when it is impure and pure.

"An enlightened person looks at a learned Brahmin, an outcast, even a cow, an elephant, or a dog with an equal eye. ( 5.18 )

Yep, isn’t that I just said earlier. That equanmity is something all long time meditators naturally develop and this has been scientifically studied. It is a natural state of a mind which is more purified.

Some people have higer character and some people have lower character. We can indeed associate certain actions with both character types. A person of higher character would never rape somebody for instance. A person of lower character would. This is exactly what moralty is. Morality is transcultural - most cultures on the world agree on which actions are good and which action are bad. This is not a conceptual thing - but an intuition all humans share.

“Nope, my reports are from my own scientific tradition of consciousness researchers and metaphysicians who have proven their assertions and been validated over and over again throughout our history by yogis.”

Again, as long as you are clinging to second-hand reports, there can be nothing else but confusion. But, you may not yet be confused enough because one has not done enough research into the matter. Different traditions will give different interpretations not just regarding the nature of one’s original face. In Tibetan yoga, they have only five chakras within the sushumna, and in fact the system of five chakras within the sushumna is far more ancient than that of seven chakras. In Sufism, they refer to these energy centers as “Lataif al Sitta”, the six subtleties. For them, there are only six energy centers. In fact, their approach is unique in that it seems to be the only system which has given two separate energy centers for the heart - one on the left side of the heart, the other on the right side of the heart. The correspondences of the chakras are different in different traditions - some will say that Ajna is organe, others will say it is indigo. Their elemental correspondences are different in different traditions - for some Fire is at the muladhara, for others Earth is at the muladhara. Some traditions have stated that there are only 72,000 nadis, others have given reports of nadis in greater number - as well as different locations for different nadis in the subtle body. Different traditions have different descriptions of the process of meditation. Gautama Buddha says that the effort of the mind dissolves once you enter into the second dhyana, others would not agree with him. Mahavira says that there are so called “seven hells” and “seven heavens”, Gautama Buddha has declared more than seven hundred. And you are calling this scientific ? If it were scientific, then everybody would be giving the same reports from the same observations. There is something scientific in all of the different traditions which have used the methods of the yogic sciences as a means for the expansion of consciousness, but it little to do with all of these models which were just created as means to help the methods become more accessible. Whether you visualize Ajna as orange or indigo does not make much difference at all, as long as the meaning of these symbols become deeply impregnated within your unconscious. That is the nature of symbols - it only carries meaning because of the association one forms at the level of the mind. Because you have linked an idea to a symbol, now that symbol becomes a representative of that idea. That is why - for the Qabalist Jew, he may chant his mantras in Hebrew, the Hindu may chant his mantras in Sanskrit, another may chant in Pali, - and all these methods work just as well. One Bhakti yogi may have devotion towards Shiva, another towards Buddha, just as a Christian may have devotion towards Christ. These symbols are just methods to access certain dimensions of your own consciousness. The very nature of the unconscious is that it does not use the rational, linear language of the conscious mind. It’s language is more metaphorical. That is what happens in a dream, the unconscious is transferring information to the conscious by means of symbol. And these symbols of different systems are just means to trigger certain aspects of the energy of the unconscious, which brings about different changes in the energies of the subtle body.

The science lies in things that can only be discovered through direct experience. If you want, you can call it a hidden science. You will not find it in any books, or written in any scriptures. These models are skillful means and nothing more, and those systems which have been clinging to their knowledge are simply entangled in their own tradition and it’s short-sighted views.

“you calls yogis who have them blind”

No, I have not. If you allow them to come to you without your hankering after them, then they are beautiful in their own way. Then you can witness them, enjoy them, even put them to use if needed, and still remain centered as the master. In either case, if one has truly come to one’s awakening, one is not going to be so concerned with them, one has come to know of a freedom and a communion with existence which cannot be substituted.

“and you claim all yogis who have experienced them liars, including Patanjali.”

