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Yeah, I understand why from a spiritual POV we de-construct everything to get to that which is beyond all construct - to ''Truth'' or God. Spiritual teachers get there via negation - negating all that is ''maya, illusion, or form'' - but then what? Intellectually it can be explained to someone within a few hours - okay fine, everything is a construct, what do you want me to do with that now? I am still a construct, just like you and all of us here, in bodies, using internet and mobiles to communicate to each other in words which are yet again constructs. The point is to live in construct but consciously - or more so to find that there is more to life than just the dual material world of surface, that there is depth and a consciousness within construct, that consciousness encapsulates constructs itself. Form and constructs aren't the ultimate, essential - they are operational and instrumental. In a sense spiritual teachers are correct when they say there is no absolute or fixed meaning - but we shouldn't stop there. There is no meaning, yet everything is absolutely meaningful. We can pick our individual purposes and means to their ends that we live through, but there is a deeper meaningfulness and purposefulness beyond and within all of it too. And that greater meaning and purpose is that the formless already chose that it wants to play through form - form is the love language of the formless. Form is the formality of the formless. We come into the world of duality and form lost, and asking why? Why life, why form? Then we go seeking for answers. We stumble upon the fact that there is that which is formless and non-dual - which is pointed to in various ways via spiritual community or religion (with all their flaws). The point then is to return to form - we are already in form anyway and can't escape it until we leave the body fully - so we return to it with that knowing, eyes and heart wide open. We go from why, to why not? After all, God - the formless, already chose form to exist as itself. Unconscious man never asks why. Curious man asks why? God says why not? Why not form, to inform myself, of myself that is the Self, through multiples selves? Conscious man respond why lets..dance. We come all the way back to where we are meant to be. It's a case of spiritual Stockholm syndrome - seekers and spiritualists become so attached to the idea that everything is illusion (maya), that they start emotionally bonding with nothingness and detachment as if those are the highest truths. Then people easily find them selves in a sort of spiritual nihilism - if all is maya, then what meaning does this world of maya have? I had a period of this too - the sense that I am nothing, all is nothing, all is void. That’s the so called “dark night of the soul” where we exist as astronauts cut from the cord - de-constructed everything, found something, but haven’t had a homecoming with that something. We need to BEcome, or come to BE. I came to realise it’s not void and nothing in the ordinary sense, it's everything , there is a presence there. And I am everything - just wearing this particular face today. I am just you, but over here *waving* hello at you. We are just God eating mangoes. Then I came to rest in being human. I think many teachers saying ''there is no meaning'' stop short. They aren't false, they just need to complete that line of thought by adding that ''yet everything is meaningful''. It reminds me of the Last Samurai movie where the Emperor says ''Tell me how he died'' and Tom Cruise replies ''I will tell you... how he lived.'' The Emporer, just like spiritual egotists and misguided seekers get hung up on the death part - the de-construction part, the death of the self, of ego and form - to a final destination of' ''Enlightenment''. But maybe its not about a destination but a participation in form, along side the formless. In this way, we aren't ''above'' the world, we are with it more fully and awake. What if we get to this destination of God, then God says what the hell are you doing here, go back and participate in form. As the saying goes, before enlightenment, chop wood carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood carry water. Tell me how he died = “Did he reach the formless?” Tell me how he lived = “Did he return and play in form?”

