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I just truly discovered this notion of "wholeness", "unity" or "oneness" from non-duality. This idea is very frightening for me.. because it collapses my experience of reality. Awareness is all that there is.. every other thing is a mind-created concept So, Non-Duality is awareness itself. There is no separation of ego/thought or object/subject. Precisely because experience is all it Is.. and experience IS consciousness. There is no experiential state if there is no awareness, therefore "being" is all there truly is. This is without having this "I" that is assumed to be doing the experiencing. For some this mystical ego-transcendence is beautiful, because of the divine nature of it(How this pure state of awareness feels). And also because it is the ultimate truth. It is the true nature of nature. Duality is the greatest enemy to non-duality (Obviously). But get this, in order to reach non-duality you MUST purge the duality of the mind. So, having a firmly dualistic mind will not comprehend this in any way. Because non-duality is experienced, it is not known by a rational explanation. For the explanation of it is dualistic in nature, because language is dualistic and always implies separation. People engage in meditation to reach this perceptual change of awareness. My biggest fear is knowing that everything I have experienced up until now has been an illusion. A product of the mind's intrinsic tendency to dualism. Everything seems false, nothing is real. Truth is just one. Up until now my philosophical "truths"(Or any thought of that matter) have been dualistic. So, I reach some sort of existential crisis or nihilistic crisis in nature. Not only that, but all of my dreams, hopes, my personal realizations are far from truth. Any meaning becomes meaningless. It is not worth living for something at it is just a concept, a construct of the mind that separates me and true reality. In a crude way, it is all fake. I can't even think without separation so it troubles me more. I think the most terrifying thing is looking out into space and realising that that for the most part.. is reality - this yawning near-void filled with things that would kill you. Here we are.. little fragile Flatlanders hugging the increasingly disordered surface of one planet.. with the yawning hungry cosmos poised to take us all back.

what is non duality? and what is it's use in Sprituality? is non dual means good and evil are one? what non dual teaching conclude? and how non dual is non dual? we know we are one with the soul but we are different in sprit too. so which positions we take? dual or non dual?

I already did. He told me that from now on I don't ever have to worry about being late again, and that I can just relax and stay home tomorrow, and the day after that, and also the day after that. Nonduality ftw!

Nice. This is exactly what many of our fellow Duality-denying spiritual bypassers on here are missing. Untiy expresses itself through (the appearance of) non-unity. Without the appearance of form/division/contrast/multilicity, the unity of the whole could not be experienced and recognized. Duality and nonduality are simply two sides of the same coin. And they are both perfect, beautiful and divine.

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.

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahamudra "literally means "great seal" or "great imprint" and refers to the fact that "all phenomena inevitably are stamped by the fact of wisdom and emptiness inseparable". Aka mere empty "imagined" appearances, not existing "out there" but within the Infinite vastness of True Being/Universal Consciousness as mere appearance in this nondual field, not as external objects "out there", aka duality. There is a lot of cultural lingo in Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism, that I didn't understand in the beginning, like why they called it Great Seal. Or Emptiness. Or dependend origination. Or Middle Way. Or No Self. Proto-Mahamudra was imported from India around the 10 century, so the term comes probably from India and is used there also. Daniel Brown once said Mahamudra (for example in his book Pointing out the Great Way) is best for Awakening, and then adding Dzogchen-Methods (the books he translated later, kind of a collection of best of Tibetan Buddhism selected by 33rd Menri Trizin. Mahamudra as explained in Pointing out the Great Way = a nearly mathematical step by step method towards Awakening (Nondual Infinite Field at least temporarily seen by impersonal Awareness itself, but some very subtle processes/filters/lenses still clouding full realization). Before that comes Nonduality (or One Taste), or a separate-self (or ET) merging in Unity with the Infinite Field (of earthly or alien form). Dzogchen = Great Perfection, or the path that completes path to Enlightenment. Or fully ripened Awakened Awareness/Awakening, no clusters of separate-self arisings not transcended/seen through/still clouding Impersonal Infinite Being/Awareness. In my perspective the by far most sophisticated and fastest meditation methods (Mahamudra+Dzogchen) on the planet. Nearly all other methods/systems/techniques/traditions are found within these methods one way or the other, but not the other way round. Selling the Great Seal by the River

Feels like coming home, doesn't it? Or like drowning in the River, killing "me" softly... Forgive me some comments, but here are some practices that helped me a lot at that stage to make that Nondual Awakening nice&stable: The only missing ingridients are letting these states of Infinite Nondual Awakend Awareness ripen (they ripen by themself since the illusion has become instable. The path starts showing itself to itself now). Yet, one can put a blow-torch (Nonmeditation-Yoga in Mahamudra for example, see below) on the remnants of the illusion, to evaporate them faster... At some point, the only illusion still arising is the "one" of the one realizing all of that ("realizing" Nonduality and mere imagined appearance and so on). Then, the Impersonal Infinite Totality can wake up to itself, exactly when the "one/personal individuality/being separate/former separate-self" is seen through as mere concept/persistant illusion, a bundle of ideas/concepts/I-thoughts/I-feelings, and never having been anything more than that - and then the illusion drops away, being replaced by the Infinite Vastness of True Being/Reality, realizing itself as it truly is. That happens when every thought/feeling/and appearance of the "outer" world is realized as mere appearance hovering in Infinite Nondual Vastness/Being/Nothingnes/Emptiness. Then IT can be realized. And realizing that despite the illusion of separation has been appearing (as illusion), THIS Infinite Being/Reality/Universal Mind has always been the case, despite being temporarily been covered by coulds of separation-illusion/ignorance. There are teachings for speeding up that process (ripening from Nonduality (Yoga of One Taste in Mahamudra) with remnants of a separate-self to true impersonal Infinite Being/Reality (Nonmeditation Yoga in Mahamudra). I found these very helpful. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Nonmeditation yoga&author=Water by the River Pretty sold out by the River

So you're on a spiritual path, gradually awakening, resolving trauma, purifying yourself, self-inquirying, releasing contracted energy, burning karma, practicing mindfulness, integrating shadows, disidentifying with thoughts, contemplating, doing psychedelics, watching spiritual videos, meditating, doing all kinds of yoga and so on and so on... Welcome to the spiritual rat race! Congragulations, you have still achieved nothing! This may be triggering for some if not most here, I may be accused to promote spiritual bypassing but if you are truly interested in “Truth“ and open-minded enough, just stick with me. Fleeting Absolute? You actually don't seek a fleeting state of consciosness, something temporary that comes and goes, you seek the Absolute, don't you? If it is truly absolute, it must also be right here & now. But you orient yourself on these fleeting appearances to claim you still haven't arrived there, this can't be it, this is not the full blown god awakening you once had, there is still ego and identification and blablabla. And all those teachers including Leo perpetuate these claims, reinforce your belief in a process within time that isn't fully over, you're still not done with and you need to keep on working, doing shit or to zenizize it: do nothing, walk through the gateless gate or knock from the outside to open from within. These subtle claims about your imperfection might be sugarcoatet in spiritual paradoxes to confuse you even more, so you suspect there must be something wrong with ME, so you try to get rid of yourself in quite strange ways if you think about it. Thought is a thought - there are no thoughts The spiritual search is somehow fueled by a burning desire, an avoidance/rejection of “what is“ , the feeling of “this is not it (yet), this/I am not good enough, there must be something else/better, I still feel incomplete, something is missing“. You don't go to a doctor when you feel completely healthy and you won't seek a therapist if you're absolutely happy. So you wouldn't (spiritually) seek for anything if there wasn't something that bothers you and that you want to get rid of. But seeking sucks. You want to stop seeking and finally feel home, be ok/fine with everything, be at ease/peace. So you search for the end of the search. Good look! You can go on forever, and if you resolved your own trauma, go transgenerational and then universal! If you let go of body identification, let go of conscouiousness/god identification and so on. This is fucking infinite, you'll NEVER reach an end point, look at Leo for example. If reality is infinite, there's no position to know it from. If there is ANY kind of positioning, clinging to words like Consciousness or God or Absolute Solipsism or Nothing even, if there is any definition of “Truth“ vs “truth/falsehood“ whatever, absolute relative etc., then the illusion of seperation, time, distance apparently kicks back in. You wanna let even that go? Who does it, and why? Who wants to go till the end, dissolving, reach enlightenment or full-blown god awakening? Why do you believe this fantasy of peaceful future is preferable to THIS, which is everything there is ALREADY? Why do you wanna get rid of the veils of seperation, who wants that? If (in the imagined “end“) there truly is no seperation, it must be boundless ALREADY. You're apparently mudding the water by desperately whirling around in order to settle the dust. You're hitting the waves with the paddle in order to get a still and silent sea. You're chasing your own tail. Apparently, of course. Because it's all a scripted story in a book with blank pages, written by magic ink that dissapears the moment it solidifies. This avoidance of NOW, this present moment, overloaded with fantasies offered by the spiritual marketplace, a buffett of empty temptations for a hungry ghost, where does it come from? Is it trauma, is it a psychosomatic misunderstanding, is it ignorance? It doesn't matter, it's not even real!!! It's the next story of your infinite imagination to keep you on track, looking for the root cause, the source of the misery, keeping things real, maintaining the story of the very important trauma-resolver, the open-minded psychonaut, the serious seeker and so on. You create the next identity to keep the story real that “this is not it (yet)“, to avoid the fact that this is as it is already and it may feel shitty/incomplete/whatever at the moment, but This Is It, despite of all your stories, WITH all these stories, which aren't even stories but The Unimaginable appearing as empty words loaded with a web of codependent meanings, made of illusive thoughts, reliant on other thoughts until the very “I am“, which is a thought as well as synonymous thoughts like contracted energy, ego, consciosness, self, Self, god and so on. These thoughts serve as the compass of your spiritual search, contrasted by each other and devided into (more) real/unreal representations of THIS, boxing life into a narrative of a series of serious To Dos (time) with the grandiose ability to contrast THIS with an imagined and twisted version of THIS projected into the skull of “another“ (space) like Leo or Buddha. It's a fucking joke!!! There is no self, no contracted energy, no karma, no ego, no seperation, no illusion, no awakening, no whatever - These are ALL thoughts, and even “thought“ is a thought, there are not even thoughts! There is ONLY THIS, appearing as whatever, call it whatevery, devide it into whatever, it's unimaginable, undiscoverable, unrealizable, undevidable, undescribable, it's so uncontrastable so there is no one left witnessing to even claim it is existing, YET - it is all there ever was and will be, including the Illusion of the appearance of an illusive thought about time. So what can you do about it? Who's there to do something about it? Don't you perpeatuate the story of “I am: not good enough/not there yet/not enlightened“ when you act from the very same resonance frequency of “not enough“ to overcome “not enough“, when you search for the end of the search (or the beginning)? Reminds me of “I will win this war But never the peace I am my own free spirit Hence I will not rest“ (The Invaluable Darkness by Dimnu Borgir) “Nothing holy about it“ - Seeking is (spiritual) bypassing “That's Cassical spiritual bypassing/Neo-Advaita/Non-Duality/not God-Realization“ - EVERYTHING could be seen as spiritual bypassing if you pull that card, and from this framework everything is kind of the attempt to spiritually bypass (there is no spiritual bypassing really, you can't avoid THIS, you can't run away from yourself, it's absolutely hopeless, utterly futile, this is unescapable freedom). Every approach motivation can be reframed/recontextualized as an avoidance mechanism, even mindfulness can be called out as a trauma response like Scott Kiloby points out. Untangling the web of illusions can always be like trying to step out of quicksand. So who is really spiritually bypassing? Isn't the whole spiritual path the illusive idea to find a bypass for THIS very moment? Find a final solution for your suffering? Reach a point where you have finally overcome the ego/illusions/desire/karma/etc? You think by whipping yourself you become worthy for enlightenment and can finally leave this unbearable realm of constant struggle? By accepting/letting go/mindful observing/embracing/integrating you will finally arrive at all-OK-ness? Wouldn't that include the solid idea and a lived feeling of “it's not OK yet“? So where do you think will you arrive? Would you then finally be OK with getting looped right back into the beginning of another spiritual search? See, apparently you're actually in resistance to THIS, you truly believe THIS can't be it, it must feel more enlightened/god-like, you dismiss this god-like human nature and wish for alien insanity or to finally become a cartoon wolf or whatever. And when someone says straight in your face “THIS IS IT“ you instantaniously reject it. Unconsciously you yourself actually hope for a cheat code, magic pill, shortcut by taking the position that something like spiritual bypassing is even possible and someone else is guilty of it. That you're on the right path and face your dark side. Think about it! If you were beyond it, you wouldn't get triggered about apparent others delaying their awakening, since it was clear that all of that is nothing but your own trap. Like Jesus said: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?