> "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment.<p>But what if our understanding is a result of conditioning.<p>I think it was Descartes who once said "I think therefore I am" which is flawed in several ways. He was stuck in thought. Someone else later figured out that the person thinking is apart from the thought. But he too was stuck in thought/mind.<p>Enlightenment is seeing that you are not the mind or the mental story or concept of yourself. And being totally free of that. Enlightenment is when the misidentification with the mental self is broken. The mental self acts out of fear and insecurity and a constant wanting of something else. This is a sure recipe for being unhappy and causing unhappiness in others.<p>I don't know which kind of enlightenment you wish to discuss, but I would rather you read Eckhart Tolle instead of Kant.