LAS VEGAS, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- There's a total solar eclipse coming to America on August 21st 2017 and it's bringing millions of Americans together who all want front row seats to collectively witness what is anticipated as the most-viewed celestial event in U.S. history.

Others are gathering across the country to get a break from the fear, drama and discord so they can appreciate the rare beauty and mystery of the total solar eclipse as it crosses over Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Millions of out-of-town visitors and stargazers are expected to flood into these areas, hopeful to catch a glimpse of the eclipse from the best possible viewing angle -- potentially creating a sizeable traffic jam stretching across the heart of the United States.

While no suggestions are being given on how to navigate the coming influx of traffic from Oregon to South Carolina, the historic space event has inspired a collective movement to use the celestial sign as a launch pad to put differences aside and achieve one common goal.

"Instant enlightenment," says David Griffin, Imperator of the world famous Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a respected society of intellectuals and philanthropists founded in 1888.

According to Griffin, the total eclipse happening in two weeks presents a unique opportunity to collectively achieve a quantum leap in the evolution of consciousness. He provides a simple method tested by himself to achieve an experience of illumination during the 1999 total eclipse in Hungary.

"Everyone is encouraged to come together as humanity everywhere, anywhere, of any race, class, religion, belief or culture to experience enlightenment and evolution," says David.

He is freely giving away the ancient Hermetic method for Enlightenment during a total eclipse at http://www.EclipseEnlightenment.com/

To get in contact with David Griffin for interview requests, media/talk show appearances, news segments or partnerships send an email to: admin@golden-dawn.com or phone 775-764-9828.

Contact David Griffin 171904@email4pr.com775-764-9828

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/great-american-eclipse-inspires-new-age-movement-for-instant-enlightenment-300503660.html

SOURCE David Griffin

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Great American Eclipse Inspires New Age Movement for 'Instant' Enlightenment - PR Newswire (press release)

Speaking of moments: One phrase that hasnt occurred in this piece so far is living in the moment. This may seem strange, since this theme is so commonly associated with mindfulness, and so emphasized by meditation teachers. Indeed, The New York Times recently defined mindfulness as the desire to take a chunk of each day and simply live in the present. Stop and smell the roses.

Theres no denying that deep appreciation of the present moment is a nice consequence of mindfulness. But its misleading to think of it as central to mindfulness. If you delve into early Buddhist writings, you wont find a lot of exhortations to stop and smell the rosesand thats true even if you focus on those writings that contain the word sati, the word thats translated as mindfulness.

The ancient Buddhist text known as The Four Foundations of Mindfulnessthe closest thing there is to a Bible of mindfulnessfeatures no injunction to live in the present, and in fact doesnt have a single word or phrase translated as now or the present. And it features some passages that would sound strange to the average mindfulness meditator of today. It reminds us that our bodies are full of various kinds of unclean things and instructs us to meditate on such bodily ingredients as feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, skin-oil, saliva, mucus, fluid in the joints, urine. It also calls for us to imagine our bodies one day, two days, three days deadbloated, livid, and festering.

Im not aware of any bestselling books on mindfulness meditation called Stop and Smell the Feces. And Ive never heard a meditation teacher recommend that I meditate on my bile, phlegm, and pus, or on the rotting corpse that I will someday be. What is presented today as an ancient meditative tradition is a selective rendering of an ancient meditative tradition, in some cases carefully manicured.

But thats OK. All spiritual traditions evolve, adapting to time and place, and the Buddhist teachings that find an audience today in the United States and Europe are a product of such evolution. In particular, modern mindfulness teachings retain innovations of instruction and technique made in southeast Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But the main thing, for our purposes, is that this evolutionthe evolution that has produced a distinctively Western, 21st-century version of Buddhismhasnt severed the connection between current practice and ancient thought. Modern mindfulness meditation isnt exactly the same as ancient mindfulness meditation, but the two can lead to the same place, philosophically and spiritually.

Whats more, they start at the same place. The Satipatthana Suttathe Bible of mindfulnessbegins with instructions that will be familiar to a modern meditator: Sit down, with legs crossed and body erect, and pay attention to your breath.

The text then enjoins the meditator to pay attention to lots of other thingsfeelings, thoughts, sounds, smells, and much, much more (yes, including pus and blood). Then, at the end, it makes an extraordinary claim: If you practice mindfulness assiduously, you are following the direct path for purification of beings and so can achieve nirvana. Sufficiently diligent mindfulness meditation, apparently, can lead to true awakening, complete enlightenment, and liberation.

Of course, that other Buddhist text Ive mentioned puts the story differently. It says that what leads to enlightenment is the apprehension of not-self. I hope by now its clear why these two claims coexist easily: Mindfulness meditation leads very naturally toward the apprehension of not-self and can in principle lead you all the way there. And the reason it can do so is because its about much more than living in the moment. Mindfulness, in the most deeply Buddhist sense of the term, is about an exhaustive, careful, and calm examination of the contents of human experience, an examination that can radically alter your interpretation of that experience.

Most meditators dont give much thought to going all the way down the path toward this radicalism. And many meditators, like me, would love to go all the way but arent optimistic about making it to the end. Which leads to a question: Why keep meditating if you suspect that this path wont realize your deepest aspiration, wont lead all the way to full enlightenment?

The easy answer is that meditating can make your life bettera little lower in stress, anxiety, and other unwelcome feelings. But thats the therapeutic answer. The spiritual answeror at least my version of the spiritual answeris more complicated.

