...Turning On the Light: The Role of Darkness in the Search for Enlightenment Your fingers scrabble blindly against the wall of the dark room, searching for the familiar shape of a light switch. The recognizable protrusion appears beneath your fingertips and with a crackle the fluorescent light of your dorm room flickers on. In that second of searching, all manner of monster and fiend flashed before your eyes, lurking in the shadows. In this sense, the looming darkness was both your barrier – sightlessly scrambling for the light switch – and your impetus – wanting to turn on the light to dispel the gloom. Expanding beyond the awkward, floundering quest for a missing light switch, the dark of life is often what both obstructs and drives the pursuit...
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...Historical quest as a search or pursuit made to acquire meaning and historical as a systematic account of events and time relating human race. Therefore Quest for historical Jesus is the attempt made by a number of people to discover who Jesus was and is. Before the period of enlightenment, the church had only one image of Jesus Christ. He was unanimously and harmoniously accepted as presented by the gospels, the church doctrines and traditions and the liturgy. However, the emergences of the enlightenment period in the 18th century twisted events, minds and the faith of the people. Enlightenment was a period of philosophical movement characterized by belief in the power of the human reason and by innovations in political, religious and educational doctrines. Hence, human reason was the most appealing phenomenon. Everything was subjected to critical analysis and assessment by the intellect and those that were found plausible were treasured and the non-plausible rejected or considered as myth. In the light of this, to ascertain the truth regarding the what the gospels, the doctrines of the church and traditions taught Jesus they began questioning their faith so as to know what is truth and what is false, what to belief and what not to belief. As a result, many things which were not very clear to the mind about Jesus came up and as such the need for scientific rediscovery of the historical Jesus. Examples of such issues among others were the true historical identity of Jesus...
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...Enlightenment in Fifth Business: The Beauty of Change Fiona Doomasia West Carleton Secondary School Ms. Bell (e-Learning with O.C.D.S.B.) ENG4UT Monday, July 13, 2015 Enlightenment in Fifth Business: The Beauty of Change Millions of people devote their entire lives to achieving enlightenment; however, very few people truly understand how to do this, and what it feels like. Enlightenment is an abstract concept of attaining knowledge and reaching self awareness. Despite the ambiguity in the meaning of enlightenment, today’s society believes that it will guarantee self satisfaction. In Fifth Business, Robertson Davies portrays a man’s quest for enlightenment through his unpredictable life journey. Every change in Dunstan Ramsay’s life journey teaches him a valuable life lesson, and changes him for the better, resulting in his discovery of enlightenment. The road to enlightenment is paved by the insight on life that Dunstan gains as he changes his physical locations over the course of the novel. It is also clear that change can be enlightening when looking at the important characteristics that Dunstan develops from the variety of people that he surrounds himself with throughout life. Lastly, the knowledge that Dunstan learns through his many ambition changes proves to help him find personal enlightenment. Through the principles that Dunstan learns from his perpetual changes in setting, friends and ambitions, Davies uses Dunstan’s life journey to show that in order to...
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...Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect handbook to help students understand literature. It is meant to help you see past the story and into what the story means. It also helps in understanding what different symbols stand for and finding common themes and patterns across different works of literature. One of the most helpful ideas in his book is “Every trip is a Quest (Except when it’s Not)”. This chapter focuses on how to recognize when a character goes on a quest and what a quest actually consists of. One of the most important rules of a quest is that whatever reason the character says they are going on a quest for, is never actually what ends up happening and “the real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge” (Foster, 3). The reason “questers” are usually so young and naïve is because the whole point of the quest is to become wiser and more mature. A second note-worthy idea from Fosters book is “Don’t Read with Your Eyes” (Foster 232). What he means by this...
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...Buddhism Presentation: Zen Buddhism Chiffon Anderson REL/133 Deborah Wilkinson February 23, 2015 Buddhism Presentation: Zen Buddhism The religion of Buddhism started in the country of India around the fifth century BCE. Buddhism is known as a noneistic religion or as dharma which is the right way of living. Buddhism has a number of traditions, practices and beliefs all largely attributed t Siddhartha Gautama or Buddha “the awakened one.” The ultimate goal of Buddhism is to attain nirvana by practicing the middle way or the Noble Eightfold Path. Zen Buddhism became popular in China, Korea, and Japan and it puts stress on deep meditation. Zen Buddhism puts stress also on scriptures than other forms of Buddhism and focuses on direct spiritual break through to truth. HISTORY OF BUDDHISM Buddhism started in the country of India around the fifth century BCE. The religion of Buddhism encompasses a variety of beliefs, traditions, and practices all taught by their religious leader Buddha. Buddhism believes in samsara, karma, and rebirth. Samsara which is the continual repetitive sequences of birth and death. Karma within Buddhism is a life force that drives samsara; this is the sequences of suffering and rebirth for each person. Karma is also the action of the body, speech, and mind that comes from mental intent and brings forth the penalty or result. Reincarnation or rebirth is the process where the individual being goes through a series of lifetimes as one of many...
