enlightenment?! another definition (the best)

The title is provocative to catch your attention, this is just an opinion neither better or worst than others around
So many different views about enlightenment....
For me it is a way of living, its turning a negative situation, a negative habit or tendency into a positive one.
Where we did bad in the past we correct ourselves and start doing good. Its a path of evolution of our actions, its doing better and better, more intelligent, more ethical, more strong, more sensitive, more brave, more aware, more compassionate, in a word: better
You are illuminating the dark side of your personality, you are evolving.
You need a lot of lives, you need to incarnate a lot of characters, a lot of different bodies, a lot of experience, to know how it is to do bad, to do good, and then be able to transform yourself through all this intense and diverse living, bettering who you are.
This my dear friends is my enlightenment, its not meditation into the white light, or a blissful state, that is escapism, that is pleasure, that is a pause but it can also be enlightenment if it means that you are correcting something about yourself, if it represents healing your wounds.
To summarize, enlightenment is bettering yourself through experience and actions, its transforming who you are from life experiences raising your wisdom. It requires awareness, especially self awareness.
Know yourself and correct yourself from life experiences, this is my definition of enlightenment.
It requires strong will and constant effort, you are conquering yourself, but it pays off big time, i recommend it strongly

Your thoughts?

Cheers

reply to post by Manula


Without ego-death and rebirth, there is no enlightenment.

reply to post by Manula


Very Nietzschean description of enlightenment, but better than any of the false hopes put forth by the poetic light-bringers. Self-mastery is obviously enlightenment. Well done.

Its a cabalistic point of view but i truly agree with it.

reply to post by BlueMule


Ego is what? So many definitions... The need to be better than other people? Because i am unique, there is only one like me, i believe in unity in diversity, everybody is unique, but we are one and no one is better or worst than the other. But bettering yourself needs your attention to your own actions, it needs self awareness.

Originally posted by Manula
reply to post by BlueMule

 

Ego is what? So many definitions... The need to be better than other people? Because i am unique, there is only one like me, i believe in unity in diversity, everybody is unique, but we are one and no one is better or worst than the other. But bettering yourself needs your attention to your own actions, it needs self awareness.

Ego-death

“Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground. Just so, there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother sea or reservoir.” -William James

To undergo ego-death and rebirth is to hop over that fence and plunge into that mother sea and come out enlightened. It's a mystical experience of transformation. Pretty words about diverse living and life experiences are no substitute for that, my friend.

reply to post by BlueMule


You think that feeling the unity of all life is enough? Do you think it completes your evolution as an ongoing soul?
I have felt it, especially in a guided meditation, i was up there in the light, i felt pure bliss like i have never felt before or after but i am still very far from complete...
I still have a lot to better, staying in control of my emotions for example...

Originally posted by Manula
reply to post by BlueMule

 

You think that feeling the unity of all life is enough? Do you think it completes your evolution as an ongoing soul?
I have felt it, especially in a guided meditation, i was up there in the light, i felt pure bliss like i have never felt before or after but i am still very far from complete...
I still have a lot to better, staying in control of my emotions for example...

Only you know for yourself if you have undergone the necessary mystical transformations. I wouldn't say it's enough, just as being born into this world is not enough but its necessary. After birth comes learning to cry, walk, run, fly.

reply to post by BlueMule


What i meant is that the path is not that simple, its not just a feeling of unity, and it doesn't have to be mystical. Suppose you used to be nervous all the time and you learned to keep yourself calm and cool, you enlightened that dark part of yourself. Its simple, no mystical, but very lightish nevertheless.

Originally posted by Manula
reply to post by BlueMule

 

What i meant is that the path is not that simple, its not just a feeling of unity, and it doesn't have to be mystical. Suppose you used to be nervous all the time and you learned to keep yourself calm and cool, you enlightened that dark part of yourself. Its simple, no mystical, but very lightish nevertheless.

I would call that a bit of healing, not enlightenment.

I've studied comparative mysticism for years, and so I have a rather rigid conception of mysticism rooted in scholarship and in personal experience, so I am insistent that enlightenment without mystical experiences of transformation is not enlightenment. It's something else.

reply to post by BlueMule


I get it but are you aware of the cabalistic view of enlightenment? it is centuries old, their view is my view.
They say men comes from darkness and his job is to make light in order to learn how to create light and the way you make light is by resisting your dark tendencies, and doing something positive. Darkness is lack of awareness, this lack of awareness will make you do negative stupid things, and when you finally break through it, you start doing good, you are making light. You are creating good energy out of negative energy, because when you do good you are irradiating positive energy and that is when you make light, when you turn negative energy into positive. Alchemist try the same. The miracle of transformation, from sinner to saint (in religion)