Apple of Enlightenment (, Apple of Wisdom) is a machine[1] that makes prophecies that is mentioned in EarthBound.

Giygas was in possession of the Apple of Enlightenment before the events of Earthbound, where it foretold Giygas's defeat at the hands of a child named Ness. To disprove this prophecy, he initiates his invasion of Earth 20 years before it was prophesied, only to be defeated by Ninten the first time.

The prophecy was still being told at least 10 years into Ness's future where he succeeded in plunging all into darkness, which prompts Buzz Buzz to travel back to Ness's time to warn him. Although it predicted that Ness and his friends would defeat Giygas, Pokey claimed that it never predicted his own involvement with Giygas' plans.

In Earthbound, it's never clearly stated what or who the Apple really is, so there is a theory that it's a manuscript that Apple Kid wrote. This explains why Pokeywas never mentioned in the prophecy, since the two never heard of each other.The Japanese original that is clear that the Apple is a "prophecy-telling machine in Gyiygs possession [that] has foretold that Gyiygs machinations will end in failure" disproves this theory.[1]

Read the original here:
Apple of Enlightenment - EarthBound Wiki

From Theden, a translation of a speech given last year by German center-right political activist Manfred Kleine-Hartlage.

It is not automatic, and it does not happen by chance, that people indeed manage to live together peacefully and orderly; it is an astonishing wonder that they do. Every culture is a fine network of thousands and thousands of largely unwritten rules, values, shared memories, shared beliefs. Every culture is a unique, specific answer to the question of how people do it, and when I say unique, then that means inevitably these answers vary: there are cultures in which the family clan and its unconditional cohesion is the basis of society, which protects individuals, and there are on the other hand individualistically-influenced cultures like ours, in which you trust the state and the laws to provide this protection, and which relies on everyone else doing the same. There are cultures in which the ability and willingness to use force has prestige value, and there are cultures like ours in which violence is outlawed. There are cultures in which yielding is considered a sign of weakness, and there are cultures like ours, in which conflicts are regarded as mere differences of opinion, which are at best discharged discursively and at worst in court.Yet these other cultures do not necessarily work worse than ours, but just differently. Islam, for example, does what is needed to provide a cultural system: it organizes the society. But it organizes it differently than our Christian or Western system. The problem only begins where one locks together two, three, four or more different and incompatible cultures in the same country, so they are crammed together, but do not belong together.

In wanting and introducing a multi-ethnic state, society is put in the state of an (at least) latent civil war. In running this, the society falls into a permanent structural crisis that is constantly reinforced with progressive mass immigration, which stirs up conflicts, encourages vigilantism, destroys the social consensus of values, and destroys the conditions of social peace. He who teaches his own children peacefulness does so because of ethical values ultimately rooted in Christianity. Then forcing the thus peacefully behaved people to live together with others who come from cultures married to violencesuch as that Nigerianmakes them specifically and systematically victimized. This invites an endless liability.The 7500 Germans since 1990 who have become victims of immigrant violence are victims of a policy daring enough to destroy society: out of ideological blindness; out of greed for cheap, easily exploitable labor, whose situation is precarious at the same time, for the welfare state will collapse at the point of exhaustion (this one also a quite desirable result of mass immigration for certain circles); out of hatred for his own people, those damn Germans they want nothing to do with; andnot the leastout of lust for power. There is a reason why there are elites in all Western countries who carry out the destruction of peoples and their transformation into mere splintered populations: peoples are in fact solidarities that can also kick their rulers out. The battle cry with which the rule of the SED [the Soviet-installed Socialist ruling party of East Germany] was overthrown 23 years ago did not read We are the population. It read: We are the people! A mere population, consisting of dozens of warring ethnicities, will never overthrow the ruler. They cannot. A democracy needs its demos. A despotism on the other hand, a dictatorship, a totalitarian regimeyes, such a thing needs a population.The destruction of the people is one side of the same coin, to which the other side is the transfer of their rights to supranational institutions: to the EU, the WTO, the IWF, the NATO, the UN and dozens elseall institutions that cannot be controlled from below, but that determine our lives: that dictate to us the rules by which we live, and dictate to us which foods we should eat, which people we have to live together with in our country, against whom we must go to war, and into what inscrutable bank-conglomerate our tax dollars disappear.What is here in the making as understood is a global despotism of elites who resist any responsibility and any control. And the systematically induced mass migration, this largest mass migration in 1500 yearswhen this migration of peoples led to the collapse of Roman civilizationis part of this process.Against todays events it has been argued, the Peoples Mourning Day is dedicated to the mourning of German war victims, and crime victims were indeed not war victims. And I say: They are just that! They are victims of a war that is being waged against all the peoples of Europe, not only against the Germans.

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The Dark Enlightenment

The Enlightenment (also known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason;[1] in French: le Sicle des Lumires, lit.'"the Century of Lights"' in German: Aufklrung, "Enlightenment" and in Italian: LIlluminismo, Enlightenment)[2] was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, "The Century of Philosophy".[3]

The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centred on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy and came to advance ideals like liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state.[4][5] In France, the central doctrines of the Enlightenment philosophers were individual liberty and religious tolerance, in opposition to an absolute monarchy and the fixed dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism, along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxyan attitude captured by the phrase Sapere aude, "Dare to know".[6]

French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715 (the year that Louis XIV died) and 1789 (the beginning of the French Revolution). Some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. Les philosophes (Frenchfor "the philosophers") of the period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses and in printed books and pamphlets. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Enlightenment.[7]

The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution.[8] Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and Spinoza.[9] The major figures of the Enlightenment included Beccaria, Diderot, Hume, Kant, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Voltaire. Some European rulers, including Catherine II of Russia, Joseph II of Austria and Frederick II of Prussia, tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism.[10] Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence (1776). One of his peers, James Madison, incorporated these ideals into the United States Constitution during its framing in 1787.[11]

The most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopdie (Encyclopaedia). Published between 1751 and 1772 in thirty-five volumes, it was compiled by Diderot, d'Alembert (until 1759) and a team of 150 scientists and philosophers. It helped spread the ideas of the Enlightenment across Europe and beyond.[12] Other landmark publications were Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique (Philosophical Dictionary; 1764) and Letters on the English (1733); Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality (1754) and The Social Contract (1762); Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776); and Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748). The ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789. After the Revolution, the Enlightenment was followed by the intellectual movement known as Romanticism.

Ren Descartes' rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking. His attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His scepticism was refined by John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and David Hume's writings in the 1740s. His dualism was challenged by Spinoza's uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus (1670) and Ethics (1677).

These laid down two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: first, the moderate variety, following Descartes, Locke and Christian Wolff, which sought accommodation between reform and the traditional systems of power and faith, and second, the radical enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression and eradication of religious authority. The moderate variety tended to be deistic, whereas the radical tendency separated the basis of morality entirely from theology. Both lines of thought were eventually opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment, which sought a return to faith.

In the mid-18th century, Paris became the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines and dogmas. The philosophic movement was led by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law, and for science based on experiments and observation. The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. While the Philosophes of the French Enlightenment were not revolutionaries and many were members of the nobility, their ideas played an important part in undermining the legitimacy of the Old Regime and shaping the French Revolution.

Francis Hutcheson, a moral philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words, "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers". Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method (the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience and causation) and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by his protgs David Hume and Adam Smith.[17] Hume became a major figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy.

Immanuel Kant (17241804) tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason.[18] Kant's work continued to shape German thought and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century.[19] Mary Wollstonecraft was one of England's earliest feminist philosophers.[20] She argued for a society based on reason and that women as well as men should be treated as rational beings. She is best known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1791).[21]

Science played an important role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favour of the development of free speech and thought. Scientific progress during the Enlightenment included the discovery of carbon dioxide (fixed air) by the chemist Joseph Black, the argument for deep time by the geologist James Hutton and the invention of the steam engine by James Watt.[22] The experiments of Lavoisier were used to create the first modern chemical plants in Paris and the experiments of the Montgolfier Brothers enabled them to launch the first manned flight in a hot-air balloon on 21 November 1783 from the Chteau de la Muette, near the Bois de Boulogne.[23]

Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. The study of science, under the heading of natural philosophy, was divided into physics and a conglomerate grouping of chemistry and natural history, which included anatomy, biology, geology, mineralogy and zoology.[24] As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally: Rousseau criticized the sciences for distancing man from nature and not operating to make people happier.[25] Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopdie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire and milie du Chtelet. Some historians have marked the 18th century as a drab period in the history of science.[26] However, the century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry.

Scientific academies and societies grew out of the Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge in contrast to the scholasticism of the university.[27] During the Enlightenment, some societies created or retained links to universities, but contemporary sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university's utility was in the transmission of knowledge while societies functioned to create knowledge.[28] As the role of universities in institutionalized science began to diminish, learned societies became the cornerstone of organized science. Official scientific societies were chartered by the state in order to provide technical expertise.[29] Most societies were granted permission to oversee their own publications, control the election of new members and the administration of the society.[30] After 1700, a tremendous number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe and by 1789 there were over seventy official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined the term "the Age of Academies" to describe the 18th century.[31]

The influence of science also began appearing more commonly in poetry and literature during the Enlightenment. Some poetry became infused with scientific metaphor and imagery, while other poems were written directly about scientific topics. Sir Richard Blackmore committed the Newtonian system to verse in Creation, a Philosophical Poem in Seven Books (1712). After Newton's death in 1727, poems were composed in his honour for decades.[32] James Thomson (17001748) penned his "Poem to the Memory of Newton", which mourned the loss of Newton, but also praised his science and legacy.[33]

Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed a "science of man",[34] which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett, Adam Ferguson, John Millar and William Robertson, all of whom merged a scientific study of how humans behaved in ancient and primitive cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity. Modern sociology largely originated from this movement[35] and Hume's philosophical concepts that directly influenced James Madison (and thus the U.S. Constitution) and as popularised by Dugald Stewart, would be the basis of classical liberalism.[36]

In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, often considered the first work on modern economics as it had an immediate impact on British economic policy that continues into the 21st century.[37] It was immediately preceded and influenced by Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune drafts of Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (Paris, 1766). Smith acknowledged indebtedness and possibly was the original English translator.[38]

Cesare Beccaria, a jurist, criminologist, philosopher and politician and one of the great Enlightenment writers, became famous for his masterpiece Of Crimes and Punishments (1764), later translated into 22 languages,[39] which condemned torture and the death penalty and was a founding work in the field of penology and the Classical School of criminology by promoting criminal justice. Another prominent intellectual was Francesco Mario Pagano, who wrote important studies such as Saggi Politici (Political Essays, 1783), one of the major works of the Enlightenment in Naples; and Considerazioni sul processo criminale (Considerations on the criminal trial, 1787), which established him as an international authority on criminal law.[40]

The Enlightenment has long been hailed as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture.[41] The Enlightenment brought political modernization to the West, in terms of introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies. This thesis has been widely accepted by Anglophone scholars and has been reinforced by the large-scale studies by Robert Darnton, Roy Porter and most recently by Jonathan Israel.[42][43]

John Locke, one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers,[44] based his governance philosophy in social contract theory, a subject that permeated Enlightenment political thought. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes ushered in this new debate with his work Leviathan in 1651. Hobbes also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.[45]

Both Locke and Rousseau developed social contract theories in Two Treatises of Government and Discourse on Inequality, respectively. While quite different works, Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau agreed that a social contract, in which the government's authority lies in the consent of the governed,[47] is necessary for man to live in civil society. Locke defines the state of nature as a condition in which humans are rational and follow natural law, in which all men are born equal and with the right to life, liberty and property. However, when one citizen breaks the Law of Nature both the transgressor and the victim enter into a state of war, from which it is virtually impossible to break free. Therefore, Locke said that individuals enter into civil society to protect their natural rights via an "unbiased judge" or common authority, such as courts, to appeal to. Contrastingly, Rousseau's conception relies on the supposition that "civil man" is corrupted, while "natural man" has no want he cannot fulfill himself. Natural man is only taken out of the state of nature when the inequality associated with private property is established.[48] Rousseau said that people join into civil society via the social contract to achieve unity while preserving individual freedom. This is embodied in the sovereignty of the general will, the moral and collective legislative body constituted by citizens.

Locke is known for his statement that individuals have a right to "Life, Liberty and Property" and his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor. Tutored by Locke, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury wrote in 1706: "There is a mighty Light which spreads its self over the world especially in those two free Nations of England and Holland; on whom the Affairs of Europe now turn".[49] Locke's theory of natural rights has influenced many political documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence and the French National Constituent Assembly's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

The philosophes argued that the establishment of a contractual basis of rights would lead to the market mechanism and capitalism, the scientific method, religious tolerance and the organization of states into self-governing republics through democratic means. In this view, the tendency of the philosophes in particular to apply rationality to every problem is considered the essential change.[50]

Though much of Enlightenment political thought was dominated by social contract theorists, both David Hume and Adam Ferguson criticized this camp. Hume's essay Of the Original Contract argues that governments derived from consent are rarely seen and civil government is grounded in a ruler's habitual authority and force. It is precisely because of the ruler's authority over-and-against the subject, that the subject tacitly consents and Hume says that the subjects would "never imagine that their consent made him sovereign", rather the authority did so.[51] Similarly, Ferguson did not believe citizens built the state, rather polities grew out of social development. In his 1767 An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Ferguson uses the four stages of progress, a theory that was very popular in Scotland at the time, to explain how humans advance from a hunting and gathering society to a commercial and civil society without "signing" a social contract.

