As a pathway to Enlightenment - Cogito ergo sum
We talk, read, write and listen as as means to achieve enlightenment - because we desire to be enlightened. Is this true?
I have no intention of pushing any particular agenda here and first I would like to look at ways enlightenment is viewed.
Enlightenment simply put is the action of enlightening or the state of being enlightened.
Another way to view enlightenment is as the action or state of attaining or having attained spiritual knowledge or insight, in particular (in Buddhism) that awareness which frees a person from the cycle of rebirth.
The Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent figures included Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.
Thank you google for your definitions.
So what exactly are we talking about here? I believe we are talking about a few things that have become confused over time and suffers from overproduced interpretations. I say this because of my experience arguing with people on such things as the real meaning of the yin and yang, Buddhist concepts as well as WE Westerners who value our individualism so highly as to become condescending to our fellow man - but I have seen this having of or showing an attitude of patronizing superiority evident in modern day interpretations of Eastern thought too.
However I do believe we desire to talk partially because we desire to be enlightened.
I personally have lost interest in any form of enlightenment - it has become somewhat boring to argue for me - I am certain that enlightenment is not supposed to be so bothersome and tiresome but rather free us of our bondage - yet so many people spend the better part of their lives arguing, fighting and acting like imbeciles in the name of enlightenment - so certain that their own view is the only view.
My suggestion is that most have trapped themselves rather than freed themselves of any burden . . .
. . . disparaging opinions abound . . .
āDouglas Adams jokingly theorized that if human beings donāt keep exercising their lips, their brains would start working. Thereās some truth in that since talking could very well, just by the overproduction of signifiers, be able to drown out the actual meaning or thought connected to the words. This would take one into the broader social theory that our society is overproducing reality and as such, is losing reality at the same pace. Signifier production (production of pure connection) here seen as part of the broader reality construction.ā
To reiterate:
With other people we can see the light;
by myself I can only see the dark.
With other people we can add purpose;
by my self I have none.
With other people I can find answers;
I alone can find none.
Society is an ocean;
I am but a wave.
As I stated previously it is quite likely that the real mission is: how to work out why this needs to be the case. We seek to define for ourselves an identity - we separate ourselves whether in isolation or in connection. We confine ourselves to our own ideals and feel threatened or enlightened when these ideals come into question - we then desire to talk, argue and agree.
I in turn look forward to more interaction - I am never in a rush - agreed newness takes time to cover.
To understand ultimate truth one need only sit in reality undisturbed by delusion, and there the nature of reality is present. Concept-clinging works mostly as a hindrance to insight. Take it away for even a few moments, a silent mind, and youāll immediately realize that thereās existence. Seriously, take a look around you, check the room, where is non-existence besides as shallow concept? What you know, the only thing anyone knows, is existence.
WendyDarling; Thank you for your insight and I hope you donāt mind the slight change:
āAs a being, I desire other beings to measure the worth of existence and without other beings, existence would be worthless.ā
I Speak, Therefore I Am - maybe?