Daniel wrote,
> I disagree that any on the list are "fully awakened beyond words," but I
> chose to attack what I believe is the weakest link. While I do agree
> Mohammed founded a religion, I do not see that as all that enlightening or
> as evidence of being a total man -- in the conventional sense of the word.
As an enlightened master, Mohammed's intent was to help others to attain
enlightenment. Founding a religion has nothing to do with it, and may in fact
inhibit the movement toward enlightenment. Kabir (also on the list) definitely
did not found a religion. Nevertheless, his poetry remains enlightening.
> This is, at least, from my readings of the Koran and history. (I'm sure
> some will disagree here, but military conquest and the like do not seem like
> traits of enlightenment to me. Of course, in Nietzsche's sense, I can see
> how he would see this as part of being a "total man," given his views of
> natural virtues. However, it is just in this point that I think we must
> question Nietzsche.)
Although insightful and spiritually iconoclastic, Nietzsche was not enlightened.
> Now, if you mean by those terms, founders of new religions or of new
> philosphical movements, then, yeah, they all seem to fit, though that's not
> saying much. Why not put the pre-Socratics in there too, and the guy who
> founded Mormonism as well as Madame Blavatsky? (Of course, perhaps you do,
> since you had "et al." on your original list.)
Founding a religion most definitely does not constitute enlightenment. If you
really want to know about enlightenment, then you will meditate whenever you
can, for as long as you can, so that you can attain enlightenment. Then you will
know for yourself. Expressing opinions and exchanging speculation about
enlightenment are ways of postponing your own enlightenment.
You can call it enlightenment or nirvana or total awareness or self realization
or self actualization or cosmic consciousness or the crystallization of man's
harmonious development or samadhi or satori or choiceless awareness or
superconsciousness or the psychedelic experience or transcendence or the
beatitude or zen or dhyana or the peak of human experience or hypercognition or
any of the other ninety nine names of nothingness. My personal favorite is
superlative sentience. It simply means the direct experience of reality.
--J. R.
"Something beckons within the reach of each of us
to save heroic genius. Find it, and do it.
For as goes heroic genius, so goes humankind."
--Alligator Grundy, _Analects of Atman_
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