Search the Community

@Inliytened1 nonduality is true, but also you are human monkey that has needs, in that paradox we live our lives. If you believe you are God a little too much, you soon will become a spiritual narcissist and bypass mundane human stuff acting from a high horse, look up Bentinho Massaro, great example of this

@Jodistrict exactly, just a bunch of nonduality nerds

I’m trying to understand an experience I had that I interpreted as a possible awakening or mystical opening, but unlike the peaceful or blissful awakening experiences I often hear about, mine eventually became extremely frightening. I had been studying spirituality, nonduality, and consciousness for around five years, so I had a substantial theoretical background before this happened. I was already familiar with ideas like ego death, surrender, the illusion of separation, and the possibility that consciousness is fundamental. Then I went through a period where reality started feeling radically different. Perception became extremely vivid and unusual. Ordinary things could look strange or almost unreal, and I experienced an intense sense of love and unity. I also became deeply focused on another person, whom I experienced as the Beloved or as somehow representing Reality itself. At one point, it felt as though I was getting extraordinarily close to something fundamental. The usual sense of separation seemed to be dissolving. But then fear became overwhelming. I began to feel almost like prey being hunted, as though something was coming after me. It felt almost like I was approaching a point where the self itself would disappear. Instead of surrendering, I retreated. In the metaphor I've been using since then, it felt like a moth approaching a flame: the moth is drawn toward the flame, but eventually realizes that getting too close may mean its own destruction, so it flies away. Why do some awakening experiences seem profoundly peaceful while others become terrifying?

That’s right I can’t stop talking with a passion about this stuff, I just can’t stop, I enjoy talking about this stuff, and will probably do so until I take my last breath. For clarity, I can’t stop talking about nonduality. l love the subject topic with a passion.

@cetusyeah that makes sense to me, the version of nonduality that Bernardo Kastrup and other rational-spiritualists where after death you just merge with the whole with no individuality left wasn't very intellectually or emotionally satisfying to me. I think in an interview Bernardo was asked about death and he said he pictures it being like a sensory deprivation tank. But I don't think the data (NDEs, past life memories, out of body experiences) supports that.

They can. In fact, they work quite well for many tasks without a world model, especially the ones involving symbol manipulation such as code and parts of math like algebra. But the gap still exists from the intelligence humans exhibit in that humans have an internal physical model of how the world works and they use it to make internal simulations and take actions (planning). When I lift a glass full of water, I have an internal model that predicts how the water will flow depending on the movements I make. I can even visualize it in my mind's eye (prediction). This prediction is continuous, and it captures nuances missed if we were to use only language to model it. If LLMs don't have this internal world model, they can only plan in token space — fragments of language — a representation that fails to capture the nuances of real world. Even if you say LLMs learn an implicit world model from text, it's still a text-learned model. Nonduality points that language carves the world into discrete categories, reality doesn't respect those cuts, and a text-learned world model inherits the cuts.

There isn't a right or wrong path......every path is neutral.....that's what the meaning of nonduality is trying to point out. Every path can't be known? Its freedom from that psychological belief that something needs to happen in order for THIS to already be the Grand Finallie. THIS is already home base.

@Emerald I agree that there are many spiritual bullshiters on this forum, that is why I never open a topic in the spiritual niche on this forum, because you just get nonduality psychos argue everything as unimportant and the only important thing is that everything is one. Aka spirtiual bullshiters or spiritual bypassing, ignoring everything worldly. I appreciate you saying what you find attractive in a men, but also we will give our opinion on that. I think I am attractive, but I still have many nice guy stupid habits, every guy does this, they open the conversation and ask all the stupid questions, I do this too and it is so hard to unlearn, so many mistakes that are able to be avoided. Actually 90% of what I am working on around game right now is talking allot with many girls and trying to ask no questions in the first 2 mins, speaking loudly and being able to free flow more without letting the nerves make you end a conversation prematurely. Also if I can joke in the beginning of the conversation, I already know I am doing very well.

Thanks for letting us know. There’s no such thing as nonduality. From belief to clarity. 👍

A nonduality teacher can never teach another person what’s being spoken. They’ll have nothing to give you. There’s no teacher, only speaking, only the message, only the listening and only the hearing of the message. Only when the message is heard with absolute clarity is the message listened to, heard. People either hear the message or they don’t, no other person can be your listening or hearing. Only you. From the moment pure clarity is heard…there’s no more teacher or student, or message. There’s just you and you alone.

Angelo Dillulo is a popular nonduality teacher on youtube. The video critic is a former monk. One of the subjects discussed is the monetization of spirituality and the wider culture of modern non-duality.

It’s the traditional method. It’s the same with the Vedanta Society. When you are initiated you will be given a mantra with no talk of nonduality even though Vedanta is nondual. That is because in the traditonal way, purification most come before self realization. You have to quiet the mind before you can make meaningful progress in meditation. In my opinion, the traditionalists are correct. Westerners cherry pick and want the cherries without doing any work.

From what I understand, he is saying the telos of reality is directly intertwined with its complexity. Without nested order, you cannot have evolution. Evolution happens within one's own life, and as a species, so if you believe the relative is a microcosm of the absolute then ontological and spiritual evolution becomes a necessity. If one believes the unifying substance or substrate of reality is some form of matter, then I can see how one would come to the conclusion that evolution is purely a precipitate of biology. What nonduality doesn't fully articulate is that the universe has to be structured in a way that is top down, and bottom up, at the same time. This is how order and complexity are tied to telos.

To be fair , my understanding of what is so called standard nonduality is primarily influenced by actualized.org, so maybe I'm taking some things for granted that a lot of practioners don't .

That sounds like standard nonduality 👀.

Wouldn't meditation under anti-psychotic medication be perfect for you? It stops you from relapsing into another psychotic outbreak while still being able to integrate your psyche and explore nonduality. Just stop doing crazy shit like running naked into the street. It's just bad gameplay. Think of yourself as God playing a human video game chracter. If you fuck up your human's life you are fucked, doesn't matter if your ultimate self is not affected in the grand schemes of things. If you meditate under anti-psychosis you will probably still experience a sort of mini psychosis because ultimately the experience is not caused by chemicals going haywire in your brain; it's due to awakening. Just integrate the lessons sober before you go hardcore into meditation. Someone completely sober can induce psychosis in themselves just by what they think about. Just be careful of having already figured out grounding mechanisms before you start to engage in spiritual practice. It sounds silly but masturbating is one of my mechanisms. As long as you do it privately it will ground you because it will reinforce the paradigm that we are currently operating under i.e. we are both human males and woman are sexy and you wanna fuck them. If you deconstruct it further then you can realize that women are just a figment of your greatest self but that doesn't really matter since it's a great part of reality and you should accept that boundary to remain a sane human being able to function in reality.

I'll be honest, it's still hard for me to understand how God realization is different from traditional nonduality, maybe I haven't tripped enough (then again Leo also says to not trip much in your 20s sooo....). By traditional nonduality I mean Advaita Vedanta , not Buddhism, although plenty of Buddhists said Advaita things , like Huang Po and Bankei who said all was mind. But what I will say is, Leo excels in the realms of developmental psychology and conscious politics, that's something the traditions don't have.

First of all, nonduality is a relative quality/perspective, not Absolute Truth (which includes and transcends both duality and nonduality). Secondly, relative opposites never dissappear. They just become integrated, and thereby transcended. That's the beauty of Reality. It accommodates and allows absolutely everything, because it is absolutely everything. ☯️

Duality and nonduality are two sides of the same coin.

