The Enlightenment Thought Experiment

So the last couple weeks I have been on an eastern religions kick in my readings, particularly the ideas of Jainism and Buddhism.

Both of these religions are focused on entering into a state of liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth. Such a state is called "enlightenment" or "awakening" where someone becomes aware of the true nature of reality and has overcome the mental bondage of suffering and the cycles of "Samsara," the birth-rebirth cycling of an eternal existence.

The goal of this enlightenment is liberation. A state of pure mental and spiritual liberty of which you are free of suffering, delusion, envy, greed, fear, hate, and all the cognitive poisons and inhibitions of thought and understanding. The various eastern religions differ on how they interpret this state and how to achieve it.

Today I wanted to do a thought experiment about enlightenment. To start, I want to ask the question "what would happen if the entirety of humanity or a significant majority achieved a state of total enlightment or total awareness of the nature of truth and reality?"

It's a big question that probably has a lot of big answers. For starters, such an awareness would completely eliminate mental darkness and the fog over reality that darkness causes. This elimination of the darkness in people's minds would make deception and delusion impossible to take hold in someone's mind. Deception and delusion are only enabled to exist by darkness. 

You need a sort of darkness and uncertainty to cloak the fact that a lie is a lie and a delusion is a delusion. Once a lie is revealed as a lie, it no longer has power over your mind. A lie can only have power if people believe it to be true.

A total conquest of the darkness, both within a person and within reality as a whole, would undercut the foundation of deception. Deception can only exist if darkness enables it. This kind of enlightenment would also eliminate fear and hate in the minds of people because it would make the "unknown known" and eliminate the uncertainty surrounding things that can trouble us or cause unease. 

In short, it would lead to complete comprehension and understanding, to where uncertainty and darkness surrounding the truths and factors of existence no longer cloak their truth or their nature.

Such a mass enlightment would almost overnight solve some (if not all) of the most serious problems humanity faces. 

War would be a non-starter, slavery would be eliminated, prejudice and discrimination would go away almost instantly.

People would know how to address their problems efficiently, effectively, and successfully.

Such a mass enlightenment would save our world from ourselves and liberate the minds of the entirety of humanity.

Now of course, this is pretty wishful thinking. It's a feat quite difficult to achieve, but that's why this is a thought experiment.

The optimism I have, though, is there have been enlightened beings in our world. The philosophers of Europe, The buddhas of India and the East. The prophets of the western religions. There have been brilliant and enlightened people amongst us.

Imagine translating that enlightenment not just to a few individuals, but the entirety of humanity and what kind of wondrous and beautiful outcome that would be.

My studies of buddhism has taught me that when a buddha (which means "enlightened one") becomes enlightened for the first time and has the option of entering into the liberty of Nirvana and breaking out of the cycle of births and deaths, they are supposedly filled with such immense compassion that they remain in the world so that they can teach others how to become enlightened as well.

Imagine bringing the whole of humanity to a state of awareness and understanding, where just "light and truth" is all their minds are made of. 

Lux et Veritas