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It's only a fair statement, if those people also are highly awakened. Unfortunately like you said, majority of them do not transcend their egos. You have to remember that even if those things that you mentioned would be true - they would still only be relatively true - because from a non-dual perspective, it's all you, it's all just God playing with itself. (So those entities, spirits, etc that you view as "other" is all you anyways). Labels do matter, because a lot of them keep people stuck from having a non-dual realization.

Strictly speaking you do not need to follow any moral rules to awaken. Just like how you don't need to follow any rules to learn math. But if you are very wrapped up in acting from ego (being highly selfish) you will, in practice, not likely ever awake. So all that Buddhism is telling you is: stop being a fucking devil for a bit so you have a decent chance to awaken. Stop your whoring, theiving, and hoarding. Not because it is evil, but because it interferes with meditation. Yup It would be nice, but it is not a necessity. You are free to be a devil. There are no shoulds in the universe. The point is Totality. This means that some will be awake and many won't. The awakened person understands that most people should not be awake. There is no why or should. You are free to do whatever you desire. Things are Good regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not. Awakening clears up confusion. Confusion is okay too. It is part of Totality.

I wouldn't necessarily say studying is a bad thing, especially if the study is a preperation towards a practical function in life, and the experience of studying itself can also be a valuable learning curve in itself. I myself am going to study Social Work because I want to have access with my degree to be able to be hired in job applications in for instance in psychiatric hospitals. I feel like people like those in psychiartic hospitals can use an (semi-)awakened being the most and yet are often dealing with most unconscious, insane behaviour from others, because these educated "professionals" may have a lot of knowledge, but very often they lack personal experience of transcending inner struggles, and therefore they can't truly handle the energy of insanity that hangs around places like a psychiatric hospital. I myself have done much of this inner work, and therefore have a grounding of being able helping people to transcend their struggles because of my own inner work (though there is still much inner work to be done). I hope that I can make a change there, but of course my future can still go in many direction and I might end up in a totally different place. Also, just the very experience of studying and facing new challenges that I have to overcome seem as of currently a very proper step for me. And also, I like the focus of my study on the high amount of internships that are required in the cirriculum. I prefer at least at this point experience over knowledge. And also, I also want to study Social work to properly understand the mainstream health care system so that I can be more effective as being a potential whistle-blower However, I do want to acknowledge that the intellectual understanding and "wisdom" of these universities and colleges are still very limited by for instance materialistic paradigms. Universities and colleges may have a lot of smart people and professors, but rarely do they have "wise" people there. Therefore, the question to actually study philosophy at an university is questionable, as professors are often ignorant of non-dual forms of wisdom and its many contradictory perspectives; they are often rooted in many forms of dualism as well and not too many of them are very spiritually mature human beings. In other words: wisdom and maturity are other things than cleverness and being a good intellectual. The internet on the other hand is full of highly awakened forms of content. You just have to search in the right places. So as far as knowledge alone is concerned, I wouldn't do the study if I were you. Except if you're interested in like the history of philosophy and how it all developed, and to sort of compare philosophies from different sources against each other just out of sheer interest. There are also other drawbacks on doing a formal education and working at a job that is rooted in mainstream society or the mainstream system. For instance, in my study Social Work and the work I'm allowed to do with my degree, one thing I'm not looking forward to is having to do much administration and paper work. I'm probably going to end up being very sleek and subtly slipping past many of these somewhat useless rules and regulations wherever I see an oppurtunity, because all this paperwork is so controlling and somewhat paranoid. Considering your study isn't really (directly) aimed towards training you for practical aspects of life so much, it makes your study a bit more questionable as opposed to getting a degree for an education that is aimed to instruct you more towards the practical domains of life. However, it may (or may not) still be potentially worthwhile. Just as you has said in the previous post, I also find in myself that external stimuli like discussion, teachers, student interactions, and potentially also deadlines and having set concrete assignment for yourself by others, can also be of an extra stimulation to sort of get yourself to do something. I wouldn't maybe have agreed with this sort of pressure as being "good" a couple of years back, but now I do see that —at least in my current situation— it has a certain value to it. It can sometimes be helpful to me if I receive external pressure or stimulation to go and do something; It gets me going more easily and I often even appreciate having received this external pressure afterwards. I can't answer your question if you should go and study or not. However, you should consider for yourself very well what your alternatives are and if you think you'd be better off with these alternatives than going to do this study.

