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@Krzysztof Reality is that which is always real. In your own direct experience, what is always real? What has always been real? What will be forever real? Reality and truth are synonymous.

@Aakash Shut up and go back here: Stay with it until it becomes permanent and blissful. You don't actually have a question. That's just the ego-mind realizing that it's losing its grasp and getting scared of death. Do whatever it takes to go back to that mode of being. Forget about everything else. You don't actually need to entertain thoughts and resolve your questions. I mean, you are not the mind's slave! "I" cannot be the one who gets rid of identification, because "I" exists only through identification. What you need then is intensity of energy and desire to overwhelm the mind so it cannot help but to fully dissolve. The process can be scary for the mind, but realize that it is your own holy nature that is taking over.

@Dodo If YOU weren't so wholly intelligent you wouldn't be capable of being dumb.

@Mikael89 There is one thing you can learn from psychedelics and that is how your essential nature is unaffected even when the mind is totally bonkers.

@Truth Addict Yes, that is the Self. But calling it being, perception, or existence is objectifying it. It's giving it attribute when it has none. The totality of experience is the Self. The problem is the false notion that there is an "I" who owns it. Are you really witnessing it from inside? Do you have any proof for that? There is no such thing as outside and inside. Everything happens within the same space of awareness. Question the "I". What you feel in the body are the sensations of the body. You have chosen to say that sensation is proof for your existence. Shed all these beliefs and see what remains. Merge with that.

@Truth Addict That's exactly the problem! You have pulled back awareness from objects to itself. Previously you would say, I am angry, or I am happy. Now you witness anger and happiness. However there is still the illusion of being a someone who is the witness. This witness, according to your belief owns awareness. That is to say, there is still a duality between awareness/self/consiousness/God and a subtle belief of oneself as a being - an I. You are objectifying awareness subconsciously. All this has to go. The 'I' the 'I am' and all traces of 'I-ness' must go. When it does, you completely merge with pure being which is VOID. How to do this? Kundalini or Self-inquiry. Inquire into the nature of this subtle "I" who you still believe you are and see how it vanishes. You say I believe i am this or i am that. Who is this I?

@fridjonk Love it. There's hope for science yet. The more they immerse their selves in that belief, the more and more it will disintegrate. All they have to do is to turn back that understanding towards their own being. Quantum mechanics is Self-inquiry for the highly intelligent.

@Leo Gura All this is already your real condition. You already are not bound by the body's cravings and suffering. The mind is the one who is bound and suffers, but if you inquire into the nature of the mind it will just vanish. At that very moment of complete withdrawal of the mind, who is suffering? What is suffering, even? There is an important distinction however. You should not expect the body to not get hungry or feel pain, for example. The sensations are there, the perceptions are there, it's the identification with them that goes away. The notions are what goes away. I say this, because if you make the absence of the feeling of hunger a goal, well all you have to do for that is to eat. It does not require enlightenment. But the hunger returns. If however, you have completely given up all notions about life, all your mental understandings of it, then the only thing that remains is the Self-God who operates everywhere. I know you begin your writing by mentioning identification, but the picture you paint is exactly what you mistakingly wish to identify with instead. It means that somewhere in your mind, you have a vision of how the experience of enlightenment should look like. Well that vision is exactly what stops realization from taking place. That vision too must be surrendered in the truest sense. The experience of the Self, if we choose to call it an experience, is wholly mysterious and unknowable. Trying to infer the inner experience of a Sage is just more projection. Of course, you excuse me if I misunderstand the situation. I just think this is important to prevent people from chasing some dream. In my opinion, the easiest and fastest way to do this is to increase the intensities of the energy within you to the point that they can overwhelm you. At that point, you cannot help but to surrender.

@Truth Addict What do you mean you don't exist? Don't delude yourself. You are still identified with someone who has adopted the quality of nothingness. I made a post warning people of this misconception before. This is the path to depression. The point was never to disprove the ego's existence. The point is to dis-identify wit "I-ness". There is still I-ness identification with you, but this 'I' is no longer attached to objects so you see the world as Void. Don't see the void, be the void.

Outside of Winterknight I don't see this being talked about enough, and even he doesn't say it directly. This is the crux of self-realization. Nothing else matters. In this forum people are mostly interested in the relative content of the mind. Everyone is asking questions about morality, God, emotions, fear etc. Well sorry but none of these have anything to do with enlightenment. Also, you can't judge a person's enlightenment by what he believes in, because that stuff (again) has nothing to do with enlightenment. This is a misunderstanding that the mind of the enlightened person cannot hold beliefs etc. The only thing that does matter is identification. That is identification with the mind, the ego, the body, awareness etc. The typical person identifies with objects: I am this or that. The non-dual person identifies with: I am. Self-inquiry practitioners identify with: I-I. The self-realized person does not identify with any form of I, no matter how subtle, whatsoever. If this is the compass of your path, you will make it. If not you won't. What ends up happening is that through intensity of longing, surrender, witnessing and devotion your identification mechanisms will break down. You will never, ever go back to the illusions. What is the initial experience after enlightenment? Void would be saying too much. So ask yourself, is the only thing that there is void? If not, then you are deluded.

My prayers are with her.

@thesmileyone Well Self with capital S as opposed to the little self, is the idea. It's not a wrong term because it really is you own Self, but I agree with you that it could cause some confusion. @SoonHei

@SoonHei The word Self is indeed referring to your essential nature, prior to what you think about it.

@zambize :)

@Anna1 Couldn't say it better.

Leo's bald head is like a mirror. You'll see your own reflection in it. What bothers you is the best clue of what's holding you back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GULH9voMMBc

@SoonHei Yes and no. Well really the term God is itself ideation. IMO it's best to say that the Self has two facets, Void (limitless potential) and God (creative energy). But really they are one and the same, so the term God could be applicable to both if you want to use it that way.

@mandyjw There is a duality between "I" and "I" then and that can't be real because self-realization is permanent. Right now, you have no idea of what I'm talking about. That is because even though you throw out the thoughts and thus have an empty mind, you are still identified with that empty mind. That is a very subtle form of I. I'm saying, there is not even that. There is only grace. Void is not a position the mind has taken. It is what it is. From the I am to the "I-I" into the "I". And then void.

@mandyjw No. I'm not even approaching this from a logical standpoint. There exists an imminent reality that is simultaneously experienced by everyone. It is void and bliss. It doesn't matter what the relative content of your consciousness is, it doesn't affect the Self. And really, there is no identification inherent to the Self, from which these words are springing out.

@legendary He spoke the truth. Without enough intensity building inside you, stepping out of "I-I" into void would not be possible.

@Serotoninluv No. There is no I. Don't infer the existence of I from what you read. There is no identification with anything. Why? Because it persists even when the mind is under anesthesia. There is just a gentle recognition of void and bliss. There is no one who is experiencing this. It just is. Before I am, before I-I, before I. So again, no. There is no I. Only an appearance of it to you.

@zambize You are correct. But nevertheless if your desire is intense enough you might just briefly experience no-self. There is no "I" how owns experience. You can cross-reference this with any enlightened guru of your choice. They will tell you so without fail.

@legendary Did he give you shaktipat?

@Serotoninluv No. There simply is no I. Try and imagine that.