Can humans reach enlightenment?

I'd agree but losing fear is the key I would think.

 

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How does one know when he has reached the stage of enlightenment?

 

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THe answer is yes because of my own personal experiences

First when I did deep relaxation I achieved that voidness, nothingness state. Then after practicing more control of the mind, body, senses, etc...I achieved the bliss of the brahmarandhra, which was a lot better than the voidness state (but it was still a feeling). But then after I practiced destroying deep-rooted insecurities, impulses, destructive feelings, etc...then truly the greatest happiness emerged. No longer is anything missing at all, in the other states it still felt like things were missing, incomplete, something was wrong, like I was just pretending to be happy and satisfied, there was some degree of unpleasantness, something not right.

When you destroy ALL your insecurities, impulses, destructive thoughts and feelings, etc...then you acheive the highest perfection. Otherwise if you don't all you'll achieve is nothing but another feeling, like voidness of deep relaxation, joy, and other such useless temporary states

"One who has conquered all defilements, cannot be defeated. Such a one is The Buddha, who has attained unlimited power" - The Buddha


Just try it

 

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Interesting questions. But you sound like a skeptic. All fine and dandy, but I am being skeptical here myself. So I will leave the answers to those who are not.

 

What makes you think it happens?
Do you have direct experience of someone who was enlightened? What was it about that experience that made you think they were enlightened? ETc.

 

How do you know this?

 

How do you know this?
Is it what you have read?
How did you know it was true?
Who has been unafraid of death who you consider enlightened and how do you know this was the case with that person?

You may or may not want to address the issue of suicide?
Were the guys who flew the planes into the WTC enlightened?

 

What makes you think this is true?
It sounds like it 'makes sense' to you from what you have read. I know this may not be the case, but that is how it comes off.

 

So you are enlightened?

 

:bugeye::crazy:

 

Me.

 

I am not afraid of death, but I do fear a painful process of dying.

 

To aim a little snideness at the concept of enlightenment and not at you:

Oh, well, you probably haven't disidentified enough or conquered your fear.

 

So you are not afraid to die and you are enlightened?

 

Wait, I just noticed that in this post you seem to be guessing/intuiting what enlightenment would be like. In the other post it seemed like you had experienced it. I realize this is not necessarily what you meant, but I found it confusing.

 

He claimed to have been poisoned in prison. After all, the US govt. was very explicit in saying that their whole effort was going to be to get rid of him, I guess they achieved it. But this is really irrelevant, it doesn´t matter, it only shows the stupidity of people; specially since there were no charges against him. But he spoke against politics and religions to thousands of followers so...
What really matters is the legacy.

Are you talking about Jesus?

It is not that I cling to a certain person in order to feel that I have a belief. But the thing is, I have read many scriptures and I have felt in my heart that there is always something missing in the teachings. Osho explains all the scriptures with a clear sense of what he is talking about, he speaks about Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, Atisha, and many many others before him and it is like hearing the teachings from the mouth of all those Buddhas themselves.
I´m just saying, it is not that I hold certain feelings or that I worship the guy; but all of my life I have been reading the teachings from different religions and none of them seem entirely true to me, I dare to say that many of the times the teachings were straight ridiculous. His words are some of the very few words that I have known in my heart to be true in this matter, I can´t explain that to you, it is just what I have trusted for myself all along and I didn´t know it until I heard it from his mouth; I get goosebumps quite often.
Look up for one of his videos in youtube, and you´ll see that the dude is conscious of every movement of his body, including blinking, he doesn´t even blink like a normal person, it has a totally different quality.
He healed thousands of people, and he didn´t say a word about that either.
This is a contemporary Buddha, it is not that he is unique, there is J. Krishnamurti and there has to be others; but the words of a Buddha are beautiful to hear, they tickle something inside you that was fast asleep for many years.