No, not all. As I have said before, there are different reasons why different authors have described the siddhis. Some of them are simply inventions, the authors themselves have not even experienced them. Some of them are veiled in occult language, describing other processes, some of them have been stated literally. When certain siddhis were either invented or described symbolically, it was part of the highly imaginative and metaphorical tendency of their culture. Amongst the Buddhists, it is said that when Manjusri, one of Gautama Buddha’s closest disciples, became awakened - suddenly lotus blossoms started growing all around him, and trees without leaves suddenly grew leaves. If you understand this as literal, then you are simply being foolish. But if you understand this as simply symbolic - that the experience of awakening is such - that it brings you into absolute communion with the universe, then that is a totally different matter.

“the Hatha Yoga Pradapika knows that it is very out in the open, clear and concise, practical”

It is not really the case. The Hatha Yoga Pradapika is filled with all kinds of symbolism. When they have spoken of the “Sun”, the “Moon”, the “Red Bindu”, the “White Bindu”, these were not described with such detail because the work was not intended to be as a manual which is to be studied by itself. Even the work itself has said that it is not a substitute for the presence of a master. In fact, if you follow it’s instructions without the presence of a master, it can be tremendously dangerous. Because there are several things which have been ommitted intentionally in the text, which have left certain techniques incomplete. For example, one of the kriyas for purification of the intestines through means of vomitting, if you were to practice this according to the text - it is dangerous. Because there is one essential thing which is not mentioned as part of the technique. After you perform the technique - you are to prepare a blend of rice mixed with ghee and milk. This is to compensate for the mucuous membrane and the substances of the stomach lining which are also removed as a result of the technique. This stomach lining is something which is essential in the process of digestion, and with a weak stomach lining all kinds of digestive problems and diseases may arise. Like this, scattered through the text, there are so many details which have been ommitted. So it is not only that it is filled with symbolism, but even when it has been speaking in a more straightfoward manner, oftentimes it does so at the expense of omitting vital information.

“You could remain in the physical body indefinitely if you could conquer the aging process of the body.”

Yes, it is possible to extend the life of the body over a certain span of years, or to create a certain condition in one’s system where the body naturally aborbs and preserves energy in a more efficient way. This is why through twenty one days after his death, the body of Parahamsa Yogananda remained well preserved with minimal indications of withering away. It was simply a by product of his sadhana. Depending on the state of your body, how long it will take for the subtle energies to leave one’s body after death will vary. For most, they leave the body rather quickly. But if you bring your subtle energies to a certain peak of intensity and transformation - the energy which remains in the body after death may take a much longer time to disappear. And throughout the process of living, the body tends to preserve energy in a far more efficient way. So you can extend the life of the body, but even that has it’s limitations. It is impossible to bring to cessation the flux of the whole universe, and the flux of the body is not separate from the flux of existence itself. As far as time and space is concerned, change is essential, there is nothing within time and space which is not subject to change.

I think “enlightenment” is akin to “awareness”, and is tiered by degrees. This may not be only reserved to humans, as many biologists claim.

Again, as long as you are clinging to second-hand reports, there can be nothing else but confusion. But, you may not yet be confused enough because one has not done enough research into the matter. Different traditions will give different interpretations not just regarding the nature of one’s original face.

This has been your constant mantra in many threads. You talk about we all have different interpretations, different representations, different thoughts, different symbols - and then you make an illogical leap and declare the thing that we are referring to does not exist at all. I call the sun surya, other names for it are suraj, sol, sole, soleil, sonne. Does this mean because all of us have a different name for it, it means the sun does not exist. I call god brahman, others names are ishvara, parmatma, bhagwan, vishnu, maheshwara, paramata shiva, allah, yaweh, ahur mazda, mahanirvana, tao, ek onkar, waheguru, satnam, el, pure truth, absolute, love, bliss - does this mean god does not exist?

I consider beautiful anything that puts you in touch with the divine. Others consider beautiful that which has perfect order, that which is chaotic, that which gives a social message, that which is entertaining. Does that mean that such thing as beauty does not exist?

You say that all cultures have different interpretations of morality. Actually, most cultures on this planet agree on the basic golden rule: do unto others as you would have others do unto you. However, within the culture itself morality is interpreted slightly differently. The ten commandments, the yamas and niyamas, shila etc differ slightly. Does this mean that morality does not exist?

