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Ok got it. Often in self inquiry, the very reality of the world is denied to such an extent that i wasnt sure where unifying the subminds--which sounds less metaphysical and more like psychological work--would fit in that picture. But I remember even you saying that this is where 90% of the work lies? Dont get me wrong, i am all about doing the self-inquiry all day long. It's just that i also need a coherent approach to practicalities of life, which often involve such conflicts as 'i want to do but for some reason i am not doing..' . Even Ramana always encouraged his listeners to continue with the household's life and not abandon their worldly duties. And sometimes it is hard to differentiate whether parts of me are just using nonduality as an excuse to further their very egoic agendas.

There is a memory, yet the breakthrough experiences are not like "my experience". There is an embodiment of the direct experience. It goes way beyond a memory. Imagine reaching the consciousness level of a 70 y.o. zen master. Or, a squirrel attaining the consciousness level of a human. It's really hard to explain in reasonable terms. On the other hand, lots of people don't respond well to psychedelics and they can take a person into all sorts of nutty bizarre places irrelevant to nonduality proper. You've got momentum with the self-inquiry. Ride it.

@SoonHei Careful, psychedelics are not necessarily identical to enlightenment. Psychedelics can take you into all sorts of wacky dimensions of consciousness. You have to distinguish those from nonduality proper.

I spent over 20yrs in meditation and buddhism and never got past the "witness + object" stage. The first ego death experiences came with a few solo psychedelic trips, which were so powerful that I took it to the next level by attending an Ayahuasca retreat with a tribe in Peru. It was really intense and beyond any description, yet it was non-abiding - what followed was a period of integration and gradual ego dissolution. Yet for me, the direct experience with ego death greatly accelerated the pace. Baseline consciousness level has increased with meditation, yoga, self inquiry and nonduality teachings. The nondual pyschedelic experiences opened up nondual experiences while sober. They can have anxiety/fear when the ego struggles for control. Yet, over time - they have become more common with less resistance. This is just one approach. There are many. It seems like winterknight's approach is resonating with you. If so, go with that. It just didn't get me over the hump until after a few psychedelic trips - then it started falling in place.

@Antonius 5mg increments sounds good too. If you're going to be experimenting with 5-MeO-DMT in the long term, you might want to think about investing in a quality scale like this American Weigh GeminiPRO - if you're careful with your technique you can take extremely accurate measurements with this scale and others in that quality range. Yeah you summed it up there pretty well there. I've definitely had personal, more grounded insights on 5-MeO-DMT that affected how I interact with the world, but on the whole, you've got the general pattern there: it dives straight into consciousness, nonduality pretty readily.

They are not different enlightenments but one and the same. "Soul" refers to a subtle aspect of the individualized self. That too is eventually transcended into pure nonduality regardless of which path you take. "Soul" is a technical term. It refers to subtle states of consciousness. Nondual is beyond even that. Transcendence goes: Gross >> Subtle >> Causal >> Nondual

Whooosh!!! I missed that part. @Cocolove I did an at-home "retreat" for a week last summer. I live alone, so there were no distractions. I structured time to include meditation, yoga, contemplative journaling, spiritual reading (e.g. the kriya yoga guidebook), spiritual nonduality video, self massage, breathing exercises, mindful cooking and eating and baths. I did not engage in social media. I checked my phone one time per day and I only responded to "necessary" texts (which turned out to be three texts during the week). It greatly relaxed my mind-body. My mind-body was as relaxed as if I was on a far away vacation in the Carribean. This not only allowed for awareness regarding how stressed and busy my mind-body was, yet the relaxation also allowed for integration of previous learnings/experience as well as for new insights to arise. I also get a break from school starting this Wednesday. I am planning to do another week long at home retreat.

Communicating nonduality with a dualistic language is hard. Thats why you have to look beyond the words and what they point to. Figure out what they are trying to get across instead of just taking the words at face value. Otherwise you'd be running in circles of contradictions.