@Key Elements i do..i saw his quote and he said specifically that riding the ox backwards was not a test of enlightenment which is a lack of awakening to certain facets of Truth. Again it's not a knock on him it's just that he hasn't awakened to that yet. Had he been open minded to it and other facets he would still be teaching here.

This is a conditional, personal, human construct of awakening. It is not Ablsolute Awakening. A personal human construct of awakening as practical value in being human, yet it is still a relative human construct. When you say "because he is suffering as a separate ego entity", you have created the same separate ego entity as you are pointing to. You have created an entity called "Martin Ball" that is separate from you and that there are appearances in this separate entity that disqualifies it from being awakened. Within a personal/human construct, that has value and I often use that construct in my life. Yet that aint IT. As well, when you say "psychedelics show you how much manual work is still necessary for deep and permanent awakening" I would agree with that for awakening. Yet not for Awakening, which is not dependent on human conditions. From a relative, personal human perspective - I agree. If we create a construct of what spiritual development and progress is to a human - there would be many different constructs and no one would agree on all components - not even the most spiritually "advanced" practioners. This is inherent to be human in a relative world. First, you are creating a distinction in which there is a "psychedelic state" and a "sober state". You are giving value to the "sober state" as being the default state of reality and a "psychedelic state" is an altered state of reality. From this mindset, one will see psychedelics as an altered state in which one temporarily steps out of the default sober state to gain insights. Then once returning to the sober state, the sober mind will ask "what did we get from the psychedelic state that applies and benefits the sober state? Is this application/benefit permanent"? This is a construct you have created. This is the most common perspective because the mind has been conditioned to create a reality that it can make sense of and gives it grounding and practicality for survival. As well, it is reinforced in society. You could also see the psychedelic state as being equivalent to the sober state - yet this is very difficult for a mind to do. This isn't just relevant to psychedelics - it is relevant to all different mind states. One will be contracted within a value dynamic until this is realized. Yes, and it also transcends your entire personal/human construct of what awakening is. You are speaking of awakening, not Awakening. Yes, at the human level I would agree. I'm am a strong advocate for research in psychedelics and training practioners who use psychedelics for spiritual and therapeutic purposes. For example, I would like to see new infrastructure built for psychedelic-therapy - in which health care practitioners go through extensive training. 100 years from now, I think humans will cringe about how psychedelics were used. For example, desperate people suffering with mental conditions such as PTSD ordering psychedelics online and trying to self-medicate without knowledge and experience of psychedelics. I think in the future, we will be much more advanced. Someone with PTSD will be able to walk into a clinic for free and receive quality psychedelic therapy from a highly trained practitioner. I agree. Psychedelic revelations will be contextualized at the baseline conscious level of the user. I think having a basic foundation of maturity, development and stability is helpful. I think that would be interesting as well.

@Key Elements @Nahm So how You live your life as awakened devil. Trust me in my entire life I've never seen anyone awakened not Just That I barely saw only few lets say Selfless Good persons.All devils are You and You are concious of it but at the same time they are not. How You act? Even asked this question to Leo. Do YOU embody all of YOUR True Absolute Nature as personal self. Problem with That is that You Will be ripped apart. Some of us didn't need an awakening to live such self sacrifice life Before and I really do know possible implications of it. Not fun at all. Ofcourse If You have interest in playing small game. This is where wisdom is required. Turn out to be delicate balancing act.

I appreciate that you're putting a lot of effort into explaining difficult concepts, Leo. But being rationally aware of your strings won't make you awakened spiritually in any sense. It is still you playing as God. But you are NOT God, that's self deception. If there's a God, it is everything and we're a part of it. It seems that many members on this forum say that they're enlightened or awakened spiritually. This is a big red flag for me. Why would you say that again and again when exchanging ideas with others? It's not constructive at all and this attitude seems just plain arrogant. Relative truths are not absolute truths and nobody is entitled in telling the truth to others. This sense of entitlement is egotistical.

? Even if the selfless awakened is superior - the real superiority is an healthy integration of the two.

