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@Nahm The foundation is what I am trying to say is literal nothingness. Everything exists there all at once by the mechanism outlined by Mason. From Nothing comes Everything I think... Things don't come and go because there's only one thing fundamentally where infinity resides. Which is this nothing/everything conglomerate. I heard someone verbalize a similar idea. That intuitively we BELIEVE we come out of reality into a dream and then into deep sleep. But they proposed it is the other way round, and deep sleep is in fact the natural state where we in fact always are and all things are. That seems correct. Why that deep sleep cannot be literal nothingness (which is literal everythingness at the same time, that is the catch) I'm not sure. I like the loose ends tied up if it in fact is that way. I have heard some other users discuss similar thoughts but I am not sure what religion or philosophy reflects such a thing. I don't know why it has to be consciousness and why consciousness cannot merely be one of the infinite things "it" is. That is, all things exist simultaneously from this source. Similar to neutral monism. NOT the same as it but similar. It is still possible to have mind prior to matter. And the underlying something is just "____". There's no term. Just a literal nothingness which is an everythingness.

You couldn't ever find it, only by inference. What is observer without observed? Some Buddhist traditions tie the two together for the reasoning that they are necessary as a pair (I may be wrong?). We can say for example that a rock is consciousness (as are landscapes in our dreams), but prior to relative experience, if we envision a universe of nothing but rocks, the observer is dormant as we would be in deep sleep or under general anaesthetic. But these things and this universe still exist. It seems more basic if awareness is a property OF the nothing, that can go into and out of "deep sleep". When there is experience it wakes up, when there is no experience it rests. That way there is no "what caused THAT to exist?" because it is a something, and people like somethings to have an explanation. Nothingness does not need an explanation for how it exists, because it doesn't. It ties up some things neatly. I like this theory presently but I am subject to change a lot (lol).

@Nahm Usually they say nothing then later are like "the nothing is consciousness", which isn't actually literal nothingness (since consciousness is something which exists). I am searching for total non-existence as fundamental. Infinite everythingness is rather the opposite of limitation I feel? Unlimited things it can be. To me it feels like nothing having to REMAIN as nothing would be a limit. Nothingness without limitation or boundary on the other hand can be anything as there's nothing stopping it from doing so, and no finite boundary to stop it from being infinite and as such then being everything?

Even ‘can be anything’ would be a limit. Yes, pretty much every religion. God = no thing, nothing, nothingness. But then likewise “necessitating infinite everything ness” is a self imposed limit. If there is a nothing, that is a duality. If not, there isn’t.

You can only get close to it. When duality stops existing, experience cannot occur. Consider a dream of a beach. The very moment you see the beach you are localized at some point within it, and there is an appearance of duality. If duality ceased, it would be impossible for you to see the beach at all because seeing is an experience, and experience creates experiencer and duality. When there is no appearance of duality there is only everythingness which = nothingness as above. That nothingness is the same state entered during general anaesthetic. We don't come "out of" nothingness and "go back" into it (there is nowhere to come out of or go to), we are all currently as we speak in a state of something like general anaesthetic. That is the ground, the foundation. We are always nothing, but something appears, and when that something appears duality appears and then it is possible for there to be an experience of something, and thus an experiencer. Who is looking through your eyes, hearing through your ears? The Absolute ("God") is. Not you AND God. Just God. You are an illusion, there's no such thing as a "you". There is only God. Where are your dead loved ones? Your dead loved ones are looking through your eyes. They are God, and so are "you". What you call "you" is merely something God experiences, God tastes with your tongue, feels your emotions, smells with your nose. God experiences your brain and hence your memories and body and so on. All of these things are inside of God and made of God... How could God possibly create something outside of itself or with anything but itself? There is no space so nowhere else to place anything. There is nothing else in existence so it can only craft something with itself. There is nothing else at all.

