Subject: [lojban] Re: enlighten

From: robin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 16:27:41 +0300

[email-masked] wrote:
> All the answers so far have been about bringing to know or understand. 
> What about the "enlighten" of "Enlightenment," some "higher state of 
> consciousness" somewhere along the route to unitive consciousness or 
> whatever? This is not a matter, so they say, of knowing or 
> understanding anything, but of being. Light metaphors again play an 
> important part in talk about this -- though not only light, but also 
> dark (and so dark as light). 

We run into the problem of ineffability here. Lojban usage tends pretty 
strongly towards lujvo being a reasonably accurate description of their 
referents (with some notable exceptions!), but people who have 
experienced such "higher" states of consciousness are fairly unanimous 
in saying that it can't be put into words. The metaphors used are by no 
means universal either; compare, for example, Sanskrit "nirvana" 
(extinguishing) and Turkish "ermek", which is probably related to 
"erimek", "to dissolve". Other metaphors involve expansion or returning, 
and of course when comparing "enlightenment" across cultures, we can't 
even be sure we are talking about the same state of consciousness anyway.

One possibility would be to concentrate on the perceived loss of ego in 
such states of consciousness. "nalse'i menli" perhaps?

robin.tr

-- 
"The other major kind of computer is the "Apple", which
I do not recommend, because it is a wuss-o-rama New-Age
computer that you basically just plug in and use."
-Dave Barry

Robin Turner
IDMYO
Bilkent Üniversitesi
Ankara
Turkey

http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin