Sorry in advance for this being a long post, but I'm on a roll.
I've got some experience with enlightment that I'd like to share.
Maybe it will help with this discussion.
Please bear with with me, this is coming from my heart and with pure intent, and some amusement. I do not wish to come across as negative. It's all good.
“Before enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water" is an old Zen saying. Try an internet search on that phrase. Lots of interesting takes on what it means to be enlightened are out there.
All the questions being considered here point to why in traditional meditation, students are cautioned to only go so far without a guru, someone who has gone before and can point out different ways of looking at what's happening in the enlightenment process and can just generally be helpfully present while the traveler puzzles things out. This is similar to having someone hold you pipe and just be there while you're tripping.
I would define enlightenment as the result of a process of introspection and connection with a reality larger than one's self in a way that dissolves one's self into the greater whole, like a drop of water becoming "one" with the ocean. It opens from a point of non-being, non-trying, more like embracing the light at the end of the tunnel and suddenly letting go than actually trying to get anywhere. You briefly consider the possibility that death will be the result, and in some ways you DO die, for the experience forever changes you, but you do let go and go and go like Alice down the rabbit hole, and then you're there. But it's not anything particularly useful. It won't make you rich or solve your problems. There is only a subtle shift in perception, like I've seen described all over this site, where another reality takes over, you get visuals and such, but with lasting effects. Shallow people look dull, vacant. Nice people look like saints with layers of color. Saints look like Alex Grey paintings. Everything glows like it's outlined in tiny tubes of glowing glass.
Beyond that, it's more like a calling to live differently, a changed state of being on a cellular level, with some interesting side effects (auras and other visuals, some esp, sounds, heightened intuition). As long as one chooses to contine to live in the world (instead of in a cave, etc.), the condition levels out and gets put on hold. In India, where enlightenment has been the goal for millenia, one studies basic precepts as a child, reaches maturity, marries, has a family and supports it, does service to the community, then one retires to a cave divorced from society in order to open oneself to enlightenment. In order to give yourself over to the process, you have to be guilt free, and by waiting until all the traditional social and familial obligactions have been met, a person can then cut loose and let go to travel the cosmos in a good way. In my experience, anyway, if you haven't finished with the world, there's a lot of anxiety. Stuff clogs the arteries and the flow fizzles out.
But that's not to say it can't be done, esp. with chemical helpers. First,find a teacher, whose job is to prod you into recognizing spritual experiences you're overlooking (usually you overlook them because they are uncomfortable and annoying). Try to follow your teacher's lead, accept that things are happeneing that you can't control, and gradually let go. It's an internal action of flying, of just freefalling over an imaginary edge into nothing. You have to be entirely still (which takes years to do without drugs but can be done; with drugs you have to exercise a will over the experience that is much trickier but faster)(the will to let go...oxymoron)
Then, suddenly (and when you least expect it) a "DUH!" moment happens when you realize the guru is just standing back there by the open door pointing the way (laughing), which you have just come bumbling through. You've been doing everything you needed to be doing all along,and all your coversations with the guide would have been quite unnecessary, if only you had been aware enough to see the path. But you can't see the path when you have the world all around you. That's why it's easier to go do it in a cave. Sitting alone in the dark on purpose, letting go of all ties to anything, even food...and just floating off into eternal bliss, and eventually even death...that's the concept.
The term "enlightened being" seems to me to be another oxymoron. Once you give yourself over into enlightenment totally, you let go of "being" a being. You become the light. At that point, you don't connect to things like going to the grocery store or work or taking care of the kids. You cease to be connected to worldly things. You unite with Whatever's Next, that big thing out there that contains all things. And you don't want to come back.
So, my suggestion is, don't go looking for enlightenment until you're really ready to let go.
I guess what I'm saying is, it sounds like spice is leading you along the path but without a guide, you aren't seeing the clues. The experiences you have are brillant and sacred, but you're feeling disconnected and wondering what the "pay off" will be and when it will come. You may be missing the point. You may be already going through the door and back again, wondering where the enlightenment department is because you can't read the directional signs. Nobody can really help who hasn't been there before, but "being there" is so personal and indescribable that even a guru can't help you much. It's your thing.
I believe you can get a lot of out of the "enlightening" experiences that happen on spice and other ethnogens. I think that's why they are present with us on the planet. For myself, however, I believe they are meant to be sacriments, taken occasionally and intentionally, for the purpose of helping and healing and are an asset when used in socially responcible ways. If they came with a user's manual, I'm pretty sure there'd be a seperate chapeter on going deeper and chasing enlightenment that would have a lot of disclaimers like "Be prepared to give up everything you own and go live on the streets" because that's what seems right all of a sudden.
