Into The Void

If the study of non-duality has taught me anything, it is this: You cannot know who you are. All you can know for sure is what you are not. You are not the body, the mind, feelings, opinions. What is left? We are told by psychonauts and spiritual masters that what remains is consciousness or God. This is a mental construct. If we cannot know who we are, how can we know we are God? What an ego boost to imagine that God is running this biological machine. The words "God" and "Consciousness" refer to no-thing. They refer to the unknown. The mind says "aha!". I know all about what these words represent. I know about God and consciousness because I have worked hard and have achieved a higher level of understanding. It is still a mental construct. You believe in these mental constructs. You have faith in them. They are all concepts and you are deluding yourselves. I'll repeat; you cannot know who you are, If you think you know who you are, then you have fallen into the mind trap. You have focused on these mental constructs and believe you are on the road to understanding God, emptiness, love and the Universe. These words are concepts. They are "shots in the dark" aimed at the great mystery. Awaken to who you are not. Do not chase after mirages. If chasing mirages brings you happiness, then by all means do. The Universe is happening. It is not happening to a someone. Everything else is a story about what is happening. It's okay. Relax. You do not HAVE to know everything. If their is some underlying intelligence involved in creation then accept it; you cannot know what this intelligence is. If you think you know then you are chasing a mind construct.

@Leo Gura What Huxley did not mention was that drugs, specifically the plant hallucinogens, can reliably and repeatedly open the floodgates of the reducing valve of consciousness and expose the individual to the full force of the howling Tao. The way in which we internalize the impact of this experience of the Unspeakable, whether encountered through psychedelics or other means, is to generalize and extrapolate our world view through acts of imagination. Terrence McKenna.

@Tim R The enlightened ego. Well said.

Indeed she is. Most importantly, she has the patience to continually pound into my head what I am not.

@Leo Gura Hi Leo. Trying to get a conversation going in this forum is like trying to extract blood from a stone. Forums are a lot like politics. The wrong people tend to get into both, It appears that egos are alive and well in this forum. Ignoring new member's attempts at conversation are par for the course in most spiritual forums. Apparently that includes this forum. No matter. A spiritual journey must come from within. I watched your video "Outrageous Experiments In Consciousness" yesterday. Twenty Seven days of consecutive 5MeO usage appears to have run you ragged despite the 27 awakenings. The fact that the God consciousness did not leave you at the end of your "retreat" must have been scary. I admire your courage for going "balls to the wall" in this "experiment". Very interesting the conclusion you derived from this experiment about many levels of awakening. in fact, an infinite number of levels are available. I would like to point out that your statement "Nobody, including the great masters, has reached the level of awakening I achieved" (or something to that effect). That sounds a lot like ego rearing it's ugly head. It may very well be true, nevertheless, it sounds elitist to me in nature. Your statement that when your ego was nullified by the 5MeO, "GOD" appeared. How do you know it was GOD? To me, God is a word that represents the unknown. The great mystery. How do you know it wasn't aliens trying to communicate with you? To give a smart phone to a tribe living in the Amazon (who have never been exposed to modern technology) would appear to them as an instrument from the gods no? The person who gave the phone would be considered a god or an avatar. Could the same thing have happened to you? The aliens who send Dave Bowman on that journey through the universe and time in 2001: A Space Odyssey appear as god-like do they not? There is of course another possibility: a mind trap where your mind convinces "you" that you have had an awakening. The mind takes credit for the awakening, fueling the ego. And then again....maybe "you" really did have an interface with the Creator. Thank you for the videos. I sincerely enjoyed them all. Chris (Into The Void)

@seeking_brilliance As a dear friend of mine put it: "Witness who you are not; who you truly are cannot be perceived." I cannot know who I am although looking at some of my contributions to this forum: I see that ego of mine rearing it's ugly head. Ugh! My ego wants me to believe in the story that I know everything. "Witness who you are not" has become my mantra. My dear friend gave me a new perception this weekend. She said your ego is both the thief and the policeman. For example: The thief says to me " why are you wasting time trying to find out who you are? Your true nature cannot be known so why bother?" Then the policeman steps in: "Don't listen to your ego. You are on the path to awakening. Just shut out that yap-yap trap in your head and meditate more! You are going to be enlightened sooner than you think! Both "voices" are the ego. The ego wants you to stop what you are doing regarding spiritual advancement" (it threatens the ego/mind). The ego failed so it changes masks and comes at you again as the policeman. The policeman pretends to be your friend and win you over. Beware of mind traps. The mind has many masks.

