Just being the seeker, somebody whose open to spiritual enlightenment, is in itself the important thing and it’s the reward for being a seeker in this world.
Matangi’s mantra is aim, which is MIA backwards. She fights for freedom of speech and stands for truth, and lives in the ghetto because her dad was the first person in Hindu mythology who came from the ‘hood, but had gained enlightenment through not being a Brahmin.
In the past, great communicators were great orators, but great communicators today sound conversational, and interrupting is common in conversation. And public discourse is now more about entertainment than enlightenment.
The Enlightenment attacked religion – Christianity, mainly – for two reasons: that it was a set of ideological delusions, and that it was a system of institutional oppression, with immense powers of persecution and intolerance.
Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.
As a writer, I am an intellectual. I believe in the ideals of the Enlightenment, I believe in the written word, in dialogue and in truth. I hate lies more than anything else. Most of the time I react by writing.
My music is not just about entertainment. It is about enlightenment also.
You’ve got to protect the system of secular faith in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and Enlightenment values. That way, you can protect all religions.
The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science, especially in the schools of America.
I think the Enlightenment is leading us into a dark hole, really.
While confronting the problems of the present, I often find myself thinking back to the world of books as it was experienced by the Founding Fathers and the philosophers of the Enlightenment.
If we remove ourselves from the world, we are pretending that we can follow our own individual enlightenment and let the rest of the world go to hell, so to speak.
Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.
The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.
The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.
Once you get to the Enlightenment, the way that powers get to be hyperpowers isn’t just by conquest. It’s through commerce and innovation. Societies like the Dutch Republic and the United States used tolerance to become a magnet for enterprising immigrants.
In Gnosticism, the physical world did not ultimately matter – which meant physical suffering did not matter either. Seeking ‘enlightenment’ meant cultivating an attitude of detachment, even indifference.
I don’t read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I’m also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction.
Modernity, the child of the Enlightenment, failed when it became apparent that the good society cannot be achieved by unaided reason.
The Enlightenment diamond-shaped society, with a huge, prosperous, socially-mobile, empowered middle class, is by far the most productive and creative system the world has ever seen.