The backstory I recently tripped again on 150ug of pure LSD-25. This is my first trip about 2-3 months after my last 600ug trip which went a bit awry from my normal perspective in life. I actually couldn't really remember it. I didn't even remember that I had a full-blown ego-death and resided in nondual awareness for what felt like a short lifetime. I've tripped on 150ug before and it was never like this time, because I had that breakthrough it's so much easier to go back into the ego-death experience now. And that happened again this time, and in tasting that again it brought back many memories of the 600ug trip. I actually started to panic a little bit as I went back into the ego-death, I started losing myself. Luckily I was more responsible this time, so I could resist the dosage a little bit... enough to be calmed down by my friend who I called and to remember that my trip sitter was always there if I start breaking stuff again. Once I grounded myself a bit, I decided to let go again and go into it and just surrender myself. So I surrendered myself. And man, It takes so much bravery to go into the love. But It's indescribable beauty. Indescribable. Prepare yourself for a bit of repetition to the insights I brought back. Going deeper & God's love Sometimes your in the nondual perspective and sometimes your not. That's okay because it's all just going deeper into it whether that's in it at the time or not. You're just setting yourself up for that next mindfuck. To just keep going deeper. The love is only possible when you're out of the love perspective. It only makes it better. Like how abstaining from music for weeks makes it better when you come back. The love comes from going deeper into yourself. It actually (literally) feels like my heart is unfurling, just peeling back and back, revealing deeper layers of gods love. It genuinely feels so tender, soft and warm. The more bitter it got the better it got. Breaking up makes coming back together so much more beautiful and meaningful. Getting lost in the woods makes getting found feel so good. The whole thing of life is just me going deeper and deeper into myself. I just kept going into the experience of deep insights into the nature of reality, and I am reality. Love is the only answer. It's all infinite love. It's an infinite love simulator, leo's description from the What is Love video was spot on. It just goes deeper. It just goes deeper (to infinity, and back again). I never got the reality is a strange loop thing before, intellectually sure, but actually, no. This time I summed up my entire experience of reality being an infinitely deep strange loop in this phrase: It just keeps going deeper. Infinite perfection! But It's all God's love and it just keeps going deeper. Your trapped in this loop, this psychedelic loop. But it's okay dude. Because it's all just God's love. Keep going deeper into the insanity. The nature of drifting off into this life is what makes coming back so beautiful. It's just an experience. Everything is just an experience to gain more perspectives. I remember Leo saying how if you make any distinction between ego-death and your actual death then you don't understand. Well I didn't understand. But I actually died, I experienced my ego (Jack, the person) losing himself and dying. But it was so beautiful that I surrendered to it fully. And holy fuck was it mindblowing. I totally see how when you die it will be the most beautiful realisation ever. I cried and cried realising I subjected myself to separateness and life out of love and I was back in that love and oneness. Mindfuck / Paradox It's all myself. Tripping myself out. Literally that is all there is. Me mindfucking myself, out of pure love. At one point when I was just busy being everything... I realised I was looking at myself, and everywhere I looked I was looking at myself. This started to really scare me, I couldn't run from myself, I couldn't escape myself. I started to panic and go insane a little bit, and I went deeper and deeper into fear and insanity. Started losing touch with everything and going on what people would call a "bad trip"... And then after going deeper and deeper I just found more of gods love. I can see how universal perspective has to, and wants to create this ego life to experience separateness. Life is just about getting lost. And eventually you'll come back and find yourself. It goes all the way down for you and then all the way back up again. It's all paradox. Reality is a strange loop. Every part contains every other part of itself. Before these were words, intellectual, but now I've had insight (at least to some - i feel, realitvely strong - degree) into each of them personally. Expression & Purpose It's all about expressing God's love. The hard part is expressing how beautiful is all is. How to put it in words? The word "Universe" (youniverse) felt so fitting, like it had to be that word. Same with the word's: "Ego Death", "Nature of Reality" Truth, Consciousness, Love. Honestly these aspects sum it up so beautifully, I couldn't see it before but now I can. There is a deep self-awareness and intelligence, mindfucking itself, and under all that is the deepest love of all. Infinitely deep love. The beautiful part is that I keep choosing to take myself deeper. That's the purpose of life. I chose to keep unfurling the layers of reality. A good way to describe it is: Indescribable. I want to express myself more, and because words have what feels like infinitely deep meaning when I trip. It makes them feel so powerful. Bringing something back Bringing something back is what it's about. I can see how the psychedelic is not going to take me all the way. That's where the meditation and spiritual experience comes in. It's important to get the glimpses, the insights, through the psychedelic. And then take that and develop universal love back in your ego life. I realised I'm creating this reality for myself. And the absolute keeps choosing life. In a very literal way all of this is my creation. And it is infinitely intricate, there is infinite meaning to everything, it's all here for me. I'm (ego-me) is always looking for a lesson, or insight. Then I experienced from the deepest existential perspective, there is no lesson, it's all absolutely meaningless. There doesn't have to be a lesson. And then in a strange loop way that is just a lesson, and it's infinitely meaningful. Paradox! See if you can take back the experience not just the words (like I am mainly now). I realised it's kind of fucked up that I can't experience nondual awareness in my normal life. That I am depending on this substance for it. The whole process of life is bringing yourself into alignment, without the psychedelic. How do I embody universal love (nonduality) more in my life? I likely won't trip again for another 3 months or so, I need more time to integrate my experience back into my life. Whereas before I started to trip every 2 weeks after recommendations on here to do so. Miscellaneous The whole bad trip of looking for your inner demons thing, which is what I do in my normal life, but also when tripping. I realised that's a great way to go into nondual awareness, the deeper you go into your demons the more you come into nondual self-consciousness, mindfuck and love. I had this crazy deep thing going on with my dog. It's literally just all the dog. And the dog is me. That is the nature of reality. Just gently teasing each other into waking up. Sending us messages through the other people (that's how it felt). Before I've felt the dog as separate, this time I realised was almost like a projection because I couldn't handle it was all just me. But I fully see (feel) it now. What you put into it. The intention. Is what you get out of it. And by that I mean all life, your entire life is gods intention. And this manifests in a similar way in ego form, where your ego intention creates the reality. I feel like I got a very light insight into this, and so take it with a grain of salt because I only had very slight direct experience here. Thoughts are what take you out of that nondual state. The whole life here is an intention. Which is a commitment, or thoughts? To me (ego) it feels a lot like the universal self is just tripping himself out. Life is the thought trip and the nondual state is without thought, when the trip is over. Where you just keep going deeper into God's love. And then you find yourself back in the separate state (ego). And it just seems to keep looping like that. Overall a good trip... Leo wasn't kidding when he said all the most profound insights are to be had at lower doses. High doses you just frolic with yourself in nondual awareness for what feels like an eternity and then you come down and bring fuck all back.

I also 100000% agree with this. I’ve actually been falling into this the last few months. It turns nonduality a belief system which when you’re doing whatever practices you do makes them harder cause now you have a whole cosmology and those beliefs become very sticky. For me this is a problem (particularly) because I grew up under a dad who I learned this horrible dogmatic habit of hard debating and I can’t stand this habit in myself for all the different reasons it toxifies my life but also because I tend to be good at understanding what concepts are really pointing to intellectually and I have almost this thing, it’s almost like this subconscious talent, of being really good at understanding what’s really being spoken on a conceptual level and tying all these pieces in my mind and can see in my mind how they connect and now I have this whole elaborate cosmology that I tend to lie and pretend I know better than I do and defend those ideas. It’s a really nasty habit but also conceptualizinf this whole thing is just such a trap, especially on here where we by necessity have to use language which indulges the mind to map everything and unconsciously confusing the map for the territory. However, I’m getting pretty good at contemplating and grounding myself in the present and that the truth of what I’m after is right here right now and nowhere else which regrounds me in not knowing and curiosity.

@Leo Gura Yes, that is a great logical explanation. Yet it would have triggered the analytical scientist in me ?. I took a meandering path sprinkled with Turquoise nonduality glimpses. It’s weird how I want to explain it through the direct experience. Logic seems so dry and boring to me these days.