Both Rousseau and Locke's social contract theories rest on the presupposition of natural rights, which are not a result of law or custom, but are things that all men have in pre-political societies and are therefore universal and inalienable. The most famous natural right formulation comes from John Locke in his Second Treatise, when he introduces the state of nature. For Locke, the law of nature is grounded on mutual security or the idea that one cannot infringe on another's natural rights, as every man is equal and has the same inalienable rights. These natural rights include perfect equality and freedom, as well as the right to preserve life and property. Locke also argued against slavery on the basis that enslaving yourself goes against the law of nature because you cannot surrender your own rights, your freedom is absolute and no one can take it from you. Additionally, Locke argues that one person cannot enslave another because it is morally reprehensible, although he introduces a caveat by saying that enslavement of a lawful captive in time of war would not go against one's natural rights.

As a spillover of the Enlightenment, nonsecular beliefs expressed first by Quakers and then by Protestant evangelicals in Britain and the United States emerged. To these groups, slavery became "repugnant to our religion" and a "crime in the sight of God."[52] These ideas added to those expressed by Enlightenment thinkers, leading many in Britain to believe that slavery was "not only morally wrong and economically inefficient, but also politically unwise."[53] As these notions gained more adherents, Britain was forced to end its participation in the slave trade.

The leaders of the Enlightenment were not especially democratic, as they more often look to absolute monarchs as the key to imposing reforms designed by the intellectuals. Voltaire despised democracy and said the absolute monarch must be enlightened and must act as dictated by reason and justice in other words, be a "philosopher-king".[54]

In several nations, rulers welcomed leaders of the Enlightenment at court and asked them to help design laws and programs to reform the system, typically to build stronger states. These rulers are called "enlightened despots" by historians.[55] They included Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Leopold II of Tuscany and Joseph II of Austria. Joseph was over-enthusiastic, announcing many reforms that had little support so that revolts broke out and his regime became a comedy of errors and nearly all his programs were reversed.[56] Senior ministers Pombal in Portugal and Johann Friedrich Struensee in Denmark also governed according to Enlightenment ideals. In Poland, the model constitution of 1791 expressed Enlightenment ideals, but was in effect for only one year before the nation was partitioned among its neighbors. More enduring were the cultural achievements, which created a nationalist spirit in Poland.[57]

Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, saw himself as a leader of the Enlightenment and patronized philosophers and scientists at his court in Berlin. Voltaire, who had been imprisoned and maltreated by the French government, was eager to accept Frederick's invitation to live at his palace. Frederick explained: "My principal occupation is to combat ignorance and prejudice... to enlighten minds, cultivate morality, and to make people as happy as it suits human nature, and as the means at my disposal permit".[58]

The Enlightenment has been frequently linked to the French Revolution of 1789. One view of the political changes that occurred during the Enlightenment is that the "consent of the governed" philosophy as delineated by Locke in Two Treatises of Government (1689) represented a paradigm shift from the old governance paradigm under feudalism known as the "divine right of kings". In this view, the revolutions of the late 1700s and early 1800s were caused by the fact that this governance paradigm shift often could not be resolved peacefully and therefore violent revolution was the result. Clearly a governance philosophy where the king was never wrong was in direct conflict with one whereby citizens by natural law had to consent to the acts and rulings of their government.

Alexis de Tocqueville described the French Revolution as the inevitable result of the radical opposition created in the 18th century between the monarchy and the men of letters of the Enlightenment. These men of letters constituted a sort of "substitute aristocracy that was both all-powerful and without real power". This illusory power came from the rise of "public opinion", born when absolutist centralization removed the nobility and the bourgeoisie from the political sphere. The "literary politics" that resulted promoted a discourse of equality and was hence in fundamental opposition to the monarchical regime.[59] De Tocqueville "clearly designates ... the cultural effects of transformation in the forms of the exercise of power".[60]

Enlightenment era religious commentary was a response to the preceding century of religious conflict in Europe, especially the Thirty Years' War.[61] Theologians of the Enlightenment wanted to reform their faith to its generally non-confrontational roots and to limit the capacity for religious controversy to spill over into politics and warfare while still maintaining a true faith in God. For moderate Christians, this meant a return to simple Scripture. John Locke abandoned the corpus of theological commentary in favor of an "unprejudiced examination" of the Word of God alone. He determined the essence of Christianity to be a belief in Christ the redeemer and recommended avoiding more detailed debate.[62] In the Jefferson Bible, Thomas Jefferson went further and dropped any passages dealing with miracles, visitations of angels and the resurrection of Jesus after his death, as he tried to extract the practical Christian moral code of the New Testament.[63]

Enlightenment scholars sought to curtail the political power of organized religion and thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war.[64] Spinoza determined to remove politics from contemporary and historical theology (e.g., disregarding Judaic law).[65] Moses Mendelssohn advised affording no political weight to any organized religion, but instead recommended that each person follow what they found most convincing.[66] A good religion based in instinctive morals and a belief in God should not theoretically need force to maintain order in its believers and both Mendelssohn and Spinoza judged religion on its moral fruits, not the logic of its theology.[67]

A number of novel ideas about religion developed with the Enlightenment, including deism and talk of atheism. According to Thomas Paine, deism is the simple belief in God the Creator, with no reference to the Bible or any other miraculous source. Instead, the deist relies solely on personal reason to guide his creed,[68] which was eminently agreeable to many thinkers of the time.[69] Atheism was much discussed, but there were few proponents. Wilson and Reill note: "In fact, very few enlightened intellectuals, even when they were vocal critics of Christianity, were true atheists. Rather, they were critics of orthodox belief, wedded rather to skepticism, deism, vitalism, or perhaps pantheism".[70] Some followed Pierre Bayle and argued that atheists could indeed be moral men.[71] Many others like Voltaire held that without belief in a God who punishes evil, the moral order of society was undermined. That is, since atheists gave themselves to no Supreme Authority and no law and had no fear of eternal consequences, they were far more likely to disrupt society.[72] Bayle (16471706) observed that, in his day, "prudent persons will always maintain an appearance of [religion]," and he believed that even atheists could hold concepts of honour and go beyond their own self-interest to create and interact in society.[73] Locke said that if there were no God and no divine law, the result would be moral anarchy: every individual "could have no law but his own will, no end but himself. He would be a god to himself, and the satisfaction of his own will the sole measure and end of all his actions."[74]

The "Radical Enlightenment" promoted the concept of separating church and state, an idea that is often credited to English philosopher John Locke (16321704).[78] According to his principle of the social contract, Locke said that the government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he said must therefore remain protected from any government authority.

These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with the social contract, became particularly influential in the American colonies and the drafting of the United States Constitution.[79] Thomas Jefferson called for a "wall of separation between church and state" at the federal level. He previously had supported successful efforts to disestablish the Church of England in Virginia[80] and authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.[81] Jefferson's political ideals were greatly influenced by the writings of John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton,[82] whom he considered the three greatest men that ever lived.[83]

The Enlightenment took hold in most European countries, often with a specific local emphasis. For example, in France it became associated with anti-government and anti-Church radicalism, while in Germany it reached deep into the middle classes, where it expressed a spiritualistic and nationalistic tone without threatening governments or established churches.[84] Government responses varied widely. In France, the government was hostile, and the philosophes fought against its censorship, sometimes being imprisoned or hounded into exile. The British government, for the most part, ignored the Enlightenment's leaders in England and Scotland, although it did give Isaac Newton a knighthood and a very lucrative government office.

The very existence of an English Enlightenment has been hotly debated by scholars. The majority of textbooks on British history make little or no mention of an English Enlightenment. Some surveys of the entire Enlightenment include England and others ignore it, although they do include coverage of such major intellectuals as Joseph Addison, Edward Gibbon, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Alexander Pope, Joshua Reynolds and Jonathan Swift.[85] Roy Porter argues that the reasons for this neglect were the assumptions that the movement was primarily French-inspired, that it was largely a-religious or anti-clerical, and that it stood in outspoken defiance to the established order.[86] Porter admits that, after the 1720s, England could claim few thinkers to equal Diderot, Voltaire or Rousseau. Indeed, its leading intellectuals such as Edward Gibbon,[87] Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson were all quite conservative and supportive of the standing order. Porter says the reason was that Enlightenment had come early to England and had succeeded so that the culture had accepted political liberalism, philosophical empiricism, and religious toleration of the sort that intellectuals on the continent had to fight for against powerful odds. Furthermore, England rejected the collectivism of the continent and emphasized the improvement of individuals as the main goal of enlightenment.[88]

In the Scottish Enlightenment, Scotland's major cities created an intellectual infrastructure of mutually supporting institutions such as universities, reading societies, libraries, periodicals, museums and masonic lodges. The Scottish network was "predominantly liberal Calvinist, Newtonian, and 'design' oriented in character which played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment".[90] In France, Voltaire said that "we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization".[91] The focus of the Scottish Enlightenment ranged from intellectual and economic matters to the specifically scientific as in the work of William Cullen, physician and chemist; James Anderson, an agronomist; Joseph Black, physicist and chemist; and James Hutton, the first modern geologist.[17][92]

Several Americans, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, played a major role in bringing Enlightenment ideas to the New World and in influencing British and French thinkers.[93] Franklin was influential for his political activism and for his advances in physics.[94][95] The cultural exchange during the Age of Enlightenment ran in both directions across the Atlantic. Thinkers such as Paine, Locke and Rousseau all take Native American cultural practices as examples of natural freedom.[96] The Americans closely followed English and Scottish political ideas, as well as some French thinkers such as Montesquieu.[97] As deists, they were influenced by ideas of John Toland (16701722) and Matthew Tindal (16561733). During the Enlightenment there was a great emphasis upon liberty, republicanism and religious tolerance. There was no respect for monarchy or inherited political power. Deists reconciled science and religion by rejecting prophecies, miracles and Biblical theology. Leading deists included Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason and by Thomas Jefferson in his short Jefferson Bible from which all supernatural aspects were removed.[98]

Prussia took the lead among the German states in sponsoring the political reforms that Enlightenment thinkers urged absolute rulers to adopt. There were important movements as well in the smaller states of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover and the Palatinate. In each case, Enlightenment values became accepted and led to significant political and administrative reforms that laid the groundwork for the creation of modern states.[99] The princes of Saxony, for example, carried out an impressive series of fundamental fiscal, administrative, judicial, educational, cultural and general economic reforms. The reforms were aided by the country's strong urban structure and influential commercial groups and modernized pre-1789 Saxony along the lines of classic Enlightenment principles.[100]

Before 1750, the German upper classes looked to France for intellectual, cultural and architectural leadership, as French was the language of high society. By the mid-18th century, the Aufklrung (The Enlightenment) had transformed German high culture in music, philosophy, science and literature. Christian Wolff (16791754) was the pioneer as a writer who expounded the Enlightenment to German readers and legitimized German as a philosophic language.[101]

Johann Gottfried von Herder (17441803) broke new ground in philosophy and poetry, as a leader of the Sturm und Drang movement of proto-Romanticism. Weimar Classicism (Weimarer Klassik) was a cultural and literary movement based in Weimar that sought to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical and Enlightenment ideas. The movement (from 1772 until 1805) involved Herder as well as polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) and Friedrich Schiller (17591805), a poet and historian. Herder argued that every folk had its own particular identity, which was expressed in its language and culture. This legitimized the promotion of German language and culture and helped shape the development of German nationalism. Schiller's plays expressed the restless spirit of his generation, depicting the hero's struggle against social pressures and the force of destiny.[102]

German music, sponsored by the upper classes, came of age under composers Johann Sebastian Bach (16851750), Joseph Haydn (17321809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (17561791).[103]

In remote Knigsberg, philosopher Immanuel Kant (17241804) tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority. Kant's work contained basic tensions that would continue to shape German thought and indeed all of European philosophy well into the 20th century.[104]

The German Enlightenment won the support of princes, aristocrats and the middle classes and it permanently reshaped the culture.[105] However, there was a conservatism among the elites that warned against going too far.[106]

In the 1780s, Lutheran ministers Johann Heinrich Schulz and Karl Wilhelm Brumbey got in trouble with their preaching as they were attacked and ridiculed by Immanuel Kant, Wilhelm Abraham Teller and others. In 1788, Prussia issued an "Edict on Religion" that forbade preaching any sermon that undermined popular belief in the Holy Trinity and the Bible. The goal was to avoid skepticism, deism and theological disputes that might impinge on domestic tranquility. Men who doubted the value of Enlightenment favoured the measure, but so too did many supporters. German universities had created a closed elite that could debate controversial issues among themselves, but spreading them to the public was seen as too risky. This intellectual elite was favoured by the state, but that might be reversed if the process of the Enlightenment proved politically or socially destabilizing.[107]

The Enlightenment played a distinctive, if small, role in the history of Italy.[108][109] Although most of Italy was controlled by conservative Habsburgs or the pope, Tuscany had some opportunities for reform. Leopold II of Tuscany abolished the death penalty in Tuscany and reduced censorship. From Naples, Antonio Genovesi (171369) influenced a generation of southern Italian intellectuals and university students. His textbook "Diceosina, o Sia della Filosofia del Giusto e dell'Onesto" (1766) was a controversial attempt to mediate between the history of moral philosophy on the one hand and the specific problems encountered by 18th-century commercial society on the other. It contained the greater part of Genovesi's political, philosophical and economic thought guidebook for Neapolitan economic and social development.[110] Science flourished as Alessandro Volta and Luigi Galvani made break-through discoveries in electricity. Pietro Verri was a leading economist in Lombardy. Historian Joseph Schumpeter states he was "the most important pre-Smithian authority on Cheapness-and-Plenty".[111] The most influential scholar on the Italian Enlightenment has been Franco Venturi.[112][113]