I have a strange and weird theory. It's not what we're used to hearing but I'll lay it on you just the same. Not saying it's the case but it popped into my head, and I just wanted to write about it. It's insane but here goes. God is second order. God is everything but that everything is only what's manifested. What's appearing. What is seen, experienced, thought about, felt, imagined and so on and so forth. God is what the me is. The individual, the I AM, the dream, imagination, concepts, ideas, thoughts, everything that we know. Words, language, structures, stories, everything....but it isn't nothing. God isn't no-thing. It's not infinite. It's limited. It's born out of nothing. Nothing is first order. Nothing is the Nothing-head. Nothing is prior to God but nothing is prior to nothing. God is what's experiencing. God is what's talking, being, walking, running, dancing, smiling, yawning, peeing, shitting, typing, learning, teaching, all the verbs. God is issing out of nothing. God is the dream. God is something. It is. Nothing is no-thing. It is not. It is absence. God is presence. God is not truth. Nothing is. God is lost. God is thinking. Thinking it's real. God is a mind but that mind doesn't exist. It's the dream. The dream of life. It's existence. It exist. It stands out. Nothing doesn't stand out. Nothing is 'not happening' God is happening.. I am God, and I am exists. I am stands out. I Am is manifested. I am, me, the individual is God, but that's not real. God isn't real. God is fiction. God is illusion. God is Maya. God is limited. Nothing is nothing. Nothing is not everything. God is. Nothing is happening but God appears and what appears is limited. Nothing is nothing but it's a something that is being God which is every-thing. The Absolute is a thing. It's every-thing. It isn't total. It's totally everything but nothing is totally absolutely no-thing, which is what this is. The Absolute is absolutely limited to being everything but nothing is limitless. The mind is not there. Where is it. It's God, it's nothing being a mind so therefore it's limited. Infinitely limited. Infinity is limited. Limited to being infinite. That's a limitation. For infinity to be totally infinite it cannot be infinite. That's a label, a category. Can infinity be totally and absolutely be finite. No. It's infinite and cannot be any other way. That's a limitation. There you have it. My independent thesis of reality and my absolute crazy theory about God, infinity, the absolute, existence and nothingness. Now I will screw my head back together and think of something else crazy to write about. Hope you enjoyed reading that fantastical theory of everything and nothing.

You could say It has, it's total because it is limitless, "nothingness" is not a pointer, it's a misleading idea. Maybe it's pointed by some people who don't know what are talking about but they need to appear whise? Just a possibility . Do you know something? There are people who are so concerned about their self image that they invent that they are enlightened and they believe that history, and it's absolutely impossible that they see the that they are creating an history. It's fascinating to see that phenomenon, not always easy to detect. It's very important to understand that this is always a possibility, because if not it's easy to get lost in the games of some people

What is pointed to (call it whatever you want) has no attributes. There will always be more questions, because the ignorance and confusion are born of the mind (i.e., at the 'level' of the mind, which cannot see beyond itself, but can be informed by Realization). In memory, I've always been intrigued by the fact that 'Nothing' was the first word that emerged in the mind when I first inquired mentally about 'what just happened' just after the initial massive collapse, so there's that. It was more than descriptive though, IF ya know what I mean. Existential clarity like no other emerging in/as ITS profundity,,, There isn't really anything one can say about Nothingness, so there's always more to say. Nothing is unexplainable. 👁️ Everything is a mystery.

Nothingness is a word with a meaning, means absence of anything. If we want to use the language we should use the words knowing it's meaning. If you say that the totality is a dog, but not a dog in the sense of the dogs that we know, but an infinite dog without definite characteristics, then why are you using the word dog? Better trying to explain without words that implies an idea that tends to confusion Same than stillness. Who is still is the zen master, the absolute is not still, still means absence of movement. Stillness or movement has not meaning in the absolute