Illusion. This is one of those words which are being thrown around in spiritual circles like they're confetti, and yet very few people seem to understand what the word actually refers to. So, let's analyze the confetti so that we can see it for what it really is(n't). Here's what an illusion is NOT: It's not something that isn't real. It's not something that doesn't exist. It's not a hallucination that is being "dreamed up" by some mysterious invisible being. Here's what an illusion IS: It is an incomplete perception (which is a tautology, since all perception is necessarily incomplete). It is a relative perspective (as opposed to absolute truth). It is a part of reality (as opposed to ALL of reality). Here's an analogy: When we see a magician standing on a stage and performing a magic trick, why do we call that magic trick an illusion? Is it because there is no magician, no white rabbit and no hat that the rabbit is being pulled out of? NOPE. We call it an illusion because we are only seeing part of what is actually happening; we see a real magician pulling a real rabbit out of a real hat, but what we don't see is all of the stuff that is going on behind the scenes - all of the things that have been carefully hidden from our view so that we can be amazed and surprised by the things that we do see happening on stage; and since we are missing the full picture, it appears to us like magic. Does this mean that the illusion is "bad"? No, it doesn't. Not only is the existence of illusions not bad, but in fact it is a necessary condition for reality being able to experience/be aware of itself, since reality can only ever be partially perceived and experienced, but never as a 100% complete whole. No illusions = no experience of reality. Here are examples of things that are illusions: The black letters appearing on a white screen that you are seeing now are an illusion. The thought "those black letters appearing on a white screen are just an illusion" is an illusion. The notion that there is something rather than nothing is an illusion. The notion that there is nothing rather than something is an illusion. The notion that reality is physical is an illusion. The notion that reality is a dream is an illusion. The notion that you are human is an illusion. The notion that you are not human is an illusion. The notion that you are consciousness is an illusion. The notion that you are not consciousness is an illusion. Duality is an illusion. Nonduality is an illusion. Oneness is an illusion. Multiplicity is an illusion. Solipsism is an illusion. Time is an illusion. Timelessness is an illusion. Form is an illusion. Formlessness is an illusion. Free will is an illusion. No free will is an illusion. Meaning is an illusion. Meaninglessness is an illusion. Self is an illusion. No-self is an illusion. Anything that can be perceived, experienced and be expressed with words is an illusion. Again: An illusion is NOT something that doesn't exist. An illusion is a part of reality that "stands out" (in your awareness) from the rest of reality. So not only do illusions exist, but as a matter of fact, ILLUSIONS ARE THE ONLY THING(S) THAT EXIST. That which does not exist - which doesn't "stand out" - is the Absolute, which is no-thing aka. everything. --- All of what you just read is an illusion (-> a relative perspective). And all of what you are going to reply will also be an illusion. Now, are you going to cling to one illusion and reject the other, or are you going to be aware of that which holds, encompasses, expresses itself as and transcends all illusions? Your choice.

He is both a genius and a creepy loser. Nonduality. Yin-yang.

It is timeless. Its the same message you've been hearing your whole life except its wrapped up in a great, entertaining movie. Just like the word awakening is. Or enlightenment, God realization, nonduality, buddha nature, christ consciousness, gnosis, the list goes on forever. To borrow from The Matrix again here, you can only be shown the door - you're the one that has to walk through it. If you haven't experienced 'Know Thyself' then to you its just a story - a pointer. If you do Know Thyself then you lost any angst over pointers such as God and/or solipsism.

The ancient scriptures are actually deep expressions of the human condition. But they get turned into fomulas for the masses and become mechanical. I find the rantings of some fundamentalist christians similar in its shallowness to nonduality blabber. We aren't improving.

What does any of that have to do with the discussion? I’m talking to a stranger on the internet about deep philosophical questions. I’m not interested in your personal life..your biography or whatever else you think is relevant. I’m interested in the discussion we’re actually having. If you’re busy with the three boy's birthday party then don’t post today . The bolded part is where you seem to completely miss the point: “thoughts and apparent answers “matter. They matter because we are trying to investigate something. If your response to every attempt at investigation is “there is no self..nothing is happening.. bla bla bla” then congratulations ..you’ve successfully turned a potentially interesting philosophical discussion between two human beings into a discussion between a human and a robot. You’re one of the most closed-minded people I’ve encountered in this community. Not because you hold a particular position..but because you seem almost incapable of stepping outside that position to actually examine anything else. Everything gets filtered through the same Jim Newman-style template. Ask a question? “There is no one asking.” Raise a possibility? “There is no one to understand it.” Explore an implication? “Bla bla bla.” Challenge the premise? Repeat the premise even louder. And the funniest part is that you seem genuinely afraid of engaging with these questions in an open-minded way. What exactly are you worried about? If the position is genuinely beyond question..then questioning it should cause absolutely no threat to it. But apparently even entertaining another perspective is dangerous territory for you . I understand the whole neo advaitan uncompromising nonduality position. I really do. The message is essentially that there is no separate self..nothing to attain..nothing to become and ultimately no meaningful message being delivered. Fine. That’s internally coherent on its own terms. And for some people..that radical perspective may be liberating or point toward a profound inner peace. And it is like that for me as well . Pretty interesting stuff . But here’s the part you seem unable or unwillingto grasp ..That doesn’t make it the only legitimate way of investigating reality. Some people are interested in going further into questions about consciousness ..subjectivity..perception.existence..thought experience.. how to integrate modern science with traditional religion and with esoteric spirituality.. because we need the three in our lives not just one . We don’t live on bread alone . We are not just some biological animals who want to eat drink piss shit fuck reproduce shower sleep and die . And yes I’m aware of the standard disclaimer: the message is meaningless..there are no promises,..there is nothing to understandetc. Wonderful. Then let’s stop pretending that endlessly repeating those disclaimers constitutes philosophical investigation. If you genuinely believe the entire thing is beyond concepts and cannot be meaningfully discussed then by all means stop discussing it. But you see you keep logging in into the forum and you keep discussing. if you’re going to participate in a philosophical discussion ..at least participate in the discussion. You don’t have to agree with me. You just have to demonstrate that you’re capable of thinking beyond the boundaries of the conclusion you’ve already decided is correct.Because “bla bla bla no self” isn’t an argument. It’s just autism .