In Russia, the government began to actively encourage the proliferation of arts and sciences in the mid-18th century. This era produced the first Russian university, library, theatre, public museum and independent press. Like other enlightened despots, Catherine the Great played a key role in fostering the arts, sciences and education. She used her own interpretation of Enlightenment ideals, assisted by notable international experts such as Voltaire (by correspondence) and in residence world class scientists such as Leonhard Euler and Peter Simon Pallas. The national Enlightenment differed from its Western European counterpart in that it promoted further modernization of all aspects of Russian life and was concerned with attacking the institution of serfdom in Russia. The Russian enlightenment centred on the individual instead of societal enlightenment and encouraged the living of an enlightened life.[114] A powerful element was prosveshchenie which combined religious piety, erudition and commitment to the spread of learning. However, it lacked the skeptical and critical spirit of the European Enlightenment.[116]

Enlightenment ideas (owiecenie) emerged late in Poland, as the Polish middle class was weaker and szlachta (nobility) culture (Sarmatism) together with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth political system (Golden Liberty) were in deep crisis. The political system was built on republicanism, but was unable to defend itself against powerful neighbors Russia, Prussia and Austria as they repeatedly sliced off regions until nothing was left of independent Poland. The period of Polish Enlightenment began in the 1730s1740s and especially in theatre and the arts peaked in the reign of King Stanisaw August Poniatowski (second half of the 18th century). Warsaw was a main centre after 1750, with an expansion of schools and educational institutions and the arts patronage held at the Royal Castle.[117] Leaders promoted tolerance and more education. They included King Stanislaw II Poniatowski and reformers Piotr Switkowski, Antoni Poplawski, Josef Niemcewicz and Jsef Pawlinkowski, as well as Baudouin de Cortenay, a Polonized dramatist. Opponents included Florian Jaroszewicz, Gracjan Piotrowski, Karol Wyrwicz and Wojciech Skarszewski.[118]

The movement went into decline with the Third Partition of Poland (1795) a national tragedy inspiring a short period of sentimental writing and ended in 1822, replaced by Romanticism.[119]

The Enlightenment has always been contested territory. According to Keith Thomas, its supporters "hail it as the source of everything that is progressive about the modern world. For them, it stands for freedom of thought, rational inquiry, critical thinking, religious tolerance, political liberty, scientific achievement, the pursuit of happiness, and hope for the future."[120] Thomas adds that its detractors accuse it of shallow rationalism, nave optimism, unrealistic universalism and moral darkness. From the start, conservative and clerical defenders of traditional religion attacked materialism and skepticism as evil forces that encouraged immorality. By 1794, they pointed to the Terror during the French Revolution as confirmation of their predictions. As the Enlightenment was ending, Romantic philosophers argued that excessive dependence on reason was a mistake perpetuated by the Enlightenment because it disregarded the bonds of history, myth, faith, and tradition that were necessary to hold society together.[121]

The term "Enlightenment" emerged in English in the later part of the 19th century,[122] with particular reference to French philosophy, as the equivalent of the French term Lumires (used first by Dubos in 1733 and already well established by 1751). From Immanuel Kant's 1784 essay "Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklrung?" ("Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?"), the German term became Aufklrung (aufklren = to illuminate; sich aufklren = to clear up). However, scholars have never agreed on a definition of the Enlightenment, or on its chronological or geographical extent. Terms like les Lumires (French), illuminismo (Italian), ilustracin (Spanish) and Aufklrung (German) referred to partly overlapping movements. Not until the late nineteenth century did English scholars agree they were talking about "the Enlightenment".[121][123]

Enlightenment historiography began in the period itself, from what Enlightenment figures said about their work. A dominant element was the intellectual angle they took. D'Alembert's Preliminary Discourse of l'Encyclopdie provides a history of the Enlightenment which comprises a chronological list of developments in the realm of knowledge of which the Encyclopdie forms the pinnacle.[124] In 1783, Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn referred to Enlightenment as a process by which man was educated in the use of reason.[125] Immanuel Kant called Enlightenment "man's release from his self-incurred tutelage", tutelage being "man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another".[126] "For Kant, Enlightenment was mankind's final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance".[127] The German scholar Ernst Cassirer called the Enlightenment "a part and a special phase of that whole intellectual development through which modern philosophic thought gained its characteristic self-confidence and self-consciousness".[128] According to historian Roy Porter, the liberation of the human mind from a dogmatic state of ignorance is the epitome of what the Age of Enlightenment was trying to capture.[129]

Bertrand Russell saw the Enlightenment as a phase in a progressive development which began in antiquity and that reason and challenges to the established order were constant ideals throughout that time.[130] Russell said that the Enlightenment was ultimately born out of the Protestant reaction against the Catholic counter-reformation and that philosophical views such as affinity for democracy against monarchy originated among 16th-century Protestants to justify their desire to break away from the Catholic Church. Though many of these philosophical ideals were picked up by Catholics, Russell argues that by the 18th century the Enlightenment was the principal manifestation of the schism that began with Martin Luther.[130]

Jonathan Israel rejects the attempts of postmodern and Marxian historians to understand the revolutionary ideas of the period purely as by-products of social and economic transformations. He instead focuses on the history of ideas in the period from 1650 to the end of the 18th century and claims that it was the ideas themselves that caused the change that eventually led to the revolutions of the latter half of the 18th century and the early 19th century. Israel argues that until the 1650s Western civilization "was based on a largely shared core of faith, tradition and authority".

There is little consensus on the precise beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, though the beginning of the 18th century (1701) or the middle of the 17th century (1650) are often used as epochs. French historians usually place the period, called the Sicle des Lumires ("Century of Enlightenments"), between 1715 and 1789, from the beginning of the reign of Louis XV until the French Revolution. If taken back to the mid-17th century, the Enlightenment would trace its origins to Descartes' Discourse on the Method, published in 1637. In France, many cited the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica in 1687.[134] It is argued by several historians and philosophers that the beginning of the Enlightenment is when Descartes shifted the epistemological basis from external authority to internal certainty by his cogito ergo sum published in 1637.[135][136][137] As to its end, most scholars use the last years of the century, often choosing the French Revolution of 1789 or the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (18041815) as a convenient point in time with which to date the end of the Enlightenment.[138]

In the 1944 book Dialectic of Enlightenment, Frankfurt School philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno argued:

Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth radiates under the sign of disaster triumphant.[139]

In the 1970s, study of the Enlightenment expanded to include the ways Enlightenment ideas spread to European colonies and how they interacted with indigenous cultures and how the Enlightenment took place in formerly unstudied areas such as Italy, Greece, the Balkans, Poland, Hungary and Russia.[140]

Intellectuals such as Robert Darnton and Jrgen Habermas have focused on the social conditions of the Enlightenment. Habermas described the creation of the "bourgeois public sphere" in 18th-century Europe, containing the new venues and modes of communication allowing for rational exchange. Habermas said that the public sphere was bourgeois, egalitarian, rational and independent from the state, making it the ideal venue for intellectuals to critically examine contemporary politics and society, away from the interference of established authority. While the public sphere is generally an integral component of the social study of the Enlightenment, other historians have questioned whether the public sphere had these characteristics.[141]

In contrast to the intellectual historiographical approach of the Enlightenment, which examines the various currents or discourses of intellectual thought within the European context during the 17th and 18th centuries, the cultural (or social) approach examines the changes that occurred in European society and culture. This approach studies the process of changing sociabilities and cultural practices during the Enlightenment.

One of the primary elements of the culture of the Enlightenment was the rise of the public sphere, a "realm of communication marked by new arenas of debate, more open and accessible forms of urban public space and sociability, and an explosion of print culture", in the late 17th century and 18th century.[142] Elements of the public sphere included that it was egalitarian, that it discussed the domain of "common concern," and that argument was founded on reason.[143] Habermas uses the term "common concern" to describe those areas of political/social knowledge and discussion that were previously the exclusive territory of the state and religious authorities, now open to critical examination by the public sphere. The values of this bourgeois public sphere included holding reason to be supreme, considering everything to be open to criticism (the public sphere is critical), and the opposition of secrecy of all sorts.[144]

The creation of the public sphere has been associated with two long-term historical trends: the rise of the modern nation state and the rise of capitalism. The modern nation state, in its consolidation of public power, created by counterpoint a private realm of society independent of the state, which allowed for the public sphere. Capitalism also increased society's autonomy and self-awareness, as well as an increasing need for the exchange of information. As the nascent public sphere expanded, it embraced a large variety of institutions and the most commonly cited were coffee houses and cafs, salons and the literary public sphere, figuratively localized in the Republic of Letters.[146] In France, the creation of the public sphere was helped by the aristocracy's move from the King's palace at Versailles to Paris in about 1720, since their rich spending stimulated the trade in luxuries and artistic creations, especially fine paintings.[147]

The context for the rise of the public sphere was the economic and social change commonly associated with the Industrial Revolution: "Economic expansion, increasing urbanization, rising population and improving communications in comparison to the stagnation of the previous century".[148] Rising efficiency in production techniques and communication lowered the prices of consumer goods and increased the amount and variety of goods available to consumers (including the literature essential to the public sphere). Meanwhile, the colonial experience (most European states had colonial empires in the 18th century) began to expose European society to extremely heterogeneous cultures, leading to the breaking down of "barriers between cultural systems, religious divides, gender differences and geographical areas".[149]

The word "public" implies the highest level of inclusivity the public sphere by definition should be open to all. However, this sphere was only public to relative degrees. Enlightenment thinkers frequently contrasted their conception of the "public" with that of the people: Condorcet contrasted "opinion" with populace, Marmontel "the opinion of men of letters" with "the opinion of the multitude" and d'Alembert the "truly enlightened public" with "the blind and noisy multitude".[150] Additionally, most institutions of the public sphere excluded both women and the lower classes.[151] Cross-class influences occurred through noble and lower class participation in areas such as the coffeehouses and the Masonic lodges.

Because of the focus on reason over superstition, the Enlightenment cultivated the arts.[152] Emphasis on learning, art and music became more widespread, especially with the growing middle class. Areas of study such as literature, philosophy, science, and the fine arts increasingly explored subject matter to which the general public, in addition to the previously more segregated professionals and patrons, could relate.[153]

As musicians depended more and more on public support, public concerts became increasingly popular and helped supplement performers' and composers' incomes. The concerts also helped them to reach a wider audience. Handel, for example, epitomized this with his highly public musical activities in London. He gained considerable fame there with performances of his operas and oratorios. The music of Haydn and Mozart, with their Viennese Classical styles, are usually regarded as being the most in line with the Enlightenment ideals.[154]

The desire to explore, record and systematize knowledge had a meaningful impact on music publications. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique (published 1767 in Geneva and 1768 in Paris) was a leading text in the late 18th century.[154] This widely available dictionary gave short definitions of words like genius and taste and was clearly influenced by the Enlightenment movement. Another text influenced by Enlightenment values was Charles Burney's A General History of Music: From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (1776), which was a historical survey and an attempt to rationalize elements in music systematically over time.[155] Recently, musicologists have shown renewed interest in the ideas and consequences of the Enlightenment. For example, Rose Rosengard Subotnik's Deconstructive Variations (subtitled Music and Reason in Western Society) compares Mozart's Die Zauberflte (1791) using the Enlightenment and Romantic perspectives and concludes that the work is "an ideal musical representation of the Enlightenment".[155]

As the economy and the middle class expanded, there was an increasing number of amateur musicians. One manifestation of this involved women, who became more involved with music on a social level. Women were already engaged in professional roles as singers and increased their presence in the amateur performers' scene, especially with keyboard music.[156] Music publishers begin to print music that amateurs could understand and play. The majority of the works that were published were for keyboard, voice and keyboard and chamber ensemble.[156] After these initial genres were popularized, from the mid-century on, amateur groups sang choral music, which then became a new trend for publishers to capitalize on. The increasing study of the fine arts, as well as access to amateur-friendly published works, led to more people becoming interested in reading and discussing music. Music magazines, reviews and critical works which suited amateurs as well as connoisseurs began to surface.[156]

The philosophes spent a great deal of energy disseminating their ideas among educated men and women in cosmopolitan cities. They used many venues, some of them quite new.

The term "Republic of Letters" was coined in 1664 by Pierre Bayle in his journal Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres. Towards the end of the 18th century, the editor of Histoire de la Rpublique des Lettres en France, a literary survey, described the Republic of Letters as being:

In the midst of all the governments that decide the fate of men; in the bosom of so many states, the majority of them despotic... there exists a certain realm which holds sway only over the mind... that we honour with the name Republic, because it preserves a measure of independence, and because it is almost its essence to be free. It is the realm of talent and of thought.[157]

The Republic of Letters was the sum of a number of Enlightenment ideals: an egalitarian realm governed by knowledge that could act across political boundaries and rival state power.[157] It was a forum that supported "free public examination of questions regarding religion or legislation".[158] Immanuel Kant considered written communication essential to his conception of the public sphere; once everyone was a part of the "reading public", then society could be said to be enlightened.[159] The people who participated in the Republic of Letters, such as Diderot and Voltaire, are frequently known today as important Enlightenment figures. Indeed, the men who wrote Diderot's Encyclopdie arguably formed a microcosm of the larger "republic".[160]

Many women played an essential part in the French Enlightenment, due to the role they played as salonnires in Parisian salons, as the contrast to the male philosophes. The salon was the principal social institution of the republic[161] and "became the civil working spaces of the project of Enlightenment". Women, as salonnires, were "the legitimate governors of [the] potentially unruly discourse" that took place within.[162] While women were marginalized in the public culture of the Old Regime, the French Revolution destroyed the old cultural and economic restraints of patronage and corporatism (guilds), opening French society to female participation, particularly in the literary sphere.[163]

In France, the established men of letters (gens de lettres) had fused with the elites (les grands) of French society by the mid-18th century. This led to the creation of an oppositional literary sphere, Grub Street, the domain of a "multitude of versifiers and would-be authors".[164] These men came to London to become authors, only to discover that the literary market simply could not support large numbers of writers, who in any case were very poorly remunerated by the publishing-bookselling guilds.[165]

The writers of Grub Street, the Grub Street Hacks, were left feeling bitter about the relative success of the men of letters[166] and found an outlet for their literature which was typified by the libelle. Written mostly in the form of pamphlets, the libelles "slandered the court, the Church, the aristocracy, the academies, the salons, everything elevated and respectable, including the monarchy itself".[167] Le Gazetier cuirass by Charles Thveneau de Morande was a prototype of the genre. It was Grub Street literature that was most read by the public during the Enlightenment.[168] According to Darnton, more importantly the Grub Street hacks inherited the "revolutionary spirit" once displayed by the philosophes and paved the way for the French Revolution by desacralizing figures of political, moral and religious authority in France.[169]

The increased consumption of reading materials of all sorts was one of the key features of the "social" Enlightenment. Developments in the Industrial Revolution allowed consumer goods to be produced in greater quantities at lower prices, encouraging the spread of books, pamphlets, newspapers and journals "media of the transmission of ideas and attitudes". Commercial development likewise increased the demand for information, along with rising populations and increased urbanisation.[170] However, demand for reading material extended outside of the realm of the commercial and outside the realm of the upper and middle classes, as evidenced by the Bibliothque Bleue. Literacy rates are difficult to gauge, but in France the rates doubled over the course of the 18th century.[171] Reflecting the decreasing influence of religion, the number of books about science and art published in Paris doubled from 1720 to 1780, while the number of books about religion dropped to just one-tenth of the total.