You need to learn how to discriminate between a universal and a particular. The universal archetypes called god, beauty, morality are universals, but our interpretations of them differ and are particulars. This is what we mean when we say Deva of something(the deva of sun, moon, elephant etc) it is the ideal behind it. Jung calls them archetypes and Plato calls them Platonic forms.

Some cultures are purely based on realising the ideal form of everything and thus have good everything. Such as our dharma culture. We have the ideal god pure consciousness/absolute reality, we have the ideal way of organizing society, we have the ideal sciences, we have the ideal music, we have the ideal language, we have the ideal morality.

Good and bad are not relative. The wise shun sin and adopt virtue. Only the foolish say they are equivalent to one another.

In Tibetan yoga, they have only five chakras within the sushumna, and in fact the system of five chakras within the sushumna is far more ancient than that of seven chakras. In Sufism, they refer to these energy centers as “Lataif al Sitta”, the six subtleties. For them, there are only six energy centers. In fact, their approach is unique in that it seems to be the only system which has given two separate energy centers for the heart - one on the left side of the heart, the other on the right side of the heart.

Again, you cannot discriminate a universal from a particular. They all give different counts of the number of chakras(particular), but they all agree such thing as chakras exist(universal) Actually there are thousands of chakras in our body, because a chakra is nothing more than a plexus of nadis. As there are thousands of nadis in our body, there are many plexus points. But based on your classification system you may only agree a certain plexus is a chakra and others are not. The 7 main chakras we use today are major plexus points, hence their status as the main the chakras. They are also on the cerberal spinal column where most of the major and vital organs are situated.

The correspondences of the chakras are different in different traditions - some will say that Ajna is organe, others will say it is indigo. Their elemental correspondences are different in different traditions - for some Fire is at the muladhara, for others Earth is at the muladhara.

Again ones individual experiences of the chakras are going to vary and the symbols they want to use are going to vary as well.

Some traditions have stated that there are only 72,000 nadis, others have given reports of nadis in greater number - as well as different locations for different nadis in the subtle body.

Again, it depends on how you count them(particular). They all agree that nadis exist(universal)

Different traditions have different descriptions of the process of meditation. Gautama Buddha says that the effort of the mind dissolves once you enter into the second dhyana, others would not agree with him.

The experiences each mediatator is going to have is going to differ(particular) but the major stages they are going to pass are going to be the same. In this case the stage is dhyana(universal) Each of these traditions agree on meditation and agree meditation is about going deeper and deeper into the mind. They all agree you must be seated still. They all agree you must have rhymic and natural breathing. They all agree that you must withdraw your senses. They all agree you must have a single focus. They all pretty much share the same techniques(asnas, pranayama, trataka etc) to train you do to that.

Thus the basic stages as outlined by Patanjali are the same.

Mahavira says that there are so called “seven hells” and “seven heavens”, Gautama Buddha has declared more than seven hundred.

Different counting systems(particular) but they all agree there are heavens and hells right(universals) The Christians say is there heaven, hell and purgatory. The Muslims say there are 7 heavens and hells. The puranas say there are 7 heavens and hells. The Samkhyans say there are 7*7 levels of prakriti. The early Vedas say there is physical plane, subtle plane and causal plane.

And you are calling this scientific ? If it were scientific, then everybody would be giving the same reports from the same observations.

You obviously do not understand science. No scientific experiment will produce exactly the same results as another. This is why experiments are repeated over and over again in order to get a uniform distribution on a grapth. From this we can make generalization of what happens during a certain experiment. Similarly in the scientific experiment of Yoga, we can repeat them over and over again and we will be able to identify the generals.

My mind and your mind is constituted the same. Thus I can make scientific predictions about what will happen when we sit for meditation. The first prediction is that thoughts will come :wink:

No, I have not. If you allow them to come to you without your hankering after them, then they are beautiful in their own way. Then you can witness them, enjoy them, even put them to use if needed, and still remain centered as the master. In either case, if one has truly come to one’s awakening, one is not going to be so concerned with them, one has come to know of a freedom and a communion with existence which cannot be substituted.