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...of escape is something that has excited and interested people in uncomfortable situations for thousands of years. Uncontrollable forces like family, the church and politics can make you feel like you are trapped within a place where growing intellectually, spirtually and emotionally may seem smootherd or unattainable. The human spirit, however, still craves greater knowledge and spirtual awareness. In James Joyce's collection of short storys known as the Dubliners, one of which is called "Araby", we are witnesses to a boys fall from grace. The boys efforts were to no avail but, through the failure of his journey, we recognize through this allegory, that the human spirit's loss of hope comes the loss of ambition tward the pursuit of enlightenment. Our first allegory comes from his surroundings being used a description for that trapped feeling he's having. " being blind, it was a quiet street except at the hour the Christian brothers school set the boys free." (430) North Richmond street is described as a wasteland of the spirit. A wasteland that the boy feels trapped in, but not yet hopeless to escape. Joyce uses words like blind and uninhabited to illustrate Dublin and refers to the people of Dublin as shadows. As discouraging as his surroundings are we are reminded of the boys innocence and naiveness with joyce's use of the words to describe the children's skin as "glowing". In comparison to the shadows used to describe the adults of Dublin, the boys are portrayed as...
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...Money & The Pursuit of Wisdom and Enlightenment Money, for all intents and purposes, is any system of currency that constitutes value and can be exchanged for material goods or performed services. All people require money in order to satisfy their survival needs and compulsive desires that are unnecessary, yet tempting. Without money, our technological, industrial, self-interested, media-induced society would cease to function – especially since it is the pursuit of money that entices people to work hard. We all appreciate being rewarded for our efforts in a measurable medium, since it allows us a certain level of freedom. It is this obsession with reward that has choked what is left of untethered curiosity and in many ways de-humanized most people. When one's time is consumed by financial worries, it is difficult to participate in socialization, learning, and different kinds of personal growth. It’s human nature to pursue understanding and knowledge. Rather than human beings, we are transformed into machines, whose primary purpose is to pursue money. Money is arguably the greatest hindrance preventing human beings from pursuing happiness through wisdom and spiritual enlightenment. Wisdom, in this case, is knowledge coupled with understanding. The true pursuit of wisdom has nothing to do with pride or striving for omniscience, but has much to do with reaching a greater level of insight as to how the universe operates and why. To be enlightened is to experience a revelation...
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...Chris McCandless’s Journey Chris McCandless’s was the son of an upper-middle class parents in the suburban Virginia area. Chris was trying to find the Self through the practice of self-reliance from 1990 to 1992. Inspired by geography, nature and his personal quests of self-discovery, he looked for peace within the Alaskan wilderness. He completely disconnected from his past life and abandoned everything but a few possessions. He misguidedly believed that the abandonment of others would be necessary to find enlightenment. Chris’s journey is comparable to the travels of Siddhartha from his privileged family to the end of their remarkable experiences. During the teen age years of Chris and Siddhartha, both wanted to leave their families to start an expedition of self-discovery. Chris’s parents were upper-middle class parents who loved Chris and wanted him to succeed. Siddhartha’s father was a Brahman who wanted Siddhartha to continue his practice with him. However, Chris felt like society was corrupt and that money should not be the most important valuable to someone. Siddhartha felt like he has achieved the limit of...
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...young man living in India who is trying to find happiness within himself. The book describes his spiritual journey and quest to reach happiness with his companion, Govinda. Siddhartha realizes that he should not follow specific directions or teachings of other people to reach enlightenment, as demonstrated by his experience living as a Brahmin, joining the Samanas and learning the teachings of the Buddha, but should rather follow his own unique path...
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...Christology Quest For Historical Jesus There have been three modern quests for the historical Jesus influenced by the 27 books of the New Testament, especially the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, since the first century C.E. The first quest began with the Enlightenment movement, which began as a result of increased value placed on individual thought and discovery, questioning of the truthfulness of the Bible and other church doctrines, and distinguishing the actual historical Jesus from the interpretations of Jesus that mixed small portions of history with greater amounts of theology. Hermann S. Reimarus was one of the first scholars to identify discrepancies. After his death philosopher Gotthold Lessing published Reimarus’ claim that Jesus was a Jewish reformer that encouraged Israel to replace Rome with the kingdom of God. After Jesus’ death the disciples presented him as a divine Savior, resurrected from death. Reimarus believed the disciples committed fraud; however David Strauss believed their writings to be mythological communication. These myths alone were not valuable, but were valuable in communicating religious truths. The second quest for the historical Jesus was initiated by Ernst Kasemann in 1953, as a reaction to Rudolf Bultmann’s rejection of the original quest. Bultmann dominated debates in the middle decades of the twentieth century. He was a Lutheran and helped move theology into the age of dialectical theology, where God was thought...