Reading underwent serious changes in the 18th century. In particular, Rolf Engelsing has argued for the existence of a Reading Revolution. Until 1750, reading was done intensively: people tended to own a small number of books and read them repeatedly, often to small audience. After 1750, people began to read "extensively", finding as many books as they could, increasingly reading them alone.[172] This is supported by increasing literacy rates, particularly among women.[173]

The vast majority of the reading public could not afford to own a private library and while most of the state-run "universal libraries" set up in the 17th and 18th centuries were open to the public, they were not the only sources of reading material. On one end of the spectrum was the Bibliothque Bleue, a collection of cheaply produced books published in Troyes, France. Intended for a largely rural and semi-literate audience these books included almanacs, retellings of medieval romances and condensed versions of popular novels, among other things. While some historians have argued against the Enlightenment's penetration into the lower classes, the Bibliothque Bleue represents at least a desire to participate in Enlightenment sociability.[174] Moving up the classes, a variety of institutions offered readers access to material without needing to buy anything. Libraries that lent out their material for a small price started to appear and occasionally bookstores would offer a small lending library to their patrons. Coffee houses commonly offered books, journals and sometimes even popular novels to their customers. The Tatler and The Spectator, two influential periodicals sold from 1709 to 1714, were closely associated with coffee house culture in London, being both read and produced in various establishments in the city.[175] This is an example of the triple or even quadruple function of the coffee house: reading material was often obtained, read, discussed and even produced on the premises.[176]

It is extremely difficult to determine what people actually read during the Enlightenment. For example, examining the catalogs of private libraries gives an image skewed in favor of the classes wealthy enough to afford libraries and also ignores censured works unlikely to be publicly acknowledged. For this reason, a study of publishing would be much more fruitful for discerning reading habits.[177]

Across continental Europe, but in France especially, booksellers and publishers had to negotiate censorship laws of varying strictness. For example, the Encyclopdie narrowly escaped seizure and had to be saved by Malesherbes, the man in charge of the French censure. Indeed, many publishing companies were conveniently located outside France so as to avoid overzealous French censors. They would smuggle their merchandise across the border, where it would then be transported to clandestine booksellers or small-time peddlers.[178] The records of clandestine booksellers may give a better representation of what literate Frenchmen might have truly read, since their clandestine nature provided a less restrictive product choice.[179] In one case, political books were the most popular category, primarily libels and pamphlets. Readers were more interested in sensationalist stories about criminals and political corruption than they were in political theory itself. The second most popular category, "general works" (those books "that did not have a dominant motif and that contained something to offend almost everyone in authority") demonstrated a high demand for generally low-brow subversive literature. However, these works never became part of literary canon and are largely forgotten today as a result.[179]

A healthy, and legal, publishing industry existed throughout Europe, although established publishers and book sellers occasionally ran afoul of the law. For example, the Encyclopdie condemned not only by the King, but also by Clement XII, nevertheless found its way into print with the help of the aforementioned Malesherbes and creative use of French censorship law.[180] However, many works were sold without running into any legal trouble at all. Borrowing records from libraries in England, Germany and North America indicate that more than 70percent of books borrowed were novels. Less than 1percent of the books were of a religious nature, indicating the general trend of declining religiosity.[157]

A genre that greatly rose in importance was that of scientific literature. Natural history in particular became increasingly popular among the upper classes. Works of natural history include Ren-Antoine Ferchault de Raumur's Histoire naturelle des insectes and Jacques Gautier d'Agoty's La Myologie complte, ou description de tous les muscles du corps humain (1746). Outside ancien rgime France, natural history was an important part of medicine and industry, encompassing the fields of botany, zoology, meteorology, hydrology and mineralogy. Students in Enlightenment universities and academies were taught these subjects to prepare them for careers as diverse as medicine and theology. As shown by Matthew Daniel Eddy, natural history in this context was a very middle class pursuit and operated as a fertile trading zone for the interdisciplinary exchange of diverse scientific ideas.[181]

The target audience of natural history was French polite society, evidenced more by the specific discourse of the genre than by the generally high prices of its works. Naturalists catered to polite society's desire for erudition many texts had an explicit instructive purpose. However, natural history was often a political affair. As Emma Spary writes, the classifications used by naturalists "slipped between the natural world and the social... to establish not only the expertise of the naturalists over the natural, but also the dominance of the natural over the social".[182] The idea of taste (le got) was a social indicator: to truly be able to categorize nature, one had to have the proper taste, an ability of discretion shared by all members of polite society. In this way natural history spread many of the scientific developments of the time, but also provided a new source of legitimacy for the dominant class.[183] From this basis, naturalists could then develop their own social ideals based on their scientific works.[184]

The first scientific and literary journals were established during the Enlightenment. The first journal, the Parisian Journal des Savans, appeared in 1665. However, it was not until 1682 that periodicals began to be more widely produced. French and Latin were the dominant languages of publication, but there was also a steady demand for material in German and Dutch. There was generally low demand for English publications on the Continent, which was echoed by England's similar lack of desire for French works. Languages commanding less of an international marketsuch as Danish, Spanish and Portuguesefound journal success more difficult and more often than not a more international language was used instead. French slowly took over Latin's status as the lingua franca of learned circles. This in turn gave precedence to the publishing industry in Holland, where the vast majority of these French language periodicals were produced.

Jonathan Israel called the journals the most influential cultural innovation of European intellectual culture. They shifted the attention of the "cultivated public" away from established authorities to novelty and innovation and instead promoted the "enlightened" ideals of toleration and intellectual objectivity. Being a source of knowledge derived from science and reason, they were an implicit critique of existing notions of universal truth monopolized by monarchies, parliaments and religious authorities. They also advanced Christian enlightenment that upheld "the legitimacy of God-ordained authority"the Biblein which there had to be agreement between the biblical and natural theories.

Although the existence of dictionaries and encyclopedias spanned into ancient times, the texts changed from simply defining words in a long running list to far more detailed discussions of those words in 18th-century encyclopedic dictionaries.[188] The works were part of an Enlightenment movement to systematize knowledge and provide education to a wider audience than the elite. As the 18th century progressed, the content of encyclopedias also changed according to readers' tastes. Volumes tended to focus more strongly on secular affairs, particularly science and technology, rather than matters of theology.

Along with secular matters, readers also favoured an alphabetical ordering scheme over cumbersome works arranged along thematic lines.[189] Commenting on alphabetization, the historian Charles Porset has said that "as the zero degree of taxonomy, alphabetical order authorizes all reading strategies; in this respect it could be considered an emblem of the Enlightenment". For Porset, the avoidance of thematic and hierarchical systems thus allows free interpretation of the works and becomes an example of egalitarianism.[190] Encyclopedias and dictionaries also became more popular during the Age of Enlightenment as the number of educated consumers who could afford such texts began to multiply.[188] In the later half of the 18th century, the number of dictionaries and encyclopedias published by decade increased from 63 between 1760 and 1769 to approximately 148 in the decade proceeding the French Revolution (17801789).[191] Along with growth in numbers, dictionaries and encyclopedias also grew in length, often having multiple print runs that sometimes included in supplemented editions.[189]

The first technical dictionary was drafted by John Harris and entitled Lexicon Technicum: Or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. Harris' book avoided theological and biographical entries and instead it concentrated on science and technology. Published in 1704, the Lexicon technicum was the first book to be written in English that took a methodical approach to describing mathematics and commercial arithmetic along with the physical sciences and navigation. Other technical dictionaries followed Harris' model, including Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia (1728), which included five editions and was a substantially larger work than Harris'. The folio edition of the work even included foldout engravings. The Cyclopaedia emphasized Newtonian theories, Lockean philosophy and contained thorough examinations of technologies, such as engraving, brewing and dyeing.

In Germany, practical reference works intended for the uneducated majority became popular in the 18th century. The Marperger Curieuses Natur-, Kunst-, Berg-, Gewerkund Handlungs-Lexicon (1712) explained terms that usefully described the trades and scientific and commercial education. Jablonksi Allgemeines Lexicon (1721) was better known than the Handlungs-Lexicon and underscored technical subjects rather than scientific theory. For example, over five columns of text were dedicated to wine while geometry and logic were allocated only twenty-two and seventeen lines, respectively. The first edition of the Encyclopdia Britannica (1771) was modelled along the same lines as the German lexicons.[192]

However, the prime example of reference works that systematized scientific knowledge in the age of Enlightenment were universal encyclopedias rather than technical dictionaries. It was the goal of universal encyclopedias to record all human knowledge in a comprehensive reference work.[193] The most well-known of these works is Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert's Encyclopdie, ou dictionnaire raisonn des sciences, des arts et des mtiers. The work, which began publication in 1751, was composed of thirty-five volumes and over 71 000 separate entries. A great number of the entries were dedicated to describing the sciences and crafts in detail and provided intellectuals across Europe with a high-quality survey of human knowledge. In d'Alembert's Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, the work's goal to record the extent of human knowledge in the arts and sciences is outlined:

As an Encyclopdie, it is to set forth as well as possible the order and connection of the parts of human knowledge. As a Reasoned Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, it is to contain the general principles that form the basis of each science and each art, liberal or mechanical, and the most essential facts that make up the body and substance of each.[194]

The massive work was arranged according to a "tree of knowledge". The tree reflected the marked division between the arts and sciences, which was largely a result of the rise of empiricism. Both areas of knowledge were united by philosophy, or the trunk of the tree of knowledge. The Enlightenment's desacrilization of religion was pronounced in the tree's design, particularly where theology accounted for a peripheral branch, with black magic as a close neighbour.[195] As the Encyclopdie gained popularity, it was published in quarto and octavo editions after 1777. The quarto and octavo editions were much less expensive than previous editions, making the Encyclopdie more accessible to the non-elite. Robert Darnton estimates that there were approximately 25 000 copies of the Encyclopdie in circulation throughout France and Europe before the French Revolution.[196] The extensive, yet affordable encyclopedia came to represent the transmission of Enlightenment and scientific education to an expanding audience.[197]

One of the most important developments that the Enlightenment era brought to the discipline of science was its popularization. An increasingly literate population seeking knowledge and education in both the arts and the sciences drove the expansion of print culture and the dissemination of scientific learning. The new literate population was due to a high rise in the availability of food. This enabled many people to rise out of poverty, and instead of paying more for food, they had money for education.[198] Popularization was generally part of an overarching Enlightenment ideal that endeavoured "to make information available to the greatest number of people".[199] As public interest in natural philosophy grew during the 18th century, public lecture courses and the publication of popular texts opened up new roads to money and fame for amateurs and scientists who remained on the periphery of universities and academies.[200] More formal works included explanations of scientific theories for individuals lacking the educational background to comprehend the original scientific text. Sir Isaac Newton's celebrated Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published in Latin and remained inaccessible to readers without education in the classics until Enlightenment writers began to translate and analyze the text in the vernacular.

The first significant work that expressed scientific theory and knowledge expressly for the laity, in the vernacular and with the entertainment of readers in mind, was Bernard de Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686). The book was produced specifically for women with an interest in scientific writing and inspired a variety of similar works.[201] These popular works were written in a discursive style, which was laid out much more clearly for the reader than the complicated articles, treatises and books published by the academies and scientists. Charles Leadbetter's Astronomy (1727) was advertised as "a Work entirely New" that would include "short and easie [sic] Rules and Astronomical Tables".[202] The first French introduction to Newtonianism and the Principia was Elments de la philosophie de Newton, published by Voltaire in 1738.[203] milie du Chtelet's translation of the Principia, published after her death in 1756, also helped to spread Newton's theories beyond scientific academies and the university.[204] Writing for a growing female audience, Francesco Algarotti published Il Newtonianism per le dame, which was a tremendously popular work and was translated from Italian into English by Elizabeth Carter. A similar introduction to Newtonianism for women was produced by Henry Pemberton. His A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy was published by subscription. Extant records of subscribers show that women from a wide range of social standings purchased the book, indicating the growing number of scientifically inclined female readers among the middling class.[205] During the Enlightenment, women also began producing popular scientific works themselves. Sarah Trimmer wrote a successful natural history textbook for children titled The Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature (1782), which was published for many years after in eleven editions.[206]

Most work on the Enlightenment emphasizes the ideals discussed by intellectuals, rather than the actual state of education at the time. Leading educational theorists like England's John Locke and Switzerland's Jean Jacques Rousseau both emphasized the importance of shaping young minds early. By the late Enlightenment, there was a rising demand for a more universal approach to education, particularly after the American and French Revolutions.