“ Notice that “This is it“ does not mean I am there and you're not little brother, you still have to realize blablabla... It means you're here already, bypassing is impossible, this is the unavoidable void, devoid of anything other/apart/seperate. “This is it“ is an honest reaction to bottomless claims of “this is not it“, it's the end of gatekeeping, it's the declaration of bankruptcy for the rich man who tried to enter the kingdom of heaven. There is no one who could accept it all, (s)he is not even necessary, it is already completely accepted just by BEING, emptiness/spaciousness invited it to appear so to speak, no need for an “OK!“ by you. Every “Not OK“ by “you“ is OK too, already. Nobody can practice unconditional love, This is unconditional love already. No gatekeeping by a guru claiming he's ok with everything but not accepting that you little seeker are still in resistance, trying to bypass. It's a fucking joke! These clowns are your projected insecurity about yourself, God! If there was such a thing... haha^^ Don't let anyone fool you, THIS is it, including all the suffering, drama and struggle your mind can project into a dreamed past and an imagined future. But THIS also means: All the stories melt away here, no one is left suffering from the illusion that he could have done different and life would be better, the madness of the idea that the avoidance and ignorance of pain and suffering would erease them, leaving the Full-On-Aliveness of What-Is, an unimaginable easyness and simplicity that passes all understanding. So This is it, already! You can stop self-inquirying your way around instead of telling your loved ones the truth, you can stop meditating until you are ok with being rejected by people, you can stop tripping until you feel smarter than the scientist, you can stop all these spiritual practices to avoid simply being a completely authentic human being, not better or worse than anyone or anything. Or you can go on doing them, nothing wrong with it, of course! If you enjoy it, go on! Actually, there is nobody who had a choice in the first place. There never were stories to melt aways, because that's just another story. No one suffered from the story of someone suffering from blablabla... You get it. This here, these words you read, are nothing but blablabla, birds chirping, dogs barking. They don't add into a spiritual library or steal your nuggets of wisdom. It's just a pointer that there actually is NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL between these words and a cat meaowing. Because all of it is This! It's YOU, not as an identity, just limitless being, Isness itself. Isn't it beautiful? No prescriptions - just an apparent personal wake up call So what next? Well, there's no prescription for What-Is/YOU of course, boundless freedom is just appearing the way it is. But what about the realization that you probably somehow seek something in the forum - maybe just distraction from uncomfortable feelings or body sensations, maybe approval, attention or answers to questions, whatever. Maybe you hope to find a message out there to seriously tell you: “STOP it! Enough internet for today, enough distraction, enough seeking for a better state of consciousness, enough is enough! You won't find satisfying answers to your questions when they are just based on thoughts that come and go and will soon be forgotten.“ So you may hope to find a messiah, a savior, a liberation in words, thoughts, ideas and concepts. Someone or something that will present to you the ultimate method for awakening, a spiritual insight, a good entertainment, an inspiration or aha-moment, whatever. But God is not a mistake. If god needed anything to awake itself, it wouldn't be God. You are fully liberated already, there is no need for anyone or anything, that's just a story. No next ultimate awakening video from Leo, no next word here in this thread, no next moment! These are all thoughts again, externalizing/projecting and fracturing your infinite power/sovereignity into the multiplicity within the endless hall of mirrors since there is nothing but the eternal self-referencing of the selfsame echoe(s) of nothing. Which is another thought. See, it's not IN the thoughts, it's appearing as everything, the screen, the words, the feelings, your whole bubbleless bubble of consciousness. So you (!) will never find it anywhere since it hides in plain sight - as everything. And no guru, gura or messiah would ever be able to fully point it out to you, for you - since there is literally no point(ing out) in THIS, and there's no you or any guru. Your waiting for a realization is utterly hopeless and futile, and even “so relax and let it go“ is too many words for nothing. In the appearance, you may become conscious of the potential fact that this seeking algorithm has become quite wild and dysfunctional, like an autonomous parasite eating time, energy and attention, draining the apparent ressources. And now personally from me, the guy behind “Exystem“: I oftentimes wished for someone out there, seeing my suffering, holding my hand, seeing the madness of it all and how much I got lost inside my own mind, how I meditated, contemplated, self-inquyired and tripped to finally get it (again and again) while having a fucking messy room, eating quickly and without love while consuming the next spiritual video, smoking weed “for spiritual purposes“, sleeping not enough, barely expressing my love for my loved ones, unconsciously repressing emotions the whole time while knowing that but not being able to stop because of (unconscious) belief systems like “I need to once hit rock bottom before I(t) will go up forever from then on“ or “I am not worth it, I deserved that suffering“ or “It doesn't even make a difference, that's just life, it's suffering“. I wished for someone telling me: Come on, put away your phone, clean up your room, you will soon be fine, just face your shit, I'll be with you, you are worth it! I longed for that figure, oftentimes renewing Leos blog or the forum for a message like this. Enough for today, now just face the next struggle, step by step and it will soon be over. Forget the idea of “awakening someday“ for a moment and cook yourself a healthy meal, go sleep for a good recovery. Leo said it too in other words, don't prematurely start this journey, get your ducks in a row, build up a good life and then you can still seek for the absolute. But I always wished to be adressed really direct and personally, it was never enough! And here is my very personal message to you: “FORGET IT! It won't be clearer than this. You're it already. What you seek is you, so you will not find it, there's no need for that, not even the need to realize that or to drop seeking. You just can be, you are already, it's done, it's over. It won't get more personal than this: You are your own messiah, your own saviour. When you reject/ignore that INSIGHT, a messiah will never be reflected OUTSIDE, as above so below, as within so without. You are God, your own creator, nothing and nobody knows you better than you do, not even the idea of your “unconsciousness“. You PRECISELY know what is good for you, stop kidding yourself. Be true to yourself, act authentic with your needs and weaknesses. You are unconditional love, let yourself flow. You don't need more love, love yourself, you're fucking beautiful, unimaginable wonderful, you are paradise itself! You can fuck yourself so crazily, distorted and twisted and then untwist yourself in such fantastic and infinitely genious ways again, WOW!!! Let your love for that wonder you really are overflow, give from the heart, don't fear any loss, this is empty FULLNESS, limitless free energy everywhere. You seek for that which observes you seeking for that which observes you. How could anything really go wrong?! This is a play, sometimes a tough one. But play it, that's what it's made for! When you consciously play it, you'll