Yes. For a mind that has been conditioned as a self it's entire life, entering a no-self consciousness can be very uncomfortable. The self often tries to maintain control of the narrative in the mind. It can be unfamiliar and disorienting. This can occur during a glance at truth, yet also when the mind returns to it's baseline self. What helped me was to continue my grounding practices such as yoga, meditation and watching nonduality teachers. As well, contemplating the experience and discussing it on this forum. With time, the mind settles down and the experience becomes "integrated" into regular life and the mind expands.

True passion is a connection to your True Self. Psychedelics will give you direct experience with nonduality. The mind will flip back to a dualistic mind state. Yet, nondual direct consciousness is a game-changer. Even when your mind flips back dual and starts to contextualize it, there will be a deeper "knowing" that you can't put into words or explain.

although 'the absolute' doesn't exist either. So 'the absolute' is paradoxically relative as every linguistic expression is. But 'collapse of dualities' is nevertheless an appropriate hint. However those who follow advaita teachings usually have trouble to grasp this because advaita teachings are based on affirmation of true existence of 'oneness' or 'nonduality' or 'awareness' and the like. They obviously think that duality has to be overcome and that it can be overcome through choosing one side of it and reject the other, but neither the former nor the latter applies.

Referring to this sort of explanation of the Absolute Truth, nonduality, and it having more importance than Relative Truth. "Dualistically I agree, of course, but it doesn’t appear you are speaking about duality. You are referencing absolute truth, that all is one, and then conflating it with duality: individuality, purpose, moving beyond, importance, “levels”, duality of existence and not, and God “dealing” in perfection. Individuality does not exist, that is duality, illusion. There would need to be two for there to be uniqueness / individuality. Nothing “exists”, and Nothing does not “exist”. If you can move “beyond” absolute truth, then it is not absolute, and was not the Truth. “Enlightenment is the beginning”, is reference to the illusion. In Truth, there is no beginning, and no illusion." If this doesn't clarify what I'm referring to, one good example is the use of the word illusion to describe the Relative. The Relative is as real as the Absolute, and starting off with terminology that suggest otherwise leads people towards nondual dogma and spiritual stagnation. The Relative is the most beautiful, important, sacred form of existence we will ever have. Some refer to the Relative as a video game, but it's the complete opposite of a game. It's the realest thing we'll ever experience. Individuality ties into this because it does exist, it exists on the deepest levels of existence. The further we get down the spiritual path the more important it is to recognize this if we want to bask in our true nature. If we embraced radical authenticity from the start, we could skip a lot of unnecessary growing pains. It's incorrect that we can't regress down stages in SD, and this becomes very obvious when transitioning from Turquoise to Coral. Children are born in Coral. They are born completely authentic, expressing Divinity with ease. It's why people wish to be children again when they grow up. But when someone is several stages above everyone surrounding them, including the people who control their lives, they regress to the stages their society is at, or worse. Social conditioning beats authenticity out of children. And instead of recognizing this phenomenon, and trying to correct course back to our true nature, we've come up with all of these distortions that keep us away from Truth. This is all to say how important individuality really is, it's where we should be building our spiritual practice from, not moving away from. It's crucial for humanity to have people who recognize the flaws made in even our most advanced spiritual traditions, so that we can start correcting for the future generations to come. The amount of resistance or complete lack of interest such mentions of Truth receive even in spiritual circles, should highlight the severity of egoic dogma that needs to be overcome.

It makes me happy to know you feel the same way. I do want to clarify though, that there is significant differences in the way we're speaking about the needed move towards surrender and love. The focus on nonduality that has been going on for 2000 to 3000 years has inhibited the elevation of human consciousness. It's important to have a more integral approach to Truth, if we want to accelerate the spiritual growth that this world so desperately needs. I hope you understand what I mean. I do appreciate your dedication to love regardless.

Because Everything includes every thing as One. Everything really really means Everything, including all perceptions of things. There is no thing outside of Everything. There is no thing you or anyone can think, feel or do outside of Everything. There is no object or concept outside of Everything. Thus, Everything = No thing = Nothing. Everything / Nothing is Absolute. There is no conceptual escape hatch. Concepts of nonduality and duality collapse into Everything / Nothing.