The predominant educational psychology from the 1750s onward, especially in northern European countries was associationism, the notion that the mind associates or dissociates ideas through repeated routines. In addition to being conducive to Enlightenment ideologies of liberty, self-determination and personal responsibility, it offered a practical theory of the mind that allowed teachers to transform longstanding forms of print and manuscript culture into effective graphic tools of learning for the lower and middle orders of society.[207] Children were taught to memorize facts through oral and graphic methods that originated during the Renaissance.[208]

Many of the leading universities associated with Enlightenment progressive principles were located in northern Europe, with the most renowned being the universities of Leiden, Gttingen, Halle, Montpellier, Uppsala and Edinburgh. These universities, especially Edinburgh, produced professors whose ideas had a significant impact on Britain's North American colonies and later the American Republic. Within the natural sciences, Edinburgh's medical school also led the way in chemistry, anatomy and pharmacology.[209] In other parts of Europe, the universities and schools of France and most of Europe were bastions of traditionalism and were not hospitable to the Enlightenment. In France, the major exception was the medical university at Montpellier.[210]

The history of Academies in France during the Enlightenment begins with the Academy of Science, founded in 1635 in Paris. It was closely tied to the French state, acting as an extension of a government seriously lacking in scientists. It helped promote and organize new disciplines and it trained new scientists. It also contributed to the enhancement of scientists' social status, considering them to be the "most useful of all citizens". Academies demonstrate the rising interest in science along with its increasing secularization, as evidenced by the small number of clerics who were members (13 percent).[212] The presence of the French academies in the public sphere cannot be attributed to their membership, as although the majority of their members were bourgeois, the exclusive institution was only open to elite Parisian scholars. They perceived themselves as "interpreters of the sciences for the people". For example, it was with this in mind that academicians took it upon themselves to disprove the popular pseudo-science of mesmerism.[213]

The strongest contribution of the French Academies to the public sphere comes from the concours acadmiques (roughly translated as "academic contests") they sponsored throughout France. These academic contests were perhaps the most public of any institution during the Enlightenment.[214] The practice of contests dated back to the Middle Ages and was revived in the mid-17th century. The subject matter had previously been generally religious and/or monarchical, featuring essays, poetry and painting. However, by roughly 1725 this subject matter had radically expanded and diversified, including "royal propaganda, philosophical battles, and critical ruminations on the social and political institutions of the Old Regime". Topics of public controversy were also discussed such as the theories of Newton and Descartes, the slave trade, women's education and justice in France.[215]

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Age of Enlightenment - Wikipedia

Who are you? asks the caterpillar in Lewis Carrolls famous book Alice in Wonderland. Alice hesitantly replies, II hardly know.

Many people share her uncertainty.

Have you ever asked yourself who you really are beneath the personality, thought and belief system that youve accumulated over the years? Perhaps you are on your own journey of personal development or a spiritual path, however you dene it, with a deep longing to live to your full potential.

Over time youve become good at displaying and even identifying with your public face or persona, the one that helps you get along in life. You are not alone. Its part of the human socialization process. Yet at a deep level you know theres a real, authentic you that wants to wake up and live with more compassion and freedom, energy and purpose.

Maybe you are simply looking for:

a greater ability to handle stress a calmer and clearer mind more focus and purpose in your life improved relationships and communication skills a life with more passion and energy a deeper sense of happiness and freedom

Perhaps you have your own unique intentions or goals?

If these words have meaning for you then I encourage you to sign up for this retreat.

Go here to read the rest:
Enlightenment Intensive Retreats | in Alberta, Canada

xkcd: Enlightenment

xkcd updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Enlightenment

{{Title text: But the rules of writing are like magic spells. If you never acquire them, then not using them says nothing.}}[[Two Internet Bodhisattvas lecture a pupil encircled by a wheel placed upon the ground.]]Boddhisatva 1: To achieve *Internet Enlightenment*, you must free yourself from insecurity. Novice: But insecurity keeps me humble!Boddhisatva 1: No. Insecurity leads to conceit. Conceit leads to judgment. Judgment leads to being an asshole.[[A laptop is placed on a stand in front of the student]]Novice: I'm ready, How do I begin?Boddhisatva 1: Type this sentence: "I heard you're idea's and their definately good"[[The laptop has been smashed to the floor. The circle, one full of hope and excitement, is now full of despair and no students]]Boddhisatva 1: She wasn't ready.Boddhisatva 2: Its a difficult road.

This work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). More details.

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xkcd: Enlightenment

The English term enlightenment is the western translation of the term bodhi, "awakening", which was popularised in the Western world through the 19th century translations of Max Mller. It has the western connotation of a sudden insight into a transcendental truth.

The term is also being used to translate several other Buddhist terms and concepts used to denote insight (prajna, kensho and satori); knowledge (vidhya); the "blowing out" (Nirvana) of disturbing emotions and desires and the subsequent freedom or release (vimutti); and the attainment of Buddhahood, as exemplified by Gautama Buddha.

What exactly constituted the Buddha's awakening is unknown. It may probably have involved the knowledge that liberation was attained by the combination of mindfulness and dhyna, applied to the understanding of the arising and ceasing of craving. The relation between dhyana and insight is a core problem in the study of Buddhism, and is one of the fundamentals of Buddhist practice.

In the western world the concept of (spiritual) enlightenment has taken on a romantic meaning. It has become synonymous with self-realization and the true self and false self, being regarded as a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning.[pageneeded], [pageneeded], [pageneeded], [pageneeded]

Robert S. Cohen notes that the majority of English books on Buddhism use the term "enlightenment" to translate the term bodhi. The root budh, from which both bodhi and Buddha are derived, means "to wake up" or "to recover consciousness". Cohen notes that bodhi is not the result of an illumination, but of a path of realization, or coming to understanding. The term "enlightenment" is event-oriented, whereas the term "awakening" is process-oriented. The western use of the term "enlighten" has Christian roots, as in Calvin's "It is God alone who enlightens our minds to perceive his truths".

Early 19th century bodhi was translated as "intelligence". The term "enlighten" was first being used in 1835, in an English translation of a French article, while the first recorded use of the term 'enlightenment' is credited (by the Oxford English Dictionary) to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (February, 1836). In 1857 The Times used the term "the Enlightened" for the Buddha in a short article, which was reprinted the following year by Max Mller. Thereafter, the use of the term subsided, but reappeared with the publication of Max Mller's Chips from a german Workshop, which included a reprint from the Times-article. The book was translated in 1969 into German, using the term "der Erleuchtete". Max Mller was an essentialist, who believed in a natural religion, and saw religion as an inherent capacity of human beings. "Enlightenment" was a means to capture natural religious truths, as distinguished from mere mythology.[note 1]

By the mid-1870s it had become commonplace to call the Buddha "enlightened", and by the end of the 1880s the terms "enlightened" and "enlightenment" dominated the English literature.

Bodhi (Sanskrit, Pli), from the verbal root budd, "to awaken", "to understand", means literally "to have woken up and understood". According to Johannes Bronkhorst, Tillman Vetter, and K.R. Norman, bodhi was at first not specified. K.R. Norman:

It is not at all clear what gaining bodhi means. We are accustomed to the translation "enlightenment" for bodhi, but this is misleading ... It is not clear what the buddha was awakened to, or at what particular point the awakening came.[18]

According to Norman, bodhi may basically have meant the knowledge that nibbana was attained, due to the practice of dhyana. Originally only "prajna" may have been mentioned, and Tillman Vetter even concludes that originally dhyana itself was deemed liberating, with the stilling of pleasure of pain in the fourth jhana. Gombrich also argues that the emphasis on insight is a later development.

In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi refers to the realisation of the four stages of enlightenment and becoming an Arahant. In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi is equal to supreme insight, and the realisation of the four noble truths, which leads to deliverance. According to Nyanatiloka,

(Through Bodhi) one awakens from the slumber or stupor (inflicted upon the mind) by the defilements (kilesa, q.v.) and comprehends the Four Noble Truths (sacca, q.v.).

This equation of bodhi with the four noble truths is a later development, in response to developments within Indian religious thought, where "liberating insight" was deemed essential for liberation. The four noble truths as the liberating insight of the Buddha eventually were superseded by Prattyasamutpda, the twelvefold chain of causation, and still later by anatta, the emptiness of the self.

In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhi is equal to prajna, insight into the Buddha-nature, sunyata and tathat. This is equal to the realisation of the non-duality of absolute and relative.

In Theravada Buddhism pann (Pali) means "understanding", "wisdom", "insight". "Insight" is equivalent to vipassana', insight into the three marks of existence, namely anicca, dukkha and anatta. Insight leads to the four stages of enlightenment and Nirvana.

In Mahayana Buddhism Prajna (Sanskrit) means "insight" or "wisdom", and entails insight into sunyata. The attainment of this insight is often seen as the attainment of "enlightenment".[need quotation to verify]

Kensho and Satori are Japanese terms used in Zen traditions. Kensho means "seeing into one's true nature." Ken means "seeing", sho means "nature", "essence", c.q Buddha-nature. Satori (Japanese) is often used interchangeably with kensho, but refers to the experience of kensho. The Rinzai tradition sees kensho as essential to the attainment of Buddhahood, but considers further practice essential to attain Buddhahood.

East-Asian (Chinese) Buddhism emphasizes insight into Buddha-nature. This term is derived from Indian tathagata-garbha thought, "the womb of the thus-gone" (the Buddha), the inherent potential of every sentient being to become a Buddha. This idea was integrated with the Yogacara-idea of the laya vijna, and further developed in Chinese Buddhism, which integrated Indian Buddhism with native Chinese thought. Buddha-nature came to mean both the potential of awakening and the whole of reality, a dynamic interpenetration of absolute and relative. In this awakening it is realized that observer and observed are not distinct entities, but mutually co-dependent.

The term vidhya is being used in contrast to avidhya, ignorance or the lack of knowledge, which binds us to samsara. The Mahasaccaka Sutta[note 2] describes the three knowledges which the Buddha attained:

According to Bronkhorst, the first two knowledges are later additions, while insight into the four truths represents a later development, in response to concurring religious traditions, in which "liberating insight" came to be stressed over the practice of dhyana.

Vimutti, also called moksha, means "freedom", "release",[note 3] "deliverance". Sometimes a distinction is being made between ceto-vimutti, "liberation of the mind", and panna-vimutti, "liberation by understanding". The Buddhist tradition recognises two kinds of ceto-vimutti, one temporarily and one permanent, the last being equivalent to panna-vimutti.[note 4]

Yogacara uses the term raya parvtti, "revolution of the basis",

... a sudden revulsion, turning, or re-turning of the laya vijna back into its original state of purity [...] the Mind returns to its original condition of non-attachment, non-discrimination and non-duality".

Nirvana is the "blowing out" of disturbing emotions, which is the same as liberation.[web 1] The usage of the term "enlightenment" to translate "nirvana" was popularized in the 19th century, due, in part, to the efforts of Max Muller, who used the term consistently in his translations.

Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, is said to have achieved full awakening, known as samyaksabodhi (Sanskrit; Pli: sammsabodhi), "perfect Buddhahood", or anuttar-samyak-sabodhi, "highest perfect awakening".

The term buddha has acquired somewhat different meanings in the various Buddhist traditions. An equivalent term for Buddha is Tathgata, "the thus-gone". The way to Buddhahood is somewhat differently understood in the various buddhist traditions.

In the suttapitaka, the Buddhist canon as preserved in the Theravada-tradition, a couple of texts can be found in which the Buddha's attainment of liberation forms part of the narrative.[40][note 5]

The Ariyapariyesana Sutta[note 6] describes how the Buddha was dissatisfied with the teachings of Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, wandered further through Magadhan country, and then found "an agreeable piece of ground" which served for striving. The sutra then only says that he attained Nibbana.

The Mahasaccaka Sutta[note 7] describes his ascetic practices, which he abandoned. There-after he remembered a spontaneous state of jhana, and set out for jhana-practice. After destroying the disturbances of the mind, and attaining concentration of the mind, he attained three knowledges (vidhya):

According to the Mahasaccaka Sutta these insights, including the way to attain liberation, led the Buddha himself straight to liberation. called "awakening."

Schmithausen[note 8] notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36. Bronkhorst notices that

...the accounts which include the Four Noble Truths had a completely different conception of the process of liberation than the one which includes the Four Dhyanas and the destruction of the intoxicants.

It calls in question the reliability of these accounts, and the relation between dhyana and insight, which is a core problem in the study of early Buddhism. Originally the term prajna may have been used, which came to be replaced by the four truths in those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the four jhanas. Bronkhorst also notices that the conception of what exactly this "liberating insight" was developed throughout time. Whereas originally it may not have been specified, later on the four truths served as such, to be superseded by pratityasamutpada, and still later, in the Hinayana schools, by the doctrine of the non-existence of a substantial self or person. And Schmithausen notices that still other descriptions of this "liberating insight" exist in the Buddhist canon:

"that the five Skandhas are impermanent, disagreeable, and neither the Self nor belonging to oneself";[note 9] "the contemplation of the arising and disappearance (udayabbaya) of the five Skandhas";[note 10] "the realisation of the Skandhas as empty (rittaka), vain (tucchaka) and without any pith or substance (asaraka).[note 11]

An example of this substitution, and its consequences, is Majjhima Nikaya 36:42-43, which gives an account of the awakening of the Buddha.

In Theravada Buddhism, reaching full awakening is equivalent in meaning to reaching Nirva.[web 2] Attaining Nirva is the ultimate goal of Theravada and other rvaka traditions.[web 3] It involves the abandonment of the ten fetters and the cessation of dukkha or suffering. Full awakening is reached in four stages.

In Mahyna Buddhism the Bodhisattva is the ideal. The ultimate goal is not only of one's own liberation in Buddhahood, but the liberation of all living beings.