Yes, all the Buddhas that have spoken the truth have been rejected by the masses, specially in the west. Like the burning of Pitagoras and his disciples, the poisoning of Socrates, Jesus and Apollonius of Tyana´s crucifiction; it seems that the only people that don´t kill Buddhas are the Hindus, because they know better.
For example Gautam Buddha was against traditional Hinduism, but the Hindus didn´t hurt him because they believe in Karma, and I can´t even think what is the karma of killing a Buddha; they knew that.

The thing is, even if a Buddha knows that he will be hated because of his words, he still speaks the truth no matter the consequences. The most likely consecuence of speaking openly as a Buddha is death; but you speak as if death is the last frontier of our journey...
They may have been tortured and killed, but their consciousness is still alive, the consciousness of all the Buddhas is what we call God.
Like Jesus himself said:

"It resembles a mustard seed, smaller than all other seeds— yet when it falls on the tilled earth, it produces a great plant and becomes shelter for the birds of the sky."

The analogy is that we are all seeds (body), but only few seeds become trees (consciousness); a Buddha is a seed like all of us, the difference is that he knows the way to become a tree. And the seed has to die in order to become a tree...

The use of analogies is necessary in this case because words are innefficient in explaining this phenomena.

 

I don't think so. What is outside reflects what is inside in his religion. How could he be so at odds with what is outside? Why is there this dualism? he was clearly not happy about his treatment - and I am very sympathetic to him in that.

For example. I think there are many other examples. Notice the lack of women enlightened figures in the West and the very few examples in the East.

I truly appreciate how directly you answered my questions. I do. You went into your experience in an open and perhaps vulnerable way.

I have seen OSHo speak, though I have heard him speak much more. I appreciate the fact that he had a more open relationship with emotions than many gurus and actually allowed expression of emotions and catharsis to be a part of the healing/growth process. Whether he learned this from Western disciples or teachers doesn't matter in relation to him, but I think the possiblity is interesting in itself. That Western psychology might have felt like a complementary set of insights to him. Insights that added to his own Easter rooted ones.

I did feel like there was an inherent flatness and ambivalence on his part in relation to emotions. His tone implied things about how to be and the proper relationship with emotions that I do not agree with. Also some of his texts.
I say this not to open a debate about his ideas, but just to let you know a bit of my reaction to the man.

My main point is that in Eastern religions there is often a reduction of the outside to a kind of maya. The material world is not as important as the inner world. This dualism and the implied dualism around our reactions to the outside world seems to leave, for me, Eastern ideas of enlightenment lacking.

Of course it matters that he was victimized by the parts of the universe. His state was not complete. You cannot be somehow perfect and at one with it all on the inside and basically tortured to death on the outside. I say this not at all with a 'nyah, nyah', or see I caught the guy point at all. I just feel that the denial of how important the split there is. And that enlightenment needs to be broadened before it is complete. That's my take.

No one at peace with everything is also upset with being tortured to death. And to pretend it is somehow OK, or that he was 'reallyl' detached from this, or OK on some other level is not helping us. (I am not saying you are doing this latter thing, but I think it is done in the name of Eastern ideas of enlightenment, and jesus for that matter)

I think a Sufi would be in danger from some Hindus.
Socrates, was anti-democratic, and participate in pedophiliac relations with boys. he was also anti-ART. I just can't see him as enlightened.

I read what you said about the Buddha. But I feel like he is too removed from us to know what he experienced or did.

 

Mostly Hindus and Jainas are more concerned about the inner-world than the outter-world, that is why their philosophies have failed. But... there has to be a balance between the two worlds, we are part of both; those are the teachings of the Buddhas.
Like Lao-Tzu used to say: "Water, you know, never fights ... it flows around without harm.". You can´t find the outer-world because you are part of it, you gotta go with the flow, without forgetting the aspect of getting to know oneself as one truly is.

 

That is my whole point of writting here, I´m not interested in lying about my experience. If I get angry at any of your responses, it only means that there is doubt within me towards my statements; but I haven´t experienced anger, what I´m saying is my truth.