This is just a place to continue the conversation already begun under the topic welcome. As this is the delineation I was trying to make make between this group and the actual spirituality section of the forum, and there has been a small amount backlash (if you can even give so severe a label) to the announcement of the group, it seems like a natural place to start.

Curious, but for some reason some very advanced spiritual people like Sri Ramakrishna are generally referred to as mystics. Quite honestly, I never really understood what this word really meant, but since then I have a positive association with it. I guess in the end we are going back to the point we initially discussed, there comes a point on a clear-cut, observable spiritual path when funky stuff starts happening and this is probably the point when one crosses over - from the point of view of the people who are a step behind - to being a mystic.

Well in the Jed Mckenna book I linked he talks about things like unity consciousness, advanced yogi's and the like being mystics but not not actually enlightened. He talks about enlightenment being just about seeing the truth and there being far less enlightened people than most realize, that many of the teachers that sometimes even thousands of people consider enlightened aren't, they are actually mystics. This is a point Hawkins makes repeatedly as well, at least in his audio programs, that people that many consider to be great teachers, aren't actually who they claim to be, that many don't even reach the level of integrity. I think that was a point that I never really got before reading Mckennas book. I always thought of the whole package coming with enlightenment, like deep booming voice* "I see all and know all" "I am all abiding peace and love at all times" and it's like no you just see that you are not the character you've been playing all this time.

Funny, I came to exactly the same conclusion today from a different angle. Someone in our community, unfortunately I forgot who, once cracked this joke which I actually thought was quite meaningful: someone should organize a meeting of all the enlightened people in the world with the one footnote that whoever applies is automatically disqualified! Beware the enlightenment concept my friend.

But if people who claim to be enlightened usually aren't, what can we say of those who claim to judge whether others are enlightened or not, like Hawkins or the Jed McKenna you mention? This would seem to count double for non-mystics judging mystics - if you don't know what they are experiencing, how can you say whether they are enlightened?

I think people who are enlightened could care less about discussing enlightenment. The whole trip of arguing what enlightenment really is and who's enlightened is just another game the mind plays to assert itself as who "you" are in comparison to who someone else is. It's all more of the same game in a different package. The fact of the matter is that when any of us drop all of the mental processing and intellectual analysis, life is just life. The bliss comes from just experiencing life in complete purity. Good or bad. I don't personally put any substance in anyone authoritatively claiming they're enlightened or judging someone as being enlightened for many reasons. One of which you mention Velorien.

The whole levels of consciousness idea seems to miss the point so blatantly that it actually makes me laugh. It seems to me to be nothing more than an intellectualized version of something that isn't intellectual. The whole point is to step away from having the mind filter all experiences, not have the mind interpret the mind interpreting the mind and on and on.
Had to make this into two posts because of restrictions here ) :

I agree about it being overly intelectual. I think that is done for the benefit of the world moreso than say Hawkins himself. I think he realizes that people categorize and rank everything and it is a good way to gain a larger audience for his material, which he views as helping the world. As for the judging who's enlightened , it is kind of tricky. I largely just read authors Hawkins calibrates as enlightened tbh

But that can be tricky, I tried to read Huang Po and it was so complicated it was like what is this crap. Also you miss some authors that way, which is why I had never heard of jed Mckenna til recently. When I read him the material just seemed straightforward and honest enough that I sort of believed it. It is largely about tearing down the grand illusion of enlightenment being some supreme state, and makes it more about just seeing things as they are. Although after he goes to lengths to demonstrate this I find there to be a fair amount of glamorization of himself in the book. There is some controversy as to whether or not he even really exists.

Really exists?