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...In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” his main idea is that it's important for an individual to stay true to their own beliefs and ideas, and that individuals should learn to trust themselves and speak their mind. Emerson’s insight can be related to Herman Hesse’s novel, Siddhartha. In the novel, Siddhartha chooses not to follow teachers, and go his own way. In both works, Siddhartha and “Self-Reliance” it's evident that the best path that you can take is your own, and that true success comes after accepting your own ideas, and your own ideas only. These ideas are evident in Siddhartha when Siddhartha departs from the Samanas and, when Siddhartha leaves his worldly life to follow his own path to enlightenment. The theme of Siddhartha is similar to the theme of “self reliance”, both discuss the idea of following ones own path. This is proven in Siddhartha's actions. The first time this theme is shown is when Siddhartha departs from the Samanas and decides not to go with Buddha even though he agrees with his teachings. Siddhartha...
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...1219 Ms. J. Chitwood English IV, Period 1 25 March 2014 Consequences of Knowledge and Truth Although the quest for knowledge plays a big role in Sophocles' play "Oedipus Rex,” translated by Dudley Fittz and Robert Fitzgerald, the consequences of wanting to know the truth led to an unforeseen exile. Though Oedipus was very dignified, his pursuit for knowledge and truth resulted in ruin as Oedipus uncovered his destiny, which he was better off not knowing. Because Oedipus was a king of great honor; his power prevented him from acknowledging the words of his own people and accepting the truth. Oedipus, once a man of power and wealth, lost all respect creating ramifications that he later endured. The power of truth became the biggest obstacles for Oedipus' character to accept amongst the vigilant kingdom he was living in. Oedipus' was unwilling to see the truth behind his very own prophecy spoken by his kingdom of people, to whom he should have always been willing to listen. He requested to hear the spoken words of Thebes and summoned them to hear, “Children, I would not have you speak through messengers, and therefore I have come myself to hear you— I, Oedipus, who bear the famous name” (Sophocles 3). Not realizing the slander of the town was about him, Oedipus requested to be told the truth spoken throughout his people. Because of his request to hear the truth, Oedipus’ was hit with the truth of his past. He is dignified enough to be told up front with out having to hear...
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...In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, the audience follows a young man on his journey to find true enlightenment. Through numerous teachers and many life experiences, the stories main protagonist, Siddhartha, ends the story realizing that true enlightenment is found within one’s self rather than taught from a teacher. Hesse develops his story of a man’s search for himself through the use of symbolism, allegory, and his own personal bias. Throughout the story of Siddhartha, many symbols are mentioned to the reader and hold a deeper meaning. For example, in chapter seven, Hesse uses a songbird to symbolize Siddhartha’s life. The bird is mentioned during a dream, in which Siddhartha had been living a wonderful life as a rich man for many years. In his dream, the songbird dies. The bird died because Siddhartha had spent too much time as a rich man and learning about reality, rather than learning about himself. Another important symbol used throughout this novel is the smile. Each of the three characters in the story who attain a final state of enlightenment is describes by having a beautiful smile which reflects their peaceful and happy state within. In each case this smile is a completely natural phenomenon and it cannot be created by people who have not attained the prerequisite state of harmony. One last symbol that frequently appears in Hesse’s story is the river. As a constant, yet changing source of life for many species, it only makes sense that this natural beauty would be used...
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...have you heard of a religion without a god at all? Buddhism is a nontheistic religion that began with the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama also known as the Buddha, “the awakened one”. This religion began with his teaching spreading across the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent through the 4th and 6th century. This religion stemmed from Hinduism, similar to Christianity coming out of Judaism. Striving to gain more and more enlightenment religion always seems to evolve that’s why there are even branches in specific forms of religion in Buddhism; these two branches are Theravada “The School of the Elders” and Mahayana “The Great Vehicle”. In order to fully examine this religion I wish to address the founder’s life, Buddhist concepts, practice, and Buddhist text. Life of the Buddha Buddha was no god, he was a “student of philosophy and seeker of truth” (9,TQ). He was born Siddhartha Gautama, the prince of Nepal. When he was twenty-nine years old he left his position as prince to become a mendicant monk to gain enlightenment. He desired such enlightenment after seeing the state of people near where he lived. These are known as the “Four Sights” which include: an old man, a diseased body, a decaying body, and a monk. Following the sight of these things, “the end of suffering” ran ramped in the mind of Siddhartha Even after all of the women, riches, and fame that was granted to him by his father the King he still left; leaving his wife and child behind. Leaving the palace he...
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...In chapter 1 we see Siddhartha engaged in a philosophical struggle--a mental state he seems to thrive in. But he is only beginning to realize why he is dissatisfied and what he really wants. This confusion is apparent by a narrative pacing and diction that show build through questioning. It describes the problem--desire for something--then explores all the avenues of this problem. Does he desire truth? Identity? Oneness with the “primal source” of the Atman that may or may not “flow within his own heart?” These initial questions set up the journey Siddhartha will be taking throughout the rest of the novel. Hesse alludes to the famous banyan tree (p. 9) that was iconic to Siddhartha Gautama’s original development of the Buddhism religion....
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