Monday, May 15, 2006
What is Enlightenment? What is Sanity?
I can't really answer this question since I am not Enlightened, but I will try . I am really trying to answer Imemine's argument about the supposed danger of either becoming Enlightened or becoming insane when trying to "attain" Enlightenment. One way of looking at Enlightenment is that it is a process whereby a human being becomes totally sane. Through psychological suffering, a self realization occurs and one awakens into complete and total sanity. By this definition and implication, almost everyone on the planet is insane to one degree or another.
"If you talk to God, that's okay, but if God talks to you, you're psychotic."
Greg House, M.D. (fictional character)
What's the difference between "God", or actually "God's" voice, talking to you and a small "voice" in your head talking to you? The difference is in degree. The former is a serious psychotic break with Reality and the latter is the "thinker" that everyone hears in their head - the Egoic mind. The latter is so commonplace that people mistake it for being "normal". So, if someone loses the voice in their head completely; totally loses those egoic mind patterns and the voice, then by everyone else's opinion that person is "different". In the East, he may be a Zen Master, or Buddha, and revered as a spiritual teacher. In the West, if he's lucky, he's a Saint. If he's unlucky, he'll be put to death like Jesus. A person has a choice, stay as you are, an animal with an Egoic mind, or become an animal with a better mind, an Enlightened mind. If you choose the Egoic mind, you risk insanity or suicide. If you choose Enlightenment, you choose sanity and peace - an end to psychological suffering. Therefore, there is no danger in choosing to become Enlightened; that the process will result in insanity. The danger lies in the fact that everyone around you will label you as insane when you are more sane than they are.
"If you talk to God, that's okay, but if God talks to you, you're psychotic."
Greg House, M.D. (fictional character)
What's the difference between "God", or actually "God's" voice, talking to you and a small "voice" in your head talking to you? The difference is in degree. The former is a serious psychotic break with Reality and the latter is the "thinker" that everyone hears in their head - the Egoic mind. The latter is so commonplace that people mistake it for being "normal". So, if someone loses the voice in their head completely; totally loses those egoic mind patterns and the voice, then by everyone else's opinion that person is "different". In the East, he may be a Zen Master, or Buddha, and revered as a spiritual teacher. In the West, if he's lucky, he's a Saint. If he's unlucky, he'll be put to death like Jesus. A person has a choice, stay as you are, an animal with an Egoic mind, or become an animal with a better mind, an Enlightened mind. If you choose the Egoic mind, you risk insanity or suicide. If you choose Enlightenment, you choose sanity and peace - an end to psychological suffering. Therefore, there is no danger in choosing to become Enlightened; that the process will result in insanity. The danger lies in the fact that everyone around you will label you as insane when you are more sane than they are.
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Insane or not, I talk to Him, and He talks to me, He hurries off though, I can't get Him to stay and chitchat. He is there just like in the Jacob wrestling with the Angel (Who was G-d) story, early in the mornings, before sunup, and He won't stay, says what He wants to say, and is gone. Now I don't think a thing about that, not abnormal in the least to me. I get some very good and useful information that way. And it doesn't mean that I have any unusual opinion about myself, it just is, like being.
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