RMQualtrough

@Endangered-EGO I think the nondual experience we can have is Nirodhi Samapatti, hence I tagged @BipolarGrowth . I think cessation = total merger with the one. I think as long as there is observed, there is observer. Whether it's a blank white void or w.e. else that may be. That is an illusion of duality, but much much closer to apparent truth than we have ever been before. But still a perception of nonduality. I think one tiptoe step farther and you fall off that cliff. All localization ends and you just cease to be and come to some time later like Nirodhi Samapatti. Ironically the experience is actually non-experience... There is no experience of non-experience.

@Moksha Indeed, otherwise I'd never have ended up here haha! But I think in total truth and reality, where we are venturing is basically onto the cliff edge. We are toeing the line but we never go over it. The user @BipolarGrowth has spoke of cessation experiences. I think that is what's over the cliff edge. ALL localization ceases, so then there is only nothing (actually everything, but that can't be experienced in nonduality because there is no observed to allow for observing).

@Endangered-EGO I can't tell if what I'm writing could be understood only by people who've had mystical experiences. I do try to write things down both for my own understanding (digging into experiences I've had to understand them and the implications etc), but also in a way that literally anyone could understand. I hope that people understand that without observed there is no observing. I feel the nondual experiences take you right to the cliff edge but not over. Because if you went over, all localization would end. Where is red when nothing perceives it? In the All. Where does each part of our localization go and return from as we venture into and out of these states? Back to the All. The core of what we are, we're always there, but this is a localization right now. The thing that is there is what sees through our eyes and hears through our ears. I imagine an onion, and we are the layers built on the onion. Really it would be the total inverse because we're inside it, but being able to say "onion core" seems more explanatory.

We are the one thing there is, there's no way we couldn't be. We always are. Everything is in fact... But when experience exists, the appearance of duality appears. Toad venom white void = white + something observing the white. When the white is gone there is nothing to observe and hence no observING, and there is the Absolute ground. That is the total return to the Absolute. We exist as localizations, when a localization ends, it is no longer localized but everywhere and everything. If seeing were not localized there'd be no seeing possible. Like the beach dream, as soon as you see any part of beach there is the observed (the beach) and an observer. When duality is gone, there is no observed, so no observer, hence Nothingness. When in that white void, the whiteness is the final bastion of this localization. White ends and it ends. And you are then Everything, but it's experienced as Nothing like a time gap while under general anaesthetic.

We are there it's the ground. Experience always appears as duality. In deep mystical states you might be nothingness in a white void. There is experience of white, and hence something observing white. Still an appearance of duality even though the boundary of self is subjectively gone and the white is "you". Cessation is nonduality. That is where we reside always.

@Endangered-EGO I don't want to call it experience because it's not. Experience is something that appears in God. Experiencing is a property of God that exists everywhere experience does. There's no experience of experienceR without experience existing. I also don't like the term God but there isn't any other but maybe the "Monad" lmfao, or the Absolute I guess?

When you get wasted, you're just getting God wasted. God is what feels your drunkenness. God is what feels your sense of self and separation. God is what feels your spiritual leanings. There is no escape from God, so it is all fine.

No they won't. Death isn't real. I don't recall now if I thought 100% of it was accurate but some parts I felt were important. There's also Spira videos on deep sleep explaining how the nothing is our true nature.

Subjective truths are important IMO. I don't really care to purposefully use Absolutist terminology to describe things... The Absolute is nothingness anyway so describing anything in those terms is futile. You may as well consider yourself to be the brain because relatively speaking that is how it is. There is no conflict between this and non-duality, none whatsoever. Leo's best video IMO is where he said God is looking through your eyes. That hits home for me. What is seeing through my eyes and experiencing my brain is God. However, if I mentally reduced myself to God I'd be nothing (because God is nothing), so what is the point of that? While in a localized form, relative truths are all that matter unless you want to use Absolute truths to psychologically help you in some way. They're not actually really helpful lol, apart from when it comes to the "big questions" and dead loved ones etc.

