Enlightenment

[Papershop]

is enlightenment religious? What exactly is it? Why is it shown in paintings as a ring of rays around someones head? HELP????!?!

[MrGazet]

Hm,I've never heard of it before but I googled it and find something useful.

Enlightenment is the recognition of original nature.

It is called original nature only because it has been forgotten. It was never lost, because it is the nature of even our forgetting.

Original nature is recognised as whole, complete, satisfied, peaceful, free, unbounded, unified, perfect, over-abundant, clear, divine, good, just, loving, compassionate, beautiful, untainted, unconditioned and true. Original nature – being Whole – is its own self-negation, manifest as the phenomenal world; and so only original nature is.

http://openenlightenment.org/?p=331

Well,I could not really understand those as they have deep meanings to me but I think it's more like a philosophy than a religion

[Black_Apalachi]

Enlightenment is nothing to do with religion. It's not a thing as such, certainly not tangible anyway. It's sort of a sense, MrGazet's quote describes it pretty well. The rays around a person's head in paintings is a halo, which is a religious symbol signifying a 'pure person' or saint.