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Why the heck is the drama like it is? A drama in 10 Acts. Act 1: God IS. Infinite Being/Consciousness/Reality IS. Always. Eternal. I am that I am. Nowhere else to go for "It", because It would and is already be there. (True) You can't have an outside. (True) YOU are. I am that I am. The Being speaking to Moses had realized that: "One day he ventured farafield while pasturing his sheep and ended up on the slopes of Mount Horeb, the “Mountain of God.”70 There, as everyone knows, he saw a strange sight: a plant that appeared to have a flame burning in its center, though it was not consumed by the fire. When he drew closer to get a better look at this marvel, he heard the plant call him by name. “I am here,” Moses answered, whereupon the burning plant told him to take off his shoes, “ … for the place on which you stand is holy ground. I am the God of your fathers…” (Figure 30). The god-plant [aka psychedelic plant,WbtR], then told Moses that he had a task for him." Carl Ruck, The Apples of Apollo. Act 2: Any separate-self has as main building block resistance to what is. When you truly empty out your relative arising self (the illusion), boredom gets cut off (its a negative resistance + a conceptual interpretation on top, all of that are appearances happening within Infinite True You). And all the other interpretations and reactions also, and they get replaced by the Sat Chit Ananda bliss of True Being. Which is also just fact. The True Being of God is Sat Chit Ananda. Any resistance and suffering is just the illusion of the ignorant ego. That becomes totally clear when these awakened states have become accessible in a stable way. Act 3: Indras Net, and the One (Infinite) without a second Apparently, other perspectives of YOUR Infinite Net of perspectives/holons/being (Indras Net), which YOU forget in real-time (you need just one more dimension for these other beings you forget in real-time), manifest this whole show (the so called Archetypes (in former times Gods/Deities or Platos Archetypes, nowadays Leos Aliens of various kinds, see Bache, LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven, or the books of Stan Grof). These beings/perspectives have an Intelligence which makes a human appear very limited. Some like to call it alien. Some divine. Some archetypal. Yet, its all True You at the same time. How all of that has to be necessarily ones own True Being is paradoxical from the un-enlightened perspective, yet no problem when "other" falls away in Enlightenment as just a conceptual-arising. Or more precisely, I-feelings and I-thoughts and projecting "other-feeling" and "other-concepts" on "something" arising in ones True Nondual Infinite Being drops away. Act 4: Chris Bache, LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven: “Just to put this into perspective,” I was in a condition of consciousness that might best be described as “ancient.” Surveying what had been unfolding through billions of years of evolution and what would be emerging in humanity’s future, I was not so much in the material domain as in a domain that was responsible for generating material reality. Matter always exists at a specific time, but I was encompassing many time-moments simultaneously and so was stretched across time. The experience carried with it a sense of being “timefilled” or “ancient.” In the middle of this grand tour, it was as if something said, “Just to put this into perspective,” and then the most extraordinary thing happened. The physical universe began to be folded up and put away. It was as simple as that, like one puts away Christmas decorations after the holidays. The physical universe, planets surging with vitality, whole galaxies teeming with life, started to be folded up and slipped into a background of total EMPTINESS. I immediately recognized that this was the Primal Void. I was being shown that matter and time are not ultimately real, that they emerge from and are at every moment sustained by something that is more real, something completely without form. As the universe got smaller with each fold, I could feel billions of life-forms being slipped into the folds of the Void, and a protest rose within me. I did not want to let go of all this exquisitely beautiful form, everything that had been so painstakingly crafted through billions of years of evolution. Indeed, it was my love for the physical universe that seemed to precipitate this extreme lesson—as if to break the spell that physical creation had on me, seen as I had seen it in the broad sweep of its evolutionary glory. My protests changed nothing, however, and the universe’s bursting vitality became fainter with each fold. As the universe continued to shrink, my experience began to shift to what was swallowing it. What had been background was becoming foreground and capturing my attention. It was SILENCE like I had never experienced silence before. It was STILLNESS more still than I had ever known. And most strange of all, I experienced its emergence as a REMEMBERING. I was remembering something that it seemed I had lost contact with billions of years ago. The shock of remembering something so ancient left me stunned. In one second, it completely transformed my sense of what I was. Our memories define the boundaries of our being. In one sudden movement, I was remembering a sea of Infinite Formlessness that was the source of all Form, including my own form, and I knew that this was what “I” at root was. Act 5. Chris Bache,. LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven: Then “God” asked me, “Is it all for nothing? Have we not learned anything? The Jolts of Non-Being Flowing on the energy of the universe, suddenly everything was turned off and then on again. Everything that is, suddenly was not—POW—then was again. This happened repeatedly. The universe kept vanishing. The jolts were the winking out of Being into Non-Being. In the cessation of the universe, all the world’s striving, yearning, and suffering was suddenly thrown into a new perspective. This was the substance of God. The question is not “Why are we doing it?” The question is “Why is God doing it?” Why is God unfolding himself/herself/itself as the universe? What is it for? In this burgeoning of life, God seemed to be knowing himself. “Either it’s this teaming mass of life or it’s this!”—POW—Nothingness. Either the One becoming our infinitely rich universe, or the Void. Then “God” asked me, “Is it all for nothing? Have we not learned anything?” and he turned as if to ponder his failure. This shattered me and I wept. Non-Being and Being were two different modes of God. In the choice of Being, there unfolded the entirety of life as it is, with all its mysteries, pains, and pleasures. It all seemed to be about learning. “Have we not learned anything?” I felt shattered by the vastness of God’s adventure in knowing himself. All the galaxies had continued to turn while I was in hell today. Suns flared into supernovas, and all this was him. Nothing was not him. “Have we not learned anything?” I was silenced. Act 6: Chris Bache, LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven: “Have we not learned anything?” This time it carried overtones of: “Has it not been worthwhile? Has it not been an adventure? Look what would not exist if we had not chosen to create.” This mysterious progression repeated itself many times and in many variations. It continued for hours. I would be at one level of reality far beyond physical diversity, and as I sought to know this reality more deeply, I would experience a kind of dying, a falling away, and would slip into a new level where I would discover that this duality too was but another facet of Myself. Over and over again, in detailed progressions, I was led to the same fundamental encounter. No matter how many times I died or how many different forms I was when I died, I kept being caught by this massive SOMETHING, this IT. I could not leave IT, could not escape IT, could not not be IT. No matter how many adventures I had been on, I had never stepped outside IT, never stopped being IT. There simply was no outside to My Being. There was no other in existence. As I moved into these levels of increasing ontological simplicity, I entered a profound stillness that reawakened a distant, vague memory. “Where have I known this before?” By following this stillness, I was guided back to what seemed like a time before creation, back to the ontological fount of creation. In this stillness, I was “with Myself” in ways that I had been long ago, but not for billions of years. It was a time of reunion, a time of being whole after a terribly long separation. From this extraordinary position, I began to actually be able to conceive of the possibility of the physical universe not having been created. The alternatives stood starkly before me. On one side was all the planning, all the work, all the confusion and uncertainty, and especially all the terrible suffering that was so fresh in my mind from earlier in the session. On the other side was the profound stillness and richness that was my current state. Why do it? Why manifest the universe if at such a cost? An answer rose that was the same as I had been given before, in session 15: “Have we not learned anything?” This time it carried overtones of: “Has it not been worthwhile? Has it not been an adventure? Look what would not exist if we had not chosen to create.” This time I was not shattered, for the choice of creation seemed profoundly good. The thought that the entire physical universe might not have existed carried with it a terrible sadness. From this perspective, I was also able to feel that there was no fundamental flaw in the manifest order of creation. Despite all the suffering, everything was moving along fine—though it is profoundly unfinished. I continued to ask my questions: “What is happening here?” “How does this work?” “What has it been like for you?” With each question, my experiential field changed, opening me to one cosmic process after another. I cannot describe these experiences adequately because the categories of thought derived from space-time do not lend themselves to remembering clearly or translating into words experiences of realities that lie outside space-time. Though my ordinary waking consciousness is being gradually changed by these experiences, it is still too cognitively restricted to be able to hold on to them in sufficient detail. What I experienced, however, repeatedly swept me into ecstasy. “Amazing!” “So that’s how that works!” “Oh, goodness!” “How much do you want to see?” I was asked. “More!” I answered, and always more would unfold. It kept unfolding for hours. Act 7: Chris Bache, LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven: “Go and create, My Children.” Let me backtrack to another layer of the experience. As I was re-assimilating my lives and ascending through various levels, I was also entering into intimate dialogue with a Presence that addressed me. It communed with me and “spoke” to me in messages that were only sometimes put into words. It was explaining to me what I was experiencing not so much with words but with direct illumination. When I reached the point of Diamond Light, I was lifted beyond physical existence and beyond the bardo echoes of physical existence. It felt like I had reassimilated all my incarnations on Earth, that I had brought back into one all my experiences in duality. From this point, which carried the flavor of both before and after physical existence, the Presence illumined for me the human project. With the deepest, most tender words of a divine parent, It said: “Go and create, My Children.” It was setting us loose in a cosmos that contained many realms. The one I had just reemerged from was only one among many universes, some of which were physical, others not. We were small aspects of this Being, truly Its children, of the same type, only smaller in size and capacity. Act 8. Water by the River sits in Sat Chit Ananda on a park bench, relaxes the self-contraction of his former character-gig into Infinite Liberation of True Being, looking at all beings who believe in their separation and whose suffering and resistance keeps the whole gig going. He remembers quoting from Chris Baches incredible journey told in "LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven", and how he had to pass the Ocean of Suffering on his high-dose-LSD-journey before any of these higher realms which detailed the Karmic mechanisms and the reasons for manifestation (even if it means initial suffering) were disclosed for him. This time, however, I was refusing to surrender to the pain and rejected everything that was happening to me. Eventually, I was backed up against a psychological wall and was told that if I persisted in rejecting the suffering, I would be turning my back on humanity, on life itself. To not care seemed to be the ultimate existential withdrawal from life. With multiple scenarios echoing this refrain, I was being confronted with an absolute choice of whether to open to this pain or not. At this point, my “No” changed to a “Yes.” This transition felt like a conversion in the deepest religious sense. In the middle of terrible suffering I found myself saying, “Yes! I can make a difference. Yes! I accept responsibility.” I was accepting responsibility for the anguish and for trying to make a difference in the lives surrounding me. This shift was fundamental. It reached to depths I cannot now fathom and impacted me in ways I cannot summarize. It seemed a free choice on the most basic of questions. With this acceptance, the torment suddenly changed to positive themes. Themes of young children—happy excitement, delighted play, self-abandoned joy. Many scenarios of childhood wonder and adventure. This was the beginning of a “new way.” It contrasted with the former negative way in every respect. It was simple instead of chaotic, shared instead of individual, fresh instead of repetitive. I felt cleansed and made new. (S 17) Apparently, the high-dose LSD psychedelic journey seemed to demand something like a Bodhisattva-Comittment in order to open these divine-realms and the mechanics of archetypal creation-realms, Karma & reincarnation, which apparently don't get opened so much (if at all) with other psychedelic like 5-MeO. Maybe God has left some safety-elements in place so that Liberation from the egoic separate-self-contraction can not so easily be achieved if it all is done only for the separate-self gig and its curiosity in "understanding". Act 9: Where there is not THIS, there is only suffering Act 10: Harada-Roshi to Yaeoko, in Three Pillars of Zen, Kapleau: Now for the first time. "Now for the first time you have found the Way—fully realized your Mind. You have been delivered from delusion, which has no abiding root. Wonderful! Wonderful! There is neither Ox [God/Reality as object out there]nor man [separate self]." So who exactly is reading these words again? Who is reading these lines? Which is that silent Awareness having it all appearing in its Infinite and eternal Being? And did it all ever truly happen? And who said to Chris Bache “Go and create, My Children”? Selling the drama by the River