In time, the Buddha's awakening came to be understood as an immediate full awakening and liberation, instead of the insight into and certainty about the way to follow to reach enlightenment. However, in some Zen traditions this perfection came to be relativized again; according to one contemporary Zen master, "Shakyamuni buddha and Bodhidharma are still practicing."

But Mahayana Buddhism also developed a cosmology with a wide range of buddhas and bodhisattvas, who assist humans on their way to liberation.

In the western world the concept of enlightenment has taken on a romantic meaning. It has become synonymous with self-realization and the true self, being regarded as a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning.

The use of the western word enlightenment is based on the supposed resemblance of bodhi with Aufklrung, the independent use of reason to gain insight into the true nature of our world. In fact there are more resemblances with Romanticism than with the Enlightenment: the emphasis on feeling, on intuitive insight, on a true essence beyond the world of appearances.

The equivalent term "awakening" has also been used in a Christian context, namely the Great Awakenings, several periods of religious revival in American religious history. Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of increased religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and the late 19th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.

The romantic idea of enlightenment as insight into a timeless, transcendent reality has been popularized especially by D.T. Suzuki.[web 4][web 5] Further popularization was due to the writings of Heinrich Dumoulin.[web 6] Dumoulin viewed metaphysics as the expression of a transcendent truth, which according to him was expressed by Mahayana Buddhism, but not by the pragmatic analysis of the oldest Buddhism, which emphasizes anatta. This romantic vision is also recognizable in the works of Ken Wilber.

In the oldest Buddhism this essentialism is not recognizable.[web 7] According to critics it doesn't really contribute to a real insight into Buddhism:[web 8]

...most of them labour under the old clich that the goal of Buddhist psychological analysis is to reveal the hidden mysteries in the human mind and thereby facilitate the development of a transcendental state of consciousness beyond the reach of linguistic expression.

A common reference in western culture is the notion of "enlightenment experience". This notion can be traced back to William James, who used the term "religious experience" in his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" further back to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the infinite. Schleiermacher used the notion of "religious experience" to defend religion against the growing scientific and secular critique.

It was popularised by the Transcendentalists, and exported to Asia via missionaries. Transcendentalism developed as a reaction against 18th Century rationalism, John Locke's philosophy of Sensualism, and the predestinationism of New England Calvinism. It is fundamentally a variety of diverse sources such as Hindu texts like the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, various religions, and German idealism.

It was adopted by many scholars of religion, of which William James was the most influential.[note 12]

The notion of "experience" has been criticised. Robert Sharf points out that "experience" is a typical western term, which has found its way into Asian religiosity via western influences.[note 13]

The notion of "experience" introduces a false notion of duality between "experiencer" and "experienced", whereas the essence of kensho is the realisation of the "non-duality" of observer and observed.[dead link] "Pure experience" does not exist; all experience is mediated by intellectual and cognitive activity. The specific teachings and practices of a specific tradition may even determine what "experience" someone has, which means that this "experience" is not the proof of the teaching, but a result of the teaching. A pure consciousness without concepts, reached by "cleaning the doors of perception" as per romantic poet William Blake[note 14], would, according to Mohr, be an overwhelming chaos of sensory input without coherence.

Sakyamuni's Buddhahood is celebrated on Bodhi Day. In Sri Lanka and Japan different days are used for this celebration.

According to the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka, Sakyamuni reached Buddhahood at the full moon in May. This is celebrated at Wesak Poya, the full moon in May, as Sambuddhatva jayanthi (also known as Sambuddha jayanthi).[web 9]

According to the Zen tradition, the Buddha reached his decisive insight on 8 December. This is celebrated in Zen monasteries with a very intensive eight-day session of Rhatsu.

It rests upon the notion of the primacy of religious experiences, preferably spectacular ones, as the origin and legitimation of religious action. But this presupposition has a natural home, not in Buddhism, but in Christian and especially Protetstant Christian movements which prescribe a radical conversion.

See Sekida for an example of this influence of William James and Christian conversion stories, mentioning Luther and St. Paul. See also McMahan for the influence of Christian thought on Buddhism.

[T]he role of experience in the history of Buddhism has been greatly exaggerated in contemporary scholarship. Both historical and ethnographic evidence suggests that the privileging of experience may well be traced to certain twentieth-century reform movements, notably those that urge a return to zazen or vipassana meditation, and these reforms were profoundly influenced by religious developments in the west [...] While some adepts may indeed experience "altered states" in the course of their training, critical analysis shows that such states do not constitute the reference point for the elaborate Buddhist discourse pertaining to the "path".

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Enlightenment in Buddhism - Wikipedia

Thu 5 Apr 2018Conway HallThe Night Shift Mozarts Horns

Mozart Horn Concerto no.1Mozart Horn Concerto no. 4

Roger Montgomery horn

Mozarts horn concertos in the original home of freethought.

Sun 1 Apr 2018Opra de Monte-CarloMozart: Master of Deception, with Sir Roger Norrington

Mozart Symphony No. 33Mozart Horn Concerto No.4Mozart Horn Concerto No.1Mozart Symphony No. 36

Sir Roger Norrington conductorRoger Montgomery horn

More from the ultimate musical game-player

There is more to Mozart than meets the eye. His repertoire is replete with surprises and deceptions.

Sat 31 Mar 2018The Anvil, BasingstokeBachs St Matthew Passion

Bach St Matthew Passion

Mark Padmore director/EvangelistRoderick Williams ChristusClaudia Huckle contraltoHugo Hymas tenorLouise Kemny sopranoJessica Cale sopranoEleanor Minney mezzo-sopranoMatthew Brook bassChoir of the Age of Enlightenment

A powerful depiction of the Easter Story.

Commemorate Easter with BachsSt Matthew Passion, featuring an all-star line-up of singers, led by Mark Padmore.

Fri 30 Mar 2018ICE Krakow Congress CentreBachs St Matthew Passion

Bach St Matthew Passion

Mark Padmore director/EvangelistRoderick Williams ChristusClaudia Huckle contraltoHugo Hymas tenorLouise Kemny sopranoJessica Cale sopranoEleanor Minney mezzo-sopranoMatthew Brook bassChoir of the Age of Enlightenment

A powerful depiction of the Easter Story.

Commemorate Easter with BachsSt Matthew Passion, featuring an all-star line-up of singers, led by Mark Padmore.

Bachs St Matthew Passion ProgrammeMon 26 Mar 2018

Heresthe programme for our performance of Bachs St Matthew Passion on Monday 26 March at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre. You can pick up a physical copy free of charge on the night itself.

Mark Padmore explores Bachs St Matthew PassionMon 26 Mar 2018

Its designed to disturb. It should get under the skin and worry us.

Mark Padmore explores Bachs St Matthew Passion, and the advantages of performing it without a conductor.

Performing the St Matthew PassionFri 23 Mar 2018

Leader Matthew Truscott tells us what its like to perform Bachs St Matthew Passion without a conductor, but instead following the breathing of singer and director, Mark Padmore.

Bachs B minor Mass (1748)

Following much-praised accounts of the St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio, conductor Stephen Layton now turns to Bachs mighty B minor Mass.

Mark Padmore on Bachs St Matthew PassionMon 5 Mar 2018

Mark Padmore explains his view of the St Matthew Passion, and the role of the Evangelist

The Corridors of Power programmeMon 26 Feb 2018

Heresthe programme for ourThe Corridors of Power concert on Tuesday 27 February at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre. You can pick up a physical copy free of charge on the night itself.

After Beethoven?Tue 20 Feb 2018

After ten concerts in three different countries, our Beethoven tour with Nicola Benedetti came to an end in Abu Dhabi yesterday. If youre at risk of Beethoven withdrawal, we asked our Co-Principal Viola Max Mandel for more Beethoven that you might want to read, watch or listen to next.

The Corridors of Power: playlist previewWed 7 Feb 2018

One of the more unusual concerts in our 2017/18 Visions, Illusions and Delusions season is The Corridors of Power, a mixture of Haydn and Mozart conducted by our old frienddm Fischer.

Behind the scenes with Nicola BenedettiMon 5 Feb 2018

Challenging in different ways but so enjoyable.

Nicola Benedetti chats about performing Beethoven on period instruments as she joins us on tour around the UK and US.

Marin and Nicola join our pre-concert talkFri 2 Feb 2018

If youre coming to our concert with Marin Alsop and Nicola Benedetti at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, on Sunday, get there early for the pre-concert talk at 6pm.

Were delighted both Marin and Nicola have agreed to join us for the discussion alongside our Principal Flute, Lisa Beznosiuk.

The talk is free in the Clore Ballroom from 6pm to 6.30pm.

Marin Alsop and Nicola Benedetti programmeFri 2 Feb 2018

Heresthe programme for ourMarin Alsop and Nicola Benedetti concert on Sunday 4 February at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre (but its also good if youre going to one of the other performances). You can pick up a physical copy free of charge on the night itself.

If you cant see it, just clickhere.

In depth: A new cadenza by Nicola BenedettiThu 1 Feb 2018

In the classical era, composers such as Mozart and Beethoven often included passages called cadenzas towards the end of their concertos. These were either improvised or pre-composed, and gave the soloist the chance to show off the full range of her or his skills.

For Nicola Benedettis performances of Beethovens Violin Concerto with us, shes worked with composer Petr Limonov to write a new cadenza premiered on this tour, for which shell be accompanied by our Principal Timpani, Adrian Bending.

What does it mean to be free?Tue 30 Jan 2018

Today were announcing the concerts in our 2018/19 season as Resident Orchestra at Southbank Centre.

Its called Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and its the second in ourSix Chapters of Enlightenment, six years of concerts celebrating the thought that made the modern world.

Fresh Night Shifts for 2018Wed 10 Jan 2018

Classical music hasnt always been about sitting silently in a concert hall, glugging down a pre-poured glass of wine in the interval and polite applause.

With The Night Shift, we take classical music back to its lively, informal roots with gigs in pubs, night clubs and other venues where you like to spend your time. Enjoy two half hour sets of classical music, played by some of the finest players in the business, without the usual rules.

Symmetry in music: Particle physicist Tara ShearsThu 4 Jan 2018

Professor Tara Shears came to talk to us about antimatter as part of our Bach, the Universe and Everything series atKings Place. We learnt there is more connecting Bach and particle physics than you might imagine.

Name us a Handel concertTue 12 Dec 2017

Its been a while, but the time has come for you to put your musical thinking caps on for a our traditional name a concert feature.

We need a name for the following concert coming up in 2018. Think Handel, Telemann, organs and, possibly, feasts.

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Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Home

The Enlightenment was a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century international movement in ideas and sensibilities, emphasizing the exercise of critical reason as opposed to religious dogmatism or unthinking faith. It developed along with the rise of scientific thinking independent of religious thought and stressed the importance of nature and the natural order as a source of knowledge. In reaction to the religious wars of Europe, Enlightenment thinkers defended religious tolerance and religious freedom. Their emphasis on intellectual freedom and human rights led to a conflict between the advocates of these new ideas and the political and religious establishments in Europe, most dramatically in France.

The Enlightenment in America, more moderate than in Europe, influenced both religious and political thought throughout the colonies. Many would argue that its approach to religious tolerance rose to prominence in America in large part because no single religious group could garner the necessary votes to impose themselves upon the fledgling republic. Leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were considered paragons of Enlightenment thought, and the freedom-loving religious rationalism of their ideas helped to lay the foundations of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

The Enlightenment also bred religious controversy. Many of its advocates, many of whom were themselves Christian, often dismissed the new revivalist religion of the Great Awakening as emotionally excessive. Evangelical Protestants, on the other hand, often viewed rationalism, religious tolerance, and other enlightenment ideals as dangerous to piety and national solidarity in the budding republic. Historians have usually cast this controversy in terms of a conflict between those who favored rational religion and those who opposed them by defending an emotional religion of the heart. But the Enlightenment was so pervasive in the colonies that few Americans remained wholly untouched by its spirit.

Both the emotionalism of revivalist religion and the reasoned ideals associated with the Enlightenment played important roles in the American Revolution. Revolutionaries were drawn from all religious camps and most of them shared a common commitment to freedom of religion. Mostthough certainly not allrevolutionaries, however, fought not for religious freedom for all, but rather for their particular sects or denominations. Nonetheless, the impact of the Revolution and the subsequent adoption of the Constitution on American Christianity cannot be overstated. This period laid the foundation for a bold experiment in religious freedom unlike any understandings of state-religion relations at the time.

The Constitution banned the establishment of religion by the state, thus forcing both Anglicans and Congregationalists to abandon their traditional prerogatives of state support, a bold departure from tradition. All churches and other religious organizations that had arisen during the colonial period necessarily reconstituted themselves under the new constitutional guidelines. This, however, until as late as the 1830s, was understood to apply to the federal government alone; states were allowed to decide for themselves whether or not to have state-supported churches. In any case, this outlook, which considered all churches equal before federal law, more or less asserted that churches are voluntary organizations with no formal coercive authority over those who did not wish to belong to them.

The Revolution and the Constitution became part of the myth of America, the powerful foundational story told about Americas origins. This story begins with the vision of creating a new Christian society on American soil and moves to the idea of a society based on commitment to religious freedom. Still, the transcendent and purposeful vision of Americas destiny remained. This vision fostered the development of what has come to be called Americas civil religion: a belief in Americas special mission as a society based on equality before the law, freedom of conscience, religious tolerance, and the spirit of voluntary service.