Right, and I am not saying one should hanker after them. The final goal of Yoga should be the aim of every sincere yogi. None have come to you, because you are very far from the goal. We could bury you for 7 days and when we look back we will find you are dead. If we did that to an advanced yogi he would be still alive. This is because you are an ordinary mortal being like we are, with no controls on your prana.

Stop claiming you are enlightened - you have nothing to show for it. Even your knowledge and understanding is being outshined by mine.

No, not all. As I have said before, there are different reasons why different authors have described the siddhis. Some of them are simply inventions, the authors themselves have not even experienced them. Some of them are veiled in occult language, describing other processes, some of them have been stated literally. When certain siddhis were either invented or described symbolically, it was part of the highly imaginative and metaphorical tendency of their culture. Amongst the Buddhists, it is said that when Manjusri, one of Gautama Buddha’s closest disciples, became awakened - suddenly lotus blossoms started growing all around him, and trees without leaves suddenly grew leaves. If you understand this as literal, then you are simply being foolish. But if you understand this as simply symbolic - that the experience of awakening is such - that it brings you into absolute communion with the universe, then that is a totally different matter.

So you are indeed calling Patanjali a liar and this third chapter a complete fabrication. You are also calling Krishna, Buddha, Guru Nanak liars who demonstrated many siddhis. I can understand the poetic use of “Then lotus’s blossomed everywhere” or “then the earth shook” or “then all the gods came and threw flowers on him” but when you have full blown descriptions of activating siddhis using techniques you cannot say it is symbolic or poetic.

Like I said the only reason you speak up against siddhis so much, and even posted a video on youtube on this matter, is because the absence of them falsifies your claim of enlightenment. Not only you, but all fake gurus out there whether they are frauds are just imposters(deluded people) reject siddhis and teach against them. They also reject all independent scientific investigations.

Let’s face it, when we boil down this discussion to the main ingredients - you have nothing to show for your claim of enlightenment.

“You could remain in the physical body indefinitely if you could conquer the aging process of the body.”

Yes, it is possible to extend the life of the body over a certain span of years, or to create a certain condition in one’s system where the body naturally aborbs and preserves energy in a more efficient way. This is why through twenty one days after his death, the body of Parahamsa Yogananda remained well preserved with minimal indications of withering away. It was simply a by product of his sadhana.

You are hilarious. You just told us you believe Yogananda was a liar and now you are citing an example of one of his miraculous feats of his body remaining preserved unusually long. Similarly you are implying Patanjali is a liar, and yet you pick and choose from what he says, even in the siddhi chapter(which you claim is mostly fabricated) and claim it is true.

So you alone are the arbiter of when masters are lying and when they are not? Because ahem, you are enlightened right, so you know. How do you know? Because there are six pebbles in a pond, right? :wink:

[QUOTE=Quetzalcoatl;57510]Hi HighWolf,

totally not + on the contrary, since language is my profession (though not English), this is easily the most interesting post I read on this forum. :smiley: I will most surely look deeper into this, and already did a brief research, as I wasn’t even aware of “-ment” stemming from “mens” = “mind”. My research so far only turned up just that, but no explanation, why “mind” would be used here. So please:

Where do you have that theory from? Can I read it too? If not, what exactly does it say? Was the -ment in Old English not understood as a suffix, were there two words where now is one? Like “the enlightened ment”? Then why not “the enlightened mind”? Or was it used as a compound in the same way like “waterfall”, here “enlighten(ed)ment”? Again: Why not “enlightenmind” then?

Therefore, I still fail to agree with the idea, that enlightenment actually should contain the word “mind” in a way like this:

It would, though, be very interesting to see, how that suffix was adapted by the English language, and why. There are obviously many words that one can only link to the mind with a lot of imagination, like “payment” or “pavement” or “basement” or “movement” or “element” or “instrument” etc. etc.[/quote]

Interesting, I am inclined to then say based on the above that in the etymology of the word enlightenment, ment does not necessarily mean mind. For if we took “ment” to mean mind in basement, then we get base + mind, the base of the mind? So my basement would be the base of the mind? Does not make sense.