enjoy it, it's for your entertainment. Don't run away from the demons in this Dream, face them and see them melt back into the ocean of unconditional love. Don't try to act like a god and face the endboss at the beginning. Start with the immediate little things that are on your way. Tidy up your room, eat a healthy meal, do some sports, write those you love you love them, take babysteps. It's ok, it's good so. You're god already, no need to jump world record, take just one little step right now, that's all. You don't have to be mindful 24/7, that's fucking exhausting. You are here and now aware already, just be it, only this moment. How do you feel right now? Which needs do come up? Which way is the right way? Only now, act authentic, in allignment with yourself. What do you really want? You don't have to focus on the huge pile of shit, just focus on the present shovel and it's over the next moment. It's ok, you're good. No need to be harsh to yourself. See what a beautiful loving being receives this warm treatment from itself. You deserve paradise! Which form would you as god sculp yourself into that represents and deserves paradise? Act like it! Easily, of course. Lightheartedly You are Love yourself, beauty! Love what you love. Look at your pains and aches and see that they are just contracted forms of love. Observe them like an exotic fruit, maybe hot and spicy, bitter or sour, but worth a bite. Look at it like you became aware of it the first time in your life, ask what it wants to show you, without clinging to a way it should reveal itself. This is a magic mystery, it will unfold in strange, counterintuitive and unconventional ways never expected. Look like a child in awe and wonder how this infinitely intelligent soup cooks itself to enjoy its precious flavours. This is the unconditional WOW, and you're it! Be gentle to yourself. You created others to love them. Their purpose is to be loved by you, that's what will make them grow, sprout and love too. So be gentle to them too. Don't act upon them like NPC's/philosophical zombies the same way you don't treat your phone like a black piece of metal/plastic. Discover their full infinite potential by awakening them with (your) LOVE. No words, no acts, no experiences can awaken anyone, only LOVE can, disguised as whatever. Mindfulness is practiced love if truly understood. All of the de- and also the prescriptions above are empty words, they don't mean anything really, still birds chirping. They may seem to contradict each other, and that's ok. In the appearance, they carry a certain energy with them, a wave that can flatten or heighten or equalize other waves. These personal words were an expression of love from the wave “Exystem“ as well as the other wordwaves, apparently of course. Don't get hung up on words, stuck in thoughts, let the birds chirp and enjoy the melody, or not. Personally, I just wish the best for you, I am a mirror of your own love towards yourself. And I wish I could be there for you even more (personal), but this is just a forum, and I am just a random online guy with a full calender. But check it out yourself, send waves of love out there, spread the gospel wherever you can, so to say! See which beautiful miracles will return when you stop seeking for instant gratification and realize the bottomless fountain of Love within yourself. Express yourself, be brave! No need to hide the light. So do yourself a favour and do whatever god needs to do right now, eat a bit or take a shit or whatever. In a way, that's the most important task in the whole universe right now, easy, isn't it?“ Solipsism Lots and loads of words, but the essence is this: YOU are the only “source“ of Love, don't seek it anywhere else, give and thou will be given. If you ask about solipsism: On one hand there is no one and nothing out there that could ever possibly convince you otherwise. Think about it, what “proof“ could ever be valid? On the other hand: This infinite intelligence imagines the 100% smooth, coherent, understandable and real seeming appearance of “another“, which is mirroring your body, behavior and reported inner landscape in a perfect way. How do you think this becomes possible? Through a lifeless, mechanic, reductionistic and simple process, devoid of any feelings? Well, maybe, who could know except for you? But how would you feel if people really started flickering and lagging? See on what a sharp edge of knife you were dancing if you stick with your love to your limited sense of self and believe in a philosophy like that without really knowing. What if ALL your emotions are nothing but the language your inner parts are communicating with each other, no center of emotions, but an 360° orchestra of vivid silence. The same way you can zoom into a sensation, focusing your attention towards it, and just become aware of the potentially infinite capacity it has to reveal, morph and develop itself, while still remaining “your“ sensation, the same way your mirrored selves are an extended bodypart, never seperate from YOU, with instant effect on everything you may ever identify with. As your inverted unconscious, they may not have “a life of their own“, but who thinks it has such a thing? You? You don't HAVE a life, you're it! But you can only experience and call it that way in codependency to “other(s)“. Be grateful for everyone out there - I know, sometimes “hell is other people“, but what's lucrative about being the only one in paradise? For how long could you enjoy that? A billion years? Be careful what you wish for, don't call demons before knowing how to get rid of them again. And don't get rid of angels before knowing how to call them again. This is a masterpiece of an illusion! The same way you can become mindful with your body, get a more intimite and loving experience, get a more detailed resolution in space and time and start to simply enjoy its presence, the same way you can extend that towards others. Develop a deeper sense of compassion, and even sacrificing yourself for someone else will become a natural response to lifes' challenges. Imagine this was a dream and your apparent decisions form the neural pathway for the preferences of your next dream - when you don't love your right arm for example, you try to not feel into it because it hurts, avoid looking at it because it's ugly, you may not even get one next time. So ask yourself - what do you love most? Can you love it with all its apparent consequences? Nurture it! In my case, I really love people in general, they are not a bug but a feature to me, they may be the last thing I could give up in this illusion called life, these strange but most clear and beautiful mirrors of infinity. Clarity - by far the most clear speaker on THIS So here I have a gift for you - I was excessively bingewatching all kinds of spiritual teachings additional to my practices, with the hope to find more gems like Leo for example and the subtle fear to miss out on something important. Then I found the radical/contemporary nonduality niche, some of you are familiar with - Tony Parsons, Jim Newman, Kenneth Madden, Andreas Müller, Richard Sylvester and so on. But they all become very repititious and hung up on words like boundless or contracted energy for example. And finally, a year ago, I found emerson nonduality He's a genious in my eyes! Always fresh and new, his easyflowing poetry is music to my ears. Always eradicates the sandcastles he built up before, pointing to the rise and fall of the empire of words. You're gonna be left with nothing in the end, realizing there never was anything in the first place. He had experiences with psychedelics like ayahuasca/DMT, a background as a spiritual teacher before, knows about actualized, solipsism and is always funny and spreading good vibes while being completely authentic, no gatekeeping, as sharp as a laser knife. His one-on-ones are just BOOM!!! FULL STOP. I speak from experience. Enjoy him I'd love to see Leo talking to him but I guess that's a pipe dream. Here's his last video - a one on one: And here is one of his older videos where he talks about stuff related to solpsism. This format is an online meeting you can regularly attend (starts at minute 3):