@Nahm Simplicity is this: Witness who you are not. Who you are cannot be perceived. This is the stage of "I am". I do not mean I am this or I am that, simply I am. Next "step" is going prior to "I am". In this stage you are the perceiver and the perceived. This "level" cannot be achieved until you have a firm "understanding" (knowing) of who you are not.

@Breakingthewall My bad. People do reply on this forum! That puts this forum a cut above the rest. No hard feelings.

@Tim R Same reason your here bro.

@Bulgarianspirit Nice sentiment and nice pic (5MeO inspired?). Debate is debate. Quarrels are quarrels. If you are afraid to debate something because it may be inaccurately construed as a quarrel, then you will not debate anything.

@Space @Leo Gura Very true. Regarding "Space" commenting "but remember to be open to the possibility of it being true". I said in my message: "And then again....maybe "you" really did have an interface with the Creator. " I was keeping the possibility open that Leo was correct. FYI

@Leo Gura Very true.

@Tim R Pure consciousness? Pure awareness? What is with the "pure"? There "is" awareness and there is consciousness. When you add the word pure, it becomes a perception of those words. I know what you mean though.

@seeking_brilliance Many folks advanced in this work? That is exactly why I was questioning Leo about his statement in his "Experiments with Consciousness" that 5MeO has somehow given him a higher consciousness than anyone else, including the spiritual sages of the past. That may very well be true but it is unverifiable. Every ego wants to think it has attained the highest possible level of consciousness. I personally believe there are no higher or lower levels of consciousness. The human brain is designed to filter out everything except those parts of the brain that are necessary for survival. Leo's 5MeO experience (27 consecutive days) may have resulted in that filter being removed and Leo was exposed to infinity (so to speak). It was not a matter of levels at all. If this is true, Leo is courageous and has a very disciplined mind to deal with it and stay sane. I digress. In simple terms, no one is more advanced in this spiritual voyage than anyone else. No one achieves a "higher level" than anyone else. Everyone is a potential buddah. Remove the filter and voila!

@Breakingthewall Leggo my Eggo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seeking. People who join this forum are seeking. People who take psychedelics are seeking. Joining a religion is seeking. What are "you" seeking? To be closer to God? To try and understand God as a person (contracted energy). Such complications you all find when the answer is so simple; it is literally staring you in the face. Stop the mind games. You cannot know who you are. Only who you are not. Your goal should be interfacing with being instead of trying to interpret being all the time. Seeking is of the mind. It's funny how what you are not wants to be there to experience it's own absence. Avoid the mind traps where the mind sends you on a wild goose chase searching for something and calls it a path to enlightenment. It is not the truth. It is a story created by the mind about a "path to enlightenment". The mind is defending itself from annihilation by deceiving you into believing the story is the real thing. And what of the mind? What is it? A storage receptacle for thoughts? Where is it? Many millenniums ago, we all shared collective consciousness. With civilization came the worship of me or the ego. We thought of ourselves as separate beings and as separate beings we developed this concept of a personal "mind". Collective consciousness fell by the wayside. We now had language to communicate with. Mind was an still is nothing but a concept. You put FAITH in that concept and the Faith becomes a belief system. It's nothing but a placebo mind folks. It does not exist. Your belief in it gives it life. A lifetime of conditioning has turned you into a slave to "your mind". You seek liberation from this oppressive yackety-yack machine in your head. Liberation from a concept? Don't trust anything "your" mind tells you. It will deceive you so it can survive as a very powerful belief system. Liberation is when you realize that you have nothing to be liberated from.

@gswva There is a lot of anger there. I can certainly relate. It is impossible to understand God's will. Life is so hard. Do we need a Global Pandemic on top of everything else? How does this jive with perfection? Goodness? I read a book called "Proof of Heaven". A neurosurgeon (cannot recall his name) wrote the book describing a brush with death, a coma. an NDE experience that apparently sent him to Heaven. He came back and miraculously was able to carry on with his life with no brain damage (a miracle in itself considering he was in a coma with bacterial meningitis for a week). He is very convincing. I believe he saw something. He states the "proof" is that the cortex of his brain was completely shut down. Of course his "proof" is questionable since we do not know for sure if consciousness is actually located in the brain. Let's assume he went to Heaven. Let's assume God wanted to have a creditable witness to Heaven (cannot do much better that a world renowned neurosurgeon). God saves the life of the neurosurgeon and lets over 10,000 doctors and nurses die in the pandemic. Where is the sense in that? From a human perspective, it makes God appear infantile and whimsical in nature. These are human judgements. And here's the kicker; if I am God, why can't I put an end to this pandemic? I have no answers. I find comfort in repeating this mantra: The Universe is the way it is because it could not exist any other way. Suffering is an unfortunate byproduct of this Creation. The alternative is oblivion. Nothingness. No creation. Shiva is the creator/destroyer. Destruction is necessary. How can you have creation without it? In a dualistic Universe? Our star (The Sun) is a second generation star. A first generation star had to die so that our star could be born from it's ruins. That primary star died so that mankind could live.