5 days straight during an online retreat with Shinzen Young alternating between his See Hear Feel vipassana technique/shikantaza/self inquiry. My concentration was so sharp I was watching the moment by moment flux of the phenomenological field expand and contract out of and back into literal nothingness. There was a palpability to the context out of which reality was arising and dying into moment by moment such that this context, this emptiness, was experienced to be more real than perception, even though it was no-thing, an actual void. Even when the self was manifesting, I saw with crystal clarity the perceptual aggregates that are typically knotted up and coagulated into the feeling of "me," but in this state, even this feeling of me was seen to be completely unreal, moment after moment after moment. Perception was experienced as almost being liquid, fluid, spacious, wave like, effervescent, contractive and expansive. And when perception is experienced with this degree of mindfulness, one's ego suddenly has no solidity whatsoever. It's like form became quicksand and all that was left was formlessness. It was magnitudes beyond anything I've experienced while on a psychedelic. The problem with psychedelics is that they're so energetically overloading this can have a scattering effect of the mind; the psychedelic is dragging the mind into the present moment, sometimes violently. Whereas with this degree of meditative absorption, there's a lightness, a clarity, a precision, a purity that I've yet to experience on psyches. However, it also felt like I integrated every psychedelic trip I'd had on that retreat. Now whenever I meditate, regardless of what technique, I pretty much enter into some sort of absorption state. These states in and of themselves are not "it." It's easy to see the illusion of self and world when in such an absorption state. Can we see the illusion of self and world while we're getting chewed out by our boss, while we're experiencing physical pain, while we're trying to hit on a girl, while we're driving, while we're meditating for absurdly long periods of time, etc.? There are many litmus tests to our degree of understanding besides the frequency or intensity of absorption during a comfortable practice period, I've come to realize. However, having a powerful, sustain, sober satori seems to be an important first step towards an authentic experiential embodiment of truth. Lately I seem to be hitting into the "white infinity" part without psychedelics and the fear of death has started spontaneously popping up during sober practice. I just assume death coming up as a theme during meditation means I'm doing something right.

I am strongly considering that reality including mind is not real and that everything is LITERAL nothingness. Literal nothingness necessitates everythingness by way of the nonexistence of limit and its infinite nature. Someone posted something here recently which I found paradigm shifting, in conjunction with a Spira and Leo video I saw.

Do you want my current pet theory? I believe you are making a mistake in the sense that you think you came OUT of nothingness and will go BACK INTO nothingness. I think in actual fact nothingness is where you are and reside right now. Whatever we cqll foundational reality, it would be impossible to come out of it... Consider: If there is nothing but one thing, there is nowhere "else" to place something so that something must be placed within itself. If there is nothing "else" then whatever exists must be made OF that thing. I am thinking nothingness is the realm of what we can call metaphorical God. Dormant consciousness? Or not even that. Perhaps true nothing. I give you this analogy: In a dream you may be inside a complex landscape and have a dream body and so on, and yet where you really are the entire time is lying in bed... Consider that where you reside now is like that dream, and where you really are this entire time is residing in nothingness.

Right, God isn't localized, but this particular dreamscape (our universe) is, and the eyes you said are imaginary are something localized within it. When eyes see, it is a localization. I am thinking that God can only experience this universe via imaginary eyes and imaginary bodies etc. This body or these eyes are not where God resides. It resides in nothingness. The imagination of a body and eyes is the somethingness through which experience can take place.

This seems right. I am curious still, though, what God-You experiences when it experiences Everythingness all at once. Is it not like the thing with the dream of a beach? If you are not localized within the beach it would be impossible to see any of it. God-You is not localized but is in all localized forms. Does God-You not simply permanently reside in nothingness? Only experiencing something when the localized forms manifest. Sort of like it exists in one place (nothingness) but projects itself into the dream, the somethingness. As the dreamer never leaves the bed during the entirety of the dream, God never leaves nothingness?

@RMQualtrough I feel the slightly more true statement would be to say non duality cannot be experienced by the ego (you). It's this "you" that seems to have mislead people. Since you are the Absolute and the relative experience, you as an imaginary human can experience what feels like downloading the insight after slipping in and out of a state of nothingness. But during these states of nothingness or formlessness you are still conscious/aware. YOU, the Absolute, God.

