As pointed out enlightenment cannot be described in words. If anyone does so and claims to have explained enlightenment this is proof that they do not know it. I don't see anything clever or misleading in this - it's possible. We have many things that have words but those words fail to explain the thing fully.

Anthony de Mello explains it best for me - you cannot explain the colour green to someone who is, and has always been, blind. You can use some words that come close but that person will never fully comprehend it until he has sight.

So it goes with enlightenment, and when you achieve it you will realise that it cannot be explained to someone because they are still like the blind man. However you can give pointers and ideas of the way to enlightenment in words but that is the limit of words.

There is ZERO consolation in believing existence to be an illusion

I think this is a misunderstanding, it took me a long time to get my head round this (if I have at all). Existence is not an illusion, it is reality. The labels, emotions, judgements and feelings we give to reality are the illusion.

A person is not good or bad, a person is (reality). A person becomes bad because some people judge them as such but that person is only bad to that group of people. To others that person may be good. Whenever there is such a situation you know you are looking at the illusion.

Part of enlightenment is simply being aware of reality and illusion in every situation. You don't avoid illusion. You can be part of illusion but you know it is illusion...

In the Orient there are plenty of schools and teachings which attend the different needs and temperaments of seekers of enlightenment. That they seem rarely able to cover the needs of Occidental seekers, is mainly because latter are mostly subject to Dualism, respective rationalism and intellectual feedback mechanism. That is not to say that eastern students do not use intellectual techniques, but they are taught how far to utilise them (which is not all the way to the beginning), whereas western thinkers think that they have to think all the way to the end, and thus often wind up in the trap voiced by Descartes (which some of them call enlightenment too)

In the Orient there are plenty of schools and teachings which attend the different needs and temperaments of seekers of enlightenment. That they seem rarely able to cover the needs of Occidental seekers, is mainly because latter are mostly subject to Dualism, respective rationalism and intellectual feedback mechanism. That is not to say that eastern students do not use intellectual techniques, but they are taught how far to utilise them (which is not all the way to the beginning), whereas western thinkers think that they have to think all the way to the end, and thus often wind up in the trap voiced by Descartes (which some of them call enlightenment too)

As pointed out enlightenment cannot be described in words. If anyone does so and claims to have explained enlightenment this is proof that they do not know it. I don't see anything clever or misleading in this - it's possible. We have many things that have words but those words fail to explain the thing fully.

Anthony de Mello explains it best for me - you cannot explain the colour green to someone who is, and has always been, blind. You can use some words that come close but that person will never fully comprehend it until he has sight.

So it goes with enlightenment, and when you achieve it you will realise that it cannot be explained to someone because they are still like the blind man. However you can give pointers and ideas of the way to enlightenment in words but that is the limit of words.

There is ZERO consolation in believing existence to be an illusion

I think this is a misunderstanding, it took me a long time to get my head round this (if I have at all). Existence is not an illusion, it is reality. The labels, emotions, judgements and feelings we give to reality are the illusion.

A person is not good or bad, a person is (reality). A person becomes bad because some people judge them as such but that person is only bad to that group of people. To others that person may be good. Whenever there is such a situation you know you are looking at the illusion.

Part of enlightenment is simply being aware of reality and illusion in every situation. You don't avoid illusion. You can be part of illusion but you know it is illusion...

I like most of the above but I see those ideas as just wisdom, without need of status-based faux destinations like "enlightenment". There is a notion that "the lights come on" but that can either be sudden third-person realisation or a creeping third person perspective. Basically, it's about breaking out of our solipsist bubble, trying to see reality from broader perspectives - the scientific method applied to subjectivity.

As pointed out enlightenment cannot be described in words. If anyone does so and claims to have explained enlightenment this is proof that they do not know it. I don't see anything clever or misleading in this - it's possible. We have many things that have words but those words fail to explain the thing fully.

Anthony de Mello explains it best for me - you cannot explain the colour green to someone who is, and has always been, blind. You can use some words that come close but that person will never fully comprehend it until he has sight.