Every spiritual school has rules you must play by. Welcome to society. If anything my rules are too lax and too accommodating of diverse perspectives. This tolerance gets abused by devils. But I have some limits. Undercutting the highest truth I know cannot fly here. If someone wants to teach that there is no God, that love is just an emotion, that psychedelics are delusion... well... they will have to start their own school. Not in my school. I hold WinterKnight to a higher standard because he is here in a teaching capacity and representing enlightenment. I would have less problem with it if he was just making random comments as a non-teacher. In the future I will be screening people on this forum harder when they claim to be enlightened in order to maintain the integrity of these teachings. A lot of people come here, claim to be enlightened, and then they're off to the races with their twisted and half-baked views. 1) Your awakenings were not nearly deep enough, requiring much more embodiment work. 2) Your desire to feel good is never going to work. You cannot use spirituality to feel good. Rather, what spirituality teaches you is that no matter how bad you feel, that is good. This is very counter-intuitive. The ego wants to lock in a happy state. This is not only impossible but it is the very cause of your unhappiness. Happiness is total acceptance of whatever is happening in the present moment. That means if you're getting tortured, you accept it without trying to escape it. The desire to escape suffering is the very thing which creates suffering. Because this is not as slight a difference as you think, and because this problem, while small now, will only grow larger and larger with my newer teachings until it comes to a head. I have a very specific teaching I want to offer the world. I created this platform to offer this teaching because I knew that no other platform would allow me to teach what I need to teach. This is precisely backwards. You are God. Period. The mistake you're making here is you're still maintaining a subtle distinction between self & other. You're "otherizing" God. You're missing the most important point of all: THAT YOU ARE GOD! This is no metaphor. You created the whole fucking universe. But you forgot. Now you must remember. Thousands upon thousands of people have awakened to Love. Many even on this forum. But awakening to Love has nothing to do with walking around all loving all the time. Do not confuse Love with some sentimental positivity. You can find Love in a warzone. Here's one example: No. What I'm talking about is not emotion. It's existential insight & raw Truth. How you feel about it is irrelevant. I understand that more than you can imagine. No, it does not matter. Consciousness cannot really cease. It can just be empty. Empty or full doesn't matter, it's all the same Truth. Nirodha Samapatti is identical to NOW. Existential Love is not a state. Love is all states.

@Leo Gura Do you know anybody that has "awakened to love" and now is walking around all loving all the time? I just don't think such people exist. The closest are probably monks who put a lot of emphases on loving-kindness meditation in their spiritual training. Don't you think your emotions are influencing a lot of your interpretation of psychedelic experiences? One thing I think you greatly underestimate is how peoples interpretation of the same experience can differ. For example from your enlightenment happening live video, I can tell you have much much stronger emotional reaction than me. When I first awakened to no sense of agency, I basically came back to my computer and continued to watch youtube. Even when I had my first big psychedelic breakthrough, first thought was not God but rather that was the most alien and weird experience ever, like becoming a very fiber of reality. Don't you think that these cosmic experiences where there is no "I" but still awareness that you enjoy, are still in a subtle way a survival strategy compared to a complete cessation of consciousness like Nirodha Samapatti? I don't think it's possible to shift into a persistent state of love. However, if it's somehow, I wish you to attain this and guide us on how to do it.