In Leo's latest video he says God realization is much deeper than nonduality. Leo, I watched the whole video, thank you, but please can you or someone else that knows, say a bit more about the difference between realizing God and fully realizing nonduality. Are people like Adyashanti or Spira not God realized ?

The Gospel of Thomas is an incredible resource for those who take the nondual path. Many of these sayings are spot on and provide profound insight into his teachings and the religion that spawned around his teachings, how they have become distorted, and how they can possibly be reintroduced. Back in 2017 there was a user on the Actualized forum who wrote a dissection on the various sayings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Thomas.

Not two. Oneness (or a Unity experience of being one with the visual field and all arisings) easily leads to the "I am God", a merging/Unity experience. Oneness basically is Nonduality, which can be had as Unity experience with a subtle identity still well and alive, hijacking the nondual state. Which is then not true Nonduality with the center/identity fully transcended/seen through/gone, but a nonduality/unity experience hijacked and misinterpreted by a remaining subtle separate-self, which basically leads to continued suffering/resistance because its not fully seen through/transcended/cut off in real time. Oneness is still one too many... Not understanding this (but thinking one understands it) is basically to a large part the Leitmotiv of this lovely place here... And since this can only be understood once it fully happens, ones soul either intuits that truth and goes for it, or doesn't and goes happily exploring ET & company, and yours truly has to be happy with Selling Water by the River ... which he luckily is absolutely content with. PS: The nondual/oneness trap:

