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@Enlightenment yes, enlightenment is not an easy ordeal, its a process that takes time and patience. awakening to nonduality is the easy part, removing the delusional thorns from your subconcious is the hard part. look up shunryu zen master, he has work that talks about this.

@Nahm no problem. a person awake to nonduality shouldnt feel wrong about talking about progress, its a natural part of this life were living, and awakening to the beyond is something benefecial indeed and is tied to enlightenment but isnt full enlightenment for the mere fact that all youre life youve been putting memory after memory of fear driven delusion in your subconcious mind, and fear and nonduality are not congruent as a result, fear and the egoic paradigm it drives, dissolves in the face of true nonduality.

Thanks. I have to say though, that is a weird definition. If you inquire into the meaning behind it, you’ll arrive back at nonduality.

all that you described is awakening, NOT enlightenment. Enlightenment is a very real thing. enlightenment is when your limbic sytem catches up with the awakening and clears all subconcious fears and the attachments that try running away from. many people that just awoke to nonduality think that thats it, but they couldnt be farther from the truth, their reality will start to crumble because all their egoic paradigms will slowly be released, which can hurt. since fear is not synonomous with enlightenment, dont convince yourself your enlightened when youre not, youre just awakened to nonduality, there millions that are, but very few that are fully enlightened.

@Matt8800 as ive said in the post, psychedelics are good tools for awakenings but NOT full enlightenment. ive had my first nondual awakening through psychs and i thank their purpose in my path, but at a certain point once youve been stabilized in nonduality sober for many years, youll see that the subconcious need for psychedelic or mystical experiences is just another attachment to be dropped, extreme and fancy experiences will never get you to enlightenment, only give u a fancy awakening. but full enlightenment is a slow delicate process of your limbic system catching up with the awakening.

@Nahm awakening to nonduality is one thing, ive been in nonduality for 4 years without psychs (though awakened by psychs). and the process that your limbic system undergoes after the awakening is a whole nother thing. this is what seperates a zen master and a random dude on a forum who just convinces himself that he has no fear anymore because he just awoke to nonduality. one is humble enough to realize that his subconcious mind is going through a process of cleansing fear mechanisms, the other wants to hold on to the truth of nonduality and not look at the reality of the process.

@Aquarius ive said they are tools in the post, but im saying if youd like to advance in the spiritual path, you cannot be using psychedelics as a conductive tool anymore at a certain point, the mere subconcious need for mystical or cool experiences for it comes from attachment and thus underlying fear mechanisms, a person in nonduality has no need for a psychedelic experience and would in fact blunt the process that their system is going through. its a good tool as a starting spiritual tool like i said, as it helped me alot aswell, and it awoke me to nonduality, but psych experiences are perverted by many emotions that are amplified, and as humans we should be humble enough to realize that we have blindspots, and giving our blindspots an energetic amplifier is a bad idea, especially if you are on the path. but some tools are more conductive than others. would you use a fancy looking hammer to build your house or would you use a hammer thats most conductive to building the house? you can choose whatever hammer you want at the end of the day, but like i said, at a certain point in the path psychedelic use is not conductive for full enlightenment. and enlightenment is not a tool... tool for what exactly? enlightenment is the clearing of all fear mechanisms and their attachments, basically all of your ego, its not something your ego can take advantage of. some people mistake awakening as enlightenment when that couldnt be farther from the truth. enlightenment is when your limbic system catches up with your awakening, by clearing all subconcious energetic contractions. also your post makes alot of condescending assumptions/projections, i dont appreciate that.

@Recursoinominado tell a person with borderline personality disorder to surrender, not gonna happen so easily my friend, not everyone is on the same level playing field concerning their energetic contractions. sorry but seems like you havent had much experience with other peoples kundalini experiences, i had people get fucked over messing around with kundalini energy when they werent ready for it or just plain out not their right path. energetic manipulation is no funny bussiness, it can seriously wreck some peoples lives. should be taken with caution. alot of peoples energetic system cannot deal with this type of energy, you speak from your reference point alot but deny the fact that many people dont "surrender" as easily as you think. Ive been stable in nonduality for many years so i dont have to awaken my kundalini, and hate to burst your bubble but any emotional/mental formations within consciousness is considered ultimately delusional, including your communication with your "higher self" or your conception of god, and synchronisties, it is just another attachment to be dropped.

