GOD

Growing up with Christian beliefs, influenced by Mormons as a young child and then later by Baptists I, like most other Christians, while praying, would look up at the sky or in my mind, visualize some perfect mystical being floating in a mystical realm out on the edge of the universe. Now, I understand that to mystify and externalize God is to commit the same idolatry that is forbidden by the Ten Commandments and only serves to stunt spiritual growth. As a Buddhist I have come to realize that God is not some being that is separate from anything or anyone, but rather the intrinsic energy that permeates the universe the glue that binds reality everything and everyone, and sees through the eyes and feels through the touch of every sentient being. Yes God is perfect but this perfection is not perfection as perceived by the human egoistic persona that can only translate reality dualistically. Instead it could be described as an all- encompassing perfection, grounded in reality, not dependent on the minds idea of what perfection is. Perception or conceived Ideas are created when the dualistic mind or persona (which in and of itself is a collective of ideas) identifies with its own judgment of an object in opposition to itself. Because of this, ideas will always differ from one person to the next. Perception and persona therefore, are not reality. They are illusion. The true way to commune with God and experience our intrinsic perfection is to stop identifying with illusionary reality or individual perception and just let everything be what it is without identifying with the persona’s judgments about what is arising. Compare yourself to a tree. The tree has no need to identify with judgments about what is happening around it. The tree has no need to identify with judgments about itself. It has no persona that hates the tree next to it because it branches got too close and invaded its bubble. It has no desire to attain anything. It just is. When there is no judgment every leaf falls perfectly where it was meant to fall. Every branch sways in perfect motion when the wind blows. Without judgment your every action happens to perfection, every human is perfectly what it is. Every decision is perfectly what it is. Every song is sung to perfection. Every mistake is made to perfection. The brain will continue to conjure up the persona because that is what it does and it will do it to perfection. The conjured persona will continue to reinforce itself with more ideas about itself and it will do it to perfection. It will have dualistic opinions and form concepts about its perception of the world around it and it will do it to perfection. Without conceptual judgment Every moment is perfection. This is divine reality. So next time you want to look toward God, don't just look to the sky. Look at everything around you. Look at your friends, your family, your enemy. Look at those who comfort you and also those who torment you. Look at both Mother Teresa and Saddam Hussein, Look around yourself and within your self. Divinity permeates everything. Trying harder to commune with God is spirituality. But when you realize that intrinsically you are always in divine communion then there is no longer a need for spirituality. Like an ocean trying hard to be water, It has only to realize that by nature it was always a manifestation of water. Therefore the effort is moot. Allen watts put it perfectly when he said “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.” Or T.S. Eliot when he said , “The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

This is a quote that I came across online that explains enlightenment from a Christian perspective.

God the Father is an undivided and indivisible Whole, a pure energy that fills all time and permeates all space. This makes our purpose not to find God, but to recognize God's presence and to understand that this all pervading energy is always intrinsically with us. When we realize this, we recognize that this all-pervading energy is responding to us from every person, thing or event that transpires.

How Do I know When I Have Attained Enlightenment?

When there was no longer enlightenment to attain or anyone to attain it.

How do you find enlightenment.?

Enlightenment is always where no one is looking for it.

Once the Conceptual "I" falls away all that is left is pure being.  There is no dissatisfaction because there is no one to be dissatisfied. There is no one to be enlightened, There is no enlightenment, nothing to be sought or attained. There is no separation nor anything to be connected. There is no good vs bad. There is only being,  there is only oneness. There is only that which cannot be described by language because it is outside the realm of concept. There just "IS".              

EGO

Dualistic or Conceptual reality is an attempt by our intellectual ego to understand something that it cannot understand.  The reason that the intellect cannot understand the true nature of reality is because it is in and of itself an idea with the sole purpose of formulating ideas to describe instances.  When a perceived reality is founded on concepts or ideas then it cannot be reality. Imagine yourself holding a broomstick behind yourself as a seat, then trying to lift the broomstick to a point where your feet no longer touch the ground.  Similarly, ego, in order to define itself and to create within itself purpose and individuality, strives to identify with its own ideas about the universe and in doing so is founded on its own ideas about itself.  An idea has no substantial reality and therefore conceptual reality can be described as a reflection or illusion conjured up as a result of the intellectual ego striving to conceptualize something that cannot be conceptualized.

 "All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts."  -Buddha
 The moment that we are able to see that every thing we perceive is just a fabrication of a conglomeration of ideas that we call self or ego, then we experience reality.  Reality is what always is regardless of feeling, idea, concept, opinion or reasoning based on any of these.  This is not to say that once we see reality then all of a sudden we stop thinking and become brain dead or become emotionally cold, but rather that we are able to escape the "mind trap" of ego, and are able to realize that our thoughts or ideas of self as something separate from everything else are empty of any substantial reality. Out of the realization that the self is not real but rather just a collection of insubstantial ideas, comes the falling away of these ideas, the falling away of the idea of a separate self. There is a body and a brain with electrical impulses, and even these are like a wave which will eventually settle back into the ocean. Could you imagine if every wave had an ego that became offended and punched the next wave because the next wave came too close and invaded its "bubble" or because it was being to turbulent :) , or was sad because no other waves loved it. Or it became frustrated because it could not fathom it own purpose in the universe. xD LOL! Once we as waves see that we are not independent of the other waves then there is no longer you vs me, or this vs that. There just IS.   There is no need for meaning because meaning or purpose is just a concept which is created by ego which is in and of its self a bunch of concepts and concepts do not really exist. There are no enlightened waves or unenlightened waves. There is just the ocean. "I" becomes just a description for an arising of what IS. Like a wave of the same ocean, Each wave being a different perspective for the ocean looking in on itself or in the case of the wave that has not yet shed ego, ignores the rest of the ocean and pretends that the other waves are separate from itself.  The moment the wave looks in on its self however, and sees the ocean, it realizes that it is just an arising and that really there is only ocean. Then there is only being one ocean.  The illusion of ego, and all the ideas that are its building blocks drop away, as do expectations, and with expectation falls disappointment  and with disappointment, falls suffering... until finally there is only the calmness beneath the waves.