Denying ego is a very crude trap. Classic error from neoadvaita, zen or the sudden enlightenment schools otherwise called the direct path. Ego is not trascendended by its denial but by fully acknowledging it and going deeper into who am I, my patterns, the structure of my personality and mind, subconscious, unconscious and so on. In this way, one eventually sees through the whole mechanism of the separate identity, body/feelings, self knot or self contraction. Once all the hard work is done, one may realize the ego never existed separately from everything else and its a lovely realisation but don't put the cart before the horse, it's a crude trap.

Shhh. Don't spoil the God Ego fun! Its the last (and also wrong, incorrect, aka ignorant) identity before all identities, lenses and filters of separation (aka identities of any kind) - and with that all remaining ignorance and its corresponding suffering/resistance - can and is transcended. One is still one too many... Beyond that: The final removal of the self-contraction of any identity and its inherent resistance/suffering. God-Egos still resist (aka psychologically suffer)... Selling "How do you extend your ego to Infinity and then call it God and have fun while doing so until one gets tired of that identity/suffering/resistance also" by the River

Sure. But enlightened is even better, and with too much fascination for aliens (or anything at all for that matter), cookies, money, power, fame, sex, whatever Maslow up&down, the wave surfer never gets tired of wave surfing, and never drops&dissolves into the Infinite Ocean. And since the Infinite Ocean is its True Being, cosplaying as alien wave-surfer ends like any wave surfing: Suffering. Self-Contraction. And not Sat-Chit-Ananda of nondual Infinite Being. On the other side, wave-surfing is the raison d'etre of this Samsara show, so who am I to complain? Mumbling along Om Mani Padme Hum by the River & smiling and cheering at the (alien, cookies,money, power, fame, sex, whatever Maslow up&down) kite-surfers appearing on the Infinite River

Surface Structure of Enlightenment: The interpretation and expression of Enlightenment (realizing ones True Being as Infinite Being/Totality/Nothingness appearing as Infinite Being, which is the end of believing and buying into the illusion-appearance of a separate-anything/self in any way) is dependend on the structure/body-mind. And that evolves and changes. And has an endless variety. (surface structure). Deep Structure of Enlightenment: A Being in non-physical subtle realms, beings containing a whole realm or a World Soul, or even an alien from another galaxy will have a different expression - and a much different appearance and understanding in its mind-stream/perspective than an enlightend human. Yet, if you ask them "What are you?" the answer is "Infinite Being/The Totality/all there is/Nothing and everything". And if you ask them if they suffer (or resists some parts of their nondual being/appearances), the answer is "no, in this nondual mind-state with the separate-self-contraction/illusion seen through and cut off there is no suffering or resistance of parts of ones own being, there is bliss of the nature of my True Nondual Being, the Infinite Totality itself". Sat Chit Ananda. So, "they" are are aware that they are the Infinite Totality beyond which nothing can exist/appear, and there is no separate anything/self left. And that is the crucial difference to part-time and incomplete Awakenings of a separate-self-illusion. Ralston has now opened up a stage humans can develop to, which by the way is nothing new. Just read Harri Aalto for example, and many of the past masters. Wolinsky writes about Alien Realms for example, Jac O'Keffee, Ziewe also, and what not. What were Alien realms/expressions of consciousness called in medieval times? Divine beings, archetypes, and many names. And the mystical literature is full of that, including merging and becoming them. But giving too much importance to these new alien/divine islands of appearance (appearance, which they all are, since the "one" perceiving them is also structure-appearance), especially coming from an unenlightened being with separate-self well & alive & not fully transcended having awakening experiences ... well, suffering until wising up. Too much fascination with ones own tail or manifestation so to say. And that too much fascination prevents Enlightenment... because what is this fascination? An essential building block of the separate-self illusion. It is not that there is no room for alien islands of consciousness in Water by the Rivers perspective. It is just that no ultimate importance is given to them, because if that is the highest goal, only suffering will follow - as with every fascination on aspects of ones own being/tail that makes the separate-self grasp on certain experiences. The ocean is always right here, eternally so. If one is busy wave-surfing, one never drops into the Infinite Ocean fully, never truly becomes it on deep identity level (with all the benefits of persistant nondual states), and always stays the "wave-surfer". Yet, for some beings it seems to be their Raison d'être, so all its fine. Ignorance (or suffering separation and the absence of Sat Chit Ananda) is only a bad idea from the perspective of ignorance - Francis Lucille. For the Totality looking through all eyes its great fun! Else it wouldn't happen. Selling little alien islands in "the" Infinite Ocean to eagerly fascinated seekers (while keeping n+1 or an infinity of them for future hypnotizing explorations)