@Rilles @Rilles spira isnt fully enlightened, but is awake to nonduality, there is a difference really, he is in a deep nondual state though i believe. dont feel like talking about the difference tbh cuz i talked about it before in the thread, sorry for my laziness lol

@Esoteric Again, awakening to nonduality is not full enlightenment. ive been stabilized in nonduality for 4 years now, but your limbic system has to catch up to the awakening by clearing ALL fear mechanisms and the attachments that try to run away from it. only then and only then, can you be considered enlightened. before that you are just awake to nonduality, because there are still veils of delusion that cover your experience, which is incongruent to the nature of nonduality.

@Rilles pretty much sums it up haha. at a certain point in peoples path they realize the pointlessness of the subconcious chasing or want of mystical nondual experiences. you awake to nature, then your limbic system goes through a process which catches up with nature, thus harmonizes with the awakening and complete nonduality or enlightenment is realized.

during the early stages of awakening the ego can misinterpret nonduality and use it as an escape or be lazy or whatever subconcious egoic dream u have, due to lack of depth in the nondual experience itself. once awakened to nonduality, your limbic system goes through a process of uncontraction, and this process can be disrorienting because your ego is basically in a triggered-release cycle until all fear mechanisms and the attachments that resist and run away from those fears are completely absent from ur system, once thats happened, you are considered to be fully enlightened. i would say try reflecting on what you are trying to run away from, and then once that fear is exposed, then can clearly see its delusional (because you awoke to nonduality), dont try to escape or do anything though, just recognize the unreality of these fears and attachments. your energetic system will purge it out when its due. I suggest reading or watching sheng yen's videos on youtube, he has helpful videos concerning this process.

@Esoteric Yes, I am aware that psychedelics can be benefical for some people, but for a person who is undergoing the process of clearing out emotional bubbles, taking an energetic amplifier that amplifies your emotional bubbles (and also facets of consciousness and reality, such as nonduality) is a risky bussiness for someone who isnt seeking anymore and is just going through the process of enlightenment, since awakening to nonduality is one thing, which many gurus you know have done (many mistake this as enlightenment aswell) but full enlightenment which only occurs when your limbic system catches up with the awakening, is another thing. its a delicate process of releasing fear mechanisms and the attachments you use to battle them. so energetic amplifiers are dangerous in this regard because they make you more suggestible to your own egoic paradigms that you are blind to (the ones you are not blind to however, psychs can help in that regard, depending on if youre genuine or not). and if blindspots are amplified, your process to enlightenment is gonna be an unneccessarily bumpy ride.

@Esoteric I have never stated that its not relative. and yes i do agree with you about the benefits you stated, i stated them aswell in my post. ive used psychedelics for many times responsibly (and uresponsibily) and helped my path indeed, i never deny that. However, i have been in nonduality for over 4 years and at this point in my path, me taking a psychedelic is very pointless because for one; I dont feel the need to chase or experience nondual states anymore, or have a very wowzer mystical experience, since the subconcious need for it is just another attachment and fear mechanism that im clearing out anyway. i think anyone whos been stable in nonduality for a while knows that taking energetic amplifiers at their point in the path would blunt the limbic system process thats occuring after awakening to nonduality. awakening to nonduality is one thing, the process that occurs after in your limbic system which clears your fear mechanisms and the attachments that resist it, is another thing. and this process should be respected and taken with consideration, energetic amplifiers can make you see through some fear mechanisms, but humans have many blindspots, and you dont want a blindspot to be amplified so much so that its even a bigger blindspot now.

@Joseph Maynor awakening to nonduality is one thing, the process that your limbic system undergoes after the awakening is another thing. the process by which it clears fear mechanisms and the attachments that resist and run away from those fears, since fear is delusional to a person awoke to nonduality. many misunderstand that enlightenment comes with awakening, they couldnt be farther from the truth however, its only the mere start, full enlightenment is when your limbic system catches up with the awakening. I suggest reading or watching some of sheng yen's work, and also shun ryu, both are buddhist monk masters who have been stable in nonduality for many years, but they have the guts to admit that they arent fully enlightened yet, unlike many other gurus.

@Salvijus Like I said, psychedelics can awaken a person to nonduality, but awakening to nonduality is not full enlightenment. your energetic system which has a memory of fear mechanisms and attachments has to catch up to the awakening. only then can that be full enlightement. because how can you be truly nondual when fear mechanisms are still in your subconcious mind? a cleansing process of your limbic system has to take place for full enlightenment. Psychedelics, being energetic amplifiers by their nature, amplify your consciousness which can lead to nondual awakening and also other things such as dealing with trauma and having new perspectives, but they also amplify your emotional bubbles ALOT, and humans by nature have egoic blindspots, especially during psychedelic experiences because everything is just amplified to a ridiculous degree. All emotion and their thought patterns are based off of fear mechanisms in your subconious mind. when you awaken to nonduality, you realize fear is delusion, thus, the process of uncontracting your limbic system of fear mechanisms and the attachments that resist them, start to take place. Also, you shouldnt take any Guru's word just because he says hes enlightened. many gurus awoke to nonduality and stabilized for many years but they dont admit that they arent fully enlightened either, i mean, you can clearly see that sadghuru still plays egoic games such as arrogance and also you can see anxiety in him in some interviews, this does not indicate a fully enlightened man, although he is in a very deep nondual state i have to say, its just that he hasnt dealt with alot of his issues and him being a guru and being attached to that identity kind of stops him from seeing his issues. I have been in nonduality for 4 years, enlightenment is not instatenous, awakening is however. the veils that cover reality slowly uncover from your subconcious once awakened, only when they are fully gone can you consider yourself fully enlightened.

@Consilience I dont think you read my post if you think im being dogmatic. i already stated they have their benefits, but at a certain point in the path energetic amplifers are not conductive for enlightenment because they amplify the mere thing that everyone on the spiritual path is clearing, which is emotional bubbles which are all based off subconcious fear mechanisms. also, intense and profound experiences have nothing to do with real enlightenment, they can have their purposes in peoples paths though. this is why i say psychs experiences can have benefits such as awakening to nonduality and gives new perspectives (although with alot of amplified emotion which can delude you, and were human, so we have blindspots), doing spiritual work sober is much more conductive than psychedelic experiences, you deal with way less egoic blindspots this way, because psychs amplify emotion and their thought patterns so much so that its very easy to be suggestible to their realities. and the mysticalness and profoundness feelings of all psych experiences come from emotion.

@ivory awakening to nonduality is not full enlightenment. your energetic system which has a memory of fear mechanisms and attachments has to catch up to the awakening. only then can that be full enlightement. because how can you be truly nondual when fear mechanisms are still in your subconcious mind? a cleansing process of your limbic system has to take place for full enlightenment.

@Shakazulu i feel you. but a word of advice is to read up on the noble 8 fold path by the buddha. it used to seem like total bullshit and just running around to me when i first awoke, but i realized that its a pretty good system for having balance during this process of uncontraction. cuz this process can be pretty disorienting alot of the time due to the nature that we are so used to egoic consciousness and the mere fact that uncontraction means that we are gonna be feeling pain, alot. because attachment is pain, and when u release it its like you're releasing a thorn from your body, it will hurt, but progressively you will be so beat down that all of that stuff is gonna be gone, its like when a person goes through war, he has more resilience towards the pain and suffering of war, with enlightenment the process will eliminate every fear though, and even normal people are going through this process aswell but without their conscious awareness (and usually slower than people awakened to nonduality), life beats down our attachments again and again until we surrender the fight, and running away from fear.

@TheAvatarState I highly doubt it tbh. just the mere fact that we are humans and we have egoic blindspots is enough reason to be very careful with believing that psychs are perfect, because even though people dont really think that, i think many subconciously do. Like i said they have many benefits and they benefited me aswell, but at a certain point energetic amplifiers are not congruent to enlightenment, it just doesnt make any sense to me at my point in the path. anything that makes your emotional bubbles bigger is not enlightenment, enlightenment is the clearing of emotional bubbles, not just awakening to nonduality, awakening to nonduality is the start. but sadly, since many have these fancy nondual experiences on psychs, they think its enlightenment. if you think it takes you straight to enlightenment then are u saying you are stabilized in enlightenment or just with the psych experience? cuz if its just an experience of enlightenment then that doesnt do anything benefecial for me, i already awakened to nonduality, but my system is undergoing systemic changes which is clearing energetic contractions, and giving my system a psychedelic which amplifies bubble contractions is just a bad idea at my point, so this is why im saying psychedelics at a certain point would blunt your progress. has alotta benefits for people starting out for sure but people whove been stabilized in nonduality long enough i think can relate to what i am saying.