Derrida said that to trace the etymology of a word can be a process that goes on forever, because the units of words also go through evolution and mean different things at different times. Although at one time the word “ment” may have meant mind, it does not necessarily mean in the etymology of the world “enlightenment” it means mind.

In any case I do like the etymology: the brightening of the mind. Even if it is not correct. I have also come across some claimed Sanskrit etymologies which I think are highly dubious, like “Hatha” where “Ha” means sun and “Tha” means moon and therefore Hatha Yoga is is the bringing together of the sun and moon. This cannot be right, because the Sanskrit words for sun and moon is “surya” and “chandra” and the root of surya and chandra is definitely not ha and tha.

[QUOTE=FlexPenguin;57554]I think “enlightenment” is akin to “awareness”, and is tiered by degrees. This may not be only reserved to humans, as many biologists claim.[/QUOTE]Enlightenment is involution called evolution.

I understand it’s retrieving or remembering our cosmic identity, that, we as god willingly forgot at the time of creation.
It happens when we totally abandon the individual self and accept the universal one. But that causes terror, “fear of the face of god” say some mystics.

“I understand it’s retrieving or remembering our cosmic identity”

If one wants to call it an “identity”, that is fine, but it is not an identity. It is on the contrary, an absence of all limiting qualities, forms, and identities. Even to call it “nothingness” is to impose another limitation upon it. And it should be remembered that Truth is undivided. If one clings to Oneness, that is one extreme - and one remains blind to the multiplicity of things. If one clings to Multiplicity, then one has drifted to the other extreme - and although in the midst of a thousand shapes and forms, one misses the Oneness of their true nature. These two dimensions - the “relative”, and the “absolute”, are not two dimensions, but they are inseperable. What one is calling the “relative” is within time and space, what one is calling the “absolute” is beyond time and space - and to seperate the two is just like trying to separate water from ice, or ice from water.

That is why, “enlightenment” is not merely coming into contact with the source of existence. If you are to remain absorbed in Oneness at the expense of the world of Multiplicity, then one’s awakening is still scratching the surface of the experience. Truth is whole, complete, rejecting nothing and embracing everything. Being beyond all discrimination, raise even a thought about it and you immediately fall into error.

To be in communion with Truth is an inexpressible experience, it does not belong to our relative words, ideas, and descriptions. Even having said all this, this message is nothing more than a deception.

[QUOTE=Seeker33;57564]Enlightenment is involution called evolution.[/QUOTE]

In another strange phenomenon observed in quantum science, it was found that certain experiments with subatomic particles resulted in outcomes related to the observer of the experiment. That is, some molecules would not break down while they were being observed. It seems bizarre that by observing something you can have an effect on it. But this is exactly what has been found scientifically. This further reinforces the idea that all things in the cosmos are somehow joined or related to one another, and the universe functions like one large organism. A number of scientific studies have taken place illustrating the principles of the collective unconscious. One very interesting series of observations was made by scientists studying the behaviour of a species of monkey (Macaca fuscata) on the island of Koshima in Japan, and surrounding islands. The islands were separated by quite substantial areas of ocean, so each island?s monkey population could
not have physical contact with monkeys on another island. These monkeys ate fruit which had fallen onto the sand below. They would pick up fruit and consume the fruit with the sand stuck on to the outside. It was observed that one monkey picked up some The collective unconscious fruit from the water?s edge, and somehow realised that putting the fruit in water washed off the sand, thus making it more pleasant to eat. This washed fruit was fed to its young who in turn copied the washing technique learnt from the mother. The monkeys in the vicinity started to copy this fruit washing before eating. Within a short space of time more and more monkeys had taken on this pattern of behaviour. The scientists observed that when approximately one hundred monkeys had established this new eating behaviour on this one isolated island, all monkeys of this species on all other islands had started this type of behaviour.

