Water by the River

Awakenings can have such a deep and self-verifying impact (and is self-validating, because... aspects of True Being starting to show up) that "one can stare the devil in the eye and not blink", as some Zen people have written. One starts speaking from the authority of ones own Awakenings. The question is: What is left of "one speaking". Yet, everytime yours truly had the thought arising that he is ahead of anyone, there was a new me separate-self-cluster floating around in my Infinite True Being, pretty much destroying the awakened nondual state of just One Infinite Being/Infinite Consciousness with re-establishing duality, separate-self and "other". Later, admittedly after quite some years , I learned that self-importance and feeling of being "ahead" of any arising in my True Being of any kind is one of the end-game-bosses, because it creates (separate) self and others. And it can be very very subtle... Nowadays I tend to smile on any tendencies like that are arising in me, understanding that Maya just looked at "me" and gave me her most beautiful and seductive smile. Because "who" could "I" be ahead of? Ahead of Myself? And all you can do if Maya smiles at you is smile back.... Please don't understand as criticism, just as a description of my experience with that topic. In Absolute Truth, there is no "one" ahead of "anyone". On a relative/manifestation level, there are just some "mindstreams" that have more clouds blocking True Beings, and some have less. All have the same essence and Being. I personally have a hard time staying in Awakened Nondual Awareness and seriously believing that "I" am ahead of anyone, because then "I" get served "I" (separate self) and "anyone" (other), normally causing an end of nondual Awakening, and the corresponding suffering/resistance to what is, which is just another word for suffering. And I tend to no longer hit myself on my own knee with a hammer if I can avoid it, even if Maya gives me her most seductive smile. Namaste Water by the River

yes, Awakening is beautiful... "Beautiful drowning This beautiful drowning This holy water This holy water is in my lungs" The lead singer of Live, Ed Kowalczyk has a deep spiritual side. Here is a conversation with Ken Wilber. From the song "Overcome": Even now the world is bleedin' But feelin' just fine all numb In our castle where we're always free To choose never free enough To find, ... And I am overcome I am overcome Holy water in my lungs I am overcome ... My master's in the yard givin' light [hint to Adi Da, his Guru at the time] To the unaware... ... So drive me out out to that open field Turn the ignition off And spin around Your help is here but I'm parked in this open space Blockin' the gates of love I am overcome I am overcome Holy water in my lungs I am overcome Beautiful drowning This beautiful drowning This holy water This holy water is in my lungs also beautiful:

Psychedelics are an awesome tool. If combined with meditation its the path of the future. Just psychedelics without meditation (on the pillow or off the pillow) can become a case for the

The ability to hold the boundless infinite nondual Awareness will grow. In Pointing out the Great Way it is called Postsamadhi Meditation. This boundless infinite timeless Awakened Awareness (as Daniel Brown calls it) is impersonal, or Awareness in at by itself. It is not necessarily individual consciousness, but awakened nondual boundless impersonal consciousness. Non-separated, non-personal. Awake. With Nonmeditation Yoga, you can let Awakened Awareness hold the view and do the meditation. "You" just get out of the way. Same holds for daily activity. Awakened Awareness is more intelligent than normal ego-consciousness, since filters & lenses are removed. Daniel Brown once said: "I let Awakened Awareness do it (I think in the context of that statement writing a book), and I just get out of the way." That is how it feels. Reading and analytical thinking is about the most difficult activitiy while keeping mindfullness/Awakened Awareness, but it can be done. "The reappearance of the mind's spontaneous relative activity at this extraordinary level of practice [Nonmeditation Yoga] brings continuous supreme bliss (bde steng). Because mindfulness/recognition now has its own force (shugs), it goes on by itself without any effort whatsoever." "At this final stage awakened wisdom [Awakened Awareness] spreads rapidly so that all possible emanations of the mind become the embodiment of awakened wisdom. The term emanation ofnothingcaptures both the relative and the ultimate dimensions of truth, respectively. All the mind's relative activity becomes the play (rol du) of the always-here mind. Where ordinary thoughts and perceptions once were, "only the great fire of understanding burns" (TN, p. 536)." "Blended practice occurs when you are forever mindful of the real nature/clear-light mind throughout the four behavioral conditions. (TN, p. 547)" Pointing out the Great Way, Brown Daniel Brown, Video below, starting 57min 40 sec: Map 2: On stabilizing Awakening [or Awakened (Nondual) Awareness] Map 3 would be to Liberation / Enlightenment. Map 1 is to Awakening/Awakened Awareness. In my opinion, and that of Daniel Brown, the most sophisticated meditation/training system on the planet. Daniel Brown has received the clearance from Menri Trizin to translate all the previous secret teachings, including Tummo/Energetic Inner Fire Yoga with or without consort, Treckö and Togal (Visionary practices to get rid of the solidity of the visual field), dark retreat, dream yoga, and so on and on. And lots of other really unique techniques that neither Zen nor Theravada, nor any other tradition, have. and the result: The timeline to Enlightenment. Done correctly with energetic practices added a few years...

...and that debris burns wonderfully in the everburning fire of the Infinite Emptiness of ones True Being. And God said, Thou shalt not be able to see my face; for no man shall see my face, and live. Exodus 33:20

Yes, you can't find it because True Self has no location, it is nonlocal, centerless, boundless and infinite. The whole infinite nondual field/vastness. What can be found are (bodily-) sensations/feelings like a center/solidity, imposed limitations, imagined boundaries of the visual field (imagination of boundary with somehow somatic sensation of boundary on top), and a lot of thoughts/feelings/concept of being human. Yet, all of that can be seen as an object, arising IN ones consciousness, floating in Infinite Being. But there is no short-cut. It needs practice and seeing into the nature of all thoughts (emptiness/consciousness, which makes them dissolve and cut off) and into all bodily solidities/centers has to be done again and again, since the Gestalt of the illusion reassembles itself very fast. Neti Neti, not this, not that. Or not only this or only that. It takes a long time to get to nondual states (Thisdell stage 3), where a felt fast spaciousness open up and nonduality (still with a murky self left) starts. Good news is: Beginning here bliss starts flowing when in these states just by being in them, and the path becomes truly wonderful. That is beginning freedom. Frank Yang described his Enlightenment when his two last items that didn't conform to the enlightened mindstream were realized (after a long time of removing pretty much everything before, Roger Thisdell stage 2&3&4): all bodily sensations parading as a center or solidity were gone and dissolved (head, chest,...). Just vast spaciousness without a center. the cluster of sensations/thoughts claiming to be the watching all meditation-process of shutting off each thought-arising were seen as also mere clusters of thoughts. Basically also for him the crossing over to Enlightenment, or understanding True Infinite Being/Reality/Consciousness happened when the mindstream conformed to the enlightened mindstream. Then Infinite Being/Reality awakens to its True Being in that perspective/being/mindstream. Good. That is the thorn with which to remove the thorn. But also notice that this thought ""self, I cannot find you, where are you" is again a thought (or a cluster of thoughts/sensations/feelings) claiming ownership/identity, which creates another illusion-identity. But it has to be done like that, until that is automized. Then one switches to automatic meditation (Nonmeditation-Yoga). Bon voyage Selling Water by the River

yes it does. If there is no major element missing, the path shows itself to itself at that stage. I have written more about that in:

Ok, I try. But be aware this is extremely difficult to do it in a monological form via text, and hardly complete. Good news is: At that stage the path shows itself to itself if one just continues with the right meditation/awareness techniques. The illusion-mechanisms pop up one by one. If applying a good understanding of what will show up, the process can be fastened. It is like adding a blow-torch to the burning down of the illusion-building. So, here we go: Any thought implying I/me. "I-feeling" any understanding you have ("I" understand) any doubt ("I" doubt) all of it very subtle and fast forms of feeling separate. Or thinking that. Very fast & very subtle. Way faster than a thought elaborated over several second. Tenths/fractions of a second... Speed of awareness is crucial, that is being trained here And strength of awareness, to be able to also cut off core separate-self identities and suffering/resistance. Reckognizing that, not getting hypnotized by that, cutting it off by looking into its nature (empty consciousness). and since its very hard to tell the difference if a thought-arising is laced with individuality/separation/identity: Cutting off all of them, just for training. Yet, one can at other times also maintain ones awareness during practical daily life/thoughts. And memory of the past: It is being imagined right now, appears as complete "chunk" out of Infinite Consciousness/Being, and then gets elaborated in thought (which is very slow compared to how it emerges "fully" formed. That is truly a mindf*** when your awareness gets fast enough to spot for the first time how the complete past emerges immediately as "whole block" and then is slowly elaborated, fooling one to believe one is that "I" having this memory and thoughts. You see then how each any anything is just emerging to fool oneself. That is an aspect that Leo emphasizes with his concept of God-Realization. The past is radically imagined right now, there is no past. There is only an Infinite Formless eternal "Field" modulating itself to give the appearance of a past. Same for the "future". You don't have a past, You are an Infinite Vastness that is able to make up the past on the fly, and then have thoughts/feelings-arisings that "believe" that. Yet, that Infinite Vastness/Being CAN UNDERSTAND, and so it can understand that the past is imagined on the fly here and now. That is a major understanding/building block of Enlightenment, or seeing that separation from it all (separate self) is just an imagined arising within oneself. One is not a human, but the Infinite Vastness/Being (which is luckily also always here, aka immortal/eternal, can't go anywhere infinite Nothingness with nothing outside of it) imagining a human and all its elements moving/appearing within itself. So it is Duality gone (visual field nondual) -> Nondual boundless infinite (boundary of the field is gone) -> Infinite solidity of "external" visual field is gone, replacing solidity with mere groundless lucid appearance -> imagined illusion/lucidity/non-material, mere imagined empty hologram like appearance. time is gone (as described above, past imagined right now) -> always here, never not here Infinite Mind/Being. Eternal, immortal, absolutely fundamental, all is appearing and arising in it, always. space is gone (imagined IN the infinte vastness of True Being) -> space doesnt exist outside, space is imagined in oneself, the vastness of Infinity (which is not 3d space), and there is no 3D-space (or any space at all, non-euclidian, 4D, whatever) possibly existing outside of your Infinite Being. No outside. Infinite. All there is. Space is not self-existing outside of ones own nondual infinite being. It is imagined by it. What is behind your face? "beyond" the visual field. Not (3d-)space, but the Infinite (Being). -> spaceless, dimensionless, infinite. Containing all possible dimensions and realms, high and low. all of that is imagined/constructed/manifested right here right now in ones nondual True eternal Being, Infinite Consciousness/Being. -> A mirage/illusion appearing in ones Infinite Being, giving rise to the illusion of a human life within it. Another way to say that is: In Pointing out the Great Way, Brown is one statement: If everything (1) all appearance of the world/visual field is seen as mere appearance (empty) hovering lucid and hologram like in Infinite Vastness (that can still be stage 3&4 Thisdell with separate-self well and alive, and that is why that is accesible via psychedelics) AND (2) each and any thought/feeling arising/"internal" mindstream event (including everything one believed oneself to be, I-feeling, I-thoughts, the whole history, the whole asking what is Reality/True Being, ALL of it) is seen as empty arising in Infinite Being/Nothingness/Consciousness. which means that ones mindstream is then conforming to the enlighened mindstream, or close to how Infinite Reality really is. Then Enlightenment can happen. But it can't be forced, since that would be thoughts with a thinker identified with them, with I-feelings, wanting something. Infinite Being/Consciousness has to understand itself, with no artifical activity/separate self trying to force it. At that point, the properties of the mindstream above can be automized, and this automatic meditation/mindfulness can be protected ("mindfulness without [artificial activity]"), element (1) of Nonmeditation Yoga, see Pointing out the Great Way, Brown). One doesnt't focus on anything (which Daniel Brown calls particularizing). This picking out something specific with attention (particularizing, the fastest process of the mind, way faster than thinking) is what creates Duality, or better disrupts the original nonduality. Instead, one watches how particularization happens, and transcends that in a way that the boundless nondual unity with/of the visual field is not interrupted. Element (2) of Nonmeditation Yoga, "do not take to mind". and then maintains and waits in that state. Meditation and Mindfulness in these awakened nondual states does itself. Enlightenment can't be forced, because who would do the forcing? Instead, the Infinite Vastness/Being can understand/realize itself (or its True Nature) when conditions are exactly right. That is then Enlightenment. Bye bye illusion-human, hello Infinite Being/Reality "having" a human,. Making the mindstream conform to the enlightened mindstream so that Enlightenment can happen is very important, because that part can be done by intelligent and informed practice. And that is why an efficient system is way faster, more efficient for most than and way more pleasent than a brute force approach like sitting an staring at the wall (brute force method), concentration or Koan-style. more likely to work than betting on just by having the right Karma and enough of the mere-appearance-infinite-character of the visual field and thought/feeling space in place already (Ramana, Anamanda Ma), and then some contemplation based on the already very much conforming mindstream Only those who needed to walked the steps can tell about the steps. Those are on top can mainly tell about how the properties of the roof are/what Truth is, but its more difficult to talk about steps that didn't have to be taken/climbed because they were already in place. The low success rate of the Enlightenment-endeavours in my perspective is due to mostly using brute-force-methods (which need lots and lots of willpower and pushing through negative emotions on the pillow) with no clear map of the steps of the path and the lots of cul-de-sacs of the path, or prodigy-approaches of telling about nature of True Being, but not offering a method path for average-gifted persons (Ramana for example). So, conforming to the enlightened mindstream mainly is: (1) Visual Field nondual, mere appearance, "hovering" in Infinite Vasteness/Infinity, being manifested/imagined right now (2) every thought arising/feeling arising is seen as emerging out of True Being/consciousness, made out of it, moving in it. Especially all thoughts/feelings relating to I/me. Feels impersonal, no separate indiduality found in any of that. And based on that the separate self (what one thought oneself to be) can be realized as mere flow of colours/appearances/feelings/thoughts (which have a very coherent and well made structure/Gestalt, and therefor are extremly hypnotizing and seem believeable) appearing in Oneself (Infinite Being), including the whole past, and that one IS the always here Infinite Eternal Field of Being/Consciousness. And the former separate-self is like the tree-picture in this wikipedia-article (below): A representation for something that appears (the tree), but has no independend existence apart from True Being (which is the nondual infinite eternal vastness of Being right here and now, with the body and mindstream having no different priority or separation from all that is). A well made illusion. The picture of the tree concept doesn't point to a real tree outside of consciousness (an object), but to shapes/colours of an imagined trees within Infinite Consciousness, not to real trees that exist outside of Infinite Being, self-existing/indepdently existing outside of consciousness. There are no trees, just the concept of them, and some imagined colours/forms/sensations giving the Gestalt of an appearance of atree. Same way, there is no human/separate-self beyond the appearance-Gestalt, and the concept pointing to such an imagined self-existing entity. There is only Infinite Being, not the human (which only appears in Infinite Being). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept There always ever was, is and can be the Totality of (true) Being, self-aware, perceptions perceiving themselves. Either with reflective-self-consciousness arising (like normal human mind stream), or just mere awareness of the Totality without the self-consciousness part, perceptions perceiving themselves. Aware, but not separate. The non reflective-pure awareness of this vast field/being is more fundamental than the temporary appearing self-consciousness (with I-feelings I-thoughts). The Awareness is the Sun, the reflective (self-) consciousness (I-feeling, I-thoughts) is the reflected light of the Sun on the planets. Basically, its replacing ones old mistaken identity (imagined false illusion separate-self) with the correct identity, Infinite timeless/eternal (always here) Being. The flow of the human mindstream with its practical thoughts and so on happen within Ones True Being. One has a human, but is not only the human. Thoughts or feelings of separation are known to be illusion. When that shift happen, this realization is always available by just reaching out, or immediately always present. The visual field IS mere appearance and lucid/hologram/groundless, it IS infinite, eternal always here. Thoughts and feelings ARE just floating in it, made out of it, and "it" is onself, nondual. And that can be felt all the time or by just checking/moving attention there. It can never really be unseen. Reality/True Being understands itself. It is beyond doubt, unshakable, deathless/immortal always here. And that is the kicker: One/True Being is literally immortal and infinite. Not the ego, but True Being with its nature of Awareness. One can never die, and nothing outside one self can truly threaten one, because there is no outside of oneself. Seriousness and danger is replaced with laughter and security. Resting in True Being generates bliss, even when approaching it in Thisdells stage 4. Its a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop: Cutting off thoughts, field nondual, bliss flows. Literally. And that reinforces the stability of Nondual mere appearance visual field even more. Awakening enchances awakening. Suffering/resistance to what is no longer grips in any form since a long time. If it moves within ones being, is seen and let go. Would the inherent bliss of True Being ever be exchanged with grasping for being an ET seeing more of manifested reality, but suffers because its not enlightened? (more on that later). That is a "hard" shift, it is not just thinking differently. It is for sure not "I am God and imagine all reality", which is just cosplay. It is Reality understanding itself, Infinite Being waking up to itself. What can do the understanding of that? Reality/Being/Infinite Consciousness. Waking up to its True Nature. That last shift is knowing what one really is, and that understanding/realization runs over a short period of time. Waking up. Happens only once. And is final. Is beyond doubt (since these would only be more thoughts/arisings moving within Reality and subsiding into it). The shifts/Awakenings leading towards it go over a longer time, many years. And then of course there are infinite forms of manifestation, ET n+1, with vastly more understanding of the relative manifestations, basking in their understanding of the imagination process, different dimensions, higher realms, non-euclidian space, completely other alien manifestation realms. Humans look like ants compared to that for sure. These beings have been reported since millenia, in all cultures, all times. Reality-creating and maintaining Gods (Brahman, Shiva, Vishnu and endless other names for them). But it is the same True YOU, the only Being or Awareness in existence. The same being. There is nothing outside of it. No other (being, God, alien). And one can have an unenlightened ET, not having realized what Reality really is. Beings of higher realms are not necessarily enlightened. That tale is as old as the spiritual traditions. Although many of these beings of higher planes are enlightened. An unenlightened ET (which by definition has separate-self-elements not transcended/seen through in real time, which are by definition nothing other than the elements resisting the now, or suffering in other words) is a rather sad and suffering figure compared to a being who has realized its True Infinite Being. Calling the lower higher, and the higher lower. Whose modus operandi is that again? But lets not end too serious: It is all an illusion-game, "nobody" really gets lost forever, and Maya smiles lovingly on all not-really-(self)-existing-but-just-appearing children of Reality, humans and ETs alike. Although it can appear & feel very real & serious. Selling Water by the River

For me that was the most tricky stage. One has to install an automized mindfullness-process that cuts of anything separate/I-feeling/I-thought automatically and fast enough, but can't use willful artificial activity for it (because that is separate-self/ego/thought process) again, and that is way too slow and cuts off Nonduality/Awakening). Best description for that stage I found is Brown, Pointing out the Great Way, chapter Nonmeditation. I had to read it dozens of times over the years to get the nuances... Jhanas also work, but in my opinion Mahamudra/Nonmeditation is more sophisticated and efficient. Historically, it was developed in Tibet over a long time with many many practitioners, while Theravada/Jhana looks for me more like way earlier Buddhism. Although it of course also works, see Frank Yang, Daniel Ingram and Roger Thisdell. But all(!) say that at the last stages they needed to add something like Dzogchen/Mahamudra/Do-Nothing meditation and not only willful concentration (artificial activity).

Thisdells stage 3 Big Self/God self to stage 4 No Self. Now the ripening of stage 4 to stage 5 True No Self is left. Nonmeditation-Yoga to disassemble the last remnants of the separate-self/individuality/subtle and fast I-feelings and I thoughts to truly become the Infinite Totality. That stage is tricky, because active effort is often counter-productive "artifical activity". Many items have to fall in place until stage 4 ripens and conforms to the enlightened mind. Luckily, the path tends to show itself to itself. But you can put a blow-torch to the whole separateness burning down anyway, accelerating the progress. Getting rid of these remnants is what open up boundless Nonduality on a permanent basis without psychedelics. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Nonmeditation Yoga&author=Water by the River

https://www.rogerthisdell.com/post/let-s-talk-nirodha-samapatti-insights-into-valance-and-the-supposed-ontic-primacy-of-consciousness https://www.rogerthisdell.com/post/meta-awareness-modes-of-perceptions-super-positions-cycling-insight-stages-and-boundarylessness https://www.rogerthisdell.com/post/centrelessness-boundarylessness-phenomenology-and-freedom-from-the-cage-of-the-mind https://www.rogerthisdell.com/post/throwing-my-hat-in-the-jhana-ring Hope that is useful. With this information you can align the Jhana path with the descriptions of my original post. Basically, at that stage of the path one can't force it, and Jhana Concentration style becomes less efficient. Something like Mahamudra/Non-Meditation or Dzogchen becomes more efficient at the last stages. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Nonmeditation Yoga&author=Water by the River But not before this stage, shortly before the finishing line.

Yes. And if you let that ripen long enough, this here can happen: https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?q="Basis Enlightenment"&author=Water by the River&sortby=relevancy For example: or

You can be an enlightened ET and know what its True Being is. Or a an enlighened human. It is the same True Infinite Being, and realizing that (and the True Nature of any possible being) is Enlightenment. Maybe the ET and its buddies in the link below know a little bit more about (imagined) illusion-appearances arising in True Being than the enlightened human and its manifestation mechanisms. That is what Roger Thisdell means: The enlightened ET sees more waves on the ocean than the enlightened human. But both enlightened ET and enlightened Human have the same True Infinite Being, both can realize they are the Infinite Ocean. That is what Enlightenment makes clear beyond the shadow of a doubt. It is YOU. True You. All of that would become totally clear if one can answer this little Koan: Who is the ET at the end of the movie? Like, really? But for that, ones separate-self-illusions have to die/be transcended completely. One will no longer be human after that, but an Infinite Being containing a human-show. Or an ET-show. Or a whatever n+1 show. The unenlightened ET and psychedelic-state-induced short-term feeling & sensing &understanding like ET seems for sure very impressive from the unenlightened perspective, higher and what not. The ET-experience brings temporary easing from the ever-returning suffering of the remaining unenlightened separate-self remnants. From the enlightened perspective, unenlightened ET is just more form and understanding of manifestation & its mechanisms, and more grasping/suffering/restisting in cycles. A less than smart idea trying to become & understand the n+1 ETs in Infinity and marveling at their wonderful perspectives&understandings of the waves of the Infinite Ocean. That should even be logical from the unenlightened perspective, but will become totally clear with the Clap of the one Hand/Enlightenment beyond the shadow of a doubt. But even before that with some common sense one should be able to intuit that. At least if Maya smiles not too charming. The other perspective (ET & company) ist not coherent nor logical, even from an unenlightened level. But hey, yours truly honestly admits selling the same old water by the same old river sold since millenia is soooo unsexy compared to becoming&rejoicing in (temporary) being & selling ET, I get it. And I do admit its quite a show, so all is good. And maybe the career-move for the next incarnation is actually becoming ET full-time collecting the marbles at the end of the clip? But preferably please only if the chap realizes its own Infinite Being early on, and doesn't grasp/suffer wanting to play marbles... Selling Water by the River

Besides endless amounts of NDEs, OBEs and past life memories... See the books of Christopher Bache for example, Jürgen Ziewe, Stanislav Grof. And countless reports all over the ages, derived from altered states (psychedelic, meditation, OBE, psychics,...). If you can keep the Absolute Perspective all the time in this life in fulltime awakened nondual states 24/7 and no longer suffer&resist, and expect that to hold in the next cycles, your reasoning is partly correct. If that is not the case, the attitude there is no next reincarnation & who cares about Karma will kick back big time in the next existence. Like it already does right now. Basically, its confusing Absolute Truth with Relative Truth. Do you think Infinite Reality is stupid enough to not to be able to store a bunch of tendencies of your relative self going from life to life (called Karma, mainly consisting out of wisdom/transcendence and compassion/love, and a lot of other imprints/tendencies/Karma) in an information bundle called "soul" on a higher dimension in Indras Net, as pretty much all above mentioned sources report? That is what reincarnates. On the relative/illusion-level, not on the absolute level. But I guess for most is the relative/illusion-level still quite "real" and "serious", like in suffering/resisting... All of that is relative appearance, part of the illusion/manifestation. Are you free of anything that reality can throw at you on the appearance level, like totally liberated 24/7? Then you can stop caring about these matters pretty much. But even for Enlightenments-gone-sour (lets make a nice cult to satisfy the remaining needs of a halfway-up-the-moutain not really stabilized Enlightenments that expresses itself not in all dimensions of the enlightened being in an integrated and loving way) that attitude of not caring will be kick-back, this life or the next. Mostly already this life. Anyway, this here is in the opinion of yours truly a quite smart idea: Although my view is higher than the sky, My respect for the cause and effect of actions is as fine as grains of flour. - Padmasambhava But I agree the show-factor (for the spectators) of spiritual bypassing and/or not taking relative truth ("Karma/Reincarnation") serious is way higher.

Exactly. And the other game in town besides realizing what one truly is: Going exploring & understanding the myriad manifestations and appearances of Infinite Consciousness/Being/Oneself, happening in Oneself, by Oneself, as Oneself, for Oneself, and so on..., from ant to ET to ET(n+1). That, and any other activity that humans engage in... : The clip below... Does God/The hand at the end of the clip like it? Want it? Apparently yes. Of course! (the hand at 55 seconds) Else it wouldn't happen... The rolling-the-rock-up-the-mountain-nearly-infinite-times-show continues until "it" gets tired of it... Selling Water by the River And a little Koan: Who is the ET at the end of the movie? Like, really?

Sure. I just had to laugh on your usage of the word euthanasia. Spiritual Bypassing is a less than smart idea for 95%+ of its aficionados, for reasons I described above. And reality always says hello! sooner or later... And one can spiritual bypass up and down Maslows pyramid. There have even been endeavours to get a camera that can take pictures of ET on the very top of the thing.

Ken Wilber, One Taste: "A third obstacle is the “spiritual bypass” school, which imagines that if you find Spirit or Goddess or your Higher Self, everything else will magically take care of itself. Job, work, relationships, family, community, money, food, and sex will all cease their annoying habits. The despairingly sad thing is, it usually takes ten or twenty years to discover that this is definitely not the case, and then, where has your life gone? So the first half of your life is spent somewhat misguided, the second, bitter. "Tuesday, June 17 For almost twenty years, I’ve done hatha yoga as my main physical exercise. Five years ago, I also began weightlifting, which has been an extraordinary help in writing, meditation, and immune system health—a true testament to integral practice. I’m forty-eight, and I don’t ever remember being this comfortable in the body. Which makes it all the easier to transcend. That is, my experience is that when the bodymind is strong and healthy —not ascetically starved and despised—it is all the easier to drop it, transcend it, let it go. Precisely because the bodymind is running smoothly, with no distracting glitches, it doesn’t hold awareness obsessively circling around it. You can more easily forget it and slip into Witnessing or even One Taste. Of course, neither the ego nor the body is left behind in higher states. They are still present, still functioning, still serving their conventional purposes. If somebody calls your name, you will respond. You know where your body starts and where it stops—this is not borderline or psychotic indissociation. It’s just that your identity is no longer exclusively confined to these lesser vehicles. When these vehicles are functioning smoothly, and not being the squeaky wheel that demands the oil of your awareness, your awareness is free to settle into deeper and higher domains. Of course, you can do this under almost any circumstances, but a strong glitch-free bodymind [and integrated life in general, WBTR] makes it all the easier to drop, and thus find it floating on the ocean of infinity that is its true abode." And same with education, job and finances.

Maybe the matrix (which is not only "human societies", but also the little voice in the head) is feeding you the next "bullshit brainwashing" called spiritual bypassing?

Maybe the universe means it wants to test you if you are smart enough not to skip&neglect college&finances? Without a more or less balanced and integral lifestyle most beings don't get anywhere near stable Awakening... because, best regards from Maslows Pyramids lower stages... Ken Wilber once said its hard transcending a separate self whose "wheels" (lower stages of Maslows Pyramid) squeel and scream with neglect and dissatisfaction... But on the other side, spiritual bypassing can be quite a show. Beneficial for the overall drama & entertainment factor of this Lila, less than beneficial for the individual performing the gig. Selling an Integral & balanced lifestyle at the River

The hand of god at 50sec. Seen anywhere on this forum? A new higher mountain . Sorry. But hey, how could it be different. The game would be over prematurely... And apparently, looking at the state of things, if there is anything God doesn't want... is that the game is over yet.

Or maybe what you call "Deep Sleep" is right here, right now? Never not right here right now? No objects appearing & moving = no time, that is true. So what is it that is always here, and never can not be? What is the timeless? All of that works as Koan. Why? Because all point to your True Infinite timeless Being.

Yes. He is enlightened & smart enough to understand the process and tell about it in a systematic way. Since about 5-10 years there are increasingly excellent teachers describing the path in a non tradition-biased manner (not Buddhist-lingo, Not advaita, not Vedanta, not christian, not whatever), but with a clear phenomenology and structured & scientifiy way & language. Actually defining the terms they use in clear and coherent definitions, and showing the steps/experiments/injunctions necessary to get the reference experience, and then defining clear signifiers/words/definitions for these referent-experiences. John Churchill said in a podcast, we are witnessing the birth of a global Dharma. In 50-100 years, I guess we will not talk using Buddhist-Lingo, or Advaita, or whatever, but cross-tradition definitions of the steps of the path, highlighting universal steps of what happens in the mind on the path to salvation. Integrating the best and most efficient stuff of all traditions & current teachers available, That, and using psychedelics as preview & state-inductions of the awakened states. Interesting times to live in...

You are right that this is the last piece of the puzzle. Self-Awareness (bold marking by me), or awareness of its own existence is indeed NOT the Absolute. Its the last illusion... I wouldn't say that for Awareness (since here we would be on slippery terrain), but for self-awareness/self-consciousness definitely. Massaro summarized it nicely. Maybe watch that video a few times, and then the other parts of the Infinity-series: Awareness is "always there" (or not, since its beyond existing and non-existing), at least as a potential for sentience (if nothing arises, aka cessation, deep sleep), but if there is nothing to perceive there is no (self-)-consciousness. Unaware Deep Sleep, Cessation. But it doesnt really make sense to talk about awareness/consciousness if there is no perception, since then there is also no self-consciousness or self-awareness. Its pure Infinity/Absolute. The clap of the one hand. THAT Reality/Being which can be unaware of itself is what you are. Not the (self-)awareness with which one identifies, that is one of the last lenses/filters of illusion. You can be nothing at all, unaware of yourself (since there is no self-reflective self yet), with the potential for sentience. In your case, I assume getting that is the last building block to Enlightenment and fully getting what you are. Without fully realizing that, there is a subtle murky "nothing" self (Roger Thisdell stage 4). Thisdells stage 5 (another video) is then the resolve of the contradictions of stage 4. Everything else after this True Being/Absolute comes later: Manifestation, Infinite Field of mere appearance, gods & humans & aliens and the whole shebang. The "I am self-Awareness/Consciousness" feeling/thought/Gestalt (very subtle, hard to spot, the end boss so to say) is the last illusion/filter/lense of the last separate-self that can be constructed. And since it can be seen, since it changes, its an object, temporary, moving in True You. Leaves us with the point who/what realized all of that? Reality/Being realizes itself. And that is called Enlightenment. Its not personal, its not anything separate. It is Reality comprehending itself. Jac O'Keffee: "We're left with consciousness that cannot know itself. It's such a fundamental that it actually can't know itself. However, it is known. You can drop back there and it is known, but you can't bring yourself there or your capacities to know it. It's almost like it's so fundamental that it can't turn around and see itself. It doesn't see itself. That's too much movement. That's movement such as space, time and identification and me, myself, I, and the building of my movie that happens". And maybe most important. It is not an it, or an Absolute, or anything "third person singular"-pronoun at all that "has" "Awareness" and explodes into manifestation. IT IS You. True You. With a big Y. That becomes totally obvious when the whole field is a mere appearance floating in Nothingness/Infinity (1), and you are "It" since there is no separate anything left at all, no center at all left (2). Nondual mere appearance, impersonally floating in the Infinite impersonal Universal Mind. Something reflecting about what it is (awareness,self-awareness, whatever) is already a separate-self (a manifestation, arising, moving within You. I-Thoughts/I-feelings have no dimension or form, but are still appearance/imagination/arising/"form"), and that hides the True Reality/Being. Too much movement... So yes, its tricky... Roger Thisdells stage model is nice. Since at stage 3 "Big-Mind" (Frank Yang called that God-state, easy to be reached via Psychedelics), one is already the nondual field (1). But getting the separate self mostly empty (Thisdell stage 4), and totally empty (Thisdell stage 5, centerlessness, Enlightenment), needs emptying out the separate-self completely. I have never seen one case where that was done mainly or purely with psychedelics. Not enough time in these states to empty out/transcend/understand the "high-speed-machine-gun-illusion-fire" of the separte-self-ego. But instead that lovely darling quite active appropriating all of the Nondual Infinity, Gods, Demons, ETs, n+1... Which sometimes is not for the faint-of-hearted. Ok, so, after mis-understanding the question the way I wanted in order to write about what I liked, lets come back to the original question: And why the "first" movement happened? 1.First, that is a question that presupposes duality. Form vs. emptiness, and also time. Which means it can't really be answered on the level of concepts. But lets try it anyway as good as possible, just so that it calms the remaining questions you have, so that you can rest in your True Being in a non-conceptual way so that the Big Bang can happen.. 2. Think in dimensions of Indras Net. Just because "your" perspective is "switched off" in cessation/deep sleep doesn't shut off all other perspectives. Understanding one single perspective ("yours") is enough to understand the structure of all perspectives/beings/nodes in Indras Net as Universal/Infinite Mind. Indras Net (which is also True You, but lets take the separte perspective) "continues" happily even if your perspective goes cessation/infinite/blank. 3. Who said it ever started? That is already a lot of Duality smuggled in. The past is imagined in its Totality right here and now. Its all a big illusion, including the past. True You is here right now, imagining all of it, fooling itself with such questions as you have (sorry to say, but you are close to the endgame boss, so I hope you forgive me). Get "rid" of the questions, let them dissolve in your infinite Nondual Being as mere movements of thought-arisings, and rest in your being in a non-conceptual way (Nonmeditation-Yoga). And sometimes softly ask yourself "who hears these words right now", but without effort and grasping. I have written extensively about Nonmeditation-Yoga (Mahamudra) somewhere else. Then the Big Bang can happen, Infinite Reality understanding itself. 4. Only Formlessness/emptiness/Infinity would be an asymetry. God has infinite potential of manifestation that apparently is being explored right here & now by "you" and "me" and "everyone else". To use a human metaphor: It is the nature of the Infinite to explore its potential, going from each creation cycle to the next. There have been many descriptions when coming out of cesstion/Nirvikalpha this original impulse for creation can be experienced. Not IN cessation (since there is nothing/pure infinity), but coming out of it. And, since its en vogue, lets close with ET: After so much Selling Water by the River, here the much more precise summary: The old pond, A frog jumps in: Plop! - Basho

well, large choice at the buffet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_death_deities For the journey: Grof, Stanislav: Books of the Dead: Manuals for Living and Dying https://www.amazon.com/Books-Dead-Manuals-Living-Imagination/dp/0500810419/ "The art of dying and the posthumous journey of the soul have been described and depicted in many cultures. 'Dying before dying', or practice in dying, has been sought throughout history, not just to overcome fear and give help at the moment of death, but to transfigure the quality of life. Stanislav Grof considers some of the most striking and important of the so-called 'books of the dead': ancient Egyptian funerary texts; the Tibetan Bardo Thodol; Maya and Aztec myths of the death and rebirth of the Hero Twins and the Plumed Serpent, Quetzalcoatl. From Europe come Christian visions of the soul's journey, the danses macabres, and imagery of mortal decay that recalls Tibetan practices. The 'books of the dead' are universally relevant as maps of a terrain that each of us will one day traverse." and a more up-to-date version: Ziewe, Jürgen: Vistas of Infinity - How to Enjoy Life When You Are Dead https://www.amazon.com/Vistas-Infinity-Enjoy-Life-When/dp/1326353381 Coming back to the boogeyman: The most handsome and charming: the most hilarious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mort so, its always, for sure: You never walk alone Why should the illusion stop just because one is dead? That would be easy...