Yes. The ego/separate-self is literally a self-contraction, normally felt in the head. That can drop away (making the field boundless and nondual) and with it all resistance to what is appearing (aka suffering). Restoring actually the real and unclouded "state of things", with brilliant clarity and lucidity and Sat-Chit-Ananda. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=self-contraction&author=Water by the River Don't get blackpilled by suffering/resistance-is-unavoidable-aficionados. If these aficinados would have the capacity/tools/sobre-Awakening-skills/training to release this resistance (aka ego/separate-self), they would do it immediately. Problem is just, they literally ARE or feel themselves to be that resistance/ego/self-contraction, and don't have enough training in releasing that, aka meditation, or are unwilling to finally let go of the contraction-bug). So it would need a transcendence/differentiation/death from the former self - including too a large part its original Raison d'être, which can correspond to something along these lines: So what gets these self-contractions-on-two-feet to actually transcend the self-contraction anyway, and return to righ here-right now True Being? If its not practice/meditation (and the resulting awakened states, aka the carrot), its more suffering (the stick). Or, actually, too much suffering for the separate-self gig to continue its current pet-project, since that didn't deliver enough relieve from the self-contraction. As no pet-project actually does in the end. Timeline: This life or the next. Nobody gets left in Samsara forever. But It ain't over till the fat lady sings, and we are on site called Actualized.org, aren't we? So it seems its game on for the next crash and burn (which may be as least serious as possible) and wise-up chapter (which may come as fast as possible and be as lovely as possible) in this lovely & epic heroes-journey Selling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero's_journey by the River "In narratology and comparative mythology, the hero's journey, also known as the monomyth, is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed." PS: Lets seen in July 2025 how the stars have aligned.

Sure, I agree on that. Exploration of the Multiverse (at least some dimensions) is only possible with psychedelics. I am not against psychedelics at all. Just putting the n+1 exploration as "higher" or "more important" than liberation and resting in True Infinite Being (aka Enlightenment) is a value statement (summum bonum), which can lead to: And one can still go exploring the Multiverse with psychedelics after Enlightenment if one is so inclined. It is not exclusive. But then coming from a perspective of abundance and liberation, and not trying to ease the regular suffering of a well-and-alive-self-contraction with temporaray visits of the 7th heaven realms via psychedelics.

Because ignorance/illusion/self-contraction of the separate-self ("false self") leads to suffering in cycles until dissolving again in True Infinite Being. Ever noticed?

To give a preview on these facets of True Being. To know these states are real. Awakened (impersonal, not personal, no empty witness or duality of any kind left), Nondual (boundless and infinite field/vastness, Unity, Oneness) and Groundless (mere appearance, really just mere appearance or hologram-like character of the world hovering in Infinite limitless Nothingness, that behind your body), no external world if it is not imagined. Eternal and timeless and absolutely fundamental, since its boundless and can't go anywhere else, it is more fundamental than time in mathematical language. And how one imagines past &future&"background-fairy-tale-of-the-separate-body-mind" real time right now. Just more appearances/modulations appearing in the Infinite vastness/Infinite Being. Infinite and spaceless (since space is literally imagined in it, and with that any 3-,4-, or n-dimensional space, be it euclidian, non-euclidian, or whatever of the infinity of possibilities) Blissfull and salvation, since the separate-self-contraction suffering/bad-feelings and thoughts can get cut off/transcended in real-time by just looking into their nature. They appear & literally "move" within True Infinite Being, as its "modulations". Without psychedelics, one needs a looong time of this here: That cutting-off of the separate-self-arisings real time is what unlocks the states mentioned above, and their resulting insights/realizations. Basically cutting-off real time separate-self arisings done proficiently enough= creates awakened states (above) and same effects as psychedelics. And with psychedelics, one still needs to do this until the very end. Else the whole elephant won't show itself. But at least one knows then that there is an elephant. Psychedelic Pro: Prooves that nondual states are not mere fantasy, and gives nice awakened states on which to cross-check if ones meditation-path is moving one there. And of course explore the Multiverse with its myriad of Realms and Beings, from Angels and Demons to ET&Aliens. And understand the mechanisms of manifestation/appearance (Chris Bache, Stan Grof, Rick Strassmann) for example). Psychedelic Contra: Doesn't deliver transcending ones personality/ego fully. This here: "That cutting-off of the separate-self-arisings real time is what unlocks the states mentioned above, and their resulting insights/realizations. Basically cutting-off real time separate-self arisings done proficiently enough= creates awakened states (above) and same effects as psychedelics." So we get God-realized Egos. Not stable realization. A mighty trap. Somebody ought to make a video including that trap also. Committing blasphemy against the holy Liturgy of the church of god-realize-your-ego and then getting drowned in the River by an Infinity of Gods.

God Realization from what I have seen is just understanding more than the usual psychedelic Awakening (where one just projects an ego in nondual unity on the visual field or Nothingness or whatever). Like, how one imagines the past real time right now (which one does, and it doesn't exist anywhere else). And how one imagines everything else just to fool oneself (like parents, job, being a person,...). The problem with God Realization is: There remains a subtle "realizer" of all of that. Very subtle, very hard to transcend, since this is just a totally empty "Individuality". That is the last hindrance to Enlightenment, which then is therefor also stable if that element is seen through. Wilber calls it Empty Witness (see for example Religion of the Future). But not fully transparent and fully boundless nondual without individuality. And that is why God Realization is not stable sobre. These remaining separate-self elements kill the Awakened nondual states after the trip. In Enlightenment, all of that is totally obvious, and since these components are in place, or rather there illusion-counter-components (like self-existing personality, space, time, outer world, duality/out-thereness) are seen through in real time. Below, the outcome first, and then which kind of illusion-part of the separte-self structure it shuts off. Awakened (impersonal, not personal, no empty witness or duality of any kind left), Nondual (boundless and infinite field/vastness, Unity, Oneness) and Groundless (mere appearance, really just mere appearance or hologram-like character of the world hovering in Infinite limitless Nothingness, that behind your body), no external world if it is not imagined. Eternal and timeless and absolutely fundamental, since its boundless and can't go anywhere else, it is more fundamental than time in mathematical language. And how one imagines past &future&"background-fairy-tale-of-the-separate-body-mind" real time right now. Just more appearances/modulations appearing in the Infinite vastness/Infinite Being. Infinite and spaceless (since space is literally imagined in it, and with that any 3-,4-, or n-dimensional space, be it euclidian, non-euclidian, or whatever of the infinity of possibilities) Blissfull and salvation, since the separate-self-contraction suffering/bad-feelings and thoughts can get cut off/transcended in real-time by just looking into their nature. They appear & literally "move" within True Infinite Being, as its "modulations". That cutting-off of the separate-self-arisings real time is what unlocks the states mentioned above, and their resulting insights/realizations. Basically cutting-off real time separate-self arisings done proficiently enough= creates awakened states (above) and same effects as psychedelics. And all of these states and/or insights above one can happpen one at a time, or two, or three combined... Any combination possible, and that creates the myriad of half-baked and different Awakening & (smaller) Enlightenment-descriptions ("Kenshos in Zen"). Ever heard some people have new Awakenings all the time? That is that. For truly awakening to what one truly is, beyond any doubt, one needs all of them. When that Waking Up happens, it is definitive. Because it kills the former illusion of being a separate-anything. That can never be believed again. It is dead. It always ever was an illusion. Even the God-realized ego/separate-self. All a dream. There was never anything else than the Infinite Ocean of Being, formerly with ignorance and illusion arising within it, and now back to the real state of "things", the ignorance no longer arising. Basically, one gets all facets of the Infinite Absolute True Being all at once, and once this happens Infinite Being is totally obvious. It is You. All of it. And can't get more Infinite than Infinite and more eternal than eternal, that is why it is final. The rest is just more appearance IN You (or consciousness OF x, man, woman, Alien, Alien n+1,...). Interesting for sure, but not so urgent. Got Eternity and Infinity to explore, remember? And even if getting distracted by the Lila-show for a moment, "it" is "just there", by just reaching out and killing the illusion-aspect that got re-established by just looking into its nature and just finding the Infinite Ocean of Awareness-Being. Your True Self. So in summary, God-Realization as used here, is a step in the right direction, but it is still not true Enlightenment. Of course, what is sold as Enlightenment is in 80%-90%+ cases not Enlightenment as waking up out of the dream, but just some nondual "Awakening". A dual dream has become a nondual dreaming. Dreaming nonetheless. What Leo calls (correctly) nondual BS. Zen differentiates between Enlightenments (Kenshos), and fully waking up (calling that Great Enlightenment). Only in the latter one there is waking up from the dream. With the former one, a nondual, or god-realized, or whatever ego/separate-self continues dreaming its nondual dream... Lovely place to be at, but still a dream So God Realization is between the naive nondual-Enlightenments with a dreamer still well and alive dreaming nondual-unity-dream, and true waking-up Enlightenment is beyond God Realization, since even the "subtle" one having the God-Realization is seen through as more dreaming. And one can wake up only once, then any separate-anything illusion is ruined for good. That illusions never recovers its fully. And then, one can go still playing with the Aliens for ever new insights, if one is so inclined... So it is tricky, because Leo basically has a Pre-Trans-Confusion in Wilbers lingo. Sorry Leo, but needs to be said. God-Realization is "higher" than a standard nondual-awakening (Nondual Unity Awakening of ego still believing its background story like parents, world, others). These are the Nonduality or Enlightenment-Fundamentalists he criticizes. but it is lower than True Enlightenment, since the final individuality/separate-self/God-realized-ego is not seen through. And once the psychedelic state delivering most of the items listed above wears off, this remaining not seen-through-in-real-time individuality/separte-self/ego kills the awakened state. and since it is all very subtle and impossible to fully understand without having had these awakened states, it is also IMPOSSIBLE to understand True Enlightenment from the perspective of God-Realization before it truly happens (else, one would be already fully enlightened when having seen through the last subtle elements of separation/individuality), Water by the River recommends the age-old recipe of Matthew 7:15-20 "You Will Know Them by Their Fruits". And the proof for that is: Psychedelic Godrealization doesn't last. When the psychedlic wears off, the filters/lenses/contraction of the remaining separate self/ego kick back in, and bye bye awakened nondual states (the ones listed above). And even during "God-Realization", the remaining individual projects itself mightily on all these insights. And then we get Infinity of Gods and stuff not for the faint-of-hearted as compensation. While there is only one Being/Reality, we now have an Infinity of "god-realized" egos. Basically, God-Realization never gets rid of the Individuality/Separation fully, there is always a subtle "someone" having all these realizations. Selling "going all the way" by the River PS: Roger Thisdells version of that. vs. Even the God-realized ones need to fully jump into the mixer Void PS PS: https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?q="God Realization"&author=Water by the River&sortby=relevancy