You sound completely human, babe. Don't play into the fantasy youre not human. Yeah, I called you babe. What a chad. When you absorb yourself in a lot of nonduality content you start speaking like that. I was like that years ago on my journey, just spitting the facts for others. You are the one who is trying to understand with the mind, and you have even believed you did understand thats why you're explaining to me. Whats so hard to understand about the notion that you do have a choice whether to stop a rape or not. Im not even talking about the nature of reality, but about my own self. Do Not Tell Me that I cant know my own experience, thats everything I know. You are explaining away something that cannot be explained and teling me that I'm doing that. I want you to know that Ive read and watched probably most and even more of the content that you have, so you cannot blow my mind with anything you say. I will not think you are deep, because I am not hearing anything original from you. You have a very single coloured understanding at best of the truth of not twoness. If its One doesnt mean its just one color. And here in the nonspiritual section, we are completely talking within the frame of duality and relationships, but you are trying to seep in nonduality into it, normalising rape in the process. You also keep flipping. First everything is unconditional love, now everything is included in unconditional love. Refer to my canvas and painting comment from earlier. We are here talking completely about the painting on the canvas, we are not exploring the canvas. Thats for the other section of the forums. So I dont get why you are arguing.

ahh shit is it just semantics, or do you think there is something different between solipsism and nonduality? when I think of solipsism, I guess what I’m thinking of is my own ego being everything. so that’s what, I believe, alien consciousness would disprove.

Brad warner talked about this. “nonduality” wasn’t really a thing 2500 years ago. the thing the Buddha was saying doesn’t exist is what we would call ego. Zen and Advaita began the true self doctrine about a thousand years after the Buddha died

Unfortunately not on youtube, but on audible: Shift into Freedom by Loch Kelly One of my favourite practical books on nonduality so far

Thank you, I appreciate. I also appreciate the time you took to have a more detailed answer in my journal where I go into more depth of why I feel hesitant with Turquoise. I agree, I always felt like Turquoise felt more vague compared to the other spiral stages since there isn't as many examples of Turquoise and because most of the examples that are there if I remember correctly had to do with nonduality, meditation, spirituality etc. while the other stages had examples in spirituality, economics, media, pop culture, etc. And that's understandable because the world has yet to evolve that much. I guess that's another thing that I'm coming up against where I feel like *let's not fix something that isn't broken* in reaction to growing from yellow and green because humans grow with their environment and influence their environment to grow and vice versa so it feels like I'm trying to adapt to something that doesn't really exist yet on a wider scale. I was using the spiral much more so to track my growth over the last few years and I also find myself hitting against a wall to where even though I resonate with green and yellow, I have worked through my own kinks and limitting beliefs to where I don't really resonate with the excesses and unhealthy manifestations associated with the stages, hence why to peg myself more accurately, I have been focussing on lines of development instead and taking that information loosely. As for the hardcore spiritual work, I guess for me it would be good to figure out what degree of spirituality works for me and that I find fulfillment in which can change as I move into different stages of my life. And if that's not what I'm authentically into, that's perfectly fine but I am seeing myself getting back into my own sense of spirituality and spiritual practices lately. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking of Leo's video on The Ultimate Guide To Happiness - How Happiness Works and how he goes into different things you should think about regarding your preferences on having a happy life. If I remember correctly, there was a part of the video where he mentioned that for most people, meditating in a cave for days and not using your mind isn't the path to happiness and that while this works for hardcore monks, for him specifically he needs more intellectual engagement and creativity than just meditating because or else it feels like he's just sitting there like a vegetable. I agree. I don't think that I'm trying to "win by developing as much as possible." I can see the value in all of the stages and if I stagnate at yellow, that's perfectly fine by me. Moving up the spiral isn't inherently good. Hell, I think you can even stagnate in the lower stages and so long as it's healthy manifestation of that stage, it's all good. But while I don't think there is anything wrong with staying at a stage and enjoying where you're at, I just wanted to check in and make sure that it's not coming from a place of complacency or demonization of a higher stage because of biases I might have of it.

If it's close to nonduality then it is no longer a religion. Buddhism can be a religion or it can be advanced sprituality, depending on how it is done. For many folks in Asia Buddhism is just a religion, not nonduality.

That is always a possibility, but contradiction is a feature of nonduality.

Loosely. Yes, of course. 0, 1, 2, and even 3 are rather special numbers. 0 is the ground. 1 is the unity of all things. 2 is the duality of forms. And 3 is the count of 0, 1, and 2. But in the end numbers are just one way to look at reality. Don't give numbers too much importance as the scientists do. You could look at reality in a completely non-numerical way. Don't make numbers into your God. Sure it is. I have episodes about duality and its importance. But also remember that duality and even nonduality are one lens to see reality, and you can look at reality in even more advanced ways.

I can't seem to shake the idea that others don't exist. After watching Leo's "Guided Exercise for Realizing You Are God", I had a moment in which I felt that everyone I knew was a projection, but soon after I found myself asking "But how could they not exist." Every time I saw another person, I questioned whether they were just a part of my imagination or if they are actually having a conscious experience. For example, anyone that replies to this thread could say "others don't exist", maybe evening having the thought that the person who wrote this was a projection of their own imagination, but I on the other side of this thread know that I in fact am not a projection because I am aware as I write this and have consciousness. Perhaps the higher the degree of consciousness, the closer to Nonduality someone gets? Even then, if there are other autonomous units of consciousness, regardless of the degree to which they are conscious, how is it possible that they don't exist altogether? I'm aware that my ego will fill in what I have conceptually striped away and that the more real I believe the Self to be the more real others will be, but then how do I practically experience ongoing Nonduality . I truly do enjoy the concept of nonduality but I'm having some trouble putting it in to practice. Any insights?

https://www.netflix.com/title/80013552?s=a&trkid=13747225&t=cp Here is the link to watch the movie. Moon is in Pisces ♓ (so it's time for some existentially woke shit) The Tale of Princess Kaguya by Studio Ghibli is the most profound and stunning metaphor for nonduality, and the existential sadness (and joy) for living through Earthly lifetimes. I had a full on existential awakening at the end of this movie and cried violently in front of my girlfriend for 20 minutes straight. I highly recommend watching closely. The ending is one of the most mind-blowing and beautiful endings of any movie. The entire movie is a masterpiece that will endure throughout human history as one of the most beautiful pieces of art ever made. The crown jewel of Japan's Walt Disney, Hayao Miyazaki. Also, the nature imagery and unique art style is stunning. He captures the innocence and purity of nature (and also of humans).