In other words, as all experiences are pooled in the collective unconscious of this species, once a certain collective experience had reached a critical point, it triggered off a response which permeated via the ?parasympathetic? to all members of that species.

?Although the exact number may vary, the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the consciousness property of these people. But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness reaches almost everyone!?

…?This phenomenon shows that when enough of us are aware of something, all of us become aware of it.?
?The Hundredth Monkey? by Ken Keyes, Jr.

Hi HighWolf,

This isnt exactly a theory. Its my logical deduction, based on the points made by those English poets I pointed out.
but… but you said

This is a part of a linguistic theory I came accross, which explains that there is no “-ment” used as suffix in Old English.
So ya were lying? No theory anywhere explaining this…? How could you do this to me???

Though this, in it’s outer shell, is off topic to this forum, let me get a little deeper into it, cuz the core is of some interest, and I can as well conclude my live-journal of researching the issue.

There are Latin words that use the suffix -ment, coming from “mens” = “mind”. I still don’t really know of any well-researched theory why this suffix is used and how it came into being, but if you look at some of the words, there are some hints. Particularly those I had mentioned, like “element” or “pigment”. An element is an inner part of a bigger thing and a pigment is the inner part of a color. So one could say that an element is sorta kinda like the “spirit” or “soul” of a bigger construct, as the pigment is the spirit or sould of a color. So the suffix “-ment” could mean something like “[hidden] inner core of stuff”, which becomes somewhat etheric when it’s used on phenomena outside the physical world, like for example the “temperament”. Here it is the “spirit” that lasts over time, the nature of a personality. Etc. etc.

So the thing so far is, that the Latins picked this suffix to point at such inner stuff. And then we have the world-wide phenomenon that words are adopted into languages. It would, though, be a misconception that one language would in itself be superior or inferior, all language are qualitywise equally good; look up Chomsky’s linguistic writings. It’s just that culture-wise some words are first created in a culture A, then culture A gets contact with culture B and culture B first hears of the concept or thing and often adopts the word for it. This was largely done with Greek and Latin and then European languages, mostly English, French and German, interchanged words.

And that’s how the “-ment” came into the English language, in case of “payment” via Latin -> French -> English. Here, I had initially thought that English would have it’s own word for paying, but “pay” indeed stems from French, just like “joy” in “enjoyment” and so on.

Thingy is: The “-ment” is always used in foreign words that origianlly stem from Latin. So the suffix isn’t used in English, it is not “productive” in English, which means, it is not used to create new words in English, like the suffix “-ing”, with which you can create tons of nouns from verbs, or the suffix “-ish”, with which you can create tons of adjectives from nouns and verbs.

So far the off topic background part, in case ya didn’t know.

The on-topicly interesting thing now is the - to my knowledge only - exception of using the suffix “-ment” along a non-Latin-word in “enlightenment”. Because “light” is not a Latin word. It stems from the Indo-European root “leuk”, that turned into “light” in English, “Licht” in German, “leukos” in Greek and “lux” in Latin.

So it must’ve been somewhat like this: There was the word “light” and then a word emerged that described the action of making something bright, called “lighten”, and then another one that described the action of actually/initially turning on the light, called “enlighten”. And then someone wanted to create a noun out of this, to have a name for that process. Naturally it should’ve been following the natural rules of word formation and be called “enlightening”, just like there is “lightening” (the process of shedding light). But whoever used the word first was not happy with the regular “-ing”-suffix, which, btw, is exactly what’s used in German: “Er-leucht-ung”, check out the patterns:

light -> lighten -> enlighten -> enlightenment
Licht -> leuchten -> erleuchten -> Erleuchtung

Get the point? Someone had to choose the “-ment” = “mind” in this case!!!1!1!11! So if I’m not wrong about the productivity of “-ment” in English language (if or if not it was used to create new words, like other suffixes are used, like the “ing” or the “ism” or the “ish” etc.), it’s sort of an artificial word, built not according to the natural laws of word formation, but forged by the mind of an individual. That’d be kewl…

English poets put a lot of emphasis on “we borrowed so many words from Greece, Rome, and Germans and French” and sarcastically question " so, what is English then? The mischief of drunken Gaels (Celts)?"

