What Does Enlightenment Mean?

What is enlightenment or what does enlightenment actually mean? By looking into the history of Jainism, Buddhism and Brahmanism, one may be surprised to find a meaning very different, to that which is used in modern times.

Transcript

In terms of answering the question,

What is enlightenment,

We actually need to do some deep-seated research into the history of Buddhism,

Brahmanism,

Hinduism,

And Jainism.

It all began in an area in northeastern India which is called the Greater Magadha.

In this area of the world,

The people believed in the concepts of samsara,

Karma,

And rebirth.

These people tended to see life as suffering,

And therefore they wanted to break the cycle of samsara and not come back.

Just to reiterate here,

We must understand that first of all,

Samsara means the cycle of birth and death and then rebirth and then death,

This continuous cycle that goes on forever.

What keeps you within that cycle is known as karma.

We must understand here that rebirth is different to reincarnation.

This here is a bit nitpicky in terms of the fact that reincarnation is used in Hinduism and Brahmanism because there is a soul that is reborn whereby you are reincarnated.

In Buddhism,

They believe in the self and not the soul,

Therefore they use the terminology rebirth.

So getting back to the topic on hand,

We have your karma that is keeping you within samsara.

How then did the people of this greater Magadha region decide that they should deal with that problem?

The Jains came first with their philosophy which ended up becoming Jainism.

Their method all started with the fact that if I do not want to have any karma,

I must therefore live a life with no action.

So to do that,

What I will do is I will not wear any clothes,

I will become celibate,

I will leave the family,

I will go into the forest,

I will sit still,

I will not think,

I will even hold my breath.

This is a key important point here.

They took the idea of non-action to create no karma physically and mentally to great extremes.

The final goal of a Jain,

Once they reached the level,

Was to starve themselves to death,

Which of course they did not see it that way.

They saw not eating as the final and highest level of non-action,

Whereby they would have no karma,

Whereby they would not return to the cycle of samsara.

Buddha came along and tried these same methods.

These methods nearly killed him if it weren't for a young country girl that saved him.

Buddha then came out and basically said,

These extreme methods do not work,

Therefore we will follow the middle way.

When he decided to follow the middle way,

He changed,

For example,

The holding of the breath to the observing of the breath.

He changed the focus much more to non-action of the mind as opposed to non-action of the body.

This is a very important key point that must not be missed or forgotten.

Now when Buddha talked about enlightenment,

He called it nirvana.

And nirvana meant extinguishing of the flame,

Once again referring to enlightenment as not coming back.

So here we are getting the early meanings of enlightenment,

Meaning not coming back,

Means that when you die,

You die and you are outside of the samsara cycle,

Because you no longer have any karma to bring you back.

We must understand here that this was the first idea of enlightenment.

Many people in Indian culture may not like this,

But according to Johannes Bronkhurst,

On the other side of India,

In the northwest,

Were the Brahmins.

He clearly states that Buddhism and Jainism did not come from Brahmanism.

He explains that Brahmanism actually took from Jainism and Buddhism in particular.

His research is quite amazing and very,

Very high level.

When we read Johannes Bronkhurst's research,

He explains that the Brahmins were originally a people that were highly based on ritual.

Their rituals were similar in many ways to what we sometimes see in movies,

Where there were ritualistic things done to make sure that there was rain and health and all these various forms of more archaic types of rituals.

And he also mentioned that rituals tend to be fairly fire-based.

What happened though is over time,

These rituals kind of to some degree became outdated and did not have a very large amount of respect.

This probably came about because of events such as the arrival of Alexander the Great,

Where he came across and started to devastate the region,

Causing various problems,

Where the Brahmins started to lose their high level in society.

The Brahmins' next move was quite ingenious in the way that they reinvented themselves as something of a reclusive wanderer in forests with great powers.

When they did this,

We ended up in a situation where the stories were coming out about the great Brahmins with their great power and something else which they sold very much to the public was their divine language called Sanskrit that had the power of nature in it where it could do amazing things to you if you chanted various forms of mantras and syllables.

To sell this idea to the public,

Johannes Bronckhurst mentioned that they started to create literature and it was from literature that they sold their idea to the public that they were these great beings,

But also sold them to the public their new place in society,

Which was kind of not only as a ritual,

But as spiritual leaders as well.

The literature included things like the Mahabharata.

It is interesting to note that in the Bhagavad Gita,

We also see where the idea of non-actions according to the Brahmins was slightly changed because we must understand here that these ideas according to Johannes Bronckhurst,

All the ideas of this spirituality did not come from the Brahmins themselves as they took it from the north western region.

But here we see there was a different thing such as when Arjuna is talking to Krishna and doesn't want to fight.

And here we see an answer where he is told to fight as he must do his duty.

And of course here we are seeing the early versions of the Dharma,

Because Dharma in Sanskrit used to mean your duty.

So here we find that it wasn't a complete non-action,

But part of the non-action was doing your duty,

Which is a very interesting aspect to add to the idea of non-action because it meant that depending on which caste you were born into,

The non-action also included following your caste.

In the various literatures of the Brahmins,

We end up finding the idea of their higher level of non-action,

Which means turning the mind off completely so that there is not one thought whatsoever to the mind.

This is different to Buddhism of course because Buddha wanted the mind to be in a state of awareness where it could think and see the true nature of reality for what it was.

Whereas this Brahmin version of the mind was completely zero,

Nothingness,

No movement of the mind,

Like a log of wood.

Now what's interesting to note is that the Brahmin version of enlightenment was different to the Buddhists in the way that they saw that you were bringing the soul to connect with the greater universal soul.

So the Atman connects with the Brahmin,

And when they come back as one,

Now there is enlightenment mukti,

Or moksha,

There were various versions and different names,

Even the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali use a different version.

So the reason why we bring this up here,

That enlightenment in its own version and its original version has got nothing to do with the way that we are seeing it in modern times.

The Buddhists had a very different version of it to the Brahmins and to Brahminism,

And we must understand this and keep this in mind so that we're not working towards the wrong goals.

There is so much more to discuss in this subject,

Including the origins of chakras and the whole original idea behind chakra meditation,

Which is actually a lot to do with occult and black magic and negative things.

Hence people like Krishnacharya,

The father of modern day yoga,

Says,

Don't deal in chakras,

It's a kind of black magic,

It's a bad thing.

And when we look at the origins of it and the way that it was really developed by Tibetans,

We also see a different form of enlightenment,

An enlightenment that was based on gaining powers,

And especially gaining powers over other people.

Nevertheless,

That is beyond the scope of this discussion.

I hope you enjoyed this and it has some benefit towards your practices.

Reviews

Wow, learned a lot. Lots of wisdom and history.
Namaste 🙏

Interesting! I learned a lot.

Interesting 👍👏🏻thank you 🌹