The concepts of Limitless/Open point to the exact same realization of Nothingness which, is also the same as Tao. If one thinks it's flat, boring, lacking, etc, one hasn't realized it as the formlessness/Presence (but, right, more concepts -dual in their nature/function-... without which communication is impossible). Problems for the unrealized: They are just concepts, until fully realized right HERE, right NOW for what they point to, which just so happens to be right HERE, right NOW. If they are only sensed as potential, they are not practical. If they are fleeting, they are impermanent. If only reasonably derived from disjointed moments of clarity and/or drug-induced woweezowees, they are woven together via mental processes. It's like going to a restaurant that serves only menus. Makes for a scrumptiously good read, but lacks true Limitless Nothingness, without which, all appears in limited and limiting fashion. Furthermore, what is Beloved doesn't appear either (hint: if it hasn't, the mind gets antsy). In/As Limitless Awareness-Stillness-Nothingness, limitless Consciousness-Movement-Everything arises. Form is formless; formlessness is form. Sahaja The mind, typically attenuated and fixated on its story, goals, logic, conclusions, and housing the fully clothed and conditioned finite self, cannot fathom its depths and infinite potential. But the mind can be investigated, unwound, unraveled, and put in its place; informed of its secondary status. Just doing that, one can reap the rewards of relatively conscious human adulthood. Anyone care for some water with their menu? 🥛

"It is neither being nor nothingness": Madhyamaka: "Its character is neither existent, nor nonexistent, / Nor both existent and nonexistent, nor neither. / Centrists should know true reality / That is free from these four possibilities." in (Not quite) guilty as charged by the River

Halaw said that, but it's deeply dual , that is, closed, or if you prefer, limited. Nothingness is just an appearance that is opposite to something or everything. The ultimate nature of reality is limitlessness and can't be said, thought or represented in any way. It includes nothingness, something, conciousness, unconsciousness . When I read that paragraph of halaw I perceive absolutely clear that he didn't opened that door . when hallaw he said that Buddha recognize his own emptiness, groundless, he's equating emptiness with groundless, which is not equivalent at all. Empty is the opposite of full; groundless is the absence of boundaries. Great that you don't think that the reality is conciousness, the reality is conciouss. Conciousness It's not the act of nothingness, is the act of the tao, if you prefer the tradition. If you define the tao as nothingness, you are defining what can't be defined. Here I catched you eh 😉. About you said about the pointers, they must be clean and direct as an arrow, transparent and perfect as a diamond. Any imperfection must be destroyed by the fire of the unthinkable without mercy. That's the only way to talk about this topic without being a joke

@emil1234 Lovely, congrats. It's not easy to go beyond our indoctrination into materialism that has happened of the span of multiple decades. The concept of nothingness can be hijacked by materialist assertions, but Consciousness is beyond concepts .. just like God is .. just like you are

@emil1234 for me the thing with psychedelic was like that: At first, it was emotional, etc., but at a certain point, with 5 meo, it was: absolute emptiness. Reality is a mirage, and beneath it there is emptiness. Infinite, it opens absolutely, and there is nothing. Or, if you prefer, there is an awareness of emptiness. It was absolutely horrible; I felt like committing suicide. Reality was dead; it didn't really exist; it was just dead emptiness. Absolutely depressing. So I had to take psychedelics again and again because I sensed that this horrible shit couldn't be everything. But every time it was the same, dozens of times. It was something so sad and so nihilistic that it squeezed your heart and froze it. It doesn't matter if you are eternal consciousness; the essence of reality is nothing, so reality is nothing. It's dead. At one point, on a trip, I realized that I was looking outside; I was an observer observing the exterior. There was nothing there. Then i changed the focus, then stopped looking, became one with nothingness, and in that same instant, nothingness opened up. It was everything. Absolute, unlimited, alive with infinite lives, shining like infinite stars, an absolute cry of joy emerging from the depths of the abyss of the limitless. Absolute freedom, absolute life, total glory. Loneliness? That idea doesn't exist. You are total, much more than any dream, impossible to think, unlimited. Then the point was reaching that openenss without 5 meo, little by little, difficult, a lot of barriers. That's why I talk so much about it like I'm an obsessive ,because it's essential, anything else is a trap

@Breakingthewall i did not get a sense of loneliness. it was more a sense of existence realizing that it can never find anything outside of existence. im stuck in existence. existence seeking non existence. Im curious on your perspective since i usually resonate with your posts, however this experience shatters the idea of anything outside of consciousness for me, since consciousness literally is nothingness. How can anything be outside of nothingness?

