No.2374
Share your stories and experiences here.
No.2378
>>2374>be me>high school in my second year>history teacher is pretty cool>starts talking about history in an unbiased way>I start to take interest in the class and the subjectI look back on that class and really do miss it, since I only realized how unbiased he was when I had other teachers go over similar material in the other grades and their lessons were much more biased.
No.2385
>>2378I was thinking about talking about a similar thing. I had an English teacher who discussed books like 1984 and other dystopian works, and as a liberal leaning person tried to unbiased. She informed us of her leaning and said to take what she said with a grain of salt.
No.2388
>>2385I remember my first time reading animal farm.
>if only I'd known how bad things would really turn out No.2393
>sacred geometry
please leave
No.2394
>>2388Totally this. Animal farm changed my life…
No.2410
Had my eyes seriously opened in elementary school.
>6th grade
>Browsing dank (school firewall approved) sites during lunch
>Reading about space because space is cool
>Stumble onto a site about quantum mechanics
>See a thing about light's wave/partial duality
>Click because I am curious
>Laugh audibly when I read about this crackpot who thinks light can be two things at once
>Librarian hears me guffaw
>"What's so funny, Mr(s). Anon?"
>Tell her about it
>"Why is that funny?"
>Tell her why he's dumb for thinking that
>She puts down the book she was reading and walks over to a shelf in the nonfiction section
>Pulls out a science book for highschool kids that's full of experiments
>Flips through it
>Bookmarks a page and hands it to me
>Tells me to do the "Double Slit" experiment that she bookmarked and read the chapter that went with it
>Sure, why not
>Get home
>Cut up a piece of card stock
>Grab flashlight
>Follow instructions in the attic because there's no windows
>See that interference pattern
>My mind is blown
>That guy was right
>Trip balls over my increased understanding of the universe
>Show my parents
>Show my sister
>Show everybody how AWESOME this is
>Next day
>Go to library during break
>Babble at Librarian about how that guy was right and how cool this is
>Then she changed my life
>"That's why you never dismiss ideas out of hand. Science isn't about what you think makes sense, it's about experimenting until we have proof that an idea is right or wrong."
>To this day, I've taken that approach to the world
No.2414
Enlightenment is strange. Millions, if not billions of people have sought after it, yet how many people have truly achieved it?
For that matter, what is enlightenment? The definition simply says a state of being enlightened. Enlightened is defined as having gained knowledge on a particular subject.
As a broad term however, enlightenment generally has a life-affecting connotation. A positive one generally, although those of you speaking of dystopian books may disagree. I assume that enlightenment as it is used in this thread is referring to wisdom.
Recognition of dystopia is simply the first step to enlightenment. The second? Accepting it. Acceptance does not mean encouragement of it, nor liking of it. It simply means understanding that things are the way they are. And understanding that they, like everything else, will cease to be. Obtaining enlightenment is quite simple, remaining enlightened is the difficult part. Remember, wisdom is not a physical feature; rather it is measured through conduct and behavior.
What is the simple truth? To be able to find contentment in all aspects of life, no matter the difficulty or hardship. This does not mean to disavow emotion, but rather know what emotion to feel at the correct time. If something made you angry, be glad that you feel strongly about it. If something made you sad, understand that sadness is simply the loss of something once had; be content you had it for a time. Likewise, if something makes you happy, recognize that it will at one point in time cease to make you happy. Love? It works the same way. Learn to accept this, learn to be content in it. Gratitude, patience, understanding, peace with oneself. That is what it means to be enlightened.
No.2422
>>2378Replace High School with 6th grade, and this is basically it.
No.2427
>>2414its a very simple, it just contains everything. part of it is understanding there is no self, and yet knowing what the self is.
No.2428
>>2414>the simple trutheverything is illusion
there is no self, there is no observer just observations
there are many paradoxes there is no truth.
No.2429
>>2374I read the God delusion and was enlightened by my own intelligence.
No.2432
>>2428But there is truth. It's being able to accept that the world is a mixture of truth and illusion. They affect one another, yet are apart.
There are truths, 2+2=4. That is a truth.
We have the illusion of communication now. But it is a truth that we are communicating via the web.
Not all is illusion, and not all is truth.
No.2474
For my thoughts on enlightenment, see: U.G. Krishnamurti (not jiddu).