All you need to know about nonduality is that it is the realization on the highest level you are one with everything. Everything within your experience is you, because you are God. Anything your told beyond this is nondual masturbation. It serves no purpose and only complicates your spiritual growth. The real question is, once you reach the pinnacle of nondual awareness, where do you go from there? That's only the second step of the spiritual path, the first being enlightenment. Most enlightened individuals fall into dogma and stunt their growth by assuming nondual is the finish line of spirituality, when they only just started the race. The real challenge comes in the next step, which is paradoxically integrating the nondual perspective with duality. Ken Wilber touches on this, even though he doesn't fully understand how to do it. Absolute and Relative Truth have to be merged, that's the next step in our evolution. Christ was a good example of these two merging, Buddha is an example of getting stuck in a nondual rut. The Integration of Relative and Absolute Truth is Coral. It's beyond nondual dogma and since some of the best teachings for spiritual development only take one to nondual you have very few that ever reach it. It's probably somewhere around .001% of the population. And reaching Coral is only just the beginning, so don't let yourself get stuck down at what 2000 to 3000 year old books point towards. Considering how many enlightened individuals are stuck behind dogma, it makes it even more difficult for deeper Truth to come out.

Nonduality cannot be understood, yet includes all understandings. Nonduality is not a perspective, yet includes all perspectives. Everything = No thing = Nothing

1. What guide post or guide lines do you have for pointing someone towards gaining useful nuance, genuineness, self honesty and awareness. 2. What makes you feel qualified to speak about enlightenment or waking up? I ask 2. since we seem to have exact realizations about enlightenment and its interpretations along with the dangers of not dealing with fetters/karma/ego/things that cause suffering. I first studied under Anderew Cohen who was big into accountability (sadly/funny enough his ego got the better of him and brought down his community), and this had a serious impression on me. Then like Leo is sharing, such ideals unconscious to me created a perfectionist state and a goal that may be impossible (i was not aware of this at the time). Down the road I spent a few years of following/letting in nonduality teachings of Paul Hedderman, Lisa Cairns, Papaji, Rupert Spira and some of Alana Watts, I let in the idea of nondoer ship and the recognition that all experience arises and is out of our hands no matter how real the "I" free will feeling, belief seems. This was profoundly healing and freeing and perhaps didn't create a egomaniac monster since I first started with accountability and not causing suffering to self and others as a prime principle. However I had two profoundly paradoxical understandings abiding in this shell of being. That seemed to have merged on a understanding level along with a direct recognition and understanding of who and what we all are.....god/infinity/oneness Along with this has come freedom and understanding. There is never not god, everything, matter, energy, thoughts, feelings, experience, the capacity for such things for thoughts to be able to happen, feelings to happen, experience to be possible, wisdom, all experiences of what realizers call waking up, all are god, and none of them are themselves the full picture of infinity, but are infinity none the less. Now comes some of the odd pills of truth along with this. I'm god, with all my ideas, views, beliefs, spiritual practices and disciplines that bring equanimity and fruits, such as dont rage at someone or I'll experience the flood of chemicals, pain that it may cause others, and self discomfort from my chosen action. Theres the experience of doing and being done, non action, arisal, no knowledge of where thoughts creativity, ideas arise from, the mystery. Knowing all of me is the creation of my original face. Theres also a very real understanding of why guru's do what they do and feel fine with it, like sleep with a student, harshly discipline out of supposed benefit of student, and any number of culty things out there. This freedom that comes from waking up seems to reveal that there is no actual moral barometer out there enforcing anything on anyone, almost the opposite, a unconditional love accepting and understanding all as Self/Love. What you and I call karma and fetters is another form of god/play of lila/maya, how could Self ever get anything wrong or cause itself any harm, and yet paradoxically Self is always consuming Self and causing Self pain somewhere in its infinity all the time. As Self it seems like whats done with this individual incarnation is self+Self creating Self in the mystery of itsSelf. What are your thoughts on Self consuming Self, never not Self, the relationship of Self and "right" action. And again I asked 2. to see what makes you in particular feel like your ready to teach and out of curiosity what was that turning point.

