Quote Originally Posted by OnionsOfLove
There are a lot of things in this thread that I want to quote and scrutinize, but it would be a long and very critical post, so I wont do it.

There is one quote though, from the last few posts..



Insanity is only misDIRECTED enlightenment. And that misdirection, arguably, comes from ego battles within the self. It would be hard to misunderstand real enlightenment because when someone becomes enlightened they become so in-tune with the truth that they are able to communicate it to anyone they meet. In fact, a tendency to communicate your own enlightenment is probably a condition that comes with being enlightened. People who are insane dont often give advice of the quality that an enlightened person would be able to give. Insanity might be a different sort of enlightenment, but it would be a limited one relative to the traditional enlightenment.

and, to stay on topic..



A description of the truth as I have been allowed to understand it in my life would stretch across a bunch of posts and still come nowhere near to explaining the truth well enough that it could be understood by someone else the way that I understand it for myself. I have spent a lot of time relating my understandings of the underlying concepts in math, physics, philosophy, chemistry, evolution, biology, psychology, and anthropology. I have also taken many different types of psychoactive drugs in an effort to crawl out of the box, but to be honest I dont think that they have helped me more than hurt me, or at least so far. The good news is that I am learning how to use them more carefully by shutting out the ego, and the last few trips that I have gone on have revealed a lot to me. I have found that if I recognize the drugged mind as being incapable of traditional use and then decide not to use it but instead simply perceive it, psychoactive drugs can indeed be a teaching tool. There is truth to be found through drugs, but "drugland" (where you go when youre on a "trip") is not the only place that truth hides, so I have to broaden my search to places outside of "drugland" in order to see the bigger picture.

here is a quick version of my understanding of the truth:

a polygon with infinite sides approximates a circle, just like a polyhedra with infinite faces approximates a sphere. pi describes the ratio between the diameter of a circle and its circumference. it is impossible to find a precise value for pi, as its decimal places seem to go on infinitely.

when you describe the relationship between two points in a horizontal line on the cartesian coordinate plane, their relationship is easy to describe. every x value in that line has the same y value. for vertical lines, every y value has the same x value. this relationship is linear. describing the relationship between two points in a diagonal line is also easy - it depends on the value of the slope, which is simply a number that says that when you move x units horizontally, you move y units vertically. it is also a linear relationship.

if you define an n-sided polygon as having n linear relationships that make it up, (that is, a hexagon has 6 linear relationships between its verticies while an octagon has 8) then it is easier to see that a circle is a geometric definition of a system that contains infinitely many linear relationships.

everything in the universe is related and interrelated in an infinite amount of relationships. infinity is a concept that we cannot understand because the ego perceives its finiteness first and foremost. before we realized that earth was only a part of the solar system, we assumed that it was at the center and that everything revolved around it.
Haha I like that, very true, very true. To adress the first part, let me propose a scenario: A man of average intelligence is privy to a small glimpse on an overwhelmingly bigger picture. His mind percieves it, and grapples with trying to understand it. In the process, he loses touch with aspects of reality, in particular, his ability to effectively communicate with other human beings, as his obsession with attempting to understand infinity overloads his brain. This is but one example of how I believe one can be subject to enlightenment, yet appear to the rest of the world to be completely insane. I am not saying this man is enlightened, but then again, there are perhaps an infinite number of levels of enlightenment.

As far as my quote "Insanity is misunderstood enlightenment", I was referring to misunderstanding of the outside perceiver, not the enlightened. Perhaps in achieving enlightenment, the man lost a part of his old self that allowed him to effectively communicate with us, but allowed him to communicate with higher planes of existence. I really have no clue myself, this is only speculation, but misunderstanding and misdirection are related as well. So in actuality I am not disagreeing with anything you say.