Enlightenment.
Liberation. Self-Realization.
You cannot be with the Lord just by thinking you are divinely enlightened. You must improve yourself - you must perfect yourself. (...) You can never know Him except through humbleness, wisdom, and devotion. Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.162.
There is no more liberating action than sincerely to give kindness in return for unkindness. Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.189.
Every spiritually enlightened teacher tries to enable many devotees to commune with God. Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.234.
"The day I became enlightened" simply means the day I realized that there is nothing to achieve. There is nowhere to go. There is nothing to be done. We are already divine and we are already perfect - as we are. No improvement is needed. (...) God never creates anybody imperfect. Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, P.66.
(...) enlightenment happens in silence. (...) And whatsoever you do, the words are going to destroy something of that silence. Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, P.67.
Enlightenment is a very individual process. (...) Every person passes through different phases, because every person in many lives has gathered different kind of conditionings. Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, P.69.
(...) every enlightened person will have a deep silence - almost tangible. In his presence, those who are open, receptive, will become silent. He will have a tremendous contentment, whatever happens makes no difference to his contentment. Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, P.81.
Everybody cannot be a genius - those are given qualities from birth. But everybody can be enlightened (...) Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, P.122.
Instead of remaining trapped in this very limited, conditioned existence, we can become one with the universe, immense and unconditioned. In rediscovering this truth, the Buddha liberated all sentient beings, not just himself, because he cleared the way for every person to realize that he or she, too, is intrinsically a buddha (or, as some schools prefer to express it, capable of being enlightened). When the awakening came to him, it reentered human consciousness after untold ages of being entirely forgotten. Jack Maguire. (2001). Essential Buddhism. P.14.
Enlightenment lies beyond the conditions of our phenomenal universe: the realm of time and space, life and death, this and that. To become enlightened is, therefore, to go beyond everyday mind, to see the totality from which all these conditions arise, and to realize our essential oneness with it. Jack Maguire. (2001). Essential Buddhism. P.77.
(...) Chris Pauling, (...) distinguishes between "capital -E" Enlightenement, representing the totally transformational awakening that Shakyamuni had, and "small-e" enlightenment, reflecting the evolved consciousness of a person who can - and repeatedly does - see beyond the limits of the self and the everyday world (...). Jack Maguire. (2001). Essential Buddhism. P.85.
Realization is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world as real and one’s self as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The thought ‘I am’ is the polishing cloth. Use it. Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta. (2005). I am That. P.29.
When you believe yourself to be a person, you see persons everywhere. In reality, there are no persons, only threads of memories and habits. At the moment of realization the person ceases. Identity remains, but identity is not a person, it is inherent in the reality itself. The person has no being in itself; it is a reflection in the mind of the witness, the ‘I am,’ which again is a mode of being. Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta. (2005). I am That. P.37.
Not making use of one’s consciousness is samadhi. You must leave your mind alone. You want nothing, neither from your body nor from your mind. Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta. (2005). I am That. P.38.
You have no evidence of my world. You are completely wrapped up in the world of your own making. (…) Within the prison of your world appears a man who tells you that the world of painful contradictions, which you have created, is neither continuous nor permanent and is based on a misapprehension. He pleads with you to get out of it, by the same way you got into it. You got into it by forgetting what you are and you will get out of it by knowing yourself as you are. (…) When you are free of the world, you can do something about it. As long as you are a prisoner of it, you are helpless to change it. On the contrary, whatever you do will aggravate the situation. Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta. (2005). I am That. P.45.
(…) liberation is of the self from its false and self-imposed ideas; it is not contained in some particular experience, however glorious. Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta. (2005). I am That. P.48.
To know itself the self must be faced with its opposite- the not-self. Desire leads to experience. Experience leads to discrimination, detachment, self-knowledge –liberation. And what is liberation after all? To know that you are beyond birth and death. By forgetting who you are and imagining yourself a mortal creature, you created so much trouble for yourself that you have to wake up, like from a bad dream. Enquiry also wakes you up. You need not wait for suffering; enquiry into happiness is better, for the mind is in harmony and peace. Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta. (2005). I am That. P.68.
Last update: 2013/06/03
See the related subjects: Alertness, Awakenings, Contemplation, Emptiness, Meditation, Reality, Transcendence, Wisdom