How do you do it? I feel hungry all the time. I wish I could just eat nothing for entire days.

You are also imaginary though. Other people are just as imaginary as you.

Take note of how, when watching a TV show, you might enjoy characters with traits which in real life might infuriate you. E.g. I enjoy Dale Gribble the character, but in real life, conspiracy theorists annoy me. Take note that we may even enjoy evil characters like Dick Dastardly because their evil antics are fun. Watching TV is an exact replica of the separation of observer and observed. The you watching the TV is the silent observer, and the story on the screen is what is being observed. The same thing happens in real life but we don't feel "backseat" to what's unfolding, we feel we literally are a specific character and that things happening pose some sort of threat or benefit to us.

I was just doing a little thought experiment assuming that this waking world is literally a dream. All of it, all matter etc is part of the dream. All aspects of us apart from pure consciousness (the dreamer) are part of the dream. Seeing is part of the dream. Hearing is part of the dream. Physical matter can be responsible for causing our localized selves to see or hear because our localized selves are localized inside this dream. So for example, say we had a dream and in that "universe", there is a brain and the laws of the dream dictate that if you stimulate the left frontal lobe or something, the sensation of fear appears. Well because we are then localized selves inside that universe, that would be our experience if inside the dream we were to do that. The localized self adheres to the setup of the "dream" (universe) it is inside of. In this "dream", something called matter exists which form brains and brains cause seeing. Because we are ALSO inside this dream, we require a brain to see. Inside this dream is space and time, which we experience because it is part of the dream we're localized in. Sheer consciousness I am considering is literally void/nothingness (because without experience there is no longer an experiencer), and yet it's also everythingness at the same time. Everything exists inside nothingness. Nothingness is God. Nothingness is Absolute? When the localized form ceases to have experience, all that is left is that sheer consciousness/void/nothing. We came from "nothing" and still are nothing?

Cessation I think. That is God and the Source of all things. You become literally everything, except it's not "you" anymore. Your localized form is gone.

@Adamq8 Nice reference to Donald Hoffman. I enjoy his speeches. I think though that with many teachers, what makes the idea inaccessible to "hardnosed scientific" type people, is that they say experience only has correlation in physical matter in a way that makes it seem like they're implying physical matter has no bearing at all on experience. I don't think you need to deny the science of the external world or neuroscience etc. for nonduality to be true. In fact, because this "dream" (the universe) IS God, science is perhaps one of the most divine practices of all alongside meditation, as exploration of the science of this universe is very literally an exploration of God, since God IS it. I do not see any issue if the brain does in fact control what this "localized form" experiences. I do not see that it is any issue whatsoever or that it is contrary to nonduality in any way. Matter is made of consciousness, the brain is simply millions of years of evolution constructing a sort of superorganism where millions of points of experience work as one unit. There isn't a combination problem because the little points of experience don't vanish... The combination problem is like hypothesizing that animals like horses are just one single giant cell. In reality, it is millions of cells, none of the smaller cells vanish when they come together as that horse. Not only do I think it's possible, I think it is FACTUAL. I think most robots are conscious. Think of this... If there is a little robot vacuum cleaner, it moves around on wheels and has a laser sensor that detects when there is an object ahead so that it can turn. When that laser detects a wall and sends a signal to the robot's chip, it turns. Why? Because it is AWARE that there is a wall ahead. It has KNOWLEDGE that a wall is ahead. If there was zero awareness that a wall is ahead, it wouldn't turn it would just run straight into it because it doesn't know the wall is there. Because it is so alien to us this is almost impossible to understand, but I do not see how it could be any other way. By dictionary definition, that little robot is displaying an act of awareness. How could it not be? So inside that robot there is a localized form of consciousness. When the robot is turned off, the localization is no more, like a whirpool in a river (whirpools being localized in the stream) going away leaving just river. When our brains are turned off, the localization is no more. Consciousness and qualia all exist inside God which is "nothingness" and the "place" where things go when there is nothing to experience them like the example of red.