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

The main course of Nonduality just ain’t as tasty without the appetizer of Duality. Not to mention the dessert of “no one did all that seeking to go absolutely nowhere.”

This is a really spot on, precise and non-bullshit viewpoint on nonduality and mindfulness. Bottom line: people either tend to get stuck in neo-advaita, which results in endless mental masturbation and self-delusion or they get stuck in meditation/mindfulness practises and get nowhere for years or even decades. Here's the article: In the context of American spiritual practice nondual traditions and mindfulness traditions appear to be in sharp contrast. Nonduality is often associated with the “doing nothing” schools of meditation, and mindfulness meditation is often very effortful. Mindfulness meditation masters in the States commonly refuse to even discuss enlightenment, whereas nondual teachers never stop talking about how we’re already enlightened. At the extremes, these two traditions can become very critical of each other. Some nondualists think that mindfulness meditators are caught in the trap of working hard to get somewhere, and end up just building a meditator ego to replace their everyday ego. Some mindfulness practitioners think that nondualists are just playing a recursive word game (“Who is playing a word game?”) and narcissistically kidding themselves about how enlightened they are, while complacently denying their own foibles. It’s a shame that these two wisdom traditions—especially in their American expressions—are antagonistic to each other. Really they just represent the two ends of a spectrum of theories about the same idea—the idea of how to awaken to real freedom. It’s a shame, because in my opinion most nondualists (especially neo-advaitins) could use a little more of the mindfulness attitude, and most mindfulness practitioners could use a little more of nondual outlook. Working together they could, like peanut butter and chocolate, form something much more excellent than either on their own. Something we might call Nondual Mindfulness, or Practical Advaita. Does Advaita Preclude Practices? Nonduality or advaita (which includes most of Madhyamika Buddhist and Hindu Tantra philosophy, too) holds that we are already completely, perfectly enlightened. Many traditional schools of nondualism stress, however, that we need to do some practice to reveal this true nature to ourselves. We have blinders on, and cannot see our own enlightenment, and a practice (which there are many types of) will remove the blinders and allow our inherent liberation to naturally shine forth. It’s like the practice blows the clouds away and suddenly we can see the sun and sky, which were already and always there. But, due to accidents of history, American nonduality, or what is called “neo-advaita,” took the more radical viewpoint that no practices are necessary to uncover our deepest wisdom. In this viewpoint, practices are actually counter-productive because they are emphasizing the untrue concept that the ego needs to do something to get enlightened. That practice is needed to find awakening. In the neo-advaita view, the more you struggle to be free, the more you ignore your own complete freedom that is already there. The more you fight, the more you emphasize the (unreal) existence of the fighter, thus causing you to become more lost. And that’s why neo-advaita is so inimical to any meditation technique at all, including mindfulness. Mindfulness practice, to a neo-advaitin, is just a lot of effort to convince yourself that you’re not already free. A big waste of time that leaves you worse off—even more mired in delusion—than you were before. The trouble with this viewpoint is that it’s more of a philosophy than a practical application. You can think you’re free and let go of all ideas of non-freedom all you want, but at the end of the day, you may still not feel very free. For people suffering from real world problems like stress, anxiety, depression, drug addiction, relationship breakup, and a thousand other human catastrophes, being told “not to hold on to those stories and just feel your inherent freedom” can feel like an impossibly cynical mindfuck. It can make you feel inadequate or stupid, and doesn’t really help. Just like the New Age catch-22 of telling cancer victims that it’s their own fault, and that they just need to believe they are healed in order to effect a real cure (thanks a lot!), neo-advaitin sometimes people in situations of extreme suffering that it’s all their own fault — and not infrequently this oh-so-helpful message is imparted with an air of superiority and smugness. On a deeper note, if you do begin to do the (non-practice) that neo-advaita prescribes, namely to realize that your thoughts and feelings are not your thoughts and feelings, it can lead to dissociation. Constantly denying your own body and mind has a cost, and some on the nondual path find themselves stuck in the trap of meaninglessness for many years, not realizing that they have been mired in identification with this self who “doesn’t care.” The advaita view, while philosophically powerful, was not traditionally taught with no practices to go with it. For example in Soto Zen—which like most Buddhism philosophically agrees about the inherent awakening in each person, called the Buddha Nature—people are encouraged to do a practice called “just sitting” (shikantaza). Just sitting is just sitting, a practice that is not a practice. Traditionally a monk or nun would do such a non-practice, however, for tens of thousands of hours in their lifetime. For a non-practice, that is an awful lot of practice, and it has a predictably powerful awakening effect. Even the grand master of advaita, Ramana Maharshi, gave his students practices. While talking about how we are already enlightened, he taught people to meditate, chant mantras, do breathwork, and other effortful practices. If you read the detailed histories of his top students (you can do so in the books by David Godman, a series called The Power of the Presence) who were very highly respected, realized persons, he gave all but one of them such practices to do. And they practiced them with all their hearts, sometimes for decades. Ramana, in other words, understood the difference between the philosophy of advaita and its practice. (Ironically, it was someone who met Ramana only once, named H. W. L. Poonja, who gave rise to the