It begins with one of the more striking claims made by Buddhismthat enlightenment and liberation from suffering are inextricably intertwined. We sufferand make others sufferbecause we dont see the world, including ourselves, clearly.

One common conception of this relationship between truth and freedom is that you see the entire truth in a flash of insight, and then you are free. Sounds great! And what a time-saver! Im not just being sarcastic here; there are people who seem to have been blessed with the spontaneous apprehension of not-self, and an attendant sense of liberation. But the more usual experience is incremental: A bit of movement toward trutha clearer, more objective view of your stress, for exampleleads to a little freedom from suffering.

Importantly, this incremental progress can work in the other direction: a bit of freedom can let you see a bit of truth. If you sit down and meditate and loosen the bonds of agitation and anxiety, the ensuing calm will let you observe other things with more clarity.

Some of these observations may seem trivial. Had I never started meditating, Id never have realized that the monotonous-seeming hum generated by my office refrigerator actually consists of at least three distinct sounds, weaving a rich (and surprisingly pretty!) harmony. But sometimes these observations have larger consequence. If you view your wrath toward someone with a bit of detachment, you may realize that the irate email youve written to that personthe one sitting in your drafts folderwill, if sent, create needless turmoil.

And if you carry this kind of calm beyond the meditation cushion, you may find youre less likely to label someone a jerk just because hes at the checkout counter fumbling for his credit card and youre behind him and in a hurry. Which Id say qualifies as movement toward truth, since its logically contradictory to consider someone a jerk for doing something lots of people you dont consider jerksincluding youhave done.

Indeed, according to Buddhist philosophy, not seeing this person as a jerk is, in a certain sense, movement toward profound truth. The Buddhist doctrine of emptinessthe one Jack Kerouac cryptically alluded towould take eons to explain fully, but one way to put the basic idea is to say that all things, including living beings, are empty of essence. To not see essence of jerk in the kind of people youre accustomed to seeing essence of jerk in is to move, however modestly, and in however narrow a context, toward the apprehension of emptiness.

Here again, ancient Buddhist philosophy gets support from modern psychology. In many circumstances, it turns out, we do tend to project a kind of essence onto people. We may naturally conclude, upon observing a stranger for only a few seconds, that she is a rude person, periodrather than entertain the possibility that shes had a stressful day that led her to behave with uncharacteristic rudeness. This tendency to attribute behavior disproportionately to dispositional factors, and to underemphasize situational factors, is known as the fundamental attribution error. To commit the error, as humans seem naturally inclined to do, is to see a kind of essenceessence of rude person, in this casewhere one doesnt actually exist.

Anyway, the key point is this: The two-way relationship between enlightenment and liberationthe fact that a slight boost in either may boost the othercan create a positive feedback loop that doubles as a spiritual propellant, pushing you down that slope toward deeper exploration. If sending fewer incendiary emails and spending less time fulminating in checkout lines reduces the amount of agitation in your life, maybe this effect will be so gratifyingso liberatingthat it encourages you to meditate for 30 minutes a day instead of 20. And maybe that will lead you to view more of your emotional life with greater claritylead to more enlightenmentand this enlightenment will further reduce the needless suffering in your life and further deepen your commitment to meditation. And so on. Before you know it, youve gone on a meditation retreat, absorbed some Buddhist philosophy, and are driving the Adam Grants of the world even crazier than more casual meditators drive them. Well done.

But does this really qualify as a spiritual endeavor? After all, upping your investment in meditation certainly has its therapeutic payoffs. Id say the answer depends partly on how far you gohow far toward not-self, for examplebut also on how you think about the exercise, what you take away from it. When youre standing in that checkout line, judging that credit card fumbler more leniently than usual, is that just a fleeting effect, the welcome byproduct of a particularly immersive morning meditation session? Or is it part of a sustained effort to be mindful of how casually and unfairly were naturally inclined to judge peopleand how those judgments are shaped by self-serving feelings that, actually, we dont have to consider part of our selves?

And when youre getting some distance from stress and anxiety and sadness, is the ensuing comfort the end of your practice? Or is there ongoing and deepening reflection on the way feelings shape our thoughts and perceptions, and on how unreliable they are as guides to what we should think and how we should perceive things?

For many of usmyself included, I fearpursuing enlightenment is doomed to failure if we think of enlightenment as a kind of end stateif we hope to eventually attain the elusive apprehension of not-self, of emptiness, and sustain that condition forever, living wholly free of delusion and suffering.

But you can always think of enlightenment as a process, and of liberation the same way. The object of the game isnt to reach Liberation and Enlightenment with a capitalL and Eon some distant day, but rather to become a bit more liberated and a bit more enlightened on a not-so-distant day. Like today! Or, failing that, tomorrow. Or the next day. Or whenever. The main thing is to make progress over time, inevitable backsliding notwithstanding. And the first step on that path can consist of just calming down a littleeven if your initial motivation for calming down is to make a killing in the stock market.