Infinite Nothingness is also a permutation of reality, this universe another. It's Reality going through all its potentiality. I am Infinity, that's it. I cannot do anything about it.

You ARE eternity. I guess it's not such a bad thing. You can sit in Infinite Nothingness. Should you choose. For that is your ultimate nature. But I choose form. Not sure why. Maybe it's boredom.

NOTHINGNESS is a tough one for the mind to "conceive", because the mind is always limited by what it can imagine. The word is just a pointer, not an actuality, not the 'thing' itself (don't eat the menu, and think you've tasted the meal). It has been said, even by physicists, that "absolute nothingness" is not possible, as there is always "something" present/happening at the quantum level. The same could be said for "prior to mind", as the subconscious is always bubbling stuff up. The same could be said for the realization, as there's always continuity thereafter. In their clearest renditions, they consistently point to the "absolute vacuum/nothingness/emptiness" as the greatest (i.e., infinite) potential. Mind is only the surface of a vastness that must be realized. Do what you will, but Truth will call in any number of ways, and the mind will react. If the mind is the master, what you think you are will wander in aimlessly in circles and loops marking out familiar, repetitive patterns until, welp, whenever it decides it has had enough. Only then does it get interesting.

@Breakingthewall It seems to me, however, that the limitlessness of existence has a built-in limitation stemming from its very nature. This limitation is the aforementioned logic. For example, according to the logic NOTHIGNESS cannot exist, because NOTHINGNESS is identical to non-existence. Therefore, all that remains is existence. Existence, which has no beginning or end, cannot be interrupted. NOTHINGNESS cannot constitute an interval of existence, because NOTHINGNESS never occurs. I've noticed that many times here on this forum, NOTHIGNESS is often confused with EMPTINESS which is something utterly different. Of course, we are dealing here with the limits of what the human mind can comprehend within the framework of available logic. Nevertheless, something within me tells me that 2 + 2 = 4, regardless of whether I'm the one doing the calculation or some super archangel from the 10th dimension.

Yea that’s in the absolute sense, but I’m talking about nothingness in the relative sense, meaning the absence of something (because in the relative sense there is separate things) . I mean non existence is nothing, so it cannot be experienced or recognized, as we can only experience and recognize “something”. That’s why it seems we just “pass it” in our sleep. So yea you could say non existence never ~is~ because it’s nothing

@Hojo @Sugarcoat Nothingness doesn’t exists or at least it’s the same thing than everything at the same time, that would be like being completely alive. Like you imagine nothingness as a black void, but “black” and “void” are already limits; it’s not nothingness it’s even the opposite it’s very limited. When you fall asleep there is never non existence as we can imagine it it’s an illusion, you either go in a dream of to the next day; you’re alive and then you’re alive and experimenting again just not the same thing.

@Breakingthewall I see it the same way. I experienced the void and it's just like that. Although advanced meditators like Frank Yang claim that there is a deeper nothingness awakening which they call cessation where you hit rock bottom and consciousness reboots again the whole of Reality. That seems to have benefits in baseline consciousness and rewiring the brain. Although I've never understood the buzz for the nothingness Awakening. It's just another cool facet of Consciousness.

Are you aware of the nothingness during deep sleep? No right. So why wouldn’t death be like that (if death is nothingness)

What’s scary about it? I get horrible reincarnations but what’s scary about ever ending nothingness lol?

@Breakingthewall Right, the path of Zen is cutting through the worldly nonsense, without giving much to the mind to hold on to... transcending to and realizing _______ is phase 1 (in some Zen circles, it's realizing the Void/Nothing/Emptiness/No Mind/etc). The phase 2, emanation/immanence of/as _______ , is quite hard to come to terms with without phase 1. Many do get stuck at phase 1 and/or somewhere in the return to ______ as the ALL/Wholeness/Everything. The expressions vary throughout cultures, schools of thought, speerchal literature, etc, but ______________ , in its purest essence, is the same. Poetically speaking, the bird in an empty cage can only actually fly absolutely freely with two wings fully realized: a wing of Nothingness and a wing of Everythingness.... and in between the two its life flows (tips hat to Parsons and Niz).