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Enlightenment and Revolution | The Pluralism Project

Moksha (Sanskrit: , moka), also called vimoksha, vimukti and mukti,[1] is a term in Jainism, Hinduism and Hindu philosophy which refers to various forms of emancipation, liberation, and release.[2] In its soteriological and eschatological senses, it refers to freedom from sasra, the cycle of death and rebirth. In its epistemological and psychological senses, moksha refers to freedom from ignorance: self-realization and self-knowledge.[4]

In Hindu traditions, moksha is a central concept[5] and the utmost aim to be attained through three paths during human life; these three paths are dharma (virtuous, proper, moral life), artha (material prosperity, income security, means of life), and kama (pleasure, sensuality, emotional fulfillment).[6] Together, these four concepts are called Pururtha in Hinduism.[7]

The concept of moksha is found in Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. In some schools of Indian religions, moksha is considered equivalent to and used interchangeably with other terms such as vimoksha, vimukti, kaivalya, apavarga, mukti, nihsreyasa and nirvana.[8] However, terms such as moksha and nirvana differ and mean different states between various schools of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.[9] The term nirvana is more common in Buddhism,[10] while moksha is more prevalent in Hinduism.[11]

Moksha is derived from the root Sanskrit: , muc, which means free, let go, release, liberate.[12][13] In Vedas and early Upanishads, the word Sanskrit: , mucyate[12] appears, which means to be set free or release - such as of a horse from its harness.

The definition and meaning of moksha varies between various schools of Indian religions.[14] Moksha means freedom, liberation; from what and how is where the schools differ.[15] Moksha is also a concept that means liberation from rebirth or sasra. This liberation can be attained while one is on earth (jivanmukti), or eschatologically (karmamukti, videhamukti). Some Indian traditions have emphasized liberation on concrete, ethical action within the world. This liberation is an epistemological transformation that permits one to see the truth and reality behind the fog of ignorance.[web 1]

Moksha has been defined not merely as absence of suffering and release from bondage to sasra, various schools of Hinduism also explain the concept as presence of the state of paripurna-brahmanubhava (the experience of oneness with Brahman, the One Supreme Self), a state of knowledge, peace and bliss.[16] For example, Vivekachudamani - an ancient book on moksha, explains one of many meditative steps on the path to moksha, as:

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Beyond caste, creed, family or lineage,That which is without name and form, beyond merit and demerit,That which is beyond space, time and sense-objects,You are that, God himself; Meditate this within yourself. ||Verse 254||

Moksha is a concept associated with sasra (birth-rebirth cycle). Samsara originated with religious movements in the first millennium BCE.[web 1] These movements such as Buddhism, Jainism and new schools within Hinduism, saw human life as bondage to a repeated process of rebirth. This bondage to repeated rebirth and life, each life subject to injury, disease and aging, was seen as a cycle of suffering. By release from this cycle, the suffering involved in this cycle also ended. This release was called moksha, nirvana, kaivalya, mukti and other terms in various Indian religious traditions.[18]

Eschatological ideas evolved in Hinduism.[19] In earliest Vedic literature, heaven and hell sufficed soteriological curiosities. Over time, the ancient scholars observed that people vary in the quality of virtuous or sinful life they lead, and began questioning how differences in each persons puya (merit, good deeds) or pp (demerit, sin) as human beings affected their afterlife.[20] This question led to the conception of an afterlife where the person stayed in heaven or hell, in proportion to their merit or demerit, then returned to earth and were reborn, the cycle continuing indefinitely. The rebirth idea ultimately flowered into the ideas of sasra, or transmigration - where ones balance sheet of karma determined ones rebirth. Along with this idea of sasra, the ancient scholars developed the concept of moksha, as a state that released a person from the sasra cycle. Moksha release in eschatological sense in these ancient literature of Hinduism, suggests van Buitenen,[21] comes from self-knowledge and consciousness of oneness of supreme soul.

The meaning of moksha in epistemological and psychological sense has been variously explained by scholars. For example, according to Deutsche, moksha is transcendental consciousness, the perfect state of being, of self-realization, of freedom and of "realizing the whole universe as the Self".[22]

Moksha in Hinduism, suggests Klaus Klostermaier,[23] implies a setting free of hitherto fettered faculties, a removing of obstacles to an unrestricted life, permitting a person to be more truly a person in the full sense; the concept presumes an unused human potential of creativity, compassion and understanding which had been blocked and shut out. Moksha is more than liberation from life-rebirth cycle of suffering (samsara); Vedantic school separates this into two: jivanmukti (liberation in this life) and videhamukti (liberation after death).[24] Moksha in this life includes psychological liberation from adhyasa (fears besetting ones life) and avidya (ignorance or anything that is not true knowledge).[23]

Moksha is, in many schools of Hinduism according to Daniel Ingalls,[15] a state of perfection. The concept was seen as a natural goal beyond dharma. Moksha, in the Epics and ancient literature of Hinduism, is seen as achievable by the same techniques necessary to practice dharma. Self-discipline is the path to dharma, moksha is self-discipline that is so perfect that it becomes unconscious, second nature. Dharma is thus a means to moksha.[25]

Samkhya school of Hinduism, for example, suggests one of the paths to moksha is to magnify one's sattvam.[26][27] To magnify one's sattvam, one must develop oneself where one's sattvam becomes one's instinctive nature. Dharma and moksha were thus understood by many schools of Hinduism as two points of a single journey of life, a journey for which the viaticum was discipline and self training.[27] Over time, these ideas about moksha were challenged.

Dharma and moksha, suggested Nagarjuna in the 2nd century, cannot be goals on the same journey.[28] He pointed to the differences between the world we live in, and the freedom implied in the concept of moksha. They are so different that dharma and moksha could not be intellectually related. Dharma requires worldly thought, moksha is unworldly understanding, a state of bliss. How can the worldly thought process lead to unworldly understanding, asked Nagarjuna?[28] Karl Potter explains the answer to this challenge as one of context and framework, the emergence of broader general principles of understanding from thought processes that are limited in one framework.[29]

Adi Shankara in 8th century AD, like Nagarjuna earlier, examined the difference between the world one lives in and moksha, a state of freedom and release one hopes for.[30] Unlike Nagarjuna, Shankara considers the characteristics between the two. The world one lives in requires action as well as thought; our world, he suggests, is impossible without vyavahara (action and plurality). The world is interconnected, one object works on another, input is transformed into output, change is continuous and everywhere. Moksha, suggests Shankara,[23] is that final perfect, blissful state where there can be no change, where there can be no plurality of states. It has to be a state of thought and consciousness that excludes action.[30] How can action-oriented techniques by which we attain the first three goals of man (kama, artha and dharma) be useful to attain the last goal, namely moksha?

Scholars[31] suggest Shankaras challenge to the concept of moksha parallels those of Plotinus against the Gnostics, with one important difference:[30] Plotinus challenged Gnostics that they have exchanged anthropocentric set of virtues with a theocentric set in pursuit of salvation; Shankara challenged that the concept of moksha implied an exchange of anthropocentric set of virtues (dharma) with a blissful state that has no need for values. Shankara goes on to suggest that anthropocentric virtues suffice.

Vaishnavism is one of the bhakti schools of Hinduism and devoted to the worship of God, that sings his name, anoints his image or idol, and has many sub-schools. Vaishnavas suggest that dharma and moksha cannot be two different or sequential goals or states of life.[32] Instead, they suggest God should be kept in mind constantly to simultaneously achieve dharma and moksha, so constantly that one comes to feel one cannot live without Gods loving presence. This school emphasized love and adoration of God as the path to "moksha" (salvation and release), rather than works and knowledge. Their focus became divine virtues, rather than anthropocentric virtues. Daniel Ingalls[32] calls Vaishnavas position on moksha as similar to Christian position on salvation, and the school whose views on dharma, karma and moksha dominated the initial impressions and colonial era literature on Hinduism, through the works of Thibaut, Max Mller and others.

The concept of moksha appears much later in ancient Indian literature than the concept of dharma. The proto-concept that first appears in the ancient Sanskrit verses and early Upanishads is mucyate, which means freed or released. It is the middle and later Upanishads, such as the Svetasvatara and Maitri, where the word moksha appears and begins becoming an important concept.[15][33]

Kathaka Upanishad,[34] a middle Upanishadic era script dated to be about 2500 years old, is among the earliest expositions about sasra and moksha. In Book I, Section III, the legend of boy Naciketa queries Yama, the lord of death to explain what causes sasra and what leads to liberation.[35] Naciketa inquires: what causes sorrow? Yama explains that suffering and sasra results from a life that is lived absent-mindedly, with impurity, with neither the use of intelligence nor self-examination, where neither mind nor senses are guided by ones atma (soul, self).[36][37] Liberation comes from a life lived with inner purity, alert mind, led by buddhi (reason, intelligence), realization of the Supreme Self (purusha) who dwells in all beings. Kathaka Upanishad asserts knowledge liberates, knowledge is freedom.[38][39] Kathaka Upanishad also explains the role of yoga in personal liberation, moksha.

Svetasvatara Upanishad, another middle era Upanishad written after Kathaka Upanishad, begins with questions such as why is man born, what is the primal cause behind the universe, what causes joy and sorrow in life?[40] It then examines the various theories, that were then existing, about sasra and release from bondage. Svetasvatara claims[41] bondage results from ignorance, illusion or delusion; deliverance comes from knowledge. The Supreme Being dwells in every being, he is the primal cause, he is the eternal law, he is the essence of everything, he is nature, he is not a separate entity. Liberation comes to those who know Supreme Being is present as the Universal Spirit and Principle, just as they know butter is present in milk. Such realization, claims Svetasvatara, come from self-knowledge and self-discipline; and this knowledge and realization is liberation from transmigration, the final goal of the Upanishad.[42]

Starting with the middle Upanishad era, moksha - or equivalent terms such as mukti and kaivalya - is a major theme in many Upanishads. For example, Sarasvati Rahasya Upanishad, one of several Upanishads of the bhakti school of Hinduism, starts out with prayers to Goddess Sarasvati. She is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, learning and creative arts;[43] her name is a compound word of sara[44] and sva,[45] meaning "essence of self". After the prayer verses, the Upanishad inquires about the secret to freedom and liberation (mukti). Sarasvatis reply in the Upanishad is:

It was through me the Creator himself gained liberating knowledge,I am being, consciousness, bliss, eternal freedom: unsullied, unlimited, unending.My perfect consciousness shines your world, like a beautiful face in a soiled mirror,Seeing that reflection I wish myself you, an individual soul, as if I could be finite!

A finite soul, an infinite Goddess - these are false concepts,in the minds of those unacquainted with truth,No space, my loving devotee, exists between your self and my self,Know this and you are free. This is the secret wisdom.

The concept of moksha, according to Daniel Ingalls,[15] represented one of many expansions in Hindu Vedic ideas of life and afterlife. In the Vedas, there were three stages of life: studentship, householdship and retirement. During the Upanishadic era, Hinduism expanded this to include a fourth stage of life: complete abandonment. In Vedic literature, there are three modes of experience: waking, dream and deep sleep. The Upanishadic era expanded it to include turiyam - the stage beyond deep sleep. The Vedas suggest three goals of man: kama, artha and dharma. To these, the Upanishadic era added moksha.[15]

The acceptance of the concept of moksha in some schools of Hindu philosophy was slow. These refused to recognize moksha for centuries, considering it irrelevant.[15] The Mimamsa school, for example, denied the goal and relevance of moksha well into the 8th century AD, until the arrival of a Mimamsa scholar named Kumarila.[47] Instead of moksha, Mimamsa school of Hinduism considered the concept of heaven as sufficient to answer the question: what lay beyond this world after death. Other schools of Hinduism, over time, accepted the Moksha concept and refined it over time.[15]

It is unclear when the core ideas of samsara and moksha were developed in ancient India. Patrick Olivelle suggests these ideas likely originated with new religious movements in the first millennium BCE.[web 1] Mukti and moksha ideas, suggests J. A. B. van Buitenen,[21] seem traceable to yogis in Hinduism, with long hair, who chose to live on the fringes of society, given to self-induced states of intoxication and ecstasy, possibly accepted as medicine men and "sadhus" by the ancient Indian society.[15] Moksha to these early concept developers, was the abandonment of the established order, not in favor of anarchy, but in favor of self-realization, to achieve release from this world.[48]

In its historical development, the concept of moksha appears in three forms: Vedic, yogic and bhakti. In the Vedic period, moksha was ritualistic.[21] Moka was claimed to result from properly completed rituals such as those before Agni - the fire deity. The significance of these rituals was to reproduce and recite the cosmic creation event described in the Vedas; the description of knowledge on different levels - adhilokam, adhibhutam, adhiyajnam, adhyatmam - helped the individual transcend to moksa. Knowledge was the means, the ritual its application. By the middle to late Upanishadic period, the emphasis shifted to knowledge, and ritual activities were considered irrelevant to the attainment of moksha.[50] Yogic moksha[21][51] replaced Vedic rituals with personal development and meditation, with hierarchical creation of the ultimate knowledge in self as the path to moksha. Yogic moksha principles were accepted in many other schools of Hinduism, albeit with differences. For example, Adi Shankara in his book on moksha suggests:

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By reflection, reasoning and instructions of teachers, the truth is known,Not by ablutions, not by making donations, nor by performing hundreds of breath control exercises. || Verse 13 ||

Bhakti moksha created the third historical path, where neither rituals nor meditative self-development were the way, rather it was inspired by constant love and contemplation of God, which over time results in a perfect union with God.[21] Some Bhakti schools evolved their ideas where God became the means and the end, transcending moksha; the fruit of bhakti is bhakti itself.[53] In the history of Indian religious traditions, additional ideas and paths to moksha beyond these three, appeared over time.[54]

The words moksha, nirvana (nibbana) and kaivalya are sometimes used synonymously,[55] because they all refer to the state that liberates a person from all causes of sorrow and suffering.[56][57] However, in modern era literature, these concepts have different premises in different religions.[9] Nirvana, a concept common in Buddhism, is a state of realization that there is no self (no soul) and Emptiness; while moksha, a concept common in many schools of Hinduism, is acceptance of Self (soul), realization of liberating knowledge, the consciousness of Oneness with Brahman, all existence and understanding the whole universe as the Self.[58][59] Nirvana starts with the premise that there is no Self, moksha on the other hand, starts with the premise that everything is the Self; there is no consciousness in the state of nirvana, but everything is One unified consciousness in the state of moksha.[58]

Kaivalya, a concept akin to moksha, rather than nirvana, is found in some schools of Hinduism such as the Yoga school. Kaivalya is the realization of aloofness with liberating knowledge of ones self and union with the spiritual universe. For example, Patanjalis Yoga Sutra suggests:

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After the dissolution of avidya (ignorance),comes removal of communion with material world,this is the path to Kaivalyam.