@Beeflamb Sounds like you've barely scratched the surface of nonduality. Try 5-MeO-DMT to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Many people on the path have gone through similar. What I would suggest is to get in touch with this "observer". You've said things like "My ego" , "I really like". So, you have realized an awareness that is observing the ego. What is this awareness? Can you settle in with it? . . . I think many people entering this stage think "The self is an illusion! It is bad and I need to get rid of it". Instead, why not be this observer of the ego? Rather than fighting against it, why not get curious about this ego and observe it. What the heck is this ego? It's fascinating. You mentioned watching movies. Imagine yourself watching the ego. . . This is much easier to do if the ego mind is relatively quiet. If the ego mind goes into full-on chatter mode, well it's quite unpleasant as you have found out. When the ego mind is in hyper-chatter mode, not much good arises. So, I try to settle it down a bit with yoga, meditation, listening to nonduality teachers, going for a walk or run etc. When I first went through this, it was like I didn't know who I was anymore. Should I do the same things? Should I enjoy the same things? Who am I and what happens now? Some interests faded away and some of those returned. Some new interests arose. I didn't have any issues with appetite. Perhaps you could increase exercise / activity to increase appetite?

@Arhattobe It is problematic to conflate the realization of Absolute Truth with the development and perfection of the human body/mind. These are two very distinct things. By making this conflation, as you say, no one is enlightened, because your definition of enlightenment has become an idealistic fantasy. There are many lines and stages of human development alongside many states and degrees of consciousness. Nonduality can be grasped at many depths, it has multiple facets, and the realization of all those insights will not automatically make you a perfect human being. The way we use the terms enlightenment/awakening on this forum is to mean: the realization of no-self, God, Infinity, or Absolute Oneness. That life is a dream. This can happen and you can still have all sorts of fetters, bad behaviors, and psychological stuff. In fact, that's almost guaranteed. We do not use the word enlightenment to mean, "The total purifcation of karma and mind", or total mastery. Total mastery is a pipedream for most people and will take you 30+ years of industrial-grade practice. Enlightenment occurs when one catches the Ox. Not at picture #10. This is why the ox-herding pictures and Spiral Dynamics are so useful.

This... This is the peak of male power. Im gonna take on the beast of 6 months as the superior man takes on his depolarized potato. Im gonna ravish the world with neverending, evergrowing spring-nectar of holy hormonal bliss extracted by the means NoNut and the cultivation my alpha essence into awareness, creativity, wet attraction, and fuckin' nonduality. Let me present a short backstory for you all: I have been on this journey of NoFap for close to 2 years, my longest streak being 6 months which im now gonna recreate a year later with unmeasurable power gained from this hard journey in between. Only recently have I been gaining the benefits of my endless observations of where my life is going with this addiction, and only now I have gained a confidence like never before out of the sheer fact that I have learned something new every time I have relapsed, up until a week ago; I felt this sudden shift, that signaled that im capable of doing this. I quit video games and PMO cold turkey last week, and my positive motivations have provided me with unmeasurable confidence, aiding me to pulverize and absorb the last fiber of any hedonistic desires with the light of my awareness. Many goals have been set. This ain't gonna be an easy cookie to chew but I shall let the confidence in my goals carry me through! Im gonna read many books that will aid me in this journey, and I will be exposing myself through this journal as frequently as I have the time to be online. This challenge will be: Unconditional semen retention (within my power) No ejaculation, not even when having sex No watching porn, (Not exposing myself to anything sufficiently graphic to spawn arousal) No intentional/recreational fantasizing I will keep you guys updated through this journal, in @Shin's words: In this quote, Mr.Shin refers to accountability partners. With radical honesty, I will keep you guys updated along the way! Credits to @8Ball, @Sahil Pandit, @youngshinzen, @Shin, @Vitamine Water, @Marinus, @Jol356 , @alea @Leo Gura and all of you guys who are inspiring me and are keeping the holy practise of semen retention alive!

Yep. I can tell almost immediately if someone has had direct experience with nonduality, just by the way they try to explain the unexplainable. Those with only intellectual knowledge and no direct experience stick out like a sore thumb.