I am theorizing it's deeper than experience. It's just "nothingness". It is consciousness by nature but without experience there isn't experiencer. Consciousness then exists but in a manner similar to how we experience general anaesthetic? Anyway consider this... Consider that humans are the ONLY things in the entire universe that can see red. If all humans stopped existing, the qualia of red can't be found anywhere anymore, it vanishes. If a human is magically born again, red reappears. In between those stages, the qualia of red "ceases". I am theorizing that in that period where there are no humans it returns to the Absolute/God where it """doesn't exist""". God contains ALL and infinite qualia whether they are being experienced or not. Right now you can envision there very literally are infinite colors but they are all in God and not being experienced. But they have the potential to be. In some other reality perhaps it is. But where red "goes to" when nothing experiences it is the default and the Absolute. It is where our localized forms come from and go to. This dream is a dream of the "science universe" and experience happening inside this dream is localized here so adheres to the rules of this dream. E.g. gravity etc. And brains are just one such thing that exists which has "experience". Where there is experience there must be "experiencer", and the qualia is pulled from "God" (nothingness). Kill the brain and localization of experience etc ends and it goes back to where that red goes when nothing perceives it. What do you think of that? Perhaps consciousness isn't fundamental. Perhaps consciousness is just a possible quality of "God". And God is nothing.

Dream is metaphorical here. From inside of the dream is duality. I saw Leo say in a video, that "God" is what is looking through our eyes. I get that. That thing is one and absolute. The eyes and human it is sensing is finite and localized. Like in a dream we humans have, how could you possibly experience anything without being localized somewhere? E.g. something Spira said, if there is a dream of a beach, the moment you see the beach you are somewhere localized inside that dream. The second you have any experience there is duality. Without duality when things return to a total nondual state, there is cessation. Call this universe the "science dream". This is a dream where math, matter, space and time exists. Experience that happens inside here conforms to the universe it is happening in. It just so happens that in here, matter came together to create forms. The matter IS consciousness but it has no experience so if we could experience an atom's relative view it would be permanently in "Nirvana" (void/nothingness). It does not mean it is not consciousness it just has no experience (I am assuming). When matter formed complex lifeforms and experience began to occur, consciousness is localized inside where that experience happens. Like the dream of a beach thing, say there is some disembodied sight receptacle floating around a mountain, as soon as that exists, consciousness is localized into that point where there is experiencer and experience (the experience being the vision of the mountain). Complex lifeforms are millions or perhaps billions of points of experience working together as a singular unit. As you destroy the brain you are wittling away elements of localized consciousness. When localized consciousness is destroyed it stops being localized and is immediately sent back to the One, Absolute, Infinite, "God". There is no issue I can see with brains literally causing localized experience. It is not creating the qualia or consciousness itself. Or is there an issue with that theory?

But everything we know apart from consciousness and qualia is inside the dream of spacetime. Matter is part of the dream as well as cause and effect. We ourselves are inside the dream called spacetime so we can be manipulated by matter, since that's the laws of this particular dream. Our localized forms have brains (v important to note brains are made of matter which is made of "God", so brains ARE part of the dream). In this dream called spacetime, subjective perception of the universe around us happens by sense organs and brains which allow these localized pockets of consciousness to experience these perceptions. It's not that qualia doesn't exist as part of infinity already, it's just not perceived by things localized inside this spacetime without brains etc.

God dreamed up right? I'm very curious about how the apparent truths of the material world go together with the Absolute. A lot of nondual teachers etc say the brain correlates experience rather than causes. I can see that the actual subjective nature of the thing itself could exist independently (e.g. the taste of chocolate), but the physical brain appears to change the content of consciousness to the localized form that has the experience of it. Consciousness never goes anywhere, but the content like sights and sounds can change from that small localized scale by altering physical matter. Total destruction of the brain leads to complete cessation which is total Oneness with the Absolute? Not localized anymore whatsoever. Literal Everythingness. Like your video about immortality when you discussed where dead people are. If we wind back to say, the big bang, or even other "universes" which for example contain just a bunch of floating chairs, is there no experiencer of those places? When an atom is made, it is made of God and within God. Is there any experience of being an atom? Or is the atom also subjectively in the state of "cessation"? Can't things be made of consciousness and yet there not be any conscious experience of that thing? The existence of both all experienced things as well as infinite "non-existent" (not found in any subjective realm) things... When experience happens in a "non-existent" universe, it essentially comes into being. But it already existed while not existing as part of infinity (infinite = all things which exist + all things which do not). What is your take?

