A question.

Opinions?

For me, Enlightenment is the full realization of who and want you really are with the mind being free from all of its shackles....here, beyond that I can't say much more except I know you have to clear out your own personal closet that you've gained over time before you can go down that route.

To me, it's about getting light-er as in not heavy, it's not about worshiping the light or receiving light, nobody can give you enlightenment, but if you want the light then you might have to have the opposite in darkness (day&night) and probably end up praying to celestial objects and other artifacts like the Sun, Moon, Venus, Saturn "EL" or even volcanoes, yeah I know it sounds funny but if people are going to do it then at least know to what it's derived from.

Good point.

The europeans get a kick out the whole enlightenment thing, fancy themselves after a white light but relate it to their pigmentless selves.

Someone asked this question on another forum a word that gets thrown around without any specific meaning attached to it.

Are you talking enlightenment in a religious sense or about the intellectual movement of the 18th Century?

Lets go for both.

Given their connection you can hardly seperate, religion and the enlightenment theories...Sorry, I realise I should have wrote 'spiritual sense' Like many people I often confuse the two terms...

I guess there should be no confussion on what enlightenment in the political sense means.

I would argue from a spiritual sense, it is whatever you want it to mean.

the question of enlightenment? A vexing question indeed. Enlightenment?

enlightenment of the mind? of the soul? Since almost all of us in this day and age are born in the dark, i.e withouth knowledge, full of dogma, theology, isms, images of God in our heads as children as a man like us not to mention the 'education' & media which add on to our darkness.

In Buddhism for example Gautama (the buddha) was called the enlightened one or the awakened one. Awake to the realities/truth which most can no longer see.

Enlightenment therefore through my own lifes experience would be found through rejection of ourselves and our way of thinking and rejection of dogmas and religious interpretations of events and a repeated cyclye of searching for knowledge and rejecting oneself more and more until a point when you are far away from the person you used to be, away from the darkness that used to rule over your mind for how can the soul be free if the mind is not free? The mind cannot be enlightened whilst the soul is not and vice versa because if one is in the light or pursuing the light and one is not they become antagonistic and fight and wear you down but thats all a path to enlightenment. Being able to know what is knowledge and what is not is also a measure of enlightenment.

I beleive religion is antagonistic to enlightenment because religion takes over your mind whilst keeping your soul dormant.

In my journey, I'm no longer religious, I was a born and bread Catholic even went to a mission school, then I rejected Christianity and trod the Rastafari path but then I realised how can I truly be a rasta when rastafari teachings are based on the old testament of the bible and I dont believe the theology of the bible. Then I rejected religion completely and tried to be a Muslim after Malcom X's life influenced me then I saw the religions are all the same -ways to conquer your mind with isms whilst keeping your soul dormant.


Let me quote Herbert Chitepo who in an epic poem of searching for spiritual peace in tragic times wrote, "We blind wanderers, as blind men let us walk, let us walk and be humble in the darkness which is before us wither we go, the darkness which is behind whence we have come. God alone is the light."

Mankind in ancient times was one with God, through greed and envy became seperate from him (duality) and since then every man and woman on the face of the earth subconsciously seeks that oneness again with God, and this ultimately is the enlightenment all humanity seeks, some vent the frustration through various forms of study and some accept religion as a false solace. That's why everyone eveyone who is religious does not have complete faith yet keeps on praying for it and using prayer as a session with a shrink, the soul will never let you completely believe in what is false, but through years on institutionaliation and media and church or mosque going the mind fights the soul and makes it quiet and dormant, thats why Africans(all black people whether caribbean or straight from Africa) who seek enlightenment usually look upon ancient civilisations and symbols, before religion reigned and adopt those beleifs as a way to enlightemnent but that too is temporary solace because God and truth are not only in the past, they are nearby too, a Zimbabwean proverb says 'gore rimwe hariuyi pakabva rimwe' - 'a new year does not dawn where another year once dawned' as a teaching to show us it is foolish to live yearning for the past and trying to go back to times that have passed ... Imagine how foolish it would have been for those we envy who lived before the white man plundered Africa spend all their time an energy trying to be like those who lived even before them. Enlightenment eludes many, including myself because we (usually black people) search for it in the past and are blind to it in the present.



Enlightenment therefore is when mind and soul awaken and transcend are in union with the love and life of God. In this state of mind one can not be easily deceived or angered and soul has so much power there is no need to resolve conficts by physical means, when one is enlightened a whole army bring about no fear. Enlightenment as well is when questions do not bring about strife and agony and the pain and struggle of searching seem to halt because Gods wisdom anwers all, it seems like being stagnat but its not ... thats when you not only make strides but glide and rise and see above all in your life. Its not limited to states of meditation like some buddhists who are enlightened only in sates of meditation and thinking, enlightenment is in life and living and the knowledge and truth make us as light as a feather in mind, no need for the meditations or the all night prayers, God is the only light and enLIGHTenment is us trying to be one again with God.

Prisoner; you have me a little confused, on the one hand, you speak of rejection of the theisms, but on the other, you speak of oneness with God. So does that mean that you reject organized religion but embrace the God that organized religion claims to believe in? If so, how do you envision this God (his attributes and purpose).

Even though you seem to reject the Jainist, Buddhist, etc. your path seems motivated by the same rejection of White religious thought. Can you say what exactly it is about White religious thought that you do not like?
I'm not trying to trap you, it's an earnest question.

I envision God as my creator and the creator of nature, the earth, the one who cannot be refered to as he or she but just God. Our creator cannot be thought of as man but amongst other things as the giver of life which is spirit, the one our souls seek during the path of our lives because greed, sin, hatred and desire has seperated us from God. N.B I will not refer to God as him (God) or Her. God also must have transended before the existence of time as our thoughts are limited to the limits of time so we cannot understand the origin of God.

Again it pushes me to one thing I have realised in life that LANGUAGE is a major barrier between us and truth & light & freedom because if one thinks of God interpreting in english lingua often the answers and solutions of the questions one has about the creator often elude the thinker, i.e from an African point of view, thats why in some areas of Africa, colonisation abolished the native tounges. One ends up caught up in philosophical thought patterns brought about through 'education' in western languages because the moment one begins to think philosophies and theories of others pour into their mind and if they think in english/french etc opinions by those who expressed themselves in these languages appear to them in the conscious and sub-conscious to affect their conclusion, this is why one often has to un-educate themselves to seek truth.


The creator shall not save me through the soul of another man because throuh our creator alone all things are found.

to be spiritually aware/informed and active...

Do WE need our own version of 'Enlightenment' (in the 18thC movement sense)?