American school of radical non-practicing advaita. This was the one student he didn’t give any practices to.) Except in rare cases, it is necessary for a person to do meditation practices to remove their ignorance of their own awakening. Afterwards, from their enlightened perspective, they may see how ridiculous it all was, but they never would have seen that without having done these “ridiculous” practices. Mindfulness has a lot to offer a nondual practitioner. For one thing, the practice of self-inquiry is a kind of mindfulness practice. Investigating the nature of the Self, asking yourself, “Who am I” and looking for the answer to that question can all be considered a kind of “mindfulness of the Self.” Most mindfulness practice as it is taught in America focuses on body sensations, but there is no reason that a practitioner cannot use the same kind of focus on the sense of self and deconstructing that sense of self into its components. In more advanced mindfulness practice, this is exactly the point. Does Mindfulness Practice Actually BLOCK Awakening? But advaita also has something very useful to contribute to mindfulness, because the advaita critique of mindfulness is legitimate and important. Again, it’s the idea that mindfulness strengthens the sense of being somebody (you, the meditator) doing something (practicing meditation) – a sense which, in the long run, is still an ego. Because mindfulness teachers very often talk about the practice as “becoming a witness of experience,” they are actually creating a safe haven for the ego, which can keep the person from realizing their fundamental awakening. You only have to spend time around some of the more long-term mindfulness communities to see the result of this misstep in action. There are a large number of practitioners who have been diligently doing their mindfulness meditation for decades, and who seem to be stuck in a particular place. They have gotten an edge or a handle on life. They’re pretty good at coping with difficulties, and they are much less caught up in the madness of their egos than the average person on the street. All of which is excellent. But beyond this, they are in a cul-de-sac. Nothing has changed in their practice for years or even decades. They seem somewhat flat or depressed. They may even refuse to acknowledge that real awakening exists, and consider enlightenment to be a dirty word. (Talk about missing the point.) The diagnosis is clear: they have fallen into the “Observer Trap.” The prognosis is good, if they can learn how to meditate on the sense of self involved in doing the meditation itself and then deconstruct that. By turning the meditator itself into the object of meditation, they can experience the dissolution of the meditator ego, and touch real awakening. It’s really that simple, but you will find few mindfulness teachers who are aware of this solution, or even of the problem itself. Although I don’t like to promote steps-and-stages models of awakening (they’re always too reductive), I believe that mindfulness could be described as a two-step process. First, you become the witness of experience. Second, you realize that you are not that witness. Virtually all of mindfulness in America only teaches you step one. Again, even step one is a big improvement over having no steps at all. However, if you are stuck in your practice, and you want to experience some of the deeper levels of awakening, then taking the second step is crucial. There are several ways to take this step. The standard nondual method is to simply sit with no agenda. Notice that this is not “not meditating,” it’s meditating with no technique. (The difference is crucial.) Another advaita technique that is applicable is self-inquiry practice, in which you look for the person who is meditating. The method that fits best with mindfulness practice is slightly more effortful, however. It involves patiently deconstructing the sense of the meditating self. Noticing the thoughts of the meditator (“This is going well today.” “Am I doing this right?” etc.) and the feelings of the meditator (happy that it’s going well, frustrated that it’s not, etc.). You can read a more in-depth description of the practice here. Get Clear: Nonduality and Mindfulness Thus the outlook of mindfulness can contribute something useful to advaita, and the outlook of advaita can contribute something useful to mindfulness. In the end, all of these distinctions only matter if they help you to make progress in your practice to reveal your true awakening. Nondualist—ask yourself if you’re just kidding yourself about how much freedom you actually feel each day. There are ways to go deeper without getting trapped in grasping, striving, and comparison, and those ways involve dedicated practice. Mindfulness-folks—ask yourself whether you’ve been stuck in basically the same place in your practice for a long time. There are ways to go deeper which involve deconstructing your practice itself. In both cases it will probably include a lot of discomfort at pushing yourself out of a comfortable resting place you’ve found to camp out in. The peace, joy, and freedom you will find will be worth all the effort. Source: https://deconstructingyourself.com/nonduality-and-mindfulness.html

But kidding aside, this is the Zen version of the key stage from going what some call Nonduality/Buddhism/rodents to Enlightenment. Beginning Nonduality is still in the dream, a subtle self merged in unity with the visual field, exchanging the dual dream for the nondual dream. But still a dream. When this Unity-self gets thinner and thinner, more and more transcended (Thisdell stage 4 to Thisdell stage 5), then: Everything - "every vestige of self-awareness", or any subtle I-feeling/I-thought/duality (all subtle illusions) have to be seen through and transcended with automized high-speed awarenes (speed, because these illusions arise extremly fast towards the end) and familiarity (strength, because there are some very subtle "feelings" and other arisings that constitute the separate-self) with these subtle obscurations. Speed & Strength of Awareness (courtesy to Frank Yang). And that has to be done automatic, no doer/agent doing it anymore ("Nonmeditation Yoga"). And then at the end it can really break open, in a way that can't be anticipated: You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present. Literally. Their essence. Before that stages, afterwards nowhere to go... Infinite Being.