Yes, the point of the game/Lila is to wave-surf, while believing one is the wave. Until one realizes that all that wave surfing doesn't bring the permanent bliss that ones True Being yearns for, but leads to exhaustion. Or burnout. A variant of that is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_hedonism Why is that? Only being what one really is releases the tension of the separate-self. Normally that takes decades of gaining maturity, but it can also be shortcut with insight. If one (or ones Karma to be precise) resonates with that. In the end, only dropping into the Infinite Ocean and dissolving in Infinite Being brings the final deliverance. And paradoxically, the journey doesn't end here. It just starts. From caterpillar to butterfly. One can perfect ones chosen wave-surfing, but without the contraction and the suffering of being just a wave or a self-contraction, but being the Infinite Ocean itself. Selling wave-surfing while being the Infinite Ocean PS: Watched your youtube-channel a bit. You are truly a Blessed Lion! "Wilber on ones chosen wave-surfing after having dissolved in the Infinite Ocean: Wilber, Eye of Spirit. And It Is All Undone Perhaps you will arise as any or all of those forms of ever-present awareness. But then, it doesn’t really matter. When you rest in the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you are not Buddha or Bodhisattva, you are not this or that, you are not here or there. When you rest in simple, ever-present awareness, you are the great Unborn, free of all qualities whatsoever. Aware of color, you are colorless. Aware of time, you are timeless. Aware of form, you are formless. In the vast expanse of primordial Emptiness, you are forever invisible to this world. It is simply that, as embodied being, you also arise in the world of form that is your own manifestation. And the intrinsic potentials of the enlightened mind (the intrinsic potentials of your ever-present awareness)—such as equanimity, discriminating wisdom, mirrorlike wisdom, ground consciousness, and all-accomplishing awareness—various of these potentials combine with the native dispositions and particular talents of your own individual bodymind. And thus, when the separate self dies into the vast expanse of its own ever-present awareness, you will arise animated by any or all of those various enlightened potentials. You are then motivated, not by the Great Search, but by the Great Compassion of these potentials, some of which are gentle, some of which are truly wrathful, but all of which are simply the possibilities of your own ever-present state. And thus, resting in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, you will arise with the qualities and virtues of your own highest potentials—perhaps compassion, perhaps discriminating wisdom, perhaps cognitive insight, perhaps healing presence, perhaps wrathful reminder, perhaps artistic accomplishment, perhaps athletic skill, perhaps great educator, or perhaps something utterly simple, maybe being the best flower gardener on the block. (In other words, any of the developmental lines released into their own primordial state, released into their own post-postconventional condition.) When the bodymind is released from the brutalities inflicted by the selfcontraction, it naturally gravitates to its own highest estate, manifested in the great potentials of the enlightened mind, the great potentials of simple, everpresent awareness. Thus, as you rest in simple, ever-present awareness, you are the great Unborn; but as you are born—as you arise from ever-present awareness— you will manifest certain qualities, qualities inherent in intrinsic Spirit, and qualities colored by the dispositions of your own bodymind and its particular talents." Leo for example would for sure continue exploring the Multiverse. But without a burnout & exhaustion, and totally at peace, loving, compassionate and blissful. Totally happy in being only part-time Alien, and mostly part-time human, and perfectly happy with that. Because it is a unique place to be at. The Alien can not be part-time human and tell about that, at least not so easily as somebody with a more "full-time" denser human body. Lovely book on these topics, from a gentlemen way wiser than Water by the River: Spangler, Subtle Worlds: An Explorer’s Field Notes. What will the Blessed Lion do? That is up for you to unpack and explore. Individuality and uniqueness is never lost in Enlightenment, only separation. Bon Voyage!

Ah, you know, enlightened enough As I have already told you. I flinch a bit from calling me Inliytened2 , but yeah, "I" know what I am talking about. Solipsm: Useless when talking with separate-self-well-and-alive beings, because they always tend to project their Identity on it and blow it up to nondual Unity-states with the Infinite Field of Being (often with the help of some, um, less-than-legal substances). The Godrealized-Ego. But yes, there is only one. One-ness. If Solipsism is not just a concept projected by an ego, but a truly realized Way of Being, truly realized that "the" same impersonal Awareness looks through each set of eyes... perfectly fine with me. And also Absolutely... True! As long as there is an "other", Infinite Being has not been realized, and Solipsism becomes just another conceptual booster for the separate-self to hijack & suffer. The magic word is impersonal. Not only personal, but truly empty and impersonal infinite Awareness/Being. And here a Koan for you: Who are YOU really? "I" know "you" know it. Idealism: Empty appearances hovering in "the" groundless Infinite of True Being. So idealism is obviously more truthful than materialistic views. Appearances = "Consciousness stuff", or Suchness. Has become totally obvious and always "verifiable" after a long time of practice cultivating awakened nondual states. Oneness? Ever found anything&any"one" that possibly could be outside eternal&infinite&groundless YOU? So yes, its talking to myself... But what else is there to do? All my thoughts. What I have written in the last post, to my knowledge, you can copy & paste from nowhere. That is why I do the Muppet-Show-Selling gig, because if someone else would have already written all of that in the way I like it, I could have saved myself the trouble and instead go do something else, along the lines of my lovely hobbies. On your command, my dear dream-brother : Hach... I truly love Aliens&fairies& Angels and demons! Fascinating stuff. Imagine what kind of adventures "we" will have, this life and the Infinity of lifes yet to come Ok, I have no doubts that some will still put me in the corner of the closed-down-minded Buddhist r******reductionists (sorry, have yet to adopt on the new very courteous customs at this lovely place here, got a bit of a hang-over), and I admit its my job to make that pidgeon-holing at least a bit more challening... Let me know how I am doing! It is just that I prefer to have the peace & stability of resting in Infinite True Being in my nice little comfy valley after having come down from the summit. And not to be disturbed by any grasping for the alien. Or for any other "wave-surfing-easing-the-pain-that-a-still-contracted-self-contraction" causes. That is why I chop-chop any such grasping in my mindstream as soon as it feels like coming from a lack, or from grasping/suffering/self-contraction. Because if the fascination comes from the self-contraction, it is just a new game to keep the self-contraction spinning-suffering-reliefing itself in experiences/understandings and so on. Exploration for enjoyment yes, for grasping no. The True Being of yours truly has infinite time to explore infinite realms. Luckily, that has become self-evident by just "reaching-into-it" and realizing its eternity, or always-here-nature again. I can hold eternity within the palm of my hand. You know what I mean. Can't disappear. So why be in a hurry and not relax the self-contraction and enjoy the show the shows itself here on this lovely planet? But each being has to burn its "exploring-the-Multiverse-grasping-Karma" on its own speed. I just sometimes tell little tales about which kind of choice on the path to the Infinite has been benefical for me. Up the mountain to the highest Summit if Infinity Absolute Reality, or up to the secondary-summits with the Aliens sitting on top of it. Of course, I don't expect too much immediate success doing it, but it still needs to be done. "At least we can say that we tried" by the River