The only theory about reincarnation that I read and it seemed possible to me is that no one really reincarnates since we are all basically the same, what happens is that a being that exists is basically a form or an energetic pattern that delimits the being, nothingness ,what it is, or whatever you want to call it. when that pattern disappears in some way it remains in the general memory (if such a thing exists) and, with the tendency of existence to evolve, that pattern reappears, to continue evolving. this is as believable or incredible as anything else, but it sounds logical to me. It is not that you are going to reincarnate, since you are basically the existence, it is that your ego, or the energetic pattern , which has been evolving for a long time, will continue to do so. so here we are working for the evolution of ourselves

To me all you're saying sounds like one entity attempting to say that they know/understand the ultimate reality. Just another ego trip in my view tho! It seems like we are attempting to boil down reality into something really simple like this. And using words like nothing and everything which are pointers to things that cannot be experienced and hence everyone has a different projection when they are mentioned... All those projections not it.. But still we use the words.. To seem like we know, our idea of nothingness and everythingness cant be wrong.

@Dodo there's nothing wrong with duality. It's the only way 'nothing/everything' (the one thing there is) seems like 'something' (many things) at all. Just recognize that there's not difference between the two. 'Seeming like many things' IS 'the one thing there is'. Existence (seeming like somethingness, rather than nothingness/everything) depends on it.

@Mason Riggle I think the word possibilities kills the theory. It is better as just infinity, for the sole reason that something being possible doesn't mean it will happen. But if something is infinite it MUST be all those things or it wouldn't be infinite. Stick on nothingness is infinite IMO. I also like the term limitless and unlimited as used by you.

@Tim R Actually the solution that nothingness IS somethingness is satisfying to me. It's exactly the type of fucked up thing that can explain the illogical. We say matter appears in consciousness. In the same way, I am satisfied if somethingness appears in nothingness. I am satisfied if nothingness is the ground. If literally all things including consciousness spring forth from nothingness. I like that a lot. It seems right. The unlimited things from a hat... It seems right to me...

Nothingness is limitless... there are no limits to what it can do (be). Infinite possibilities.

Yeah I agree that it is limitless, limitless in what it can experience. What I dont really "agree" upon is that this nothingness can do stuff that is not an experience if you get me? For it to be it has to be an experience, now I mean existence,even if it just a void with no content etc. If you mean otherwise you postulate a nothingness (non existence) we are trying to get behind conciousness and then report back about it. Like materialism claiming there is objects outside of our experience that produces our experience but there is no way to proof it or to experience it. Experience is here and now always. It is a thing tk become concious of infinity, sure some say it is even not conciousness it is being, but I use the word interchangebly. Non being/being/nothing/everything/conciousness/awareness etc. Infinity is the best explanation but how is it possible to be anything without awareness?

Infinity (nothingness) is limitless.. it's without limits. 'Experience' is one of the things infinity can be, because it can be literally anything. Consider: if you had a bag, that contained infinite different objects... if you began pulling objects out of this bag, and you did it for an infinite amount of time, eventually, one of the objects you would pull out would be the reality being experienced now.

@tatsumaru Enlightenment isn't important to me or a goal at all, but I was interested by: "You are contemplating the difference between existence and non-existence and how they are related to each other, that's as dual as duality gets." Is total and literal absolute nothingness dual if existence doesn't exist to be part of it?

@tatsumaru I don't think this question or premise has anything to do with duality or nonduality whatsoever. If no conventional logic or answer is plausible for the question, then perhaps it is something crazy. Lol. Can existence be non-existent? That's impossible? But in nothingness there's no such thing as impossibility or logic... So it's just absolutely topsy turvy. All things all at once because there is neither logic nor impossibility. Consider all the wild things that could be when there are zero logical laws. Cause causes effect? That's logical. How about effect causing cause? How about nothing being something. Existence being non-existent. A possibility branch of a thing which loops back and creates the nothing. Non-existence REQUIRING existence. Maybe a person says paradoxes don't exist. Non-existence doesn't exist either so they're on the same plane and can gladly interact.

Nothing IS something. Nothing is happening rn. Don't go about it by logic or making yourself BELIEVE that nothingness is somewhere hiding within this something. You have to literally see in your direct experience that there is absolutely nothing happening. I personally got it by meditating on the question "How is oneness even?" after realizing that "There is only oneness" in my direct experience. We often make ourselves believe all these statements and think we got it. But then we get it logically and we think we truly got it. But nah, you have to literally feel it in your bones.

