/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18430585]

Gentlemen of /lit/, what is "Enlightenment", and what would be your recommending reading list for a person seeking it?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18432098]

>>18430585
It refers to when the working and poorer classes woke the fact that the king wasn’t ordained by god and that god wasn’t even real. They’d been fighting over interpretations of a shitty book full of fallacies and they going to model the world after something more sensible
Rousseau, Voltaire, Paine, Jefferson. Bunch of others.

[Anonymous No.18432271]

>>18432098
OP don't listen to this lepidopteran whore
If you seek enlightenment you must do, not read. Meditate everyday and ponder the most pressing question that currently infests your mind, attack it from every side, from the front, the rear, above, below, whatever. Turn it again until you have exhausted every possible answer and then ponder it some more. When you experience unity with the question, you will know intuitively that you can move on, that is enlightenment. Start now and go on for the rest of your life, the sooner you experience it the sooner you can move on to the next question to experience enlightenment again

[Anonymous No.18432325]

>>18430585
>what is "Enlightenment"
Intellectual understanding big Reality along with direct experience of same.
>what would be your recommending reading list for a person seeking it?
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA
THE ZEN TEACHING OF HUANG PO
THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS
SEX AND CHARACTER
THE TAO TE CHING
THE GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA
THE CANONICAL GOSPELS
STAGES ON LIFE'S WAY
SOREN KIERKEGAARD'S JOURNALS AND NOTEBOOKS

[Anonymous No.18432645]

>>18432098
Why are you so spiteful?

[Anonymous No.18432675]

[Anonymous No.18432681]

All I can say is some doors are better left unopened.

[Anonymous No.18432859]

>>18430585
>and what would be your recommending reading list for a person seeking it?

https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

[Anonymous No.18434511]

>>18432098
>myopic interpretation of history
>enlightenment

[Anonymous No.18434539]

>>18430585
Read Plato's complete works, the Enneads and the Corpus Hermeticum.

[Anonymous No.18434567]

>>18430585

[Anonymous No.18434584]

[Anonymous No.18434594]

[Anonymous No.18434723]

>>18430585
Enlightenment is directly experiencing union of the limited self with the universal self. A good book to start with in The Crest Jewel of Discrimination.

[Anonymous No.18434741]

Go sit under a tree

[Anonymous No.18434836]

>>18430585
When lightlets hit surfaces they bounce back by Allah's Will, which makes it so that the surface becomes visible. This is what is called "Enlightenment".

Or for an alternative answer: Enlightenment is one's having the courage to think for himself. It is trusting one's own understanding instead of hiding behind the dogmas and formulas of others.

[Anonymous No.18434900]

Enlightenment is just understanding your purpose in the truest sense possible, not distracted from external forces trying to convince you of a belief, just you being connected with yourself and nature as an entity whatever that may be. Making a chart or recommended list is pointless, this depends on the individual heavily. All you can do is pursue what naturally interests you and let chips fall where they may. Only thing you should read is what impedes self actualization if you dont know them already, and attain a sense of wisdom but again that can’t be attained from reading some list of books, you really have to go out and live and see what helps you gain that wisdom the best. Some people learn the lesson of not having many material possessions through religions some have to learn through life experience. Not bashing any of the recs the anons here made, if they interest you please read what they listed but one works for one person can mislead another person down the completely wrong route.

[Anonymous No.18435008]

>>18434900
Also OP I know I was wordy but you must understand it, stay away from people clearly trying to mold you into their image or people trying to indoctrinate you. Easy example is society and politics pushing you to be in a certain role by making other roles seem undesirable. If you honestly want to be a professional bum go do it, something that “enlightened” individuals all share in common is they didnt compromise for the comfort of what society offered and they usually became hermits for that reason. But seriously stay away from those people they are poison and stay away from people who talk to much

[Anonymous No.18435802]

>>18434511
Nah thats pretty much correct. Everyone was all "oh no science proves god doesn't real that means the king is fake" and then they wrote a bunch of shit books as cope.