Nothingness or suchness is the essence of every appearance, appearing in Infinite Impersonal Being. Form(or appearance) is Nothingness, Nothingness is appearance/form. The same "stuff/non-stuff". Realizing this beyond a doubt is Enlightenment, expressing and stabilizing these awakened impersonal states in daily life is the path that follows after it. Infinite Being lives itself, the universe "universes", without any contraction into a centre of perception and its lenses and filter-illusions. Consciousness OF a woman, OF a man, OF a human, OF an alien... any consciousness OF or more radically, any consciousness OF anything, be it self-reflective or not, is like a show of states (appearance/form/temporary/not really existing but just appearing) rollling "before" the impersonal Awareness of True Being. Which is pure Impersonal Awareness, unaware of itself if nothing arises, but with potential for sentience. Infinite Being. And which is Nothingness if nothing arises/appears. The consciousness OF something (man/woman/alien) is wave surfing on the ocean of Infinite Being, stabilizing living from the impersonal nondual awakened states where this Infinite Reality if Infinite Being is obvious (and "living itself") is dropping into the Infinite Ocean and becoming it fully. And afterwards, one can still do wavesurfing, or consciousness-OF-x exploration. And rumour has it that wave surfing the Infinite Ocean can become quite tiring & stressfull & and a bit less than relaxed if done for too long by a separate-self-contraction. And at some point when one doesn't want continue surfing ever new waves (of which there exists an Infinity of, forever and ever to be explored by God "itself") the dropping & dissolving & and fully BEing the ocean can happen. But wave surfing is all fine and well as long as it is fun... Selling neoprene suits so that the dropping into the ocean feels comfy for all tired wave-surfers by the River

Exactly. Heroine is a foretaste of these states where the self-contraction is totally obliterated. Unearned bliss. That is what makes it so dangerous. Luckily, psychedelics are not that dangerous, and can be even non-addictive by boosting consciousness. Yet, certain similiarities in possibilities of bypassing are hard to ignore.

No, not human logic. Basic laws of duality when Infinite Being splits itself apart and plays hide & seek and return to the source. How do I know that? Well, there are Awakened states where that is blatantly obvious what separate-self arisings that hide/cloud True Being are (separation= a spectrum of evil, from very mild to very very dark), and how they they literally contract the original Infinite Blissfull Being just with their arising into duality and separation. And contraction IS suffering, it is directly realized and felt that way, a cluster of sensations and contractions assembling a localization and center, most often in the head. And if one is able to cut them off fast enough, the Infinite Field returns to its original state: infinite and groundless and nondual without a center again. And full of love and bliss. True Being is boundless infinite Nonduality and (your much absolutized) Infinite L-O-V-E. Sat-Chit-Ananda. and anywhere were that Awakening and love (when the clouds of ignorance is removed) is not and where it is clouded by separation, there is just necessarily suffering (in cycles and various degrees) and the self-contraction. It is totally obvious and infinite/absolute that it is a no-brainer. And that realization my friend, that is absolute. There is no realm where that is not the case, because you know, Infinite True Being. Nothing outside of It.Either nondual and infinite and mere appearance and love, or duality and out-thereness, and fear. Somebody ought to make a youtube-viedeo about it. “Reality unfolds like a fractal divisions within divisions reunions within reunions. Consciousness polarizes and depolarizes it expands and it contracts back it diverges that it reckon verges and it keeps doing this forever eternally and that is the dance of consciousness or Infinite Mind” Aha. And now lets think that to the very end. And again, I am not talking about animals, nor rocks or bacteria. But higher level beings and their evolutionary lines, starting on a certain level of complexity. A molecule can not be evil, but the game of Karma/souls and return to the source starts at beings/perspectives with some level of self-awareness. But thanks for commenting, I understand you and your behaviour a bit better now. I assume you think that something like a (relative, just appearing, but appearing nontheless) soul "storing" in a higher dimension all this self-contraction or openess/love, and other lessons and the impact it had (on others, and oneself), from life to life, doesn't really exist, even in a relative way. Or is subordinate to hey, its all imagined anyway. Which is true, but forgets the power that suffering and/or love still holds for a separate being to either be awakened in sobre states or not. Including you my friend. I have a bit the feeling that you believe yourself to be a bit above the game of cause and consequences, or in other words Karma. You still are not telling why you stopped doing psychedelics and what happened, and write more about crocodiles. If you don't just want to escape via psychedelics (spiritual bypassing) and want to find genuine happiness and sobre Awakening in daily life, I wouldn't consider myself (or my relative being) to be in any way above this game of cause and effect. How about this view? "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 If newbies take over this way of thinking (like lets go into a haunted house and try some DMT to meet something really evil, or blow up your relative life & values and just do spiritual/psychedelic bypassing, and I don't know what other less-than-smart-irresponsible stuff)... all these a bit less than funny posts in your forum where people somehow go for spiritual bypassing, although you write in places that is a no no?) and follow their idol, and then wreak their lifes... Ever considered its actually YOU in just another form suffering that? Literally You? Not metaphorically, not only true in some way out psychedelic states, but literally, all the time, just Absolutely True. Is that intuition and resulting love and compassion still so far away from your sobre life? You think that Infinite Intelligence will not give you some "less-than-positive-credit-points" on your Karma-Bill for just letting that happen? Where are your clarifying comments when a 20 year old again writes some irresponsible stuff that anybody with some more life-experience will see will f*** u* their lives? And what does Infinite Intelligence have in stock to finally correct such tendencies? Crocodiles. But is that really necessary? Although the law of cause and effect and the crocodiles are just imagined, their imagined bite creates very painful imagined sensations. As we are all probably quite aware of. Ok, that was the sermon for the sunday at the imagined church of Selling basic cause & effect by the River

Yes. Its just one Infinite Reality. A Multiverse of Dimensions, Infinity on Infinity. Dense realms like our physical universe, less dense and more subtle realms, multidimensional in all directions and realms. Two more fascinating sources: Spangler,Subtle Worlds: An Explorer’s Field Notes Spangler, Apprenticed To Spirit: The Education of a Soul And of course Jürgen Ziewe, book and homepage: https://www.multidimensionalman.com/Multidimensional-Man/Model_of_the_Multidimensional_Universe.html When ET & Angels and Demons find easily their proper places in an integral worldview with sufficiently vast enough scope & size to cover each and any juicy and fascinating topic between heaven and earth , one can relax and turn oneself to the real important topics (and not get fascincated & hypnotized by side-shows, aka traps), and get rid of the self-contraction and realize True Infinite Being. Somebody once should make a youtube-video warning about such traps And having done all of that, a balanced and integrated life in the sweet valley, having come down from the lonely mountain, awaits... Selling Water by the River already smells the scent of the gardens... Yet, some have fallen in love with ET way up the mountain. Maybe it is even a Yeti? Also hard to catch on camera. Oh well. Unicuique sua. Sorry, as german a no go to write. Selling the sweet valley after climbing the mountain summit, on wich some even claim there is the market places of the 10th ox picture to be found, right next to the River