Based off of my experiences and a couple of my friends, i really do think that psychs as a conductive tool for spiritual work is mostly hype, and that actual full enlightenment can never come from a psychedelic, i think psychedelics can give you glimpse experiences though and thus awaken you to nonduality. Due to the fact that psychedelics are energetic amplifiers, its in their name aswell, psychedelic means "soul revealing" and as we know, a substance that amplifies your energetic system can have many benefits, such as dealing with trauma, having a new perspective, and even awakening to nonduality, but theres a difference between an awakening and actual enlightenment, awakening to nonduality is the mere start, a process of dissolving fear mechanisms and the attachments that resist and run away from them and its thought patterns, take place. this is why there is a big difference between a zen master and a dude who just awoke to nonduality. the main incongruency that i noticed between psychedelics and enlightenment is firstly, psychs amplify your emotional system thus the chance of you being stuck in your own ego created worlds is higher than if u were sober, especially if you have self esteem issues then take a psych, and all of a sudden you're having a messiah mania or perverting the truth of godhood to make you feel powerful. this only one example, but we all know psychs are big emotional amplifiers, and enlightenment is the process of dissolving (not numbing) your emotions and their underlying fear mechanisms, so i cannot really see psychs being a long term good tool for enlightenment, i can only see it as an awakening or perspective tool, but use it too often and it can make you live in your own bubble of delusions even moreso than normal people. fancy and extreme experiences isnt enlightenment if you ask me. also curious what @Leo Gura thinks, all feedback is appreciated though.

I think my problem and most likely something that others have encountered as well is that if you don't have a large variety of sources on this topic then it just becomes that much easier to fall into the trap of mistaking the map for the territory. At the time that I was building up my belief system about nonduality, subconsciously that is like I wasn't purposely trying to create beliefs about mysticism, but at that time I had maybe 3 other sources other than leo (Rupert Spira, Peter Ralston, and Alan Watts) and I've realized that this is a very small sample group and to avoid the trap of belief systems it helps to have at least 15 sources where you dive deep into all the different traditions and what all the enlightened masters of history have to say. Maybe diving into Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and other thoughts about mysticism from different religions rather than focusing on one religion or one person online like leo. It's all in the balance my friend. Agree, disagree, thoughts?

I agree. His content can help you get to a certain point, but there comes a time when you may realize that it is no longer adding the value that it once did and turns into your own personal belief system. And that's the crazy thing, the ego is so tricky because even though I've heard leo say about 100 times that the map is not the territory and that you shouldn't be creating beliefs about nonduality, for some reason this didn't resonate deep down in my mind and in retrospect I realized how much of a belief system I had and still have built up around nonduality. I think that the overall message is that consciousness work is very deeeeeeep, and if you want to go deep and have mystical experiences than there are so many ego traps, paradoxes and tricky mind manipulations that you have to become conscious of with brutal self honesty. Your thoughts?

@TeamBills I would almost characterize it as anti religious. A secular psychologist, Helen Schucman, starts spontaneously channeling Jesus Christ in the late 1960's utilizing modern terms such as ego, projection, dissociation,,,, With great reservations and the insistent encouragement from colleague Bill Thetford, they start organizing these notes and after 4 or 5 years, begin 'letting the cat out of the bag.' In this work, references are made to things in the Bible that are clarified or corrected. The idea of a judgmental God who sacrificed and scapegoated "his son" is stated as a perversion of truth. Also the idea of original sin and guilt is fallacy. The problem is separate sense of self (ego) with its repressed guilt and the resultant projections of this out onto others in the world. creede nailed it with his assessment of forgiveness. Although in ultimate reality, nondual reality, no such thing exists. But in duality, this act of an inner gesture is effective in opening one up to nonduality or the experience of Being as opposed to reality based on egoic internalized images.

Brian Josephson is a Nobel prize winning physicist (the Josephson effect is cool stuff: current flowing across a gap in superconductors, without any votage applied.) Turnes out, in the 70's he got into (the cult of?) transcendental meditation and from the viewpoint of mainstream science "went crazy". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson Currently, he's running something called Mind-matter unification project http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/ I haven't explored the content of the site yet (I will). It seems there has been other serious research by quantum physicists into the nature of paranormal phenomena. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_Fysiks_Group It doesn't seem though that any "paranormal" phenomena were confirmed, except for the (quite esotheric, but known ;)) quantum entanglement effects in the microscopic world, which lead to the current studies of quantum computing stuff. I would love to learn about the successes and failures of serious physicists investigating non-duality and/or paranormal phenomena. It seems to have been a thing for at least half a century now, with a peak in the 70's leading... nowhere? somewhere? Are there any comprehensive reviews of the field, or reviews of its history from people who understand both science and nonduality?