[Anonymous No.18435821]

>>18430585
It's the biggest cope mankind has ever contrived. You can sit cross-legged under a tree like a gay faggot all day long but you'll never reach enlightenment because it doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.18435911]

>>18435821
>you'll never reach enlightenment because it doesn't exist.
How do you know this?

[Anonymous No.18435934]

>>18435911
The same way I know the loch ness monster, Zeus, and faeries don't exist: there is no evidence. Ask a thousand different spiritualists what "enlightenment" is and you'll get a thousand different, contradictory answers. Since most of these people define enlightenment as a psychological/spiritual phenomenon there is no real way to measure it anyways.

[Anonymous No.18435935]

stupid tricks that white guys fall for

[Anonymous No.18435960]

>>18435934
Thinking that it's not real if you can't measure it is one of the greatest pieces of damnable nonsense out there. You're the dupe.

[Anonymous No.18435966]

Start with the 'Jeets

[Anonymous No.18435972]

>>18430585
guaranteed nobody in 4chan is enlightened. We're all sour grapes over true enlightenment

[Anonymous No.18435988]

>>18430585
Sit under a tree until you either starve to death or become enlightened, possibly both

[Anonymous No.18436014]

>>18435934

Absence of Evidence is not evidence of absence.
The question is how likely is the thing?
If the story goes Santa Clause lives in the north pole, and we scoured the North Pole and found no trace of him, it seems unlikely he is real.

What about God? How do you determine the likelihood of God? Where do you search for signs and are they any indications of his existence?

Well, a Transcendent Spiritual Entity would not take residence in the material plane, but he could leave a trace of his activities.

It comes down to Intelligent Design and First Cause.
There actually is strong evidence of ID in the fine-tuning argument of astrophysics.
As for First Cause, we now have the Big Bang which is congruent with the original interpretation of a creation event (like the kind you would find in Darwin's Time).

What if the universe is self-caused? Well, the universe contains no reason for its existence within itself. There is no evidence of this. Is this not also a dubious proposition?
And what of God? If he is Absolute Existence then that does contain the reason for its existence within itself. So technically it is a stronger explanation for the occurrence of the universe.

The existence of a Creator seems rather likely to me.

[FBI Agent McGuire No.18436028]

>>18434584
>>18434594
you shouldn't have posted this

[Anonymous No.18436052]

>>18430585
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!

[Anonymous No.18436059]

>>18436052
Yes we're such a mature species now as we're being plunged directly into the abyss. Great thinking Kant

[Anonymous No.18436090]

>>18436014
>What about God? How do you determine the likelihood of God? Where do you search for signs and are they any indications of his existence?

not him

There's this apocryphal Gagarin quote
"I looked and looked but I didn't see God."
to which Benedict XVI answered (only 40 years later)
"Dude you can't find god in the sky lmao"
Despite the fact that the cat*olic church literally stated this for centuries.

[Anonymous No.18436109]

>>18436059
Are we now living in an enlightened age? the answer is, No, but we live in an age of enlightenment. As matters now stand it is still far from true that men are already capable of using their own reason confidently and correctly without external guidance. Still, we have some obvious indications that the field of working toward the goal is now opened. What is more, the hindrances against general enlightenment or the emergence from self-imposed immaturity are gradually diminishing.

[Anonymous No.18436138]

>>18436052
This is why the COVID "vaccine" programme is the best eugenics programme ever. It specifically targets the unenlighted for euthanasia

[Anonymous No.18436142]

>>18435972
I am enlightened.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18436235]

>>18434511
That’s not myopia, that simply brief.

>>18432645
You imagine things
The poster below it slandered me. Question his spite!

[Anonymous No.18436913]

>>18430585
I'm natty state ama

[Anonymous No.18437389]

>>18434584
>>18434594
QRD?

[Anonymous No.18437462]

>>18432098
What an immensely retarded post.

[Anonymous No.18437474]

>>18430585
Enlightenment is the cessation of sensory experience and the illusion of separation that coincides with it.
You can get it by fasting for 3 days and meditating the whole time.
No shit, man, it works.