Nirvana and moksha, in all traditions, represents a state of being in ultimate reality and perfection, but described in a very different way. Some scholars, states Jayatilleke, assert that the Nirvana of Buddhism is same as the Brahman in Hinduism, a view other scholars and he disagree with.[61] Buddhism rejects the idea of Brahman, and the metaphysical ideas about soul (atman) are also rejected by Buddhism, while those ideas are essential to moksha in Hinduism.[62] In Buddhism, nirvana is 'blowing out' or 'extinction'.[63] In Hinduism, moksha is 'identity or oneness with Brahman'.[59] Realization of anatta (anatman) is essential to Buddhist nirvana.[64][65][66] Realization of atman (atta) is essential to Hindu moksha.[65][67][68]

Ancient literature of different schools of Hinduism sometimes use different phrases for moksha. For example, Keval jnana or kaivalya ("state of Absolute"), Apavarga, Nihsreyasa, Paramapada, Brahmabhava, Brahmajnana and Brahmi sthiti. Modern literature additionally uses the Buddhist term nirvana interchangeably with moksha of Hinduism.[57][58] There is difference between these ideas, as explained elsewhere in this article, but they are all soteriological concepts of various Indian religious traditions.

The six major orthodox schools of Hinduism have had a historic debate, and disagree over whether moksha can be achieved in this life, or only after this life.[69] Many of the 108 Upanishads discuss amongst other things moksha. These discussions show the differences between the schools of Hinduism, a lack of consensus, with a few attempting to conflate the contrasting perspectives between various schools.[70] For example, freedom and deliverance from birth-rebirth, argues Maitrayana Upanishad, comes neither from the Vedanta schools doctrine (the knowledge of ones own Self as the Supreme Soul) nor from the Samkhya schools doctrine (distinction of the Purusha from what one is not), but from Vedic studies, observance of the Svadharma (personal duties), sticking to Asramas (stages of life).[71]

The six major orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy offer the following views on moksha, each for their own reasons: the Nyaya, Vaisesika and Mimamsa schools of Hinduism consider moksha as possible only after death.[69][72] Samkhya and Yoga schools consider moksha as possible in this life. In Vedanta school, the Advaita sub-school concludes moksha is possible in this life,[69] while Dvaita and Visistadvaita sub-schools of Vedanta tradition believes that moksha is a continuous event, one assisted by loving devotion to God, that extends from this life to post-mortem. Beyond these six orthodox schools, some heterodox schools of Hindu tradition, such as Carvaka, deny there is a soul or after life moksha.[73]

Both Smkhya and Yoga systems of religious thought are mokshastras, suggests Knut Jacobsen, they are systems of salvific liberation and release.[74] Smkhya is a system of interpretation, primarily a theory about the world. Yoga is both a theory and a practice. Yoga gained wide acceptance in ancient India, its ideas and practices became part of many religious schools in Hinduism, including those that were very different from Smkhya. The eight limbs of yoga can be interpreted as a way to liberation (moksha).[74][75]

In Smkhya literature, liberation is commonly referred to as kaivalya. In this school, kaivalya means the realization of purusa, the principle of consciousness, as independent from mind and body, as different from prakrti. Like many schools of Hinduism, in Smkhya and Yoga schools, the emphasis is on the attainment of knowledge, vidy or jna, as necessary for salvific liberation, moksha.[74][76] Yogas purpose is then seen as a means to remove the avidy - that is, ignorance or misleading/incorrect knowledge about one self and the universe. It seeks to end ordinary reflexive awareness (cittavrtti nirodhah) with deeper, purer and holistic awareness (asamprjta samdhi).[75][77] Yoga, during the pursuit of moksha, encourages practice (abhysa) with detachment (vairgya), which over time leads to deep concentration (samdhi). Detachment means withdrawal from outer world and calming of mind, while practice means the application of effort over time. Such steps are claimed by Yoga school as leading to samdhi, a state of deep awareness, release and bliss called kaivalya.[74][76]

Three of four paths of spirituality in Hinduism. Each path suggests a different way to moksha.

Yoga, or mrga, in Hinduism is widely classified into four spiritual practices.[78] The first mrga is Jna Yoga, the way of knowledge. The second mrga is Bhakti Yoga, the way of loving devotion to God. The third mrga is Karma Yoga, the way of works. The fourth mrga is Rja Yoga, the way of contemplation and meditation. These mrgas are part of different schools in Hinduism, and their definition and methods to moksha.[79] For example, the Advaita Vedanta school relies on Jna Yoga in its teachings of moksha.[80]

The three main sub-schools in Vedanta school of Hinduism - Advaita Vedanta, Vishistadvaita and Dvaita - each have their own views about moksha.

The Vedantic school of Hinduism suggests the first step towards moka begins with mumuksutva, that is desire of liberation.[23] This takes the form of questions about self, what is true, why do things or events make us happy or cause suffering, and so on. This longing for liberating knowledge is assisted by, claims Adi Shankara of Advaita Vedanta,[81] guru (teacher), study of historical knowledge and viveka (critical thinking). Shankara cautions that the guru and historic knowledge may be distorted, so traditions and historical assumptions must be questioned by the individual seeking moksha. Those who are on their path to moksha (samnyasin), suggests Klaus Klostermaier, are quintessentially free individuals, without craving for anything in the worldly life, thus are neither dominated by, nor dominating anyone else.[23]

Vivekachudamani, which literally means "Crown Jewel of Discriminatory Reasoning", is a book devoted to moksa in Vedanta philosophy. It explains what behaviors and pursuits lead to moksha, as well what actions and assumptions hinder moksha. The four essential conditions, according to Vivekachudamani, before one can commence on the path of moksha include (1) vivekah (discrimination, critical reasoning) between everlasting principles and fleeting world; (2) viragah (indifference, lack of craving) for material rewards; (3) samah (calmness of mind), and (4) damah (self restraint, temperance).[82] The Brahmasutrabhasya adds to the above four requirements, the following: uparati (lack of bias, dispassion), titiksa (endurance, patience), sraddha (faith) and samadhana (intentness, commitment).[80]

The Advaita tradition considers moksha achievable by removing avidya (ignorance). Moksha is seen as a final release from illusion, and through knowledge (anubhava) of one's own fundamental nature, which is Satcitananda.[83][note 1] Advaita holds there is no being/non-being distinction between Atman, Brahman, and Paramatman. The knowledge of Brahman leads to moksha,[86] where Brahman is described as that which is the origin and end of all things, the universal principle behind and at source of everything that exists, consciousness that pervades everything and everyone.[87] Advaita Vedanta emphasizes Jnana Yoga as the means of achieving moksha.[80] Bliss, claims this school, is the fruit of knowledge (vidya) and work (karma).[88]

The Dvaita (dualism) traditions define moksha as the loving, eternal union with God (Vishnu) and considered the highest perfection of existence. Dvaita schools suggest every soul encounters liberation differently.[89] Dualist schools (e.g. Vaishnava) see God as the object of love, for example, a personified monotheistic conception of Shiva or Vishnu. By immersing oneself in the love of God, one's karmas slough off, one's illusions decay, and truth is lived. Both the worshiped and worshiper gradually lose their illusory sense of separation and only One beyond all names remains. This is salvation to dualist schools of Hinduism. Dvaita Vedanta emphasizes Bhakti Yoga as the means of achieving moksha.[90]

The Vishistadvaita tradition, led by Ramanuja, defines avidya and moksha differently from the Advaita tradition. To Ramanuja, avidya is a focus on the self, and vidya is a focus on a loving god. The Vishistadvaita school argues that other schools of Hinduism create a false sense of agency in individuals, which makes the individual think oneself as potential or self-realized god. Such ideas, claims Ramanuja, decay to materialism, hedonism and self worship. Individuals forget Ishvara (God). Mukti, to Vishistadvaita school, is release from such avidya, towards the intuition and eternal union with God (Vishnu).[91]

Among the Samkhya, Yoga and Vedanta schools of Hinduism, liberation and freedom reached within ones life is referred to as jivanmukti, and the individual who has experienced this state is called jivanmukta (self-realized person).[92] Dozens of Upanishads, including those from middle Upanishadic period, mention or describe the state of liberation, jivanmukti.[93][94] Some contrast jivanmukti with videhamukti (moksha from samsara after death).[95] Jivanmukti is a state that transforms the nature, attributes and behaviors of an individual, claim these ancient texts of Hindu philosophy. For example, according to Naradaparivrajaka Upanishad, the liberated individual shows attributes such as:[96]

Balinese Hinduism incorporates moksha as one of five tattwas. The other four are: brahman (the one supreme god head, not to be confused with Brahmin), atma (soul or spirit), karma (actions and reciprocity, causality), samsara (principle of rebirth, reincarnation). Moksha, in Balinese Hindu belief, is the possibility of unity with the divine; it is sometimes referred to as nirwana.[98][99]

In Buddhism the most common term for liberation is Nirvana (Pali: Nibbana).[100][citation needed] It literally means blowing out, "quenching", or becoming extinguished.[101] This Buddhist concept is intimately tied as in later Hinduism and Jainism, states Steven Collins, to the ancient Indian idea of the world of rebirth and redeath.[102]

In Theravada Buddhism moksha is attained with nirvana, which ends the cycle of Dukkha and rebirth in the six realms of Sasra (Buddhism).[103][note 2] It is part of the Four Noble Truths doctrine of Buddhism, which plays an essential role in Theravada Buddhism.[109] Nirvana has been described in Buddhist texts in a manner similar to other Indian religions, as the state of complete liberation, enlightenment, highest happiness, bliss, fearless, freedom, dukkha-less, permanence, non-dependent origination, unfathomable, indescribable.[110][111] It has also been described as a state of release marked by "emptiness" and realization of non-Self.[112][113][114] Such descriptions, states Peter Harvey, are contested by scholars because nirvana in Buddhism is ultimately described as a state of "stopped consciousness (blown out), but one that is not non-existent", and "it seems impossible to imagine what awareness devoid of any object would be like".[103]

In Jainism, moksha and nirvana are one and the same.[57][116] Jaina texts sometimes use the term Kevalya, and call the liberated soul as Kevalin.[117] As with all Indian religions, moksha is the ultimate spiritual goal in Jainism. It defines moksha as the spiritual release from all karma.[117]

Jainism is a Sramanic non-theistic philosophy, that like Hinduism and unlike Buddhism, believes in a metaphysical permanent self or soul often termed Jiva. Jaina believe that this soul is what transmigrates from one being to another at the time of death. The moksa state is attained when a soul (atman) is liberated from the cycles of rebirths and redeaths (Sasra), is at the apex, is omniscient, remains there eternally, and is known as a Siddha. It is in Jainism, believed to be a stage beyond enlightenment and ethical perfection, states Paul Dundas, because they can perform physical and mental activities such as teach, without accruing karma that leads to rebirth.[117]

Jaina traditions believe that there exist Abhavya (incapable), or a class of souls that can never attain moksha (liberation).[117] The Abhavya state of soul is entered after an intentional and shockingly evil act, but Jaina texts also polemically applied Abhavya condition to those who belonged to a competing ancient Indian tradition called jvika.[117] A male human being is considered closest to the apex of moksha, with the potential to achieve liberation, particularly through asceticism. The ability of women to attain moksha has been historically debated, and the sub-traditions with Jainism have disagreed. In the Digambra tradition of Jainism, women must live an ethical life and gain karmic merit, to be reborn as a man, because only males can achieve spiritual liberation;[121][122] in contrast, the Shvetambara tradition has believed that women too can attain moksha just like men.[122][123][124]

The Sikh concept of mukti (moksha) is similar to other Indian religions, and refers to spiritual liberation.[125] It is described in Sikhism as the state that breaks the cycle of rebirths.[125] Mukti is obtained according to Sikhism, states Singha, through "God's grace".[126] According to the teachings in the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib, the devotion to God is viewed as more important than the desire for Mukti.[126]

I desire neither worldly power nor liberation. I desire nothing but seeing the Lord.Brahma, Shiva, the Siddhas, the silent sages and Indra - I seek only the Blessed Vision of my Lord and Master's Darshan.I have come, helpless, to Your Door, O Lord Master; I am exhausted - I seek the Sanctuary of the Saints.Says Nanak, I have met my Enticing Lord God; my mind is cooled and soothed - it blossoms forth in joy.

Sikhism recommends Naam Simran as the way to mukti, which is meditating and repeating the Naam (names of God).[125][126]

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Definitions

Synonyms

SentencesSentence examples

After having a moment of enlightenment, Bekah was finally able to solve the riddle.

He hoped to achieve a state of enlightenment by attending numerous courses about unfamiliar topics.

Young adults typically seek enlightenment from older people who have more wisdom and experience.

Major advances were made in science and philosophy during The Enlightenment period in Europe.

As a young person, you should take advantage of every opportunity to seek enlightenment from adults.

It was impossible for her to find enlightenment in such a hectic environment.

Derek sought enlightenment from his professors so that he could be more successful in the workplace after graduating.

He encouraged the study of Sanskrit, and furthered schemes for the enlightenment and amelioration of the Hindus.

A valiant soldier and a man of much enlightenment, John Albert was a poor politician, recklessly sacrificing the future to the present.

The people exhibit every stage of human progress, and every type of human enlightenment and superstition from the educated classes to primitive hill tribes.

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