@Leo Gura 1. Yes, but my abilities were that of a mystic, which is different than a clairvoyant or psychic. Mystics tend to merge their essence naturally with the divine. They get far more information/knowledge/insight but is usually pretty deep so it takes a bit for them to unpack it. Mystics are considered to be deep reservoirs of spiritual energy, which is why dark spirits tend to leave them alone. If spirits harass anyone, its usually the clairvoyants/psychics. I had a knowing as a child that spirits would not want to mess with me without understanding why I knew that. I did have an experience twice about 30 years ago where I woke up and saw a brilliant light in the room and felt like I started floating above the bed, which scared the shit out of me at the time. Clairvoyants talk to many diverse spirits while mystics tend to only communicate with the divine or a direct messenger of the divine. Psychics see; mystics know and command. You are also a classic mystic IMO. 2. I think everyone can develop their natural abilities much further than they currently are. The question is what are ones natural abilities? My fiance is a gifted clairvoyant. She can see spirits, channel them and speak with them but there is not nearly the sizzle and crackle in the air when she calls the divine into the room like when I do it. Spirits tend to do as I tell them but they might test her a lot more. With that said, I try to develop the areas that I am naturally weak as much as I can. My favorite books on that are by Ivo Domingues called Keys to Perception and the Magnus Opus by John Kreiter. 3. Many people that are highly awakened are mystics. Since they dont have the psychic sight talent, the spiritual world, along with all its possibilities and potentials is not as obvious. When a mystic steps into that realm however, they can usually summon massive amounts of spiritual power. The REAL power is making ones way through acceptance and finally making it to complete surrender to the divine. Once this happens, the divine may give the mystic authority to speak and command in the divine's name (I call the divine Adonai because I like how the Jews "conceptualize" God, which is actually no concept). The power that one has when this happens is ineffable. If the divine has not explicitly granted the authority, the Mystic can request this authority is granted to manifest the divine will he is surrendered to. Of course, he is responsible for how he uses that power but the mystic is expected to discern himself how to use it on his path of evolution. I think that this seems to be fairly uncommon because one weakness of the Occult path is the lack of attention to total acceptance and total surrender to the divine. Yogis typically get stuck on the being side of the paradox and occultists generally get stuck on the doing side of the paradox, which hinders that shift to surrender for the occultist. I believe this paradox should be resolved without leaving either out. 4. Great question...Im also curious as to why some are mystics and others are psychics. 5. My healing abilities have been getting quite a bit stronger but when i was granted the authority to speak and command in the divine's name, that was a game changer. Im still exploring this but the first time I used it, my fiance had a back that has been in extreme pain for years. I started rubbing her back muscles and in my head, said "I command the muscles to release and be healed in the name of Adonai". As the word Adonai entered my head, a massive surge of energy came into my body, shot down my arms and hands into her back. Even though I was silent, she immediately yelled from the shock of energy and jumped up. She was totally healed in a way that was FAR beyond my previous abilities could even come close to. I experimented with it and found that if I say it out loud, it is even more powerful. This ability is something I am still experimenting with to see how far it can go. I also created a servitor and used the same authority/command and the spirit showed up and requested to speak directly to me through my fiances body as a medium. This spirit was far more real and powerful than the two other spirits I made without using that method. 6. I have projected myself 30 miles away into my fiances bedroom and whispered into her ear. I didnt say anything to her but she told me the next day she felt me in her room and told me what I said. The healing abilities at this level are new and Im just familiarizing myself with it. Ive been shown deep insights where I had complete knowledge about very complex subjects but this is common for mystics and you have also experienced this. Whether it is a spirit guide or the divine, its spoken to me telepathically but that is also common for mystics. I created a servitor/spirit and infused it into an object. I started talking to it and "charging it" and the object started moving on its own (very shocking). It did the same for my fiance. Ive summoned spirits that spoke through my fiance several times. I just started shifting my attention to the occult a year ago. Its been a pretty crazy but extremely interesting ride. Im sure it will get crazier and even more interesting as the years go by

I've always been really connected to nature and fascinated by plants. When I bought my old house I started feeling presences around me in the middle of the night, I felt like there was a crowd around me and I wasn't alone. This happened off and on for a few years. After noticing poison nightshade on an herbal healer's grave in a nearby old cemetery, I looked him up and read his book which explained how he was born with, but also developed clairvoyant powers. After that strange things kept happening, I found the remains of the mansion he built that burned down. I started going there and getting insights. I noticed after the fact that I had had a number of little awakenings that happened all in this section of my town. The trees that I had had an epiphany about not being real, but just a projection grew by the brook that ran behind the cemetery. The place at the river I felt intensely present at and became obsessed turned out to be overlooked by his home. He grew up in the area up above it. I've become more aware of how witchcraft and magic work, how the bird baths and the monument and the stone pyramids on his grave are symbolic and the huge population of crows there and how they dropped the seeds of the poison nightshade there. When I awakened I gave this 1800's garnet ring that was my prized possession and left it on his grave. I didn't know at the time it was a gift for the crows, I just had the intuition to do it and it felt perfect and exciting. Yet it doesn't feel right for me to study witchcraft much outside of what I'm intuitively drawn to do. I could write a book about the little presents and synchronicity I've found there since and looking into his history. Is it possible for an area to be "magic" more than another? Or is it that I have less resistance there than other places and so the walls of duality start to fall away for me? Or is there a kindred spirit, or past life situation going on here? Does it even matter? Is that I have an inexplicable love for him and for the place itself and so when you smile, the universe smiles back?

