[NondualitySalon] Enlightenment is a Unicorn Barbeque

[Guest guest]

Harsha: This might be of interest to some (The "hard core" especially :--).

Forwarding from HarshaSatangha.

 

Greg wrote:

>>What is it about an experience that makes it an experience of

>>enlightenment? Whatever defining characteristics you give such an

>>experience, there have to be major presuppositions at work there. So in

>>what sense can such a definition be true, or taken seriously? There's no

>>general sense of agreement amon traditions on it. So we can say it's just

>>opinion....

 

Madhya wrote:

>Now, Greg... come on. 'Fess up. I'm sure you've got ideas of your about

how

>to answer these questions. You are charming, but you are leading me on....

 

Greg: Really, I'm not being coy or disingenuous. I was really asking for

your

ideas on these questions, since you have written about different kinds of

enlightenment expereinces. Here are my answers, based on my concept of

enlightenment: all is light; there is no enlightenment or

non-enlightenment, no enlightened one, no unenlightened one.

 

Q: What is it about an experience that makes it an experience of

enlightenment?

A: That it is an experience is sufficient. All experience is the same, in

this respect.

 

I'll show you how a contrary answer leads to problems. Let's assume that

there is at least one special experience that is an experience of

enlightenment. OK, for this to be true, we'd have (a) the experience,

which stands in relation to (b) enlightenment. We say that (a) refers to

(b) by being "of" (b). This leads to 2 problems:

 

Problem 1 - If there is an experience of enlightenment,

then some are, some are not.

=======================================================

Some experiences are of enlightenment, and some are not. So this brings up

the need for some kind of criterion, such as a feeling of oneness, or lack

of limitations, or bliss or expansion. The criterion is usually in terms

of a subjective state, and must come and go. What makes any one criterion

better than another? And in the case of *any* criterion, it means that

enlightenment as an experienced state also comes and goes. But the mystics

usually speak of something eternal and not coming and going.

 

Problem 2 - If there is an experience of enlightenment,

then enlightenment is outside the experience.

=========================================================

This is actually a more subtle problem, though more severe as well. If our

experience is "of" enlightenment, it means that enlightenment stands

outside the experience, being pointed to. The experience is one thing, the

enlightenment is another. This puts us always at arm's distance from

enlightenment. We can't get there from here.

 

But worse, if enlightenment stands outside of experience, it makes no sense

to talk about enlightenment. In general, we have no knowledge or no

evidence or no experience to talk about ANYTHING outside our experience.

There's no proof that anything outside of experience exists. Why? Because

even a logical or verbal proof to the contrary puts it in some sense IN our

experience, so it can never point to outside.

 

But we can't deny that experience appears, is seen. From this, we can tell

that we aren't the experience (because we're looking at it). Instead, we

are the seer of that experience, or THAT which is appeared to. We are that

which LIGHTS UP the experience.

 

In this way, all experience is the same, all is lit up by the light that we

are. Since the experience appears and disappears in this light, it is not

separate from this light. So all is light.

 

--Greg

 

Harsha: I like this Greg. Experience appears in the light of the Self and

disappears in the Self.