Most teachings around spirituality are a bit the same. Basically `I AM` resting in that awareness, isness. You are God, that is the teaching, you are awareness itself, not the body, mind or ego. Although this is quite factual, in the sense that you are connected to God and that when you rest in awareness and be in your being state, that you access higher consciousness. That doesn´t mean now you have no human limitations anymore. The problem with the teachings as of now, is that it is an easy bypassing of all human things. Not just making money, what is an obvious one, but what I see in spiritual people I have been around that follow these teachings, is that everything is a sign, everything is connected, everything is one, everything is perfect, SO I don´t have to focus on this or that or sus or so. You don't have to work on that trauma, you don't have to work on your narcissistic or codependent tendencies, you don't have to focus on improving your communication or relationships. You don´t have to focus on making money, cause its ego and your not the ego you are I AM. Yet God is not gonna make money for you, make you survive, that is all up to you as a human self, because even tho you ARE in reality not human, you still HAVE a human body, a human mind, a human ego to protect the mind and body. So the problem I see with the teachings around nonduality is that they create a sweet escape, but that some things in life shouldn´t be escaped, unless you want to escape life altogether and die, but that is not what I think most people want. So as long as you want to live in this body, you will have to acknowledge that you do have a mind, body, ego and that its going nowhere anytime soon. So we can care all the time if I come from ego or not, but that is a pointless game, cause you are coming from ego anyways, even when we think we don´t, the escapism towards nonduality in itself is ego, you think God, consciousness itself would care if you are enlightened or not? No only you care, because you don't want to suffer, you want to escape, you want to not deal with your problems. And if everything is already perfect, one, God, then what is the point of dealing with your problems, you have transcended them and your human life doesn't matter anyway, cause your God. See, that is how nonduality fools you, it makes your ego, human body and human mind things to be transcended instead of to work with. In fact, it will deem it as evil, but if it were truly evil, then we should all kill ourselves now. What I think is more evil is act like you're dead and just living in the "I AM" your now consciousness and then being unaware that you have a body, mind and ego. Then you get some type of God complex where you think no human limitations matter to you, you are above that petty game, you are now high conscious, you can just attract it, manifest what you want, you can just call upon angels or your higher self for anything you need. I AM NOT GONNA DO ANYTHING, the universe provides! Well, even if that La La Land story were true, you would still be stuck in this human vessel, you still have to go to the toilet, go do the dishes, get groceries, eat, sleep, repeat, all that human stuff. You think a God makes grocery lists?? So I think its time for everyone, including me, to get off their high horse, just cause your having the capability to access higher consciousness, doesn't mean you are a walking, living God and that now with your newfound enlightenment you are invincible. You cannot even get to talk with a toothache, a small tiny tooth could trouble you all week and still you believe you are a walking living God? If you get sick, you have to go to the hospital to get help, you couldn't help yourself and you claim to be a God? No, we can access God, connect to God, be one with God, but if you truly wanted to be one with God all the time, in every moment, you should be dead as only a dead men is truly without ego, body and mind.