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Article #22: What is Enlightenment

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Andrew Cohen has a magazine with this degree is at the core of a human being.
title. He claimed that he was enlightened During it, time stops. I would have a
but said that he had doubts about it all feeling of eternal peace while feeling
the time. So his definition of it it. Eternal is a powerful word, but it
included having doubts about himself. I was a renowned psychologist whose book
am certain that I am not enlightened and describes the flow as absolute. When you
have no doubts about it. But I am also feel it, you know that it is the secret
certain about what enlightenment is. It of life or the meaning of life. It is
is available to practically every person, supreme. It is being one with the
but it is optional. This article could universe. So I would think about how if I
also be called East Meets West. could play volleyball all the time,
In psychology, they have the flow without stopping, for the rest of
experience. There are a few books on it eternity, then I would be really happy.
like, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Of course that is impossible. But it can
Experience (© 1990) by Dr. Mihaly be felt while doing nothing at all.
Csikszentmihalyi (last name pronounced Millions of people around the world do
"cheeks sent me high"). Dr. Seligman meditation where they are doing nothing
(former president of the American at all, physically.
Psychological Association) calls him "one A Harvard Medical School professor
towering figure in the social sciences." (Herbert Benson, M.D.) has written a
The first line of this book says classic book on meditation called The
"Twenty-three hundred years ago Aristotle Relaxation Response (1975) which is now
concluded that, more than anything else, being taught in many medical schools.
men and women seek happiness." Meditation creates a unique physiological
In his book, Authentic Happiness (2003), state where your breathing and heartbeat
Dr. Seligman (author of a dozen books on are slower than when you are sleeping.
psychology) describes the flow experience This book teaches that the very purpose
like this: "When does time stop for you? of technology is to make life easier so
When do you find yourself doing exactly that people will experience less stress.
what you want to be doing, and never But it explains that it is not working
wanting it to end? Is it painting, or since people are now feeling more stress
making love, or playing volleyball, or than ever before. So enlightenment is the
talking before a group, or rock climbing, ultimate state that a human can achieve.
or listening sympathetically to someone An enlightened person is someone who is
else's troubles?" in the flow experience to the infinite
The back of the book, Flow, says "These degree all the time. This is
investigations have revealed that what enlightenment
makes experience genuinely satisfying is If those ancient scriptures are correct,
a state of consciousness called flow-- a then you will be feeling that infinite
state of concentration so focused that it feeling the next time you go to sleep
amounts to absolute absorption in an even though you do not remember it when
activity." Absolute is a mighty powerful you wake up. Several years ago, the
word. It is used to describe God. People singer Mariah Carey had a nervous
can experience the flow at different breakdown and she said that it was due to
degrees. I would play volleyball for lack of sleep. Some people have asked if
hours and feel it during the whole time someone could be enlightened and not know
but at different degrees. Sometimes for a it. So you can see from the above that
few minutes I would experience the flow there is no doubt at all that you would
experience to the infinite degree. This know it if you were enlightened. I would
is the greatest thing that a human being also read non-fiction books for hours
can feel. since I would feel the flow experience,
A woman had a near death experience and but not to the infinite degree.
wrote a book about it. She said that Where does this experience come from? It
while she was dead she felt something does not come from the brain. The science
nicer than she ever felt when she was of cosmology teaches that if someone
alive. This was her encounter with the wants to know how long it took before the
flow experience. To feel it to the physical world was created or how far do
infinite degree, feels totally perfect. things extend beyond the physical
It is common for people to never universe, these questions have no
experience it while alive. Although, the meaning. Time and space are only
most ancient scriptures known to man say attributes of the physical universe, not
that people feel it while in deep sleep. the non-physical universe.
This flow experience to the infinite






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