From what I have been told, the term Enlightenment was originally used to describe using reason and logic to try to explain the way the world works ... as in this:
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The Age of Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason, refers to the time of the guiding intellectual movement, called The Enlightenment. It covers about a century and a half in Europe, beginning with the publication of Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620) and ending with Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781). From the perspective of socio-political phenomena, the period is considered to have begun with the close of the Thirty Years' War (1648) and ended with the French Revolution (1789).
The Enlightenment advocated reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, government, and even religion, which would allow human beings to obtain objective truth about the whole of reality. Emboldened by the revolution in physics commenced by Newtonian kinematics, Enlightenment thinkers argued that reason could free humankind from superstition and religious authoritarianism that had brought suffering and death to millions in religious wars. Also, the wide availability of knowledge was made possible through the production of encyclopedias, serving the Enlightenment cause of educating the human race.
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Moksha is the term from Raja Yoga for release from the cycle of birth and death.
In Hinduism and Buddhism the point is to be free. They differ on what they want to be free from, how to accomplish it, and what that freedom is like. You could compare it to being asleep and dreaming, and working to realize that it is just a dream. Having realized that it is a dream, fixing the situation just isn't as important as it was before realizing that it was just a dream. Sure, a person could do it, but it is still just a dream and it is going to end at some point. A person can achieve enlightenment (or liberation) and still seem like a real jerk or just an ordinary person. A Saint, by comparison, has to look and act like a Saint. A Saint can't go around kicking puppies and stealing candy from babies.
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Originally Posted by Ygrec23
Well, what normal American activities do you have to NOT do in order to become enlightened?
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The problem was never the activity to begin with, but it seems like a more simple life with fewer conflicts does make it easier to stop and think for yourself. Constant distraction makes the time go by too quickly.
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Originally Posted by Ygrec23
Hmmmm. Would you say that enlightenment is something you DO?
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That sounds more like being a Saint. They can't just avoid doing bad things; they have duties and responsibilities. Usually they even have to have a documented miracle take place.
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Originally Posted by Ygrec23
Ooooh. I LIKE that. "Knows better but gets in trouble anyway." In the back of your mind. Like your Id? I'd kind of doubt it, though. I don't know if one's Id "knows better." If I had to guess I'd say it doesn't. So what else is there in the back of your mind?
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Even if you throw out the cycle of birth and death thing, most people find themselves repeating the same kinds of things in their life. They repeat the same thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. It isn't necessarily bad, but it often is. Even when things are really good and life is working out, though, it is still a trap. It just happens to be a more comfortable trap. The first step is recognizing being stuck in a pattern. The second step is forming enough of a desire to break out of the pattern. The third step, actually breaking out, follows from the second step when the level of intensity has built up enough.
What I mean by that place in the back of your mind is that place before you are conscious of it, where your beliefs are shaped and where the impulses come from. The conscious mind is good at saying "I meant to do that" afterward and it comes up with rationalizations to explain why.