Being enlightened won't win you the lottery or solve your love life or help you get a job. It won't pay the rent (unless you sell out and use what you know to tell fortunes or write self-help books). People may be drawn to you, but that doesn't mean you will necessarily enjoy dealing with their problems. Everything, absolutely everything gets in your way and you find yourself doing emotional triage all the time. If you use whatever you've brought back to powerfully help your friends, they get the willies and suddenly look at you funny. It's a strange dance, which I would not recommend to anyone.
I am not claiming to have attained any particular high state, but I come from a generation that experimented with various practices leading to enlightened states when we were young. We touched enightened ways of being, either through drugs or intense meditation or both, saw society for what it was, gave up everything and went out to live on the land. The idea was to rebuild society in the woods, to live off the grid, and for most of us it turned out to be a lot harder than we expected. Living simiple wasn't simple. Being enlightened didn't help. It's not useful to be enlightened in any situation where physical labor and getting along with other people are involved. Yes, you start out looking for ways to help, but then you discover it's sooooo much nicer to just be sitting out under a tree, kyacking, hiking, or chopping wood without interruption for hours, when there were other things you needed to be doing. It's a bummer to come back from an amazing day in nature only to have everyone all pissed at you for not pulling your share. That's why the monks in India wander around with a begging bowl. They have folks there convinced that being spiritual is a benefit to everyone so the public should chip in and feed the monks. It's difficult to be spiritual and practical at the same time. Most folks gave it up and moved back to civilization when their kids got to be school age (homeschooling is hugely difficult) and, besides, being poor got really old really quick. Fresh veggies, home made bread and doing everything by hand is fulfilling, but it takes up all your time and is exhausting. In today's world there is so much you need money to pay for, even when living on a subsistence level...It just became easier to "sell out" and go back to work like we were suppossed to in the first place. But once back in the throes of civilization, the ability to function at the enlightened level evaporates. The silence, the stillness necessary to maintain a functional enlightened state, the time to still ones self, becomes a struggle. It eventually becomes too much effort to connect. (Drugs may come in handy at this point..) Ever read that story "Flowers for Algenon"? Some mentally impaired dude takes part in an experiment where he gets injections to make him really smart, but it's just a trial and they discover the injections will kill him, so they have to stop and he goes back to being a dull boy again. That's what it's like. I am doing my service now, but look forward to eventually walling myself up in the preverbial cave at some future point and having a go at it again.
So I guess I don't agree that once you're enlightened, you're there and that's it. I see it more as a state of flux you can reach, embrace, swim around in, and end up washed up on the shore if you're not careful. I'm pretty sure there are levels like in a video game (in fact, it comes across as a video game)maybe infinite levels. I have no qualms at all about diving back in, once I'm finished with what I'm doing with this round of existence, and I have retained some useful shamanistic side effects from my short visit to the realm, but over all, as a result, I am having to cope with problems commonly expressed by folks on this site: Straight folks think I'm pretty wierd. I don't fit in, I see a separation between myself and those who aren't particulary looking for the light, and I come across as having a huge ego because I know stuff ...people hate it when you know stuff. Having tasted enlightenment, I get thirsty for conversations that take up more abstract thought. I look for ways to connect with people that surprise and help them. I can see a little farther and envision different solutions, like being "ahead of my time",which can be helpful but can also be frustrating when no one sees it my way. But always, no matter how involved in everyday events I get, there's part of me standing in that other doorway, light blazing around me in a whirlwind of ectoplasm, laughing, because I am choosing not to go home. Why am I staying? Because I am enjoying the world and not ready to give it up to live in the cave of my head, or in an actual cave, nor am I finished with living. It's a strange game but I'm still liking it.
Cellus, as for Christianity or any other religion that asks you to give yourself up to be dominated by some higher power, I can see where that would provide a release that would take you somewhere, but there's lots of room for corruption and misinterpretation whenever you give yourself up to being controlled by someone else, so I don't know if you can be sure you're going to get to where you want to go. I guess if the folks who are leading you into it are people you love and trust, it could be a good thing. My experience with religion has not been good, but that's just me. I respect people's choice in the matter. One thing I know I have in common with folks who accept and live in faith: the rest of the world things we're nuts. You end up having to live within a limited community in order to feel "normal". It's nice to feel normal, so recognize you'd be limiting your opportunities to feel that way. Especially if you're trying to meld drug use and Christian living. That would be difficult as Vularin suggests. However, if this is your path, I suggest getting a copy of "
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" (
http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Mushroom-Cross-Christianity-Fertility/dp/0340128755) as a guide for possibly blending the two.
Well, there's my thoughts on the subject.
Last one out, turn off the lights!