Hi all. I thought I would introduce myself. I am "Into The Void". It was the first name that came to me. There is no profound meaning to it. I have watched Leo's videos with great interest. He is an eloquent speaker. His ebullience, energy and enthusiasm are contagious. I first learned about Non-Duality from a lady friend about 12 years ago. We attended many satsangs with non-duality teachers like Jac O'Keefe, Paul Hedderman etc. I have watched dozens of You Tube videos featuring Mooji, Tony Parsons and so on. It all sounded great to me and I parroted the phrases like "you are not the body" for years. It all meant nothing. I was a parrot. Nothing more. One day it just fell into place and I could not understand any other way of "thinking". I have read the life accounts of some of these non-duality teachers and the pattern is always the same. A period of seeking; meditation, trips to India, fasting. This period would always create a "buzz" that was short-lived. A feeling of discontent would arise as the separate contracted energy would still be seeking wholeness. These teachers unanimously stated that their actual experiencing of non-duality happened not when they were trying to make it occur; it happened when they least expected it. They were going about their business when suddenly there was no person doing it. Non-duality is about that which cannot be known; that which is beyond description. No one can "know" non-duality. Every person has a mental image of what non-duality is. Nothing more. This "knowledge" offers no rewards except the satisfaction of knowing the truth and lightening your load in life since you can reject all that personal baggage. And of course there is the comforting knowledge that you are God and that God never leaves you until the form you have expires and God moves on to a new form. Loneliness is obsolete! Regarding enlightenment; I have read "trip reports" from people who have reported "ego deaths". A partial ego death perhaps but not a complete one as there still is an "I" reporting the ego death. I must confess that I have never experienced a full ego death. Meditation and OCCASIONAL use of Magic Mushrooms has provided a partial but that is it. Leo's studies with 5MeO were fascinating to say the least. It sounds as if the ego is totally annihilated by 5MeO. The ego disappears and God appears everywhere! At my age, 5MeO is not an option. What seekers take years to acquire, you do in seconds on this incredible tool. The mind is the great deceiver is it not? It convinces you are "on the path to enlightenment" or "you are getting nearer to God" or "Voila! I have achieved enlightenment!". It is only a mental picture of what the mind conceives as enlightenment, which of course is not enlightenment. U.G. Krishnamurti (the reluctant guru) talks about this in "The Mystique of Enlightenment". Faith is the all-powerful key. Yes YOU are God. If you believe in free will, reincarnation, angels, a heavenly paradise; they will materialize for you. IT IS NOT WHAT YOU HAVE FAITH IN. IT IS THE FAITH ITSELF THAT IS THE POWER. If I firmly believe that a grapefruit can cure my ills. It will! My soul does not have a name on it. It has no location. If you believe that you are the body/mind, you will keep bouncing back on this karmic wheel. When their is a "knowing" that you are not the body/mind, you are off the karmic wheel. Mankind believes in the concept "justice". They attempt to make the Universe fit into their concept of justice so they create the idea of karma. You do bad things and you get bad karma. You keep coming back until you "get it right". I cannot believe that a concept can rule my life and after-life (assuming there is one). I know nothing for sure. All I know is that non-duality feels right to me. Into The Void

@allislove Thanks! In my humble opinion, I believe that all religions are just that "placebo religions". Your faith in that religion can do wondrous things. Just remember that YOU are the power source. Gods like Apollo, Zeus etc., have been relegated to the "Used God Wrecking Yard" because there is no one who has faith in them anymore.

@fridjonk What a great show that was. Resistance is hopeless number #1. Thanks.

@Nahm Thanks! I want to leave you with a quote from Tony Parsons that says IT in a nutshell: What is the purpose of the Universe? It has no purpose. It is boundless energy and nothing more. No cause. Nothing needs to happen because it already is. All there is is wholeness. Within the wholeness is contracted energy (you) which feels it has "lost" that wholeness and is seeking that wholeness but can never find it because it is already wholeness (:

@cobalto I am 61 years old. I am in above average shape for my age. I eat my dark greens, exercise regularly. Nevertheless, I am not sure if this old form could endure having it's ego ripped away. I can imagine what it would be like. I would love to do it anyways just to experience God's presence without that pesky ego filtering everything out. Having a shaman guide might help (: