OneHandClap

I want you to have fun too I just want it to be outside, with other human beings and loved ones! It is possible to detach from those experiences by realizing they arise and cease. They cannot be you. By the same token, that also means "you" are not making them in this moment. God-consciousness is creating them, but you do not exist as formless God-consciousness. You exist as a limited human being. This means you ought to relate to the world AS a human being. When in Rome, do as the Romans do

There is certainly the teaching of Indra's Net, in which each intersection of the net is the center. But I still think you are stuck in dualistic thinking by presuming there is imagination and reality. Imagination and reality collapse into one indescribable whole when you are in pure consciousness. There is no room to declare anything as being this or that, high or low, self or other. You are knocking at the door of true understanding, but if you wish to reach it, you may need to abandon the raft of solipsism. It is only a provisional teaching to get you out of the separation mindset; it is not the end of the path.

Consider that reality has provided existence for you. Existence must always exist. Therefore, there is no reason to fear death, regardless of what happens next. No matter what our idea of God is, even as ourselves, we will die in this body. And what comes after, nobody really knows. Anybody who claims they do is fabricating a belief. Even so, there is good reason to believe that love will always provide for you. Existence does not abandon its own. Whether God is intelligent or not (just as a thought experiment), reality is abundant with wonder. <3

This is an ego trip gone wild, TBH. You are drawing conclusions based on symbols that are related to your egoic consciousness. A lion symbol is just a lion. Your idea of a peasant is your idea of a peasant. You imagined that you are a king, and somehow expanded upon this notion to conclude that you have created every detail of your experience as a human being. If you deeply, genuinely believed that you were the only thing in the universe, and that all of us were mere NPCs in your dream, you wouldn't even have posted this. It would be self-evident. The fact that you did post it indicates that on some level, you do not accept that you are the sole arbiter of reality. Stay with that doubt.

The problem is that the solipsist pretends "their bubble" even exists. There is no bubble. There is experience, and you have clearly latched onto and identified with the content of your experience so thoroughly that you are stuck in a deluded state. You are correct in saying that nobody can talk you out of this. But be warned—if you cannot reason with yourself, you may eventually find that those running psychiatric facilities are more than willing to fulfill that task for you through the use of antipsychotic medication.

This. I think a lot of spiritually oriented people have given Sam Harris a bad reputation purely based on his reluctance to label consciousness as the metaphysical ground of reality. Personally, I think it's braver to remain agnostic and open to possibility than to die on any one particular hill. I may disagree with some of his takes, but I can't say he hasn't thought them over and been intellectually honest about what he believes.

You're 100% on the money. It has become pretty clear in a brief time who has actually experienced no-self consciousness, and who is merely listening and repeating concepts they've heard from others. Which isn't to say that solipsism isn't one possible "trap" one can fall into while doing spiritual work, of course. But releasing the bondage of concepts and experiencing this stillness, this vast love, this Being, is indeed the end of the path. It can take time for people to discover that words are not insights.

There was a Zen teacher (Korean?) who taught that if a student was straying right on a road, falling off the center, he'd yell "Left!" If he was straying left, he'd yell "Right!" Leo's teachings on solipsism are provisional. They are intended to break a mind out of its rut of separation and get it to a jarring state of not-knowing. But you are right—Leo has also presented teachings that refute solipsism, as it is yet another belief. The real work must be done on one's own, right?

This seems to happen when people just listen without doing the work. How many Buddhist teachers and arahants going around proclaiming, "You're all imaginary! I'm God alone!"? This right here is the very reason sanghas and meditation communities exist. People need grounding, IMO. Trying to do this work through brute force of the intellect is a surefire path to hellish realms of consciousness.

For starters, I think it's wrong of people to rule out Sam Harris because he has a materialist view of reality. He may be incorrect, yes, but he is also a pretty educated dude who looks seriously at the problems facing modern inquiries into consciousness. His guided meditation on looking for the self is one of the best ones out there for people getting into nonduality practices. That being said, the app is pretty good, from what I've seen/heard. There are some very legit teachers on there with meditations, including Loch Kelly (one of my favorites). As long as you can set aside the personal views of whoever made the app, and instead sink into the content, you will be A-OK. Especially if you can begin to parse how awareness actually functions and develop an unguided routine in time. Best wishes

It's not easy to avoid getting swept away on the path... you seem very balanced! It's great to have people expressing the truth in terms that others can grasp without falling into conceptual pitfalls.

You seem to pingpong back and forth between "absolute truths" fairly often, from what I've seen around this forum. Consider talking to a professional about it. Going through life seeing everyone as an imaginary NPC (a belief, by the way) will not help your life grow in any beneficial capacity. Additionally, what @Consilience said is right on the money. Nonduality means there is no other, but also no you. There is only consciousness. If you're convinced that you are lonely, you are resting in duality. If you're convinced you are living not only alone, but also in a realm where you as an individual are the only real thing in existence, it's a step further into the shadow realm of delusion. Be well. Stay open to possibility.

And thank you! It is very evident that you care about the plight of other people. What a beautiful thing to carry into the world with you.

I appreciate your sentiment, but we *are* the content. The ones on this forum, the forum itself, even the internet is the content. And there is nothing beyond the content to experience. In light of this, the Buddhist teachings on compassion become evident. It is in our power to help the suffering of other beings. Maybe not in South Africa, for most of us, but in our own communities, our own backyards. Peace and violence ripple equally.

You may be interested in trying out Buddhist jhanas. They work very similarly with stimulating and sustaining pleasant feelings to enter deeper states of consciousness.

Boom shacka-lacka! When one has REALIZED complete consciousness and collapsed duality, there is no need to lecture to anybody. The truth will be self-evident and expressed through the being naturally. Telling others how awake you are and how reality "is" might just be the greatest hallmark of one who has not realized anything yet. All those we perceive to be "asleep" are just as awake as a Zen master—the difference is that the Zen master knows how the game operates. You are a nugget of wisdom, Consilience.

You exist in the world of relativity. Coming onto a forum and telling a bunch of "imaginary" strangers about your "imaginary" conversation is relativity at its finest. You're making this big distinction between what is imagined and what it is real... Well, guess what, imagination IS reality. "My perspective is all that exists" and "you are a rather convincing NPC" are signs of total delusion, not awakening. Just because Leo spoke an Absolute truth in a Youtube video, and you "imagined watching it," does not mean you understand anything he's actually saying. Chop wood, carry water. Stop playing mind games with "your NPCs" and understand that you're on an ego trip. Edit: Of course, you may just be trolling. If so, well done. If not, clean your room, fellow normie!

Why do you assume we have to transcend survival? Survival is the only thing that has allowed anything to exist to this point. Without survival, there would be no language, no culture, no education, no nothing. Survival is individual forms remaining in time-space and resisting dissolution. Transcending survival is a non-starter of an idea, because it implies there is something which can exist without survival sustaining it.

I agree with this. Though Leo has cautioned people against taking psychs when they are being frivolous or unprepared, it's also true to say that not everybody reacts well to them. Even Terrence McKenna had one bad shrooms trip that threw everything he knew into a blender. There are no guarantees with psychedelics; even if 1000 go well, one bad one could torpedo the ship and distort the prior wisdom. Yes, there are "challenging" trips, but there are also trips that bring people to psych wards and cause long-lasting damage to their lives. EDIT: And before the tired argument of "Hey, anything can happen with anything, people die from tripping on the sidewalk...," I'd like to say that yes, everything has a degree of risk. But the odds of someone having a complete derealization/psychotic episode and fucking up their "normal" life is magnitudes greater with psychedelics than most daily activities.

What if reality was just a big, random occurrence? Why would that make it any less beautiful? I'm not saying that's the reality, but just... what if? I don't conceive of God as God, per se, but rather as "stillness." A knowing, compassionate stillness. From that angle, I don't really conceive of God as having a mind. As individuals, we collectively form the mind of this God/stillness/whatever. There may indeed be a form of absolute perspective that holds all others, but I am not existing as it in this very moment, so I keep speculation to a minimum

Contemplate how rare and beautiful it is to be this current mind-body in this current age. You are here because of countless things. People before you built a world that is relatively comfortable compared to ancient times. Your mother took care of you as a baby. Your nation (for all its faults) ensured you could get an education and live with some degree of autonomy. Your groceries are provided by stores full of workers doing their jobs. Everything and everybody around you has allowed you to exist as you currently are. What a damned miracle, man.

Within the realm of the Absolute, no, there is no responsibility. Infinite Consciousness/Stillness/God is self-fulfilled and already complete, so there is nothing to be done. But we exist as human beings (unless one of you is secretly a dog who uses a computer...). In this current form, you may contemplate the fact that this body only exists as it does because of the love of other beings. Your mother fed you and clothed you when you were helpless. Your friends were there for you in tough times. "Responsibility" is a human notion, but I do believe it exists. Taking care of others, purely for the fact that they are also God and you can ease their suffering, is a tremendous good. Now, this responsibility exists, IMO, with or without realization of awakening. It feels good to do good for other beings, which, as most of us know, are equally divine in their own form.

Be well, my friend! If you get a chance, try to do a few short meditations where you watch the thoughts "This is imaginary," "I made this," etc arise and disappear. Notice where the thoughts vanish back into. This should provide your answer and help get out of the hole

Think of it this way - this mind that you're thinking with, posting with, asking questions with... is not "you." You are the stillness that's beneath all of the thinking, the perceiving, etc. What you were before this universe is what you still are. But "you" as this mind, as Javfly, did not make the Earth, the universe, other people. Try to step back from taking credit for the work of Infinite Being/God/Consciousness. You are those things, yes, but not in this current form. Right now you are a human being existing with trillions of other individual objects. Again, when you exist purely AS that stillness, you will have no questions about self/other. The truth will make itself known directly without conceptualizing. All of these words are just pointing to what's really there. The Earth is real from this current, limited POV. The idea that your limited mind produced the universe is not true... otherwise, why wouldn't you be able to predict everything I am writing? Why wouldn't you be able to control reality at the snap of your fingers? There are two truths - the relative and the absolute. Don't muddy them too much. Have a good meal, watch a TV show. Be a human with other humans. They are just as much God as you are

Yes, you are spot on! I like how you frame it. I just happened to note the idea of existing as a human body-mind because on the relative level, that is all we have. Solipsism strips the beauty out of being in this current form, IMO. Being a human is an interesting experience... having this body is immaculate... it's always important to walk the balancing act of remembering your true nature as this infinite, knowing stillness while enjoying the ride of being whatever you are. Love to you, my friend.