Suffering in cycles is the force that pulls all beings and souls back to the source. Even the demon. The more separation/duality/split off from the Source is experienced, the more suffering happens, and the more evil arises as coping mechanism. If love is not available, evil acts as coping mechanism. And only huge suffering forces the demon back on its path, away from separation and evil towards the other path, returning to the source/love. Ever heard of hell-realms/dimensions, full of evil? Thousands of NDE and OBE reports exists of these, throughout all ages&cultures. Anything split off from True Infinite Being as apparently separate being (illusion) suffers in cycles. That is totally obvious in certain Awakened states. Where there is not THAT, there is only suffering in cycles. Anything but impersonal nondual Enlightenment with the self-contraction of the separate-self gone suffers. Not all the time, but in cycles. Only in these realizations/awakened states of Infinite Impersonal Consciousness is the love of True Being flowing fully and unrestricted, and that finally lets the separate-self-contraction drown in oblivion. Interesting that you are not aware of that, not even conceptually. Evil is separation and splitting off from the source, and compensating and coping for that in extreme cases with evil behaviour, and love is the opposite force, which pulls all beings back. Reality "breaks" evil with suffering. And huge evil = huge suffering necessary. What do you think hell realms NDE/OBEs are? That is spirits way of nobody gets left behind... PS: I am not talking about animals here, but more complex beings. Like humans/demons and so on... Selling basic spiritual compass/intuition by the River

How refreshing. Until now, mostly agnostics, sceptics, and of course the holy inquisition of the church of psychedelic-summum-bonum showed up for our poor chap Selling Water by the River and his annoying and futile selling attempts. Doing his lonely gig by the river mostly in vain, although admittedly smiling in amazement & benevolently on the whole show of the many ways the waves in the River can deny being the River (and needing to dissolve certain -um- substances to realize their wetness, only to later play&feel not-being-water-and-the-River), and go instead surfing for the highest infinitely consciousness wave. Rumours have it that even similiarties to certain rodents with membership to a certain congregation-of-faith were observed. So it seems many of them are a bit less-than-fond of using Selling Water by the River propagated frog-mixers for chopping the separate-self-contraction in real-time for good. Which of course is a bit unfortunate, because if some of the real ugly crocodiles of life bite, I assume the 16th Karmapas final performance was more comfortable & loving than the ususal patterns of the demise of the separate-self (-illusion). https://dakinitranslations.com/2021/11/05/running-into-the-vast-space-of-miraculous-love-account-of-16th-karmapas-extraordinary-conduct-during-sickness-and-paranirvana-1981-and-showe/ Selling Water by the River (not opposed to imagined company of aficionados of the same profession, since the River is wide with infinite water and an amazing dream-game of an infinity of imagined beings-to-save customers is going on)

If there is only Your True Infinite Being, what is there not to love? There is no other. The only "thing" not loving is the self-contraction called ego or separate-self-Gestalt. That self-contraction hindering the flow of love can be switched off a lot by 10g dried shrooms, quite sufficiently to give a foretaste (I know, but wait and see...) to what happens when the flood-gates of the self-contraction become disassembled structurally, or thrown into the mixer. Then, the River can flow unconstricted by the self-contraction called ego, or separate-self. Which kills any remaining separate-self-contraction even further. https://beezone.com/1main_shelf/self_contraction_04_05_06.html separate self= self-contraction= ego (large parts of it) = separation= fear = not nondual = not awakened = not love psychedelic = temporary off-switch of that self-contraction. Ok, Water by the River admits that this is not really a new discovery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccidānanda Some guys had that insight already 2 millenia ago already, so it appears Water by the River is dishing out old wine in new bottles. But it seems, eternal unchanging Being implies handing out old wine in new bottles every generation... Selling River = love by the River

More or less consciousness means just more content/appearance/manifestation/understanding of that appearing within Infinite Reality/Being. Infinite Awareness/Being keeps its same nature/essence at all times. There is nothing that could change, or be higher or lower. Everything higher or lower or more or less "consciousness" belongs, by definition, to the realm of manifestation/change/dream. All manifestations change, there is nothing constant in the realm of the dream/manifestation... just "one thing" is constant, which is not a thing, but eternal Infinite Being. And since all manifestations/appearances change, they are not really real, nor higher or lower or whatever. They just appear to be so. Infinite Consciousness/Infinite Awareness/Infinite Being/True Being/True You(!) at the end is a singularity, containing it all in its infinite Being without an outside. In-finite = not finite. Meaning one can't measure it, or compare it to anything else, since it is... not finite. Infinity on the other side is just endless manifestation, endless, a mathematical concept or mathematical object: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity "At the end of the 19th century, Georg Cantor enlarged the mathematical study of infinity by studying infinite sets and infinite numbers, showing that they can be of various sizes.[1][3] For example, if a line is viewed as the set of all of its points, their infinite number (i.e., the cardinality of the line) is larger than the number of integers.[4] In this usage, infinity is a mathematical concept, and infinite mathematical objects can be studied, manipulated, and used just like any other mathematical object." Of which there are differently large infinities. With emphasize on object. Mathematical object. Aka appearance, aka manifestation, aka dream stuff. The true subject, Absolute Infinite Being, can be without any appearance/levels of consciousness/whatever. That is Nirvikalpa Samadhi, or cessation, deep sleep. Which gives a nice reality check on the "reality" of these "levels of consciousness/levels of manifestation/appearances": Dream stuff. And that is why these states are so valueable in understanding what is truly real, or eternal. Or always here True Being. The Absolute, Infinite Being, has no levels. It contains all "levels of consciousness". Having somebody talking about levels when it comes to the Absolute (not when it comes to Manifestation) is a sure sign that the Singularity of True Nature/Being has not been realized, but that the elephant of Infinite Being is still interpreted conceptually by a separate-something still trying to make sense out of it instead of just dying, being seen through as nothing than an illusion appearing appearing within Infinite Being. But, I admit, levels of consciousness are easier for marketing than that which has no opposite, no levels, no outside, no inside. Playing that game is basically placing "human being part-time Alien + Awakening" higher than "Human + Enlightenment" in ones value system, and then wondering why one is still resisting/suffering what apears within ones True Being (which has not been realized). See the 2x2 matrix of Alien/Human and Awakening/Enlightenment in the link below. Each Awakening and/or Enlightenment has a surface structure (human/Alien) through which its deep structure gets interpreted and expressed (Enlightenment= realizing ones True Being, Awakening = understanding facets of the elephant, but never fully loosing the center of a separate-self and truly becoming Infinite Being/the elephant). But an enlightened human and enlightened Alien on the other side would realize the same True Infinite Being. And more or less details of manifestation, assuming the Alien has a higher perspective in Indras Net of manifestation/appearance/dream. Realizing the Absolute, there is nothing else, never could be, and it is in certain ways "game over". The rest is just play with the surfaces, or manifestations of the dream... Selling the same constant eternal Water/River of True Being with no higher and lower and center, and the higher&lower&human&alien waves on its surface expressing their essence (water) fully, partially, or not so much... PS: Short Summary of all above: Levels of consciousness = levels of manifestation/dream/understanding/Awakening to these, and Infinite Being = no levels, no levels of consciousness, realizing Infinite Being as ones True Nature, aka True Enlightenment. It contains all of these levels, by definition. One doesn't need to surf on a high wave (of consciousness) to realize that the ocean is wet and infinite and ones true Infinite Being. Surfing high waves of consciousness/perspectives(alien or human) is then just sports that is done for fun, or not. It is not so important, just a fun game to play. But it is never done to ease the suffering/grasping of a remaining separate-self-contraction frolicking in "alien" Awakenings to higher more facets of the elephant dream stuff.