@Meditationdude Psychedelics awakened me in a powerful way. I would not have been awakened without them. There is absolutely no way I would have made the progress without them. As to what it takes for others to awaken, thats not for me to say. Have you ever thought exactly why you are so opposed to psychedelics? Is it societies rules that have been imprinted? Is it fear of having to release control? Whatever it is, it is limiting imo. There is no objective truth that psychedelics are "bad". Its a "truth" that depends on who you ask, what culture they live in, what time in history they live in, etc, etc.

Yes, and answering the OP's question then would depend on if his ex GF has transcended her ego. He didn't mention whether she's awakened or not.

Go to a sage now. Either moojiji or sadguru there are many people that can help you out but they must be enlitend and you must meet them in person, Also can i add that anxious, pain and confusion are all obversed and are part of the dream that you awakened from so how can this things even bother you really, just saying. Also if you can't get to some one in irl then try watching moojiji videos and find a case that is answered by him similar to yours and TRUST me this is easier that it seems.

@Inliytened1 Your claims and logic lack nuance, are black and white, and don’t look at reality honestly. This is due to your non dual state being filtered and distorted heavily by your defilements. This also causes you to not truly understand what I am saying which will make a back and forth between us not at all productive. Ill end my comment with a story. A friend of mine awakened and stabilised in non duality. Thought his fear of death was eradicated, only when he got kidnapped and was actually threatened did he start to realised that his former beliefs and viewpoint lacked tremendous honesty.

@zeroISinfinity Yes, you become that empty universal mind, but that still doesn't mean you are fully conscious of how it works or even what it is. For example, are you conscious right now of how Universal Mind is materializing your physical body? I'd guess not. This requires a radical degree of consciousness than even most awakened people do not have. For example, I have become conscious of how I create every molecule in my own body. This realization has nothing to do with removing defilements.

The further I sink into the ideas of actionless action and living from the fullest uninterrupted self, the more that I wonder that an entirely "awakened" Earth to be contrary to the process that seems to be itself already happening and the suggestion itself from a place of judgement. Any thoughts? I'm sorry if my question is poorly worded, I'm having difficulty translating these ideas into easily readable concepts under regular language. The idea seems to be that in an "enlightened" state that we realize even the "bad" to just be a judgement and just part of the process. If that's the case does the world need to wake up at all, besides the usual amount of people that already are usually on the path? Thank you.

I agree. He even admitted that he only does this work for self entertainment because when he is fully conscious, there is noone left to awaken. That's what he told me. To me, that is a form of delusion which needs to be addressed. While he was having his full awakenings, I never awakened with him, I doubt anyone else did either. His worldview is deeply flawed. If you ask him if he exists he will probably say that he doesn't and you are imagining him, or, as he said to me, "I am only as real as you make me." Ask any healthy person the same question, and they will go to their direct experience and rightfully conclude that they are real and exist in some form or another. Leo, you are only as real as you believe yourself to be in your own bubble of experience. Nobody else has control over that but you.

@Leo Gura When you enter non duality and let’s say the conscious defilements are removed. There remains many, many parts of you that refuse to buy into your seeing. That are self involved. Many control mechanisms, tendencies and vasanas remain. This causes a high degree of cognitive dissonance in the newly awakened person. Which can be solved by clinging onto one’s seeing and refusing to acknowledge one’s cognitive dissonance. Merely dismissing it as mind and “remaining as you are”. Which stunts further growth and does not allow for further development or you acknowledge the cognitive dissonance and the underlying issues that cause it. By doing so the first step towards embodiment begins. To simplify what I said. A being who is main aim is survival. Once he sees the dimension of nothingness and that dimension becomes a part of his experience can alleviate his survival issues merely through that seeing. By claiming I am everything. I am eternal. In a rather dishonest fashion or Going against his cravings and the easy way out he can acknowledge that which is hard to look at. That the seeing is one component. A very muddied one due to layers and layers of tension fighting it for lack of a better term.

