UnbornTao

Enlightenment won't get you out of debt, cure cancer or prevent your wife from leaving you. It isn't an achievement. BUT, maybe your experience gets recontextualized, and you are able to detach yourself from them. As an analogy, you may recognize yourself as an actor in a play.

I'm not coming from that place. You think of enlightenment as something findable, as it if were a state and an experience. Personal beliefs and character traits are secondary when assessing a person's authenticity. What do you expect to hear? An answer is an answer, even if clever and intricate. A change in state can be blissful, such as feeling one with the universe. Enlightenment isn't a state, though, it doesn't "transforms" or "descends" upon you. Recontextualization bug :

I took it seriously although in the end it is just an interesting question to entertain. What makes you say that?

The money I'd pay if talking to Jesus and Buddha were possible. Got 50 bucks in my wallet.

"Everything you've got about enlightenment is bullshit", there's a valid point there. Enlightenment is not an experience. What thing descended on, and transformed, him? I've been looking precisely into this "nihilistic" phenomenon as it relates to this topic. When people hear that they don't and can't find themselves, they seem to react in two ways: "Who cares, then? What does that have to do with me?" And/or; They conclude that it is impossible So they get disillusioned and pursue something else. The good news: it is possible for you to become conscious of what's absolutely true because it is not separate from you. Keep contemplating and stay there.

Relationship, communication, listening, manipulation, honesty. Juicy topics for a video! @Leo Gura

Not an enlightenment -- at least by the description. A change of state likely.

You're speculating about what is going to happen based on hearsay whose presumed reality hasn't yet been experienced. If you are alone in the universe, who is that you you're speaking about? Contemplate that.

Mind is whatever it is. Can't transcend something you're not conscious of. And even then, I suspect it would still have a huge influence in your experience. Language, communication, knowledge, and understanding are part of mind; you'd be free from it but still using it. We must not confuse simplistic analogies with the reality of what we're talking about. So our job is to know what the mind is.

What does that mean? What is mystical and mystically gifted? What are the differences between these and awakening?

Oh okay, didn't read that.

I assumed that's what he meant, as whatever concepts you've got about it are only ideas and not true. By that definition, a lot of people know what it is.

We mean he isn't enlightened. Of course, almost everyone holds ideas about enlightenment but these are as useful as any other. I get the appeal, it can be entertaining.

Do you know who you are?

Not the person to ask those questions. Adyashanti, Rupert Spira, Eckhart Tolle are better for that.

You're not being sufficiently honest. Be clear about your experience. What are hate and judgement? Self-concerns might not relate to what's true. Honesty serves the truth, and what's true is independent from self. Whether it is painful or not has to do with your relationship to the truth, not it itself. Communication is getting across your experience and experiencing someone's else's exactly as it is for them. Intending to elicit a reaction in another is a manipulation, not honesty. Caution is caution. It requires perceiving the current event and responding appropriately. This doesn't mean lying nor withdrawing. Caution and honesty aren't mutually exclusive. You don't tell a stranger his face is ugly as you walk past him on the street because you see it is out of place, and this isn't lying.

I like it but what does that have to do with anger? If you want, look into anger itself before attributing external, superficial causes to it. Anyway, let's not derail the thread.

Don't know. Drop all that stuff and take an experiential look into anger yourself.

@Roy You sound angry.

Probably their healthiest form is boiled, though. I think deep frying mess up with your liver, among other things. Not a nutritionist though.

Better to take the metaphors as simplistic rhetoric -- weapon, dangerous. Truth is whatever is the case. How could that be a weapon or dangerous? To whom? You needn't tell someone that you think she is ugly and petty. It may also be true that you admire her and that you don't want to hurt others needlessly. Which one do you choose to say? Of course, you couldn't lie to her, saying you think she's beautiful and open. If asked, you'd have to tell her what you think or refuse the question. There are different ways to tell the truth. As social animals, caution is advised, as you say. A relationship might not allow for extreme levels of honesty, so in that case it is not called for and may cause unnecessary problems, which you don't want to cause. Communication has to be appropriate to the situation. Also, being honest isn't telling whatever is in your internal state at the moment, as that serves yourself rather than what's true. Notice we might not be clear on what underlies and motivates our experience, so we can become increasingly conscious and hence honest, about that. I might be mad at you but is that all? Why am I mad? I might discover hurt underlies the anger -- which is the case with anger. So I'd have to express the hurt rather than the anger. Keep in mind what and why you are communicating.

Being honest isn't the same as hurting others.

Why do you think metaphysical belief is needed? Nihilism is yet another strategy to boost one's ego. It's a way to justify one's own laziness and to think of oneself as more special than others. Belief is irrelevant and even antithetical when it comes to making discoveries. It is easy to fall into as it can give us a sense of certainty and security, which is fine as long as they're recognized as what they are. In the end, you don't need to believe in eggs in order to make an omelette. Or some such analogy. You may already hold a bunch of beliefs that are unnecessary; eliminating them increases one's curiosity and capacity to learn. Less belief also means more powerful contemplation! If a belief can influence our experience so much, imagine what it'd be like to experience something directly. You only need to be honest about your experience.

Depends on what you mean by awaken. It always begins with you getting clear on what something is. If not, how could you possibly help another? It'd be like the blind leading the blind. Part of the difficulty lies in how easy it is to deceive oneself about one's level of understanding.