Read the original:
Is mindfulness meditation a capitalist tool or a path to enlightenment? Yes - WIRED

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Each of us comes to know the truth in our own way, says astrologer Antero Alli. "For some it is wild and unfettered," he writes. "For others it is like a cozy domesticated cat, while others find truth through their senses alone." Whatever your usual style of knowing the truth might be, Leo, I suspect you'll benefit from trying out a different method in the next two weeks. Here are some possibilities: trusting your most positive feelings; tuning in to the clues and cues your body provides; performing ceremonies in which you request the help of ancestral spirits; slipping into an altered state by laughing nonstop for five minutes.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Would you scoff if I said that you'll soon be blessed with supernatural assistance? Would you smirk and roll your eyes if I advised you to find clues to your next big move by analyzing your irrational fantasies? Would you tell me to stop spouting nonsense if I hinted that a guardian angel is conspiring to blast a tunnel through the mountain you created out of a molehill? It's OK if you ignore my predictions, Virgo. They'll come true even if you're a staunch realist who doesn't believe in woo-woo, juju, or mojo.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): This is the Season of Enlightenment for you. That doesn't necessarily mean you will achieve an ultimate state of divine grace. It's not a guarantee that you'll be freestyling in satori, samadhi, or nirvana. But one thing is certain: Life will conspire to bring you the excited joy that comes with deep insight into the nature of reality. If you decide to take advantage of the opportunity, please keep in mind these thoughts from designer Elissa Giles: "Enlightenment is not an asexual, dispassionate, head-in-the-clouds, nails-in-the-palms disappearance from the game of life. It's a volcanic, kick-ass, erotic commitment to love in action, coupled with hard-headed practical grist."

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Some zoos sell the urine of lions and tigers to gardeners who sprinkle it in their gardens. Apparently the stuff scares off wandering house cats that might be tempted to relieve themselves in vegetable patches. I nominate this scenario to be a provocative metaphor for you in the coming weeks. Might you tap into the power of your inner wild animal so as to protect your inner crops? Could you build up your warrior energy so as to prevent run-ins with pesky irritants? Can you call on helpful spirits to ensure that what's growing in your life will continue to thrive?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The fates have conspired to make it right and proper for you to be influenced by Sagittarian author Mark Twain. There are five specific bits of his wisdom that will serve as benevolent tweaks to your attitude. I hope you will also aspire to express some of his expansive snappiness. Now here's Twain: 1. "You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." 2. "Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned." 3. "It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare." 4. "When in doubt, tell the truth." 5. "Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work."

CAPRICORN (Dec.22-Jan. 19): "My grandfather used to tell me that if you stir muddy water it will only get darker," wrote I. G. Edmonds in his book *Trickster Tales.* "But if you let the muddy water stand still, the mud will settle and the water will become clearer," he concluded. I hope this message reaches you in time, Capricorn. I hope you will then resist any temptation you might have to agitate, churn, spill wine into, wash your face in, drink, or splash around in the muddy water.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In 1985, Maurizio Cattelan quit his gig at a mortuary in Padua, Italy and resolved to make a living as an artist. He started creating furniture, and ultimately evolved into a sculptor who specialized in satirical work. In 1999 he produced a piece depicting the Pope being struck by a meteorite, which sold for $886,000 in 2001. If there were ever going to be a time when you could launch your personal version of his story, Aquarius, it would be in the next ten months. That doesn't necessarily mean you should go barreling ahead with such a radical act of faith, however. Following your bliss rarely leads to instant success. It may take years. (16 in Cattelan's case.) Are you willing to accept that?

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Tally up your physical aches, psychic bruises, and chronic worries. Take inventory of your troubling memories, half-repressed disappointments, and existential nausea. Do it, Pisces! Be strong. If you bravely examine and deeply feel the difficult feelings, then the cures for those feelings will magically begin streaming in your direction. You'll see what you need to do to escape at least some of your suffering. So name your griefs and losses, my dear. Remember your near-misses and total fiascos. As your reward, you'll be soothed and relieved and forgiven. A Great Healing will come.

ARIES(March 21-April 19): I hope you're making wise use of the surging fertility that has been coursing through you. Maybe you've been reinventing a long-term relationship that needed creative tinkering. Perhaps you have been hammering together an innovative business deal or generating new material for your artistic practice. It's possible you have discovered how to express feelings and ideas that have been half-mute or inaccessible for a long time. If for some weird reason you are not yet having experiences like these, get to work! There's still time to tap into the fecundity.

TAURUS(April 20-May 20): Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano defines "idiot memory" as the kind of remembrances that keep us attached to our old self-images, and trapped by them. "Lively memory," on the other hand, is a feisty approach to our old stories. It impels us to graduate from who we used to be. "We are the sum of our efforts to change who we are," writes Galeano. "Identity is no museum piece sitting stock-still in a display case." Here's another clue to your current assignment, Taurus, from psychotherapist Dick Olney: "The goal of a good therapist is to help someone wake up from the dream that they are their self-image."

GEMINI(May 21-June 20): Sometimes, Gemini, loving you is a sacred honor for me -- equivalent to getting a poem on my birthday from the Dalai Lama. On other occasions, loving you is more like trying to lap up a delicious milkshake that has spilled on the sidewalk, or slow-dancing with a giant robot teddy bear that accidentally knocks me down when it suffers a glitch. I don't take it personally when I encounter the more challenging sides of you, since you are always an interesting place to visit. But could you maybe show more mercy to the people in your life who are not just visitors? Remind your dear allies of the obvious secret -- that you're composed of several different selves, each of whom craves different thrills.

CANCER(June 21-July 22): Liz, my girlfriend when I was young, went to extreme lengths to cultivate her physical attractiveness. "Beauty must suffer," her mother had told her while growing up, and Liz heeded that advice. To make her long blonde hair as wavy as possible, for example, she wrapped strands of it around six empty metal cans before bed, applied a noxious spray, and then slept all night with a stinky, clanking mass of metal affixed to her head. While you may not do anything so literal, Cancerian, you do sometimes act as if suffering helps keep you strong and attractive -- as if feeling hurt is a viable way to energize your quest for what you want. But if you'd like to transform that approach, the coming weeks will be a good time. Step One: Have a long, compassionate talk with your inner saboteur.

Continue reading here:
Free Will Astrology: Libra's Season of Enlightenment - NUVO

The Federal Government and the United Nation Children Fund (UNICEF) have charged the media to step up public enlightenment on optimal breastfeeding of babies to prevent infant mortality and produce healthy and intelligent children.

Information minister Lai Mohammed and the chief of UNICEF Akure field office Tejinder Sadhu gave the charge in their separate remarks at a two-day Media Dialogue on Breastfeeding and Global Breastfeeding Collective in Ibadan.

The media dialogue was organized by the Child Rights Information Bureau (CRIB) of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in collaboration with UNICEF and UK Department for International Development as part of activities marking the world breastfeeding week.

Mohammed, represented by the Assistant Director, Child Rights Information Bureau, Olumide Osanyinpeju urged journalists to assist in educating and sensitizing the public on the need to ensure optimal breastfeeding of infants.

According to him, there is need for all to rise up for the propagation, as early breastfeeding can make the difference between life and death. Government alone cannot fight this cause, hence, the need for collaboration with agencies, NGOs and other partners and organizations to advocate on how best to address the issue.

In his remarks, the UNICEF Chief of Akure Field office said this years edition of the annual world breastfeeding week with the theme Sustaining Breastfeeding Together was a significant event to promote breastfeeding.

Breastfed children have at least 6 times greater chance of survival in the early months than non-breastfed children. An exclusively breastfed child is 14 times less likely to die in the first six months than a non-breastfed child, he said.

UNICEF Communication Officer, Blessing Ejiofor said the dialogue is to provide journalists with more information and materials to hold government accountable to its responsibility to promote breastfeeding.

UNICEF Communication Specialist, Geoffrey Njoku said, There is need for aggressive reportage on breastfeeding with focus on increasing government funding to increase the rate of breastfeeding in Nigeria.

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FG, UNICEF charge media on public enlightenment on optimal breastfeeding - Daily Trust

A San Jose art studio owner has been arrested for attempting to manufacture child pornography using hidden camera footage captured inside the facility's bathroom, according to police.

El Verde Nguyen, 34, of San Jose has been booked into the Santa Clara County Jail after investigators found that a child under the age of 10 was photographed inside the bathroom of the Enlightenment Studio, which is listed as Nguyen's place of business, according to police.

Art Studio in San Jose Shut Down Amid Investigation

The San Jose Police Department was initially notified about Nguyen's suspected acts on Sunday, according to police. The following day, detectives with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force examined the studio and found a "small recording device" in the studio's bathroom.

Police said an anonymous person turned in a digital card reportedly from the camera revealing at least one image of a child under 10 years old.

"Our biggest concern was to make sure we eliminate that particular threat to children," Sgt. Brian Spears said.

The FBI has been alerted to the case and will continued to examine the recording device, according to police.

Investigators said they are concerned about all the different activities conducted by Nguyen involving young children -- many posted on his Instagram account.

A message posted on the studio's website on Monday indicated that the police department was conducting an investigation "regarding activit(ies) that happened on the premises of the studio." The studio announced that it was cooperating with the investigation, according to the message.

The Enlightenment Studio, which is located at 438 Toyon Ave.,is billed as a place where people can receive instruction and tutoring for academics, music, painting, drawing, graphic design and other art-related activities.

A neighboring store owner defended Nguyen and said his grandson has been tutored at the studio for years.

But one woman who inquired at the studio about music lessons was skeptical.

"I just got a weird feeling and I left right away," San Jose-resident Cruz Hernandez-Samaro said. "I just didn't feel really right."

Anyone with additional information regarding this case is encouraged to contact Detective Christian Mendoza at 408-537-1397.

Published at 11:41 AM PDT on Aug 2, 2017 | Updated at 7:20 PM PDT on Aug 2, 2017

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San Jose Art Studio Owner Arrested for Attempting to Create Child Porn Using Footage From Bathroom: Police - NBC Bay Area

What went on behind closed doors in Edinburgh in 1742? The Enlightenment city had no concert halls but there was plenty of music afoot. Any self-respecting merchant needed a couple of horn-playing servants to follow him up Arthurs Seat. Meanwhile, the keen amateurs of the Edinburgh Musical Society imported professional string players from Italy in order to up their own game. One was the composer Francesco Barsanti, who lived in Scotland for eight years and loved the traditional fiddle music he found there. The superstar castrato Tenducci also wound up singing gigs at the society while hiding from scandal abroad. Peter Whelan and his terrific Ensemble Marsyas reconstruct a typical society concert and its a rich insight, played with great style and charisma. We get the broad, bright elegance of Barsantis Concerti Grossi, his tasteful treatment of old Scots tunes, plus a double horn concerto and an aria from Alcina by Handel, mezzo Emilie Renard fierce as Tenducci.

More here:
Barsanti; Handel: Edinburgh 1742 CD review a rich insight into the Enlightenment city - The Guardian

AKRON, Ohio, Aug 03, 2017 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) 4Es Outreach today announced the East End Enlightenment Expo, a brand new event located in the Historic Goodyear Hall that will include Vendors, Presenters, and Readers from all walks of life. Come join us for a great time filled with music, learning, and joy!

The event will take place on September 15 and 16, 2017. Friday night is Preview Night with a special presentation by local musician and teacher, Chris Reynolds. Doors open at 4 p.m., and entry is $25 per person. Friday Night VIP access includes: Wine and Cheese reception, Swag Bags, Early access to Vendor Space and Labyrinth, Entry for Saturday, and much more.

Doors open on Saturday at 11 a.m. Entry is $5 per person and includes: Access to Vendor Space and Labyrinth, Ability to schedule one-on-one readings with our talented Psychic Mediums and Healers, Free lectures, and much more.

There is plenty of FREE PARKING and there will be a variety of food vendors.

As a long-time resident of Goodyear Heights, I am excited about all of the changes that have been taking place on the East End and look forward to the opportunity to showcase it to the rest of Northeast Ohio, says Iris Matos, CEO of 4Es Outreach.

CFO Stephanie Allison adds It is an honor to be involved in this groundbreaking institution of education and to assist all who are seeking guidance with their spiritual journey. I am excited to the see evolution of this event and its impact on the community.

To learn how to purchase tickets or become a vendor, please visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/4esoutreach.

About 4Es Outreach:

4Es Outreach is an Akron, Ohio-based Non-Profit Organization, whose mission is to provide opportunities for education and outreach to help people along their spiritual path, whatever form it may take. 4Es Outreach was launched in June 2017 by Iris Matos and Stephanie Allison to help facilitate more connections between people, and celebrate all we have in common. To learn more visit https://www.facebook.com/4esoutreach, or call us at 330-475-6277.

Media Contact:Iris Matos4Es OutreachTel. 330-475-6277Email: 4esoutreach@gmail.com

News Source: 4Es Outreach

Related link: https://www.facebook.com/4esoutreach

This press release was issued on behalf of the news source, who is solely responsible for its accuracy, by Send2Press Newswire. To view the original story, visit: https://www.send2press.com/wire/the-east-end-enlightenment-expo-a-new-event-to-celebrate-akrons-east-end/

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Akron Ohio hosts the first annual 2017 East End Enlightenment Expo - California Newswire

What is Enlightenment?

Enlightenment in Elder Scrolls Online is basically a reduction in the EXP required to earn a Champion Point in the Champion Systemwhich occurs every 24 hours. Enlightenment was put in place to allow players who have less time to invest in ESO a chance to catch up and remain competitive.

A normal Champion Point is earned for every 400,000 EXP that you gain.

If you are Enlightened it will only take 100,000 EXP to earn a Champion Point.

Once you unlock the Champion System, when one of your characters reaches Veteran Rank 1, you will earn Champion Points every time you gain 400,000 EXP. You will also set off an invisible timer which resets every 24 hours. This timer is what gives you Enlightenment. This timer gives out 1 Champion Point worth of Enlightenment every 24 hours and you can accrue a maximum of 12 Champion Points worth of Enlightenment before the timer stops to wait for you to come back.

Every24 hours you get the chance to earn 1 Champion Point that only needs 100,000 EXP.

So you can log on every day and earn 1 Champion Point with 100,000 EXP.Enlightenment also accrues if you dont use it. So say that you miss a few days and log on after a 5 day break. You will now have accrued enough Enlightenment to earn 5 Champion Points that only need 100,000 EXP. Enlightenment accrues up to a maximum of 12 days. So if you come back after a 15 day break you will only have enough Enlightenment to earn 12 Champion Points at 100,000 EXP.

You can tell if you are Enlightened as when you first log on a message will appear saying that you are Enlightened. You can also check by hovering over the Champion Point bar which is just below the main EXP bar. You can open your inventory, or another menu, and you will find these things in the top left corner of the screen.

The whole system can be a little confusing at first.

Here is what ZOS had to say, to try and clarify things a little.

ZOS_GinaBruno

March 19 2015

Hi everyone!

Weve been seeing a lot of confusion over Enlightenment and how the system works, so we wanted to explain it a bit more thoroughly for you. In simplest terms, Enlightenment is a bonus for the XP you earn while playing that counts toward your Champion Point progression.

Every 24 hours, you receive enough Enlightenment to earn one Champion Point at the rate of 100,000XP per Point; after your Enlightenment is used up, you will return to requiring 400,000XP to earn a Champion Point. The 24 hour timer starts when you log in with your first Veteran character or unlock the Champion System, whichever is first, and resets every 24 hours after it first starts. You will receive a message on your screen that you are Enlightened, and you can also hover over your XP bar to see if you are Enlightened.

If you end up not using up all your Enlightenment while you play, it will continue to accrue for a maximum of 12 days. Once you hit the limit, you will not gain any additional Enlightenment until you begin to use it by gaining XP.

Source

See the article here:
Enlightenment ESO Academy

The Enlightenment was both a movement and a state of mind. The term represents a phase in the intellectual history of Europe, but it also serves to define programs of reform in which influential literati, inspired by a common faith in the possibility of a better world, outlined specific targets for criticism and proposals for action. The special significance of the Enlightenment lies in its combination of principle and pragmatism. Consequently, it still engenders controversy about its character and achievements. Two main questions and, relating to each, two schools of thought can be identified. Was the Enlightenment the preserve of an elite, centred on Paris, or a broad current of opinion that the philosophes, to some extent, represented and led? Was it primarily a French movement, having therefore a degree of coherence, or an international phenomenon, having as many facets as there were countries affected? Although most modern interpreters incline to the latter view in both cases, there is still a case for the French emphasis, given the genius of a number of the philosophes and their associates. Unlike other terms applied by historians to describe a phenomenon that they see more clearly than could contemporaries, it was used and cherished by those who believed in the power of mind to liberate and improve. Bernard de Fontenelle, popularizer of the scientific discoveries that contributed to the climate of optimism, wrote in 1702 anticipating a century which will become more enlightened day by day, so that all previous centuries will be lost in darkness by comparison. Reviewing the experience in 1784, Immanuel Kant saw an emancipation from superstition and ignorance as having been the essential characteristic of the Enlightenment.

Before Kants death the spirit of the sicle des Lumires (literally, century of the Enlightened) had been spurned by Romantic idealists, its confidence in mans sense of what was right and good mocked by revolutionary terror and dictatorship, and its rationalism decried as being complacent or downright inhumane. Even its achievements were critically endangered by the militant nationalism of the 19th century. Yet much of the tenor of the Enlightenment did survive in the liberalism, toleration, and respect for law that have persisted in European society. There was therefore no abrupt end or reversal of enlightened values.

Nor had there been such a sudden beginning as is conveyed by the critic Paul Hazards celebrated aphorism: One moment the French thought like Bossuet; the next moment like Voltaire. The perceptions and propaganda of the philosophes have led historians to locate the Age of Reason within the 18th century or, more comprehensively, between the two revolutionsthe English of 1688 and the French of 1789but in conception it should be traced to the humanism of the Renaissance, which encouraged scholarly interest in Classical texts and values. It was formed by the complementary methods of the Scientific Revolution, the rational and the empirical. Its adolescence belongs to the two decades before and after 1700 when writers such as Jonathan Swift were employing the artillery of words to impress the secular intelligentsia created by the growth in affluence, literacy, and publishing. Ideas and beliefs were tested wherever reason and research could challenge traditional authority.

In a cosmopolitan culture it was the preeminence of the French language that enabled Frenchmen of the 17th century to lay the foundations of cultural ascendancy and encouraged the philosophes to act as the tutors of 18th-century Europe. The notion of a realm of philosophy superior to sectarian or national concerns facilitated the transmission of ideas. I flatter myself, wrote Denis Diderot to the Scottish philosopher David Hume, that I am, like you, citizen of the great city of the world. A philosopher, wrote Edward Gibbon, may consider Europe as a great republic, whose various inhabitants have attained almost the same level of politeness and cultivation. This magisterial pronouncement by the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (177688) recalls the common source: the knowledge of Classical literature.

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The scholars of the Enlightenment recognized a joint inheritance, Christian as well as Classical. In rejecting, or at least reinterpreting, the one and plundering the other, they had the confidence of those who believed they were masters of their destiny. They felt an affinity with the Classical world and saluted the achievement of the Greeks, who discovered a regularity in nature and its governing principle, the reasoning mind, as well as that of the Romans, who adopted Hellenic culture while contributing a new order and style: on their law was founded much of church and civil law. Steeped in the ideas and language of the classics but unsettled in beliefs, some Enlightenment thinkers found an alternative to Christian faith in the form of a neo-paganism. The morality was based on reason; the literature, art, and architecture were already supplying rules and standards for educated taste.

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The first chapter of Voltaires Sicle de Louis XIV specified the four happy ages: the centuries of Pericles and Plato, of Cicero and Caesar, of the Medicean Renaissance, and, appositely, of Louis XIV. The contrast is with the ages of belief, which were wretched and backward. Whether denouncing Gothic taste or clerical fanaticism, writers of the Enlightenment constantly resort to images of relapse and revival. Typically, Jean dAlembert wrote in the Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopdie of a revival of letters, regeneration of ideas, and return to reason and good taste. The philosophes knew enough to be sure that they were entering a new golden age through rediscovery of the old but not enough to have misgivings about a reading of history which, being grounded in a culture that had self-evident value, provided ammunition for the secular crusade.

The new philosophy puts all in doubt, wrote the poet John Donne. Early 17th-century poetry and drama abounded in expressions of confusion and dismay about the world, God, and man. The gently questioning essays of the 16th-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, musing on human folly and fanaticism, continued to be popular long after his time, for they were no less relevant to the generation that suffered from the Thirty Years War. Unsettling scientific views were gaining a hold. As the new astronomy of Copernicus and Galileo, with its heliocentric view, was accepted, the firm association between religious beliefs, moral principles, and the traditional scheme of nature was shaken. In this process, mathematics occupied the central position. It was, in the words of Ren Descartes, the general science which should explain all that can be known about quantity and measure, considered independently of any application to a particular subject. It enabled its practitioners to bridge gaps between speculation and reasonable certainty: Johannes Kepler thus proceeded from his study of conic sections to the laws of planetary motion. When, however, Fontenelle wrote of Descartes, Sometimes one man gives the tone to a whole century, it was not merely of his mathematics that he was thinking. It was the system and philosophy that Descartes derived from the application of mathematical reasoning to the mysteries of the worldall that is meant by Cartesianismwhich was so influential. The method expounded in his Discourse on Method (1637) was one of doubt: all was uncertain until established by reasoning from self-evident propositions, on principles analogous to those of geometry. It was serviceable in all areas of study. There was a mechanistic model for all living things.

A different track had been pursued by Francis Bacon, the great English lawyer and savant, whose influence eventually proved as great as that of Descartes. He called for a new science, to be based on organized and collaborative experiment with a systematic recording of results. General laws could be established only when research had produced enough data and then by inductive reasoning, which, as described in his Novum Organum (1620), derives from particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. These must be tried and proved by further experiments. Bacons method could lead to the accumulation of knowledge. It also was self-correcting. Indeed, it was in some ways modern in its practical emphasis. Significantly, whereas the devout humanist Thomas More had placed his Utopia in a remote setting, Bacon put New Atlantis (1627) in the future. Knowledge is power, he said, perhaps unoriginally but with the conviction that went with a vision of mankind gaining mastery over nature. Thus were established the two poles of scientific endeavour, the rational and the empirical, between which enlightened man was to map the ground for a better world.

Bacons inductive method is flawed through his insufficient emphasis on hypothesis. Descartes was on strong ground when he maintained that philosophy must proceed from what is definable to what is complex and uncertain. He wrote in French rather than the customary Latin so as to exploit its value as a vehicle for clear and logical expression and to reach a wider audience. Cartesian rationalism, as applied to theology, for example by Nicholas Malebranche, who set out to refute the pantheism of Benedict de Spinoza, was a powerful solvent of traditional belief: God was made subservient to reason. While Descartes maintained his hold on French opinion, across the Channel Isaac Newton, a prodigious mathematician and a resourceful and disciplined experimenter, was mounting a crucial challenge. His Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687; Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) ranks with the Discourse on Method in authority and influence as a peak in the 17th-century quest for truth. Newton did not break completely with Descartes and remained faithful to the latters fundamental idea of the universe as a machine. But Newtons machine operated according to a series of laws, the essence of which was that the principle of gravitation was everywhere present and efficient. The onus was on the Cartesians to show not only that their mechanics gave a truer explanation but also that their methods were sounder. Christiaan Huygens was both a loyal disciple of Descartes and a formidable mathematician and inventor in his own right, who had worked out the first tenable theory of centrifugal force. His dilemma is instructive. He acknowledged that Newtons assumption of forces acting between members of the solar system was justified by the correct conclusions he drew from it, but he would not go on to accept that attraction was affecting every pair of particles, however minute. When Newton identified gravitation as a property inherent in corporeal matter, Huygens thought that absurd and looked for an agent acting constantly according to certain laws. Some believed that Newton was returning to occult qualities. Eccentricities apart, his views were not easy to grasp; those who actually read the Principia found it painfully difficult. Cartesianism was more accessible and appealing.

Gradually, however, Newtons work won understanding. One medium, ironically, was an outstanding textbook of Cartesian physics, Jacques Rohaults Trait de physique (1671), with detailed notes setting out Newtons case. In 1732 Pierre-Louis de Mauperthuis put the Cartesians on the defensive by his defense of Newtons right to employ a principle the cause of which was yet unknown. In 1734, in his Philosophical Letters, Voltaire introduced Newton as the destroyer of the system of Descartes. His authority clinched the issue. Newtons physics was justified by its successful application in different fields. The return of Halleys comet was accurately predicted. Charles Coulombs torsion balance proved that Newtons law of inverse squares was valid for electromagnetic attraction. Cartesianism reduced nature to a set of habits within a world of rules; the new attitude took note of accidents and circumstances. Observation and experiment revealed nature as untidy, unpredictablea tangle of conflicting forces. In classical theory, reason was presumed to be common to all human beings and its laws immutable. In Enlightenment Europe, however, there was a growing impatience with systems. The most creative of scientists, such as Boyle, Harvey, and Leeuwenhoek, found sufficient momentum for discovery on sciences front line. The controversy was creative because both rational and empirical methods were essential to progress. Like the literary battle between the ancients and the moderns or the theological battle between Jesuits and Jansenists, the scientific debate was a school of advocacy.

If Newton was supremely important among those who contributed to the climate of the Enlightenment, it is because his new system offered certainties in a world of doubts. The belief spread that Newton had explained forever how the universe worked. This cautious, devout empiricist lent the imprint of genius to the great idea of the Enlightenment: that man, guided by the light of reason, could explain all natural phenomena and could embark on the study of his own place in a world that was no longer mysterious. Yet he might otherwise have been aware more of disintegration than of progress or of theories demolished than of truths established. This was true even within the expanding field of the physical sciences. To gauge the mood of the world of intellect and fashion, of French salons or of such institutions as the Royal Society, it is essential to understand what constituted the crisis in the European mind of the late 17th century.

At the heart of the crisis was the critical examination of Christian faith, its foundations in the Bible, and the authority embodied in the church. In 1647 Pierre Gassendi had revived the atomistic philosophy of Lucretius, as outlined in On the Nature of Things. He insisted on the Divine Providence behind Epicurus atoms and voids. Critical examination could not fail to be unsettling because the Christian view was not confined to questions of personal belief and morals, or even history, but comprehended the entire nature of Gods world. The impact of scientific research must be weighed in the wider context of an intellectual revolution. Different kinds of learning were not then as sharply distinguished, because of their appropriate disciplines and terminology, as they are in an age of specialization. At that time philomaths could still be polymaths. Newtons contemporary, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizwhose principal contribution to philosophy was that substance exists only in the form of monads, each of which obeys the laws of its own self-determined development while remaining in complete accord with all the restinfluenced his age by concluding that since God contrived the universal harmony this world must be the best of all possible worlds. He also proposed legal reforms, invented a calculating machine, devised a method of the calculus independent of Newtons, improved the drainage of mines, and laboured for the reunification of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches.

The writing of John Locke, familiar to the French long before the eventual victory of his kind of empiricism, further reveals the range of interests that an educated man might pursue and its value in the outcome: discrimination, shrewdness, and originality. The journal of Lockes travels in France (167579) is studded with notes on botany, zoology, medicine, weather, instruments of all kinds, and statistics, especially those concerned with prices and taxes. It is a telling introduction to the world of the Enlightenment, in which the possible was always as important as the ideal and physics could be more important than metaphysics. Locke spent the years from 1683 to 1689 in Holland, in refuge from high royalism. There he associated with other literary exiles, who were united in abhorrence of Louis XIVs religious policies, which culminated in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) and the flight of more than 200,000 Huguenots. During this time Locke wrote the Essay on Toleration (1689). The coincidence of the Huguenot dispersion with the English revolution of 168889 meant a cross-fertilizing debate in a society that had lost its bearings. The avant-garde accepted Lockes idea that the people had a sovereign power and that the prince was merely a delegate. His Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690) offered a theoretical justification for a contractual view of monarchy on the basis of a revocable agreement between ruler and ruled. It was, however, his writings about education, toleration, and morality that were most influential among the philosophes, for whom his political theories could be only of academic interest. Locke was the first to treat philosophy as purely critical inquiry, having its own problems but essentially similar to other sciences. Voltaire admired what Locke called his historical plain method because he had not written a romance of the soul but offered a history of it. The avowed object of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) was to inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge; together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent. For Locke, the mind derives the materials of reason and knowledge from experience. Unlike Descartes view that man could have innate ideas, in Lockes system knowledge consists of ideas imprinted on the mind through observation of external objects and reflection on the evidence provided by the senses. Moral values, Locke held, are derived from sensations of pleasure or pain, the mind labeling good what experience shows to give pleasure. There are no innate ideas; there is no innate depravity.

Though he suggested that souls were born without the idea of God, Locke did not reject Christianity. Sensationalism, he held, was a God-given principle that, properly followed, would lead to conduct that was ethically sound. He had, however, opened a way to disciples who proceeded to conclusions that might have been far from the masters mind. One such was the Irish bishop George Berkeley who affirmed, in his Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), that there was no proof that matter existed beyond the idea of it in the mind. Most philosophers after Descartes decided the question of the dualism of mind and matter by adopting a materialist position; whereas they eliminated mind, Berkeley eliminated matterand he was therefore neglected. Locke was perhaps more scientific and certainly more in tune with the intellectual and practical concerns of the age. Voltaire presented Locke as the advocate of rational faith and of sensationalist psychology; Lockes posthumous success was assured. In the debate over moral values, Locke provided a new argument for toleration. Beliefs, like other human differences, were largely the product of environment. Did it not therefore follow that moral improvement should be the responsibility of society? Finally, since human irrationality was the consequence of false ideas, instilled by faulty schooling, should not education be a prime concern of rulers? To pose those questions is to anticipate the agenda of the Enlightenment.

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The doors to living an enlightened life open with the keys of silence and just being. Leave your thoughts behind and enter.

-Dr. Robert Puff, Meditation Expert

When we wake up to who we are, something happens. We stop identifying with our egoic selves because we realize they are impermanent and only that which is permanent can be who we are.

We arent our bodies, we arent our memories, we arent our thoughts, we arent our feelings We arent any of these things, so we stop identifying with them. What happens is that detachment develops. An aloofness or distancing from everything that occurs. We wake up to the fact that life is an extended dream and a relaxation is able to set in. Its a sense of calm or a feeling that all is well.

We lose our identity with our lives, thoughts and feelings, so we witness them but we dont engage with them. We notice them, but we dont create stories with them. Since we dont create Read More

When I was an undergraduate at university many years ago, my deep enjoyment and love for the works of William Shakespeare blossomed. I had the privilege of taking a Shakespearean class and then during one summer in my undergraduate years, I was able to travel through Europe inexpensively on a bike and a Europass to see the great sites. A memory I remember most is going to Stratford-upon-Avon and watching a William Shakespeare play. I dont know where my passion and love for his plays comes from but it has been a deep part of my life. His writings have also taught me many things.

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There are three big steps towards spiritual enlightenment. Anyone of us can take these steps but they are crucial aspects in moving in the direction of living an awakened life.

The first step we have to take is what I call earnestness. What I mean by this is that in order for us to move in the direction towards enlightenment, you really have to want it. It cant just be one of your many endeavors. You cant say Ill work during the day, sleep at night and during Saturday and Sunday evenings Ill study and work towards enlightenment. This is not going to cut it. In many ways we have to eat, drink and sleep our paths towards enlightenment. Its very crucial that it consumes our lives. Many people have gone down the path towards enlightenment and most have failed. Its Read More

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