@Aakash I don't understand what you are saying, what do you mean by - facets. You are saying-' if you want to awaken to the facet fried chicken.' Is there such a thing as - awakening to something or awakening to a facet? Isn't there just awakening. And again you say- awakening to the facet fried chicken means - mystical experience of it getting eaten. And you contradict yourself saying- I never said- experience , when you yourself are saying - mystical experience. "Some people are self love, some people are love (which are not even comparable at all) , some people are emptiness, some people are intelligence, some people are dualistic, some people are totally non -dualistic , some people are absolutely non-dualistic . " Again, I don't know whether what you are saying is true or not. 'Some people are love', no, people are bones , muscles, cartilages, love is an emotion. "All other awakenings are the same" and same= awakening to the facet x which means a mystical experience of x getting eaten. Let's say Buddha awakened, he had a huge 5-Meo DMT like experience. Now where does the thing about facet come in the picture? Did Buddha ever say in his sermons - I awakened to the facet fried chicken, I awakened to the facet diet coke. I am asking this because I am not sure, either you are just goofing around or you are a spiritual master. The rest of what you say about infinity, I agree.

I’m not addressing you personally here. These are general observation of social dynamics. The above sentiment could come from someone at Green/Yellow trying to pull Orange up to Green. Or it could come from Orange resisting Green and trying to maintain Orange. These two positions are very different orientations driven by different values and desires. The Green/Yellow person may see the collective good in BI, yet may realize that it may not be practical to implement and there may be unintended negative consequences. The key here is that Green/Yellow values that collective goodness and will advocate for it. Such a person will want things to progress and offer ideas to keep the progress going. For example, they may see some drawbacks in the structure of BI and offer some ways we could modify it to address those concerns and make the proposal more efficient. For example, if BI is funded by rerouting social security funding - it could make both BI and social security programs vulnerable to future dismantling (since social security has much deeper infrastructure). If both B1 and social security was lost, this would not be good for the collective. We may say in this context that the current BI proposal is not good for the collective - yet let’s re-work it to address this concern. Or, a Green/Yellow may say that the most important here is the underlying value of meeting basic needs, yet BI is not the best way and offer other another option to achieve this goal. Orange will have a very different orientation. An Orange person may see the collective good in BI, yet not want to move in that direction because they are anchored in Orange. Similar to Green/Yellow, they may voice support for the underlying intention of the proposal and voice “concerns” about how it’s not practical or it will have unintended consequences. Yet Orange will not want to progress, so they will not offer energy and ideas to progress. Rather, they will delay, stonewall, drag their feet, undercut and make excuses. For example, over the last six years, the workforce at my job has gone from 150 years of being 90% upper-class white to being highly diverse - ethnically, socially and economically. This is had positives for the image and economics of the institution - which is attractive to Orange administrators. The problem is that the administrators are still all upper-class straight white men. There is a lot of grass roots Green, yet Orange administrators resist. They know they can’t resist by rejecting Green values, so they try to appear supportive of Green. Yet they aren’t. They try to appear as being pragmatic and concerned - yet they keep avoiding, delaying or resisting any new initiative toward progress. And often try to slip in Orange level constructs. Just like conservative Blue has “dog whistles” that Green has awakened to, Orange can speak in “code”, in which Green is awakening to. This dynamic can also be seen with corporate Orange Democrat’s resisting progressive Green Democrats.