I think you could find the German equivalent of this deduction in Heidegger’s texts. He is the master of German language along with Schelling and Goethe, in my opinion.
What deduction exactly…? People involved with language, well, some of them, were always whining about their preccioussss language being undermined by evil foreign words. Today our oh-so-fine German language is flooded with evil English words. Personally, I find this to be enriching a language and those “poets” and watchmen of a language need to lighten up and care about relevant stuff.

Final sidenote: There is no German equivalent of “en-light-en-ment” or the usage of “-ment” as a suffix. All “-ment”-ending words in German stem from Latin, less than in English, cuz we’re like superior in having our own words for a lot of words English picked up from French or Latin, for example “payment” (“Bezahlung” -> coming from “Zahl” = number) or “enjoyment” (“Vergn?gung” -> coming from “gen?gen” = being enough, to fulfill, satisfy)(how, anyways, can a language not have an own word for “paying” and “enjoying”, that’s freakin weird). There are some words that use the German translation of “mens” (“Geist”) in a way I explained above along a possible explanation for using “mens” in words like “element” (in a sense of essence), but these are very few, and they all come from chemistry and refer to the essence of a substance (“Salmiakgeist” -> “spirits of ammonia”/ammonium hydroxide) and mostly alcohol (“Weingeist” -> “spirit of wine”). Other than that “Geist” is used as “mind”/“spirit” in words like “Zeitgeist”, “Teamgeist” (team spirit) etc. + as “ghost”, like “Poltergeist”.

So, that’s it. Fascination ends here! :smiley:

Hi bjoy,

In another strange phenomenon observed in quantum science, it was found that certain experiments with subatomic particles resulted in outcomes related to the observer of the experiment. That is, some molecules would not break down while they were being observed. It seems bizarre that by observing something you can have an effect on it. But this is exactly what has been found scientifically. This further reinforces the idea that all things in the cosmos are somehow joined or related to one another, and the universe functions like one large organism.
yeah, quantum science. Proves pretty much all spiritual believes, doesn’t it. :wink:

Where did you find this thingy about unbreakable molecules? Got a link or so, or is it just hearsay?

A number of scientific studies have taken place illustrating the principles of the collective unconscious. One very interesting series of observations was made by scientists studying the behaviour of a species of monkey (Macaca fuscata) on the island of Koshima in Japan, and surrounding islands. The islands were separated by quite substantial areas of ocean, so each island?s monkey population could
not have physical contact with monkeys on another island. These monkeys ate fruit which had fallen onto the sand below. They would pick up fruit and consume the fruit with the sand stuck on to the outside. It was observed that one monkey picked up some The collective unconscious fruit from the water?s edge, and somehow realised that putting the fruit in water washed off the sand, thus making it more pleasant to eat. This washed fruit was fed to its young who in turn copied the washing technique learnt from the mother. The monkeys in the vicinity started to copy this fruit washing before eating. Within a short space of time more and more monkeys had taken on this pattern of behaviour. The scientists observed that when approximately one hundred monkeys had established this new eating behaviour on this one isolated island, all monkeys of this species on all other islands had started this type of behaviour.

In other words, as all experiences are pooled in the collective unconscious of this species, once a certain collective experience had reached a critical point, it triggered off a response which permeated via the ?parasympathetic? to all members of that species.

?Although the exact number may vary, the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the consciousness property of these people. But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness reaches almost everyone!?

…?This phenomenon shows that when enough of us are aware of something, all of us become aware of it.?
?The Hundredth Monkey? by Ken Keyes, Jr.
It’s an urban legend and simply not true. See:

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC09/Myers.htm

There is no scientific proof for “such things”. Not. You wish, but it’s not there. Gotta stick with your faith, when it comes to the supernatural, cuz the proof is almost always gonna crumble when faithless peeps like myself check it out. Ever heard of quantum teleportation…? Proves Siddhis, if you ask some, but really, it’s not even about teleporting.

Etc. etc. :wink: