Is Bipolar Mania Spiritual Enlightenment?

I found this video to be enlightening and I've been told I have bi polar tendencies so it gives me a new perspective on things:

reply to post by thisisnotaname


It is very interesting to me that you raise this question. I have met a few manic bi-polars and read/watched them in the media and quite a few of them say when they have their first "breakdown" (or whathaveyou) that they believe themselves to be Jesus Christ. Whether this is a mental defect reacting to a social condition of someone in religion and the brain justifying their behavior as that or an actual spiritual revelation is beyond me.

Let me say being a both one and two type bi-polar, it's not all it's cracked up to be. I'm on four different meds for it to control the highs/lows. Now I will say that the highs used to be great when I was young and maybe enlightened. Now it's blowing money and doing stupid stuff if it's not controlled!

Would you say that Charlie Sheen is enlightened?

Originally posted by nixie_nox
Would you say that Charlie Sheen is enlightened?

Yup he sounds like me!

reply to post by thisisnotaname


Short answer.. No it isn't Enlightenment.

Enlightenment.. despite the cultural Beliefs about it.. is simply the ability to open youself to more Light.. at Will.. and therefore be more clear in perception, be more connected with and use the internal power that resides within you, and provides experience with the bigger picture reality all around us that we do not sense with our Limited human ability under normal circumstances.

Basically, enlightenment comes about by an initial experience of raising the Power from the Base Chakra up to the Crown Chakra and from there on being torn apart by Light until "you" no longer exist as a separate entity and become the Universe.. knowing everything in that moment.

After the experience has returned you to normal human awreness.. you are still not in normal human awareness and must work at finding the Balance between 'the worlds' in order to work with it, and that is where the struggle is that most suffer from.

Lastly.. enlightenment is wasted by sitting in a cave enjoying your enlightenment state.. it is meant to be shared and shown.. to shine brightly so that others may desire to learn what you 'have'.. and so you may show them using the simplest methods possible for them to experience being the Soul that they are in the bigger picture.

Everything else people say about it is only Human Belief or Conept and 99.99% of the time very far off the mark compared to the direct exerience of it.

Perhaps bipolar mania can help one recognize the madness of the ego driven mind if one is present enough to be the present observer and then move beyond it but the state itself is not enlightenment.

Apparently the Buddha stated that enlightenment is the end of suffering.
Enlightenment means many different things to different traditions ultimately it is nothing more then a word and can become a mental idol that can hinder realization of the state that the word points too.

A better question is how at peace are you right now in the present?
Are you aware of an inner stillness that is present among all the mental noise the ego makes and the emotional highs and lows the ego creates?
Can you be the present witness to your thoughts and emotions right now?
Are you really your thoughts and emotions or are you the witness that is aware of them?

Off topic
I read a while ago that a few brain disorders might be caused by parts of the brain being out of ‘sync’ with each other (like a computer the brain has some kind of master clock which the different sections of the brain should follow or it wont work properly)

The article suggested trying one of those binaural beats programs and that it might re- synchronize the whole brain and so relieve the problems

There are free versions of binaural beats programs available on the internet – so someone could download one and set 20-30 minutes a side per day for a few weeks to see if it did any good

I have one of the programs and use it in the dark winter months (I live in the far north so SAD can be a problem) and I personally think it does help