RPGWW

So what IS enlightenment anyway? Yogis and monks strive to attain it, and allegedly do so by praying/meditating, etc. Various people yearn to achieve it, and attempt a wide range of techniques to do so. So what IS enlightenment? Do you think that there is a certain set method to achieving it? Why do you think people are so fascinated with it?

I don't think anyone is actually going to know what it is excatly until they actually, you know, achive it.

There. I got the obvious answer and the lame joke related to the question out of the way right off the bat. Don't say I never done nothin' fer yah.

If there was a set method to achieving it, then a great many more people would likely have done so. And, according to what I can understand of Zen philosophy, to understand enlightenment is to have achieved enlightenment. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

Enlightenment is enlightenment. Makes sense. By the way, I'm not here to tell people that they're wrong. I just want to understand what the general perception of it is. <p></p>

In my opinion, to be enlightened is to realize that everything must be ruled by logic. Here is my reasoning for saying that everything is ruled by logic:

Anything not ruled by logic will not behave logically. If something behaves logically, then it must be ruled by logic. If anything does not behave logically, then it must not be ruled by logic. However, if anything that is not ruled by logic does not behave logically, then it is following this logical rule and is, therefore, behaving logically. Therefore, to say that anything is not ruled by logic would be an absurdity.

And that's all there is to it.

To be clear, though, "enlightenment" is more a property of ideas than a property of people. An idea that is calculated logically is an enlightened idea, and an idea that is based on emotion is an unenlightened idea.

Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=seethe347>Seethe347</A] at: 9/26/05 6:44

Enlightenment!

And of course, anyone who claims they have achieved enlightenment probably hasn't. <p>-----
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Logical fallacy ad hominem!!!11!1

Not that I wasn't using circular reasoning by using logic to prove the validity of logic...

Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=seethe347>Seethe347</A] at: 9/26/05 23:32

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"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit and the emperor remains an emperor." -- Sandman "The Kindly Ones" </p>