From another thread, I was pleased with this: "Perhaps everything IS nothing. Maybe there ISN'T a something outside of nothing. Maybe nothing IS everythingness. Maybe that's what nothingness literally is, infinity. Not even infinite consciousness (although that would be part of it), just infinite potentiality or something. Though I fear infinite potentiality might be wrong too, maybe that too is just part of it. Perhaps it is LITERALLY nothing and this is some utterly insane paradoxical thing... The paradox being that Nothingness IS Somethingness. Such insane paradoxical answers satisfy me the most because of the oddity of the fact of existence itself even being a thing to begin with. I don't think it could exist via normal logic." ... What do you think? Something being literal nothing (literally nothing at all) seems illogical, but if nothing exists neither does logic so that might not matter.

Total cessation of God with zero experience ever could not be possible, because of the nature of infinity. If something can exist it will and evidently experience can exist. Because of the nature of time, that also means that experience is always happening now because the passage of time is an illusion. So although inside spacetime we could cease to be localized beings, that cessation is reliant upon time. From outside time, eternity is a block (or point). So the experience you are having right now is permanent, eternal, and imprinted into that block of infinite time. It is always being experienced... The book is already written you are just flicking through the pages... The big bang happend and at that moment where was the observer? Are atoms able to observe anything? Perhaps consciousness is more useful as a moniker because it can lie dormant. I read before Sir Roger Penrose say that for a photon of light in a vacuum, it would subjectively experience infinite time immediately. Which sounds a lot like cessation (there is no experience of passed time just like two parts of a movie reel pasted together). They are made of what we are calling consciousness but experientially they are dormant in "cessation". That might be of some importance. Perhaps it is not so much that the thing can be dormant or cease to be, but it can be set up in such a way that experience cannot happen because there is no appearance of duality. There is no experience of no-experience just a time gap. In that time gap, the substance itself, perhaps that has gone nowhere. There is just a gap because there is nothing to experience. Perhaps to contradict millenia of spiritual teachings, the fundamental nature of reality isn't consciousness it is GOD. And consciousness is simply the property OF God. That God nothingness can exist when experience ceases, because it is the ground below consciousness. God being simply the most apt term, lest I call it literally "__". The question of "why is there something rather than nothing" is very enduring. Perhaps everything IS nothing. Maybe there ISN'T a something outside of nothing. Maybe nothing IS everythingness. Maybe that's what nothingness literally is, infinity. Not even infinite consciousness (although that would be part of it), just infinite potentiality or something. Though I fear infinite potentiality might be wrong too, maybe that too is just part of it. Perhaps it is LITERALLY nothing and this is some utterly insane paradoxical thing... The paradox being that Nothingness IS Somethingness. Such insane paradoxical answers satisfy me the most because of the oddity of the fact of existence itself even being a thing to begin with. I don't think it could exist via normal logic.

I have a question for you If the ground is nothingness aka no experience whatsoever, no observer, no conciousness, then what makes the nothingness become somethingness. How does it become experience? Try to imagine non existence, if its the ground, how can anything be? Then somehow something makes "non duality" become "duality" I dont think that this pure cessation has anything to do with any ground of existence at all, it is just another experience in a form of a "non experience" Like Leo says, there is also infinite conciousness which is very different from the nothingness of cessation. Which is the one that tells you more about the nature of reality? Perhaps neither, only that conciousness has an infinite range of knowing itself. Here is where buddhism and hinduism often clash, new age buddhism is making a biased claim in that cessation is the most important. To me it feels like a spiritual suicide since sone buddhists just say that the psycho-physical is all that there is, Aka atomists/materialists. If GOD is nothingness etc, why does it become this? Why does it seemingly produce an infinite variety of experiences objects subjects etc. Maybe our ordinarie waking conciousness is the ground of existence? Just a contemplation exercise. Either we are GOD which is eternal/immortal/infinite. But it does feel off that GOD could kill itself with a cessation "forever" it is obviously not the case, I think cessation is a good night sleep sorta thing.