Enlightenmentville

The way most people talk about enlightenment and waking up and liberation, you'd think it was some sort of "fog" that descends upon them ("Who knows why, who knows how?"); things apparently change for them - to hear them tell it, which they do tell, to anybody and everybody who'll listen, even seeking out others to listen to their story - but they can not detail what those changes are, precisely.



It's kind of like getting hit in the head with a ball-peen hammer - suddenly they're seeing stars (and angels and gods) and hearing voices (and angels singing and gods commanding) and, when they finally come down (come to) - which they almost always do, if the shock doesn't kill them, or leave them a candidate for the state asylum - they refer to the "experience" as being touched by god, and etc., etc., as if that explains anything. Flowery descriptions about doors opening, and "stepping into perfection", and suddenly "knowing the mystic language", and "lights being passed", does not explain enlightenment, anymore than "moving up the corporate ladder", explains the sexual urges of antelopes.



Before enlightenment - dumb as dirt about enlightenment.

After enlightenment - still, dumb as dirt about enlightenment.

(The "before enlightenment" crowd might tend to agree, the "after enlightenment" crowd would tend to not agree... surprise, surprise.)



Maybe there's much more to, what people refer to as, "enlightenment", than what even those same people who talk about it the most (and say "I am, most emphatically, I am! Let me tell you my story. Have you read my book?") understand, he said, most suggestively.



Suggestion number two:

Conscious observation of what is going in the nervous system at the time of the passage of energy through the device often referred to as, the mind, or even just, the brain, reveals that practically (operationally) all thought occurs in a very specific place in the nervous system, and also, that it CAN occur (though never does, yet) in other parts of the nervous system previously not "awakened", as in, not activated.



Suggestion number three:

Careful attention upon the flow of energy at the time of passage, reveals that the flow can be "diverted" (as it were), into new parts of the nervous system, heretofore unfed by such enriched energy, due to the continuous mechanical bleeding off of that energy, into "me", "I".



Suggestion number four:

Enlightenment without Understanding, is at "best", accidental, and at "worst", not enlightenment at all, but imagination - more dreams - or simply the sometimes strong memory of getting outside Time for a moment or two, but bringing nothing back. What happens next is the mechanical acquisition of descriptions (both from prior memories of books read, and sometimes reading new books) to "explain" what happened, but as "satisfying" as they may appear to be, they are neither fully satisfying nor proper explanations.