When someone achieves nirodha samapatti (cessation) I think that is a total melding of the subjective localized PoV into the All. From the body there is just a time skip without experience. If all things were in cessation (absolute Oneness), why could infinity not exist within it anyway? Can't there right now be infinite universes that nothing is localized inside of and thus not conscious of anyway? And even within our universe why not qualia that nothing is even conscious of? Are subjective things just part of the infinity that can be tapped into by a localized point of consciousness? Or is it in that "time skip" when we are the All that we experience literally everything in existence and total infinity. But from the body there is recorded no memory etc of it because we are not localized anymore...

It can't be impossible to reconcile the two things. The relative experience of anaesthesia etc is cessation/nothingness. Cessation doesn't mean it stops existing. The states mentioned are still full of human things, not suddenly sonar vision like a bat and so on. I think the Absolute is nothingness. Pure infinite consciousness is totally nondual, no experience exists here, nor time, nor anything. Nothingness = everythingness. Go to the big bang. From say a void perspective there is no experience of anything. But this is happening. When experience happens the "experiencer" appears. I think someone very recently said, when experience stops the experiencer ceases too, and pure consciousness is something deeper than that. When there is experience then, is it just tapping into some of the infinite qualia already present? So possibly nothing in the entire universe rn can see an infinite myriad of colors which DO exist but can't currently be experienced... that we just see as a certain shade of blue or w.e. In a dream, as soon as you see anything you are localized somewhere in the dream. It is impossible to experience a dream without duality being created. With legit full nonduality there is cessation/nothingness/the void. What is the existence of things prior to subjective experience like. When consciousness is still 100% nondual. There is no way that these things are mutually exclusive.

Have you noticed we often enjoy characters with the same annoying traits when they are characters on a TV show? Dale Gribble is a fun character, but irl conspiracy nuts are really frustrating. I think the difference is to do with participation. Watching a TV show is being a true silent observer. We just watch things unfold with zero attachment to anything (as in we don't feel we are controlling one of the characters and that it's our self etc). When we feel there is a self actually interacting with the environment we're no longer a silent observer but a participant. And that causes frustration etc.

@Ora When I've blacked out on DMT it is like that yes. I'm not sure why deep sleep isn't considered cessation, it should be. That is different from ego death ofc where you are still conscious but there's not a "you" anymore. There's a perspective but it's sort of pulled back from your thoughts and whatever else (feels like literal distance, like your thoughts are happening a few feet in front of you). Or you might literally not even know who you are or what a human is etc. Often you sense consciousness to be without boundary, and everything is "you" now, or you are "it" and there is no you. Whatever. People almost never discuss blackouts with psychedelics (what's the point? There WAS no experience to discuss - just a time jump like anaesthetic) so they almost surely mean ego death.

@The0Self I'm not familiar with the things you're mentioning, it's actually possible I had a legit cessation from DMT. I remember on the Glass Vaporgenie, second pull and the world exploded into black with neon squiggles flying off for a moment... Then next thing I'm coming round a while after with no knowledge of what happened between. Wherever there is experience, there is an experiencer. Where there is no experience, the experiencer is by itself. The experiencer can't experience itself unless there is something seemingly else to experience. So instead there is just a time gap until experience starts up again.

@Seraphim If there is experience it is dual, with a subject and an object. Say you smoked toad, and everything ceases but white void. There's still a subject perceiving the white void. In literal cessation of subject/object there is nothingness like going under general anaesthetic.