I heard from someone who claims he is enlighten, that being in enlightenment is having no doubts, having....?

Question

no questions left. And having direct knowdlege as if it was downloaded all at once and that there then is a clarity between right and wrong, that one now knows all.

He even spoke of seeing an angel appear in his jail cell minutes before commiting suicide, and at that time being enlightened.

Is this true?

according to any definition of what it means to be enlightened, in a Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, islamic sense etc.?

sorry, English is not my mother tongue.

Answer 1

One big flaw.  He was enlightened minutes before attempting suicide.

So he knew everything and was totally enlightened?  Then that would mean he shouldn't have failed in his attempt to kill himself.  Failure is the result of a)inability or b)lack of knowledge.  Thier can be no lack of ability in regards to suicide as it is not an ability based task....... the only answer would be that he lacked some knowledge.  The rope would break, the guard would come in, the cell was too small, the knife was too dull, the pills were aspirin, etc. etc. etc.

So no.... he was not enlightened as is proven by his immediate failure in an easy task.  Thanks for playing.

Answer 2

As humans, in this form, none of us can ever "know all" as you say. It is simply beyond our human abilities to know, grasp, understand, comprehend "All". Our human-ness limits us in this area. Our receptors (our brains) are not inclined nor able to know All. We can taste the notion of All, we can meditate and touch oneness with All, but in this form we cannot *know* all.

Answer 3

Dear Friend,

                       Enlightenment is Pure Peace and Fulfilment. What if someone has been enlightened? There may be many unspoken who are enlightened. There is no end to anything in this Universe. If this guy was enlightened, maybe he was or maybe he was not. How can we all judge him, unless we are not enlightened ourselves. A Jeweller can only know the worth of a Gem. Budha can Know a Budha.

Answer 4

There are different stages of enlightenment and very, very few ever achieve full enlightenment in a lifetime despite years of dedicated practice.

It sounds as if the person who related his experience to you is still euphoric from what has happened to him in his own life.

Can you imagine being that desperate that you feel there is nothing left in life worth living for and that an 'angel' intervened and gave him reason to carry on despite the fact he was in prison for doing wrong.

Would that not remove doubt from your mind, answer some questions for you and make you realise the difference between right and wrong?

I hope he uses this new found self awareness and faith in the Divine to move forward with his life in a positive and loving way - then he will have moved further on his path along the road to true enlighment.

Sporca, thanks for the additional question - I have given it some thought.

Had it just been due to survival instinct I would have expected the person to have described the experience differently. Perhaps something like having 2nd thoughts or when it came to the final decision he could not go through with it through fear of the unknown.

He seems to be very specific and relates his experience as having SEEN an angel. Whether this was a momentary illusion brought on by fear of immanent spiritual trauma or a real physical manifestation would be interesting to know.

Whatever the case, it does appear to have had a personal impact on him; not something you would expect from a suicidal person who just decided against it. You would expect a person in that scenario to still retain sucidal thoughts, especially when incarceration with nothing positive to look forward to was the other option.

Perhaps you should quiz his further and ask him what the 'angel' said to him that made so much difference. A vision of an angel alone would not provide him with the sort of enlightenment he refers to. What effect has it had on his life since experiencing this moment of realisation and what does he intend doing from now on?

Then we may know if he is truly enlightened by the experience or just appreciating how close he came to ending his life.

I would like to know more about his personal experience.

Answer 5

Speaking as one who has personal experience in this, I can say being enlightened is being at peace with yourself, and thus with the world.  

If he had been truly enlightened, he would have seen there was no need for him to commit suicide.

Organized religions have nothing to do with any of it.

Answer 6

To be enlightened means to get the supreme knowledge that ensures permanent happiness unaffected by any event whatsoever. It should thus leave no scope for doubts and questions bugging us. However, at the outset, it becomes difficult for people to understand how knowledge can lead to happiness, because we experience happiness only through self-gratification and mere acquisition of knowledge does not seem capable of fulfilling any of our desires.