I have always heard, and believe it is so, that you can't have an arguement with an enlightened individual. For most, to be enlightened brings up the idea or image of a guru or devotee with a spacey, non caring look and demeanor. It strikes us as someone who might not be all there and isn't real. However, to be en-lightened is also a way of mind to be that is not detached, but less heavy, less burdened and less needful to be noticed. This leaves most Westerners out of the picture of course, since being full, burdened and noticed is what most minds need to feel good about themselves.

What are a few traits that point towards an EN-Lightened mind?

An En-Lightened mind does not have to win or be right in order to be whole. Where two or more are gathered together either as a company or a church, there is usally an argument. We often see that someone in the discussion has to win the argument or the point whle the others simple have to give up. Everyone contributes to the big picture of what needs to be understood, but one has to win it seems. To be enlightened is to perhaps contribute, but to not need to win. How often those who win the point or arguement by virtue of the power of their personality, lose the truth in time. If they are not enlightened, they will try harder to win the point back to the harm of all. We don't always have to win or be right in any particular moment to be enlightened.

An EN_lightened mind can easily use such phrases as "I am sorry you feel that way," or "That's an interesting view, and may be part of the story or question we are seeking to undersand."

An EN-lightened mind can accept the way things are and not insist on fighting and resisting as if by sheer will, it can change what is and won't change. If it can't change the facts, it can accept them and feel either the joy, embarassment, hurt, pain, anger or despair the facts might be causing. To feel them, is to disarm them. An enlightened mind realized that to fight reality, things as they really are, is to stay stuck in time, revel in pain and make no forward movement in growth. An En-Lightened mind can say things like "my father has now died, I will miss him." "I have lost my job, it will be interesting to see where this leads." "I seem to suffer in underachieving, but accept where life has taken me." "I have lost many friends, but gained others in the process." "I have health challenges, but I am not my body or my health challenges. I am just fine." In short, an EN-lightend mind can say, "Is that so," and mean it.

An EN-lightened mind can say with ease, "I don't know everything about that. I will look into it." It can say "I realize you have not learned all you can about this topic, so let's talk about what you understand, not what you don't."

An EN-lightened person doesn't judge others one bit. The have no need to feel superior, more knowing, in charge or even "more blessed." We are who we are. All of us come from different place, have different experiences, experience different chemistry and genetic predispositions. While our consciousness all live in a limited five sensed carbon based wet suit, they are similar but not identicle. Our senses come with filters and we tend to like the people who filter their world as we do and dislike those who have fewer filters or even more and see things differently. How boring a place it would were it to be any other way!

An En-Lightened person recongizes that skepticism is the fuel that makes progress work. It's like walking. If you don't go into a more or less forward stepping controlled crash, you can't move. Walking is a controlled crash an looks great when well done! If there was no doubt as to how things are or skepticism about how others inform us of how things are, we would be so stuck as to preclude any further growth or movement. For better or worse, most Churches and religions are agents of getting stuck. They impede the joy of both sex and science. They lock in stone that which was meant to flow more easily and enforce in one age that which is scorned in the next, leaving whole generations of humans obeying at once, that which they now don't have to because it only took the Church 400 years to come to their senses. To ask questions is to get better answers. To be told you ask too many questions, or doubt the organization too much, is to be labeled as not a team player. Teams are good but so is the Lone Ranger who thinks outside the box, is skeptical of the current information and willing to press on looking.

One cannot become EN-Lightened by refusing to throw off the burdens that simply don't work or have proved to be untrue over time. Religion is one of the few aspects of humanity that tends to NOT rid itself of that which obviously does not work or serve the people well. Religion accumlates information, even wrong information and tends to insist it still needs to find a place to fit that bad information into the plan. Thus we have doctrines that contain so much trash and untrue information, few can understand it and the contradictions are chalked up to not having the mind of God to understand it, when in fact it is a simple case of clean out the attic and you'll find what is important. When science makes a mistake, it informs itself by saying, "that's not true, and we cannot use this information to explain this or that phenomenon. When religion makes a mistake, it says "we did not," then kills the one who pointed it out and adds the bad information to the teachings that confound the locals even more. When it confounds too much, it is declared a mystery and the questioner can rest assured they are not smart enough to even ask the right questions, much less understand the mind of God in the answer.

Being enlightened is really a function of being less burdened in the head and thoughts that we are so capable of playing over and over again until we pop. Meditation, while not easy, can help us put spaces between the thoughts and quiet the noise that we think is thinking, but is really what the brain does when the mind is doing useful work. That's why some say we need to go out of our mind before we come to our senses.

Being enlightened is partly a function of acceptance of things as they are along with not having the need to be right, in charge or the final word, as all these things are subject to change. You can't have an argument with an enlightened being....I like that.