So it goes with enlightenment, and when you achieve it you will realise that it cannot be explained to someone because they are still like the blind man. However you can give pointers and ideas of the way to enlightenment in words but that is the limit of words.

There is ZERO consolation in believing existence to be an illusion

I think this is a misunderstanding, it took me a long time to get my head round this (if I have at all). Existence is not an illusion, it is reality. The labels, emotions, judgements and feelings we give to reality are the illusion.

A person is not good or bad, a person is (reality). A person becomes bad because some people judge them as such but that person is only bad to that group of people. To others that person may be good. Whenever there is such a situation you know you are looking at the illusion.

Part of enlightenment is simply being aware of reality and illusion in every situation. You don't avoid illusion. You can be part of illusion but you know it is illusion...

Good post.

Although I don't agree that just because someone attempts to put it into word means they don't know. I can't accept that, people can still know and also try and put that knowing into words... not that they will ever succeed because enlightenment contradicts itself, enlightenment simply means no one ever gets enlightened, simply because there is no one, and that is what enlightenment is, knowing you don't know anything.

Although I don't agree that just because someone attempts to put it into word means they don't know. I can't accept that, people can still know and also try and put that knowing into words... not that they will ever succeed because enlightenment contradicts itself, enlightenment simply means no one ever gets enlightened, simply because there is no one, and that is what enlightenment is, knowing you don't know anything.

No, enlightenment is knowing that you are part of something greater, not knowing that you don't exist or that you don't know anything.

Does the fact that I tried to express enlightenment in words mean that I really don't know? - probably.

No, enlightenment is knowing that you are part of something greater, not knowing that you don't exist or that you don't know anything.

I disagree, there is no way of knowing you are a part of something greater, that is knowledge within the dream of separation. To know anything is to have knowledge which is illusory, knowledge informs what is illusory. Life is this immediate Not Knowing Known.

Although I don't agree that just because someone attempts to put it into word means they don't know. I can't accept that, people can still know and also try and put that knowing into words... not that they will ever succeed because enlightenment contradicts itself, enlightenment simply means no one ever gets enlightened, simply because there is no one, and that is what enlightenment is, knowing you don't know anything.

But why would you spend your days trying to explain green to a blind man? The wise man doesn't. Instead he looks for a way to restore the blind man's sight.

The fact that you have tried to describe enlightenment in words and several others have chimed in with "No, its not that, its this" shows the futility of it. You may as well get 10 people in a room all arguing how to explain green to a blind person.

No, words can show you the path to enlightenment. No more than that. Don't explain green to a blind man. Restore his sight and then he will comprehend green and also understand that it can never be explained in words. This man who can now see green will not go to a group of blind people and try telling them what the colour green is because he knows, more clearly than others, that it cannot be done.

Don't explain green to a blind man. Restore his sight and then he will comprehend green and also understand that it can never be explained in words. This man who can now see green will not go to a group of blind people and try telling them what the colour green is because he knows, more clearly than others, that it cannot be done.

No colour has ever been seen.
Colour is an idea.

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Restoring sight to that which only exists as an idea and is essentially blind as a bat, and has about as much reality as a mirage, is a futile idea. But the idea sounds pretty convincing enough.

Restoring sight to that which only exists as an idea and is essentially blind as a bat, and has about as much reality as a mirage, is a futile idea. But the idea sounds pretty convincing enough.

Bats are not blind, that idea is as incorrect as the rest of your post.

It was a figure of speech, I know they are not blind.

As for the post being incorrect, well not exactly incorrect, it depends on how one is able to directly see the seer, you're evaluation of what has been stated is also incorrect because life has not evolved that understanding in you yet.

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To reiterate then... no colour has ever been seen - colour is an idea known by not-knowing.

To see colour would require a seer to be separate from the seen colour. No thing is separate from what's looking at it, what's seen is what's known, what's seeing is unknown.