Nobody claimed that enlightened beings don't continue in their habits/addictions, or shadows, or in some cases behave in questionable way. After Enlightenment, most beings continue with the habits they had before. Some don't give a damn about their bodily vehicle afterwards, depending on the culture/mind-set (see Ramana at the beginning). And yet, the most beautiful expression of Enlightenment is in an integral and compassionate expression, and that is what tends to happen mostly. I would recommend you to look up how Nisargadatta, the 16th Karmapa, or Ramana died of cancer. Sure there was bodily pain, incredible amounts of it especially in the case of Nisargadatta (throat cancer). And how they endured that ordeal without resistance or closing down their openness. But what they have in common is that the function of "resistance to what is/closing down because of the circumstances/ contracting/ or in other words psychological suffering" which are just other terms for self-contraction/separate-self, has been pretty much switched off transcended in drastic remarkable ways. The suffering that is meant is not freedom from feeling bodily pain, but not closing down and suffering/resisting that. I would recommend you to experience the presence of some enlightened beings, experience their being, state and radiance, and then make up your own mind. And the best option to truly find out if the claims hold: Set out on the path yourself, experience and realize what is being pointed to, and then you will know it for yourself why it is called Sat-Chit-Ananda. A cynical attitude on the outcome of the path is not exactly helpful for reaching the goal. Selling Water by the River

How do you know? Do you speak from personal experience? (sorry, heard that one somewhere before ). Or is it deduction from cases you think are enlightened and who still suffer? There is a path beyond Enlightenment to stabilize this freedom from suffering, but the tools to do that are given for the first time WITH Enlightenment (peak to plateau to permanent). And most "Enlighenments" are just Awakenings with remnants of separate-self hijacking the newfound Nonduality. And yet, the amount of bliss and release from the suffering of the self-contraction that resting in True Being (or Awakened infinite nondual timeless Awareness) brings, once it has become accessible, is astonishing. And that bliss and force of True Being has the potential to stabilize that in plateau to permanent. These statements of yours are in contradiction to roughly 2 millenia+ testaments of beings who have realized their True Being. Suffering is the "rubber band" that makes separate-selves return to their True Being. Hamster-wheels until the original condition is restored. Suffering is what guarantees that no being is lost in the illusion of separation forever. The longer one chases states/experiences/whatever, the longer the hamster-wheels spin. One could even say that the separate-self IS suffering/resistance/contraction (Adi Da called the ego self-contraction). Because one of its main essences IS the suffering/contraction/localization/resistance to what is. Suffering IS the ego IS the separation/separate-self. I can tell you from my own experience that it is felt exactly as that (self-contraction), which becomes obvious at some point on the path, as contractions in the head and body. When these contractions/solidities (mainly in the head at the end in my case) fully dissolve and drop, the boundless field of consciousness becomes infinite and truly nondual. It is such a relaxation of tension/contration/localization/constant-background-contraction/"baseline-suffering". It feels like vast-spaciousness, nondual, limitless, so free and open. Bliss itself. And honestly, every being not living from this obviously and inevitably suffers, is in the claws of the merciless self-contraction. This becomes then totally clear once one has experienced this dropping of the self-contraction, which then creates compassion. Which stabilizes (paradoxically) Awakening and Nonduality even further. That is the beginning of boundless vast Non-Duality (not yet Enlightenment), in which Awakened nondual Awareness ripens (Roger Thisdell stage 4 to stage 5) towards Enlightenment, or the full dropping of anything separate, truly becoming Infinite Being. Here the bliss starts flowing, and the path starts showing itself to itself. Fueled by the bliss of True Being, which already starts giving a powerful attractor point starting here. Selling the bliss of vast nondual limitless spaciousness at the River PS: And for the "trying" to dissolve suffering. Yes, trying doesn't work. The dissolving of suffering/self-contraction is the case once it happens. Until then, while trying, there is suffering.

uhum. ok. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicides_in_the_21st_century So lets look up all the people who had everything that mainstream-society sells as summum-bonum.... In other words, to be precise: No hamsterwheel-project left to distract themselves from their self-contraction/ego ... money, fame, friends, lovers, success, n+1, all tried and found to be useless/unsatifying in the end, and not interested or smart enough to be motivated to investigate ET n+1 et al.), and therefor got depressed and killed themselves? Seems like a loooong of pretty "succesful" "people" to to me... Selling a-path-to-transcendence-instead-of-the-hamsterwheel-de-jour by the River

Good points, and that resonates with me. One can realize what One is and what Reality is (Enlightenment), and that is final. If its not final, it was not the essence of it. Then you can have endless Awakenings in what You/True You can do (or imagine, or manifest as form). Endless, because what can be imagined and manifested is endless, Infinity upon Infinity. God herself is busy exploring that, having fun at that, and will never reach the end of it (see Cantors Set Theory, and Infinity of Infinities exist already in this universe. Which means nothing else that the larger Reality manifesting our universe is capable of an Infinity of Infinities, and therefor will never run out of realms to explore. I am absolutely not against that, its a wonderful thing to pursue the beauty of these Awakenings. But I just prefer to do that after realizing True Nature, because else it gets the usual ego-hamster-mill of pursuing experiences relieving the ego/self-contraction suffering. So its just a matter of what to do first, what to give priority before the other. Not either/or. It can even be done parallel, and normally happens this way (Awakenings/mystical experiences of all sorts before Enlightenment). Added bonus with realizing of what one really is (True You) and what Infinite Reality really is, its essence (Infinite Being and every possible appearing including ego/separate-self not happening out of it but expressed BY that Reality)... is a tremendous relief/liberation from suffering or resistance to what appears/is, and knowing what survives death (everything that is important), and what was before birth, and what can never not be there. Jesus did a good job of keeping Realization during torture (although he had a short lapse: father father why hast thou forsaken me). But of course he was Jesus. Let's put it this way: When getting tortured, better by pretty stable in Realization. On the other side, even if the self-contraction kicks in again during extreme pain, why is that so necessary? With an incarnation into physical reality, the reset button is pushed anyway for the vast majority of beings, and then hopefully their Karma brings them back. But all of that is relative show. True Being was never hurt, even if the incarnation forgets realization of True Being. And True Being has no moving parts, can never be damaged. This shift of perspective happens naturally when realizing what one is. Illusion off, illusion on, that is still on the relative level. The illusion of the separate-self never really existed (the rope was never a snake), but appeared to do say (the snake appeared and was seen). Maybe that perspective is helpful. Selling Water by the River