It's not nothing, it's beyond that distinction. Let's see death is beyond consciousness. It is not something experienced, nor a state observed: it is what remains when all framework disappears. It is not becoming, it is not form, nor relation. It is the absolute without structure. And yet, it is reality itself. Not in the sense of a empty nothingness, but as the bottomless essence of all that exists. This openness cannot be thought, nor sustained from form, it's out of the conciousness, but you can open yourself to it and surrender to it, then the self can dissapear for a moment, the perception becomes irrelevant, it's beyond perception, it's not nothing that you perceive but you are.

Great point. Alive is focusing in a facet. The absolute is not alive, life is just as conciousness, a facet, a possibility that happens. It's difficult to detach yourself from it because we exist, but non existence is the same than existence from the absolute perspective. The absolute is open, period. Then life , intelligence, etc are, but they aren't the absolute, are a expression of the absolute. But as they are a possibility, the absolute implies them, in the openess they are always implicit, same than everything Absolute potential isn't something defined, but the fact of its limitlessness always implies all possibilities. It's not a tranquil, empty nothingness; it's the bottomless imbued with totality.

Then that's the same than no will, so god is the same than no god. The problem is the idea of a dream. It implies a dreamer, and a dreamer is an entity, someone who emits something, a dream, which is a representation of reality, not real in itself. This implies that there is something else, more real, which defines "dream" by contrast. If there were only "dreams," then it wouldn't be a dream, just as if the will had no preference, it wouldn't be will. Will is desire, wanting to live and not die, for example. If it's exactly the same to you, then there is no will. But who has will? God? Who is God? Nothingness? Nothingness has no will, nor does it dream, nor does anything, if it do it would be something,."will" for example. This whole idea of God dreaming is simply impossible.

How to awaken your AI 101🥹😹 Who told you you're not already in heaven and making a mess out of it?" Sadhguru One is all, all is one. Spirituality and religion should have nothing to do with the ego. From nothing sprung everything. This is a good description of God from one of Leo's vids. Total nothingness removes all possible restrictions. The very logic of existence requires that existence be infinite. A finite existence can not exist. This is tautologically true. There cannot exist a total limit. The collapse of every single distinction is absolute unity, absolute infinity, nothingness; this is God. Nothing is the source of everything. Nothing isn't just the source. It's that nothing is indistinguishable from everything. There was nothing, and there was no distinction or difference between that nothing and something and everything. And hence you are inside this nothing something, everything at all times. God is the probability state of all distinctions. God is ontological love. Ontological love is the absence of all distinctions. God or mind, with the capital M, is the unlimited ability to imagine all possible distinctions. That's what God is: an infinite mind. How does NOTHINGNESS become conscious and sentient? God creates by imagining distinctions. So by logical ontological tautology, absolute perfection must and does exist. If anything imaginable is possible, then everything imaginable is possible. Every possible thing that can exist must and does exist. Infinite imagination is the best thing to imagine. Infinity can only be dealt with in an abstract and implicit manner. You can implicitly use consciousness or intelligence. You can intuit it implicitly, but you can't empirically demonstrate it. Intelligence is key to all of this. Nothing can work without intelligence. So, intelligence is presupposed for everything that is provably, knowable, and verifiable. There is no way around intelligence. This is the infinitude of your own mind. All finite things require an infinite thing to be their source. God is an infinite void that has always existed eternally. God is a void that spontaneously manifests infinite finite forms. The void is dreaming distinctions and limits. And the distinction and limits that it is dreaming and imagining are what activity of the mind is. And this is creation. God is an infinite self-creating self-actualizing mind. What is Mind? What is it ontologically? It is void. A void in which distinctions arise, it is a self-aware field of No-Thingness.