Who do you believe is/was enlightened?

HH The 14th Dalai Lama.

Despite tremendous hardship - being taken from his parents at a very young age, the extreme restraint and (some would say) deprivation of a monastic life, losing his country - he remains a kind man and a wise teacher. His compassion and good will transcends race and religion.

He's by far the world leader I admire the most, and what I would consider to be an enlightened being.

Our Rabbi is very enlightened , untill he cannot find stuff that is ..i mean its almost impossible to be enlightened , so for a human being , he is very well on his way to being enligthened

Thank you for all the responses! You've definitely come up with some good people and good ideas about enlightenment.

We have all been a child. What was that like? And what do we see when we encounter them at this point in our life?

Kyrin if you want me to explain the Father (with a capital 'F' for 'Friging Obvious as to who I am') please PM me.

Not gonna lie, for a minute Silas I thought you were referring to the Father from the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon.

I wont say its analogous to wisdom, but I think they are related. Differing in that it requires partnered action to be distinct from wisdom. Where that action extends might not matter so much, but I'd say its the process of manifesting wisdom rather then the wisdom itself. In that regard someone can appear wise yet not be 'creating' the wisdom themselves... so its the experience and process of generation IMO. I look at some of the earlier scientists who openly went against the established order to bring the 'light' of truth as signs of such strong wisdom compelling them to courageous action. I like Proteus's example of children, but to me they are of the right view but not yet walking the path. They gotta stumble through the thicket of growing up before they are able to realize they have been covered in branches and have to fashion a suitable staff or wand or whatever. Otherwise glimpses of it occur to most people now and then I'd imagine, and to stabilize oneself in that state might be a bit tricky. We get the ascetics who artificially stabilize themselves to generate the experience, and the alchemists who force radical transformation, and then the middle way who sort of try to take bits from both and bring it in perhaps a more pragmatic fashion. I think that is important because the experience generated purely from within will probably tend to rebalance itself as body adapts to it, and so if it can reflect off ones environment then the whole process can be relative to its wider self rather then relative to oneself. If that makes any sense haha :S

If you ask me what my path consists mostly of, I would say "unlearning what I have learned". When that is achieved, it constitutes a step toward what we tend to think of as enlightenment. The child is the uncarved block, the purity of human experience before the onset of conditioning (which one's "path" can easily just be another form of). Once we have grown past that stage, we can never again reach true enlightenment since it requires being "uncarved". However, the path can be said to be a dedication to being reminded of what the uncarved state of mind and heart is all about, and to look in its direction during our journey for answers we seek about how to live our lives and be of value to the world unhindered. But looking in that direction is all we can do.

I like what you say and how you said it Proteus, although the idea of unlearning something we know is not entirely new to me. And although hypothetical discussions can be fastidious, I did ask myself while reading your thoughts whether: is it really possible to unlearn everything we have learned considering we are learning something new every added minute we continue to live? ; if you did manage to actually unlearn everything you have learned up until now and stop continuing to learn, could that not be more than just a step to enlightenment? ; or do you actually mean something else with "unlearning" or "learning"?

I believe what he is referring to Jon is the unwrapping of the ego, who, with it's consistant assertions and assumptions as a result of attempting to procure security for it's own existence, is constantly imposing illusions of "truth" upon the self.

The trick here is that the ego will use anything and everything to grasp a foothold in order to gain advantage, this often shuts down the learning process, and causes stagnation, depression and a host of other psychologically related problems. So, how does one go about the "unlearning" process?

To either cease identifying with all paradigms, masks, etc, or at the very least, acknowledge that what one is currently identifying at the current moment is nothing more than a mask, and can be readily and easily changed like one changes clothes.

This is very disturbing for many people, but in order to "unlearn" we must be open to the possibility that everything if not the majority of what we have come to know about oursleves and the world we live in is possibly flawed to some extent.

In responce to the thread, (don't want to completely make this a derail) I think Mr. Snowden is about as awakened as anyone can get living in today's society. Deceased...Terence Mckenna, Timothy Leary, David Bowie, John Lennon to mention just a few...