A very good and important topic to contemplate about. I also spent a long time with the topic of what causes actually Awakening, and its relationship to suffering. I tried to include as many past & present cases into my perspective on it as possible. On suffering in the context of Awakening, Enlightenment, the meditation path and my personal experiences (and my personal pet-theory of it all): -warning, the usual conceptual overkill of yours truly ahead- The following is my perspective based on what I have seen/read about other cases, and my own experiences. Without some form of suffering (or more precicly in Buddhist terma Dukha which means not suffering, but more unsatisfactoryness) nobody would ever start the path to Enlightenment/Awakening/Liberation/True Being, because one would be happy & satisfied doing the myriad of projects to become happy and free of suffering/unsatisfactoriness in our culture/time. Maslows pyramid up and down. What is not so well known: Even Maslow put towards the end of his life stage 6 on top of Maslows pyramid of need: (Self-)-Transcendence. So for the start of the "Enlightenment-project" (which is a contradiction in itself, but that is another story...) one needs either a) a mainstream-culture that pushes spiritual liberation/Awakening (and for our lifetimes, Maya goes "not today darling" on that topic, or b) some form of suffering or dukha (unsatisfactoriness) to start the journey. Then during the path to Awakening/Enlightenment/liberation, the old cycles of suffering/unsatisfactoriness don't stop at once. Here is how it developed for me, in a nutshell. The nature of the separate-self/ego to cycle between being happy for some time, then suffering/being unsatisfied/resisting what is/unhappy, then start a new project to make it happy, and round it goes. If God would write a manual to make a Samsara/Illusion game with (separate) self and others, it would go something like this: Give them some unsatisfaction and a carrot (expectation of happiness induced by a certain experience in the future), let them chase, then give them temporary happiness(=not resisting what is) and them make 'em suffer again. And given them lots of levels of carrots/games to chase and try out for permanent happiness. That is all that is needed to have a game with separate-self. The chasing goes from Maslows pyramid base stage 1 apparently up to chasing ETs n+1. Then, on an efficient path (my case Mahamudra/Dzogchen), the bliss of ones True Being (Awakenings to Nondual Awakened Awarenes) by cutting off the thought/feeling stream of the separate self in real time (also called meditation, if done correctly) starts flowing. At some point of my path (mainly Mahamudra&Dzogchen), I literally could start producing my bliss for example while meditating, walking, in meetings (at least some of them when I just could watch the show ) and so on... That normally starts after some years of meditation (on and off the pillow) when the vast spaciousness of boundless awareness starts showing up and the contractions in the head get literally relaxed. That impressed me pretty much. That bliss didn't hold with "hard" problems/really bad events in the beginning, but it started the become stronger and stronger, inducing more and more awakend nondual states of blissful silence. A positive feedback loop. More and more facets of True Being started to show up, see my last post on the remnants of separate self that need to be seen through. Creating more and more Awakening and bliss. At some point the shift can happen towards realizing what one really is/True Infinite Being, or Enlightenment. Since that normally implies a gradual transcendence path/process over several years that one has been fed each and any core-separte-self identity/suffering during the meditation by Maya in the years before, pretty much all of that stuff is transcended. Because Maya will "throw" anything at you that she has to keep the illusion going, and she has a lot. But it can jump to Enlightenment any time (Karma, aka genetics but I prefer Karma, more encompassing), induced by various events, often suffering, before that path/during it/at the end of it. For most it takes the whole path. The more gradual and longer the path, the more stable is the realization later. Yet, once having realized True Being, it is no longer in doubt. So, that was my experience, now comes my theory: Beings are karmically wired more or less fortunately/differently. Some wake up because their visual field conforms for some reasons (base state, Kundalini-Awakening, whatever) very well to the True Nature of things (mere appearance and not solid objects out there, Infinite field of awareness, boundless, timeless, always here, basically my last long post about a mindstream conforming to the enlightened mindstream. Or at least they have the potential for that shift to happen quickly. and their core-separate-self-identity-arisings are for some reason (Karma,...) easily seen through when contemplating&self-inquiring. For these beings (1) and (2) in place, some trigger can cause Enlightenment. Suffering-example: Tolle. Kundalini/Energetic: Ramana. Anamanda Ma, countless examples in history. Branch of that is shaktipat hitting a "fertile field". Then there are the normies, like yours truly, who need an either need a) an efficient practice (like Mahamudra/Dzogchen) first to induce awakened states, then get rid of all illusion/separate-self remnants, and then some good pointing out instruction of the real state of things (the properties of True Infinite Being, basically my last long post). quite some time/years needed to start inducing awakened awareness/mere nondual appearance of the visual field via meditation/trekchö/cutting off each and any thought-arising in more and more highspeed by looking into its (empty/consciousness) nature out of which thoughts/feelings are made. Until then of course also suffering in cycles. But getting "over the hump" towards bliss-inducing state happens here in the fastest and most efficient manner, as least in the opinion of yours truly. The beginning steps of that path are also concentration meditation, like in b) below. But quite refined ones, and not for too long before one shifts practice. Learning to produce ones own bliss with being in these awakened states. This way, gradually getting rid of large parts of suffering by slowly transcending the "sufferer", and replacing misery of the separate-self with the bliss of awakened states. and then, towards the end of the road (or if one is gifted/fortunate/lucky also in the middle of the path) the shift to realizing True Being and its immortality (or infinite-always here nature), and with that removing the final fear of "death" or disappearance. b) a practice that is less detailed and focuses more on brute-force willpower/push-through concentration meditation: Jhana, Zen, "sit and die before the wall" approaches that need to push with willpower through lots and lots of suffering. Here, we are again at lots and lots of suffering (at least at the beginning stages, but also all along the path from what I have seen), because Maya will throw everything she has at you to get you off the pillow/meditation, not that one wakes up and leaves the game prematurely... And now the second part of the post, why are the paths with less/minimized suffering not practiced more widely? As @Arthogaan has noticed correctly in the post below, and I had the exact same thoughts many times... Short answer to the question above: they are more complex and need more maintenance/coaching/understanding. So they are more difficult to teach & multiply & roll out, and normally need personal coaching. they have mostly been kept secret until recently because of the various dangers, like for example ego-inflation, nihilistic misuse-potential, or just plain and simple misunderstanding potential of complex practices, which leads to stagnation in the practice. Why do we have mainly enlightened ones who got lucky/were lucky with karma/genetics (see above), or from the paths 2b) Concentration meditation/Theravada/Zen? Because until recently the highly(!) sophisticated methods of Tibetan Buddhism like Mahamudra/Dzogchen/... (who have developed much more and way more sophisticated than for example Zen/Theravada which are very similiar to what was done in India 1000 to 2000 years ago (although I love these traditions very much) were not accessible at all. The Tibetans "concentrated" more on spirituality as a society, 1000 years of R&D of enlightened lineages and sometimes a large part of the adult population in the monastaries (~15%+). Head of state = Dalai Lama for a long time. Basically, main focus of that culture&society including government was Enlightenment. Of course there was also a lot of stupid things going on, like war between monasteries. But the overall development of buddhist meditation in that setting was unparalleled. Compared to that (sorry) Theravada and Zen sometimes feels a bit like "living fossils" (said in a joking way), although I like them very much and they do work quite robustly and produce fully enlightened ones. The Tibetan Teachings are very sophisticated and either need lots of focus on them (like reading the books of Brown 10-20 times and experimenting a lot), or a good and enlightened teacher explaining them and checking for understanding (which pretty much didn't exist until recently, all secret teachings are out, see books of Daniel Brown. "best of" collection of Menri Trizin, selected by Menri Trizin (probably those with which he achieved his own realization) to be translated by Brown). Another problem is they got a deeply cultural "lingo" and quite some hyperbole (the Tantric teachings of generation/completition stages and especially the lower Tantras). Quite hard to approach. So the only thing not published by Brown of these systems are some of the secret pointing out instructions for Enlightenment, although quite some are published, for example his Akrid book (Pith Instructions for A Khrid rDzogs Chen. Yet, reading that in parallel to Pointing out the Great Way is probably better than starting with that book alone). That system plus a bit Jac O'Keffee, Roger Thisdell, Massaro, Wolinsky for the final steps towards Realization (I wrote quite a lot about these), and some psychedelics for state-peak-previews... These elements I assume will be found in the Global Dharma of the future. Then some more aspects: Concentration Meditation Systems like Zen or Jhana/Theravada are quite robust: Don't need so much teaching/feedback during the process, are more brute-force and less complex. More robust, less efficient (in the meaning that one needs to push through suffering with meditation, and that they can be slower/less pleasant, and many meditators end in the many cul-de-sacs of the path where one can just stagnate if certain nuances are not understood. But done long &hard enough they work. Metaphor: The axe to cut down a tree. Doesnt need fuel & maintenance & sophisticated handling like a forst harvester.... which brings us to: The Forsest harvester to cut down the forst of Illusion: Mahamudra&Dzogchen&other Tibetan Buddhism techniques, see for example Daniel Browns books & videos: can work if done correctly/understood correctly/coached correctly in the fastest way possible by swiftly creating Awakened Nondual States most pleasant way possible (minimum amount of pushing through suffering on/off meditation pillow, taking the meditation off the pillow into daily life at the earliest possible point. avoiding pretty much all cul-de-sacs of the path where meditation practice can stagnate/level out if something is not done correctly, which means and end to the growth of Awakened Nondual States. Mostly they don't even appear then in first place, and one remains in the mericless claws of the separate-self-contraction/suffering. but are way more complex than the standard concentration meditation practice like Zen/Jhana. Pointing out the Great Way, Brown has hundreds of pages of descriptions of the various stages/steps and how the path develops through them. So many many things to potentially do wrong if something is understood incorrectly. Zen-Koan-meditation would just push through these errors if done long enough, but an incorrectly done Nonmeditation (done too early) or One Taste meditation goes nowhere and stagnates... Selling Water by the River