Inliytened1

Careful here my man - non-duality is total Oneness..there is nothing outside of it. Fictitious beliefs created in the mind are still part of the Absolute. I don't doubt you might have had an awakening to no self but just a few weeks back you were dismissing Infinity. But do you see that something that is one singularity - which is non-duality (not two) must be infinite because there is nothing outside of it? Anything that you imagine is outside of it is actually part of it. All illusions, imagination, even the ego itself is a part of the Absolute. Even as a fiction it exists as a fiction.

@Hermetics watch the personal attacks. You are entitled to your beliefs but demeaning others either directly or indirectly wont be tolerated here.

❤?

Is that the Vegan man himself? (The illusion) ?

@purerogue time and space are all imaginary (illusion) and you can have a realizaton of this during or after a state of samadhi in which all dualities collapse. Your true nature is omnipresent. It is not localized in a specific time or place. It is everywhere, and simultaneously nowhere.

@zeroISinfinity indeed my man ❤? and i can intuit you have been to the other side as well.

Maybe we are not all on the same page here. if you are talking about reading a book, a video, or learning on a forum about the self or the ego being a fiction and then believing it -then that's one thing. But the problem is that when you do that you are taking it on as a belief. That is a trap one can fall in and thus never discover Truth directly. Truth is known not by knowing but in Being or isness. Of course one is being/issing right now. You are Truth right now. Truth is THIS - BUT...and this is a huge but, (no pun intended) unless one has had a non-dual state (samadhi) in which they became conscious of that, then for them to say it would still be a belief. And they run the risk of self deception in which the ego is telling them there is no ego so that it keeps the ego from killing itself. Its a survival mechanism of the ego. So we are talking about transcending or getting underneath knowing and knowledge. This requires mystical states of consciousness. Death. A state of Samadhi. Non-dual states of consciousness in which the illusory self falls away and there is only the Absolute. It is only in this state of consciousnes that consciousness becomes conscious of its true nature. It is pure actuality laid bare. Now as far as getting back to the practicing question - when i first discovered spirituality i began self inquiry meditation and it was during that meditation that i reached states of samadhi. The first mystical state happened within a few days of switching between self inquiry and no mind meditation. During this time frame i experienced multiple non-dual states both during meditation and either just sitting in a chair afterwards or waking up from sleep, or just resting in bed. So i have had states of samadhi both during meditation and spontaneously (they happened in the first month of starting self inquiry.) I then integrated back into the ego/form (but now knowing that the form was actually the formless appearing as form). I then experienced a second set of non-dual states i believe it was a month or so after that - again some both spontaneously and some while meditating. These were even more powerful. I feel these completed my awakening. That's not to say that i will never die again / reach a mystical state but at this point, I'm there. So at present i do not feel the need to do any practices but at the same time i still enjoy sitting in silence and meditating - but just to be at this point. The reason i am saying all of this is because yes - it is possible to have spontaneous states of samadhi after just reading or learning about spirituality but i think that doing practices such as self inquiry can help induce non-dual states of consciousness as they seemingly did for me. If one is super gifted though, it could happen without any practices. For the average person though, i don't feel it works as simply as that. I feel that these tools can really help trigger mystical states. It's just tricky and paradoxical (of course) because i was not seeking anything when i did them. I honestly had no idea what i was getting into. I was an atheist and a rationalist/materialist my whole life. So I think if one tries too hard or they are not ready for Truth to reveal itself it will not happen. Yet if they are ready, the slightest trigger could potentially open the door to hitting a non-dual state..but that is just my take. As i have stated on this forum before i cannot speak directly on pyschedelics because i did not use them. But it does sound like they can be a tool if one is ready for Truth. As far as the realizations during these states, i can say from direct experience that becoming conscious that the self is an illusion is just one realization. During my states of samadhi i have had one where i have become directly conscious of the nature of reality instantaneously, what my truest nature is (awareness itself) and that there is no self. I have also had the realization of Oneness in which i became conscious that all perspectives were Me as God/Infinity. All realizations came with TOTAL and i mean TOTAL bliss that words cannot explain. To describe what the states themselves felt like words cannot do. But pure divinity is a good start. Death is bliss. I am interested in knowing your path to your state or states of samadhi? Did the falling away of the self happen for you spontaneously and what was it like? For me as i said it was death. The ego was completely killed off (no sex drive, absolutely no desires for anything, and just pure bliss. As form returned it followed with some ego backlash (the Oneness especially was tough to swallow) and the integration between duality and non-duality. This is how it must be. Now, you have said in the past that you had spent a lot of hours on spirituality - did you do self inquiry?

Haha you never disappoint

@Shin <insert Shin humor here> ❤?

@Serotoninluv paradox is a heckuva thing..when there is only One, things get strange

They don't involve a me. Non-dual states are all consciousness becoming conscious of itself. It can become conscious of various facets of itself all at once or during different non-dual states or samadhis.

No - this is a lack of understanding. That could be the case for someone who hasn't awakened to their true nature and whose ego is deceiving them. But there is no way you can know that from your limited perspective. More importantly, there are more awakenings that you can have - enlightenment isn't one and done. You can have an awakening to your true nature. Experiencing an awakening of no self is just one facet of awakening. The point of self inquiry is not just to find out what you aren't - but also to find out what you are. And what you truly are isn't personal or localized so don't misunderstand. But they are two sides of the same coin. "The true Self does not need to refer to itself..." I never said you needed to, but Truth is Truth.

We are saying the same thing.

Thats an awakening to One Consciousness not to one finite mind. You had the awakening maybe but then your ego misconstrued it (is what it sounds like)

@Dylan Page indeed and np.....❤

@Dylan Page

Language is relative and thus limited. Consciousness can refer to itself as Self with a capital S not meaning it is a finite individual, sentient being/entity - but that it is Infinite Mind or Universal Consciousness - or God.

Infinity is a loop. Because its One singularity.

cool - i was just going to add that yeah - i get what you mean about the "nothingness" is without description, because what you are pointing to is Absolute Infinity - and anything that you imagine it to be isn't it. It would just be another finite thing or an idea. It wouldn't be actually IT. So yeah Being or Infinity or Isness is prior to knowing, but the amazing thing is that You are Being/Issing right now, and it never goes anywhere because it has nowhere to go.

Or consider that when we say Consciousness we are also saying Infinity. And Infinity is nothing. So Consciousness is nothing. It is nothing because it is everything. Everything must include nothing. Then consider that perhaps your true nature is not a human but it is Consciousness. So that would make your whole life and all of reality imaginary, including the gap in time. Time itself is imaginary. But you can't grasp this from the human perspective it has to be as the Absolute.

Whats this complete nothingness that you describe? That's something you can only imagine right? And maybe its not because you are coming back to consciousness - maybe its because consciousness never left. Where would it go when its already everywhere and nowhere? To imply that it came back would mean there was somewhere it wasn't. But consider it is infinite. Don't take any of our words for it though it is something You have to discover. (You capitalized) and to discover is the collapse of knowing into Being. The collapse of the relative into the Absolute. The finite into the Infinite.

@Kushu2000 why do you feel like you need to lash out at this community?

True Happiness is not something that "you" chase nor does it come from external circumstances. It comes from within - it is Being.

@Kushu2000 the teachings here are not to chase mystical experiences. The teachings here are to simply do the practices with an open mind. There are many here who have had awakenings in this way in their direct experience.

@zeroISinfinity @VeganAwake you two are funny