The Quest for Enlightenment

[Riku Aotsuki]

Is anyone here, other than myself, on this path? Even better, if you are, do you know what it really is, this path we walk? If you don't know, I can help, to an extent. So, are any seekers of Enlightenment here?This isn't intended to be a religion thread, so please don't make it one.
I leave you now with this: If you meet the Buddha on the path, kill him and move on.

[Sij]

To be truly enlightened is to be devoid of any and all programming. To walk your own path as a true individual and do as you please and evolve as a person.

In a way I can say that I am already enlightened. But the truth is I'm not yet. So although our end goals may be different I think that way may follow a very similar path.

[Riku Aotsuki]

It is strange. Enlightenment is full realization of truth in its purest form, which, yes, does destroy the programming in the human mechanism. Many who succeed fade away, unable to continue putting energy into the ego. Buddhism teaches compassion to compensate for the detachment that arrives with enlightenment. But to know what it is, and even to know that truth, you aren't done. Everything you attach yourself to spiritually gets in the way. "Seen not to follow in the footsteps of the enlightened. Seek what they sought." You cannot follow the path of another. And at some point, if you're going the right direction, a spark will ignite. The Great Conflagration, The Beheading, call it what you will. It is the point from which you cannot turn back. It will destroy you.


Naturally, the truly enlighten often say that no one should seek enlightenment unless the need to stop being and living a lie will destroy them otherwise...


So there's that. Are we enlightened? I don't know. The First Step, the spark of the Conflagration? I don't doubt it.

[anoni]

  What is Enlightenment? The search for the answers? Ones purpose in life? Maybe it's the very programming, that you believe you should try and destroy, that will be the source of the Enlightenment. As a program cannot be defined without it's code, maybe us as a human, or consciousness, cannot be defined without our own code. Maybe our purpose is to carry on the intangible memory of our ancestors and our environment, to run the program that has so eagerly been assigned to us, that we are all programs of a machine, the machine of society. Maybe your Enlightenment can come from the discovery that we are part of this machine? That our code has been assigned, the machine is our reality and as we help define the machine, our reality is influenced by ourselves. We are the ones who create our own role, our own purpose, we are the part of the machine that adds to the machine in our own way, in any way. That our purpose is defined by ourselves, to build something greater, composed of thousands of peoples own determinations. Maybe the reality is we make our own purpose.

[Sij]

Its funny because enlightenment truly has no true definition. Enlightenment, just like life is exactly what you believe it to be.

[Riku Aotsuki]

Of course, it depends on what form of enlightenment, too. If you seek the same Enlightenment that Siddharta Guatama did, it's the core truth of reality.