The worst ways to get "enlightened"

(dakota of earth) India's worst way to reach "enlightenment," usually defined in Hinduism as mere samadhi, which is a stage to understanding not the final goal itself in Buddhism.

Living under a tree

When one becomes a "saint" (a NOBLE ONE) in Buddhism, having entered at least the first stage of enlightenment (of seven stages usually condensed and described as four main stages), one is immediately rid of four things.

Of these is the wrong view that clinging to rites and rituals could ever lead to enlightenment (bodhi, awakening to the ultimate truth).

• Attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāso) is one of the fetters binding beings to samsara (the Wheel of Life and Death). Śīla refers to "virtue" or "moral conduct," vata (or bata) to "religious duty, observance, rite, practice, custom" [25], and parāmāsa to "being attached to" or "a contagion," clinging (upādāna), and has the connotation of "mishandling" the Dhamma [26] or Buddha's Teachings. Altogether, sīlabbata-parāmāso is translated as "the contagion of [adhering to] mere rule and ritual, the infatuation of good works, the delusion that they suffice" [27] or, more simply, "fall[ing] back on attachment [clinging] to precepts and rules" [28]. Whereas the fetter of "doubt" (vicikiccha) can be seen as pertaining to the teachings of competing wandering ascetics (samanas) during the time of the Buddha, the fetter regarding rites and rituals likely refers to some practices of contemporary Brahmanical authorities [29]. More
• Siddhartha the wandering ascetic practiced these futile things for years until he stopped blaming the body for mental defilements and found the path of purification to seeing things as they really are and letting go of lust, clinging, attachment, rebirth in samsara, and all further suffering.
• The 13 Sane Ascetic Practices (dhutangas)

Until then, a person might do any useless thing -- particularly engaging in the extremes of severe austerities and bodily mortifications (tapas, penances, austerities, attempts at purification) to purify oneself or hedonism, debauchery, and excess with the excuse that "anything can be used in the service of liberation, including the very poisons -- alcohol, drugs ("Crazy Wisdom"), sanctified or twisted sexuality (tantric sex), meat eating and cannibalism (as in Aghori holyman practices), fasting and self-starvation (inedia), self-mummification (sokushinbutsu)...