Have you guys ever had an epiphany?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Castout

Satori? Umm what's the difference of that to epiphany?

Satori (big time enlightenment of top grade in gold with oak leaves, plus fanfares and fireworks in the background ), Kensho (a brief moment of insight and understanding into one's own nature) or just Makyo (hallucination and fantasizing during meditation) - don't let yourself be concerned by these, its just technical terms and labels, and if you pay attention to it, it leads you back to where you were before the "event".

It's all too much thinking, that flatters the ego and keeps the intellect humming around in circles - and that makes focussing on such things and even craving for them a problem in itself, and it makes you running around and telling everybody what a clever Dick you are. I do not judge the specific claims in this thread (how could I, and why should I?), but by experience with dealing with a lot of people investing time and energy into what they considered to be a gaining of spiritual fitness I say that many people claim to have had this or that experience, and they followed specific practices and thought that to raise them any spiritual merits, and the more such merits, the closer to Nirvana they thought to be - and in reality they just had fallen for their own ego's mental creations. Don't step into that trap.

You can gain nothing that is not already inside you, and always has been, there is nothing additional from the outside that you must search for or can find and add to "yourself". So if you find out - why the fuss you make about it? Whether you call it Kensho or epiphany, means nothing, and only distracts you from the things you are actually doing. Meditation and having spiritual experiences, is no martial arts. There are no coloured belts to be gained, nor any badges you can wear on your jacket. Be focussed on what you do, don't rush ahead or lag behind with your mind, be aware of how your thoughts are working and form the image of your world. That is better than having a thousand clever thoughts about Satori. Instead of asking questions about Nirvana or Satori or epiphanies of feelings of God filling yourself, you should ask yourself just one question: "Who am I?".