What does the word ‘non-duality’ point to? The world created by thought, the world of words, language, and concepts, is the world of opposites. ‘Up and down’, ‘this or that’, ‘inside and outside’, ‘right and wrong’, ‘black and white’, ‘true and false’, ‘positive and negative’, ‘me and you’ and so on. The world of words, language, thoughts, concepts, is a dualistic world of apparent opposites. But, in reality, do opposites exist? What we are really pointing to when we use the word ‘non-duality’ is something that goes beyond all of these mind-made opposites. But how can we talk about something that goes beyond opposites, when even our attempt to talk about non-duality is dualistic? So, what the word non-duality actually means is really very difficult to describe or put into words. In fact, you could say it’s impossible. For we are not talking about non-duality as opposed to something called duality, we are not talking about pro-duality as opposed to anti-duality.In fact the non-duality we speak of is not the opposite of anything. This is impossible to understand logically or rationally. To see what is being spoken of, we must go beyond our ordinary way of thinking and seeing. ‘Non-duality’ is actually a translation of the Sanskrit word ‘Advaita’, which simply means ‘not two’ and points to the essential oneness (wholeness, completeness, unity) of life, a wholeness which exists here and now,prior to any apparent separation. It’s a word that points to an intimacy, a love beyond words, right at the heart of present moment experience. It’s a word that points us back Home. And despite the compelling appearance of separation and diversity there is only one universal essence, one reality. Oneness is all there is – and we are included. What we are really trying to do when we say ‘non-duality’ is point to life as it is right now, before the appearance of concepts and labels; before thought creates a world of things: table, chair, hand, foot, fear, me, you, past, future. What is life before thought? Can we even talk about that? Is it possible to capture non-duality into words? When we speak of non-duality it can sometimes seem like we mean ‘anti-duality’, that we are against duality or that it’s wrong or false or even dangerous. This can then lead to dogmatic thinking and religiosity and to the proclamation of rightness: “You are dualistic and I am non-dualistic! I am more non-dual than you!” That is the religion of non-duality. We are more interested in the truth of non-duality. Is non-duality a religion or belief system? Non-duality isn’t a new belief system, a religion or a ‘how to’ guide to living. It makes no promises about the future. Of course, it canbecome a belief system or religion, however, like anything can. You could start to believe that there is “no self, no ‘me’, no time or space and that everything is an illusion” – and non-duality could become your new belief system. That’s what happened years ago in my own experience; non-duality had become my new belief system, although at the time I actually believed I was free from all belief systems! When someone subscribes to non-duality as a system of belief, there’s just someone there – a separate person – believing that they’re no longer a separate person! And then perhaps they go round telling everyone that they are not a separate person. Secretly they experience themselves as a separate individual but they have taken on a set of concepts, they are living with a new image of themselves as beyond all images. You can believe you are not separate, but you can still feel separate, and experience yourself as separate. There’s a world of difference between simply believing that you are not separate, in other words, intellectually taking non-duality concepts on as a new belief system, and really seeing what those words are pointing to in a very deep way. Here, we are interested in the seeing of non-duality, not just talking and arguing about it. We can talk and argue about non-duality concepts until we are blue in the face, we can argue about who is right and who is wrong and who is more ‘nondualistic’, but we would really be missing the point of all this. Is it possible to reach a non-dual state or become spiritually awakened? Isn’t it fascinating how automatically thought (or ‘the mind’) tries to turn what we are talking about into some kind of special state or experience. Thought hears about ‘non-duality’ and wants it. And it asks, ‘How do I get it? How do I reach it? How do I see it? Who can take me there? Who can transmit it to me? Who can teach me it or give it to me? Where will I find it?’ It starts looking for something called ‘non-duality’. It starts waiting for it. It lives in hope. That will inevitably happen because the individual is always a seeker. A separate person is always looking for something. We might seek wealth, success, power, fame, or we might seek for ‘spiritual’ things instead – but really it’s all the same seeking. The spiritual seeker might seek awakening, enlightenment or a non-dual state instead of money and power and success – but deep down, it’s the same movement. Time is always involved in seeking. What we search for is always in the future. We say, ‘One day I will find non-duality. I’ll get into the non-dual state or have an awakening experience or my person will drop away magically.’ So, stop right there! You’ve already turned non-duality into a future goal. Stop and look and see where this seeking begins. So, this incessant seeking takes on different forms? Yes. Ask anybody on the street what they are looking for, and they’ll probably say they’re looking for peace, happiness, success, popularity, power, love, acceptance, understanding, fame, glory. Someone who identifies themselves as a ‘spiritual person’ might be looking for an altered state of consciousness, or some kind of transformation, or an enlightenment experience, or they may be seeking to no longer seek anything anymore! Everyone is looking for something. This seeking takes many forms but really it’s all the same seeking. It seems as though everyone is looking for different things, but actually what we are looking for, deep down, is the same. Basically, everyone is in pursuit of the same wholeness (or oneness, or completeness, or whatever you want to call it) – a wholeness that is already here, but is ignored in our pursuit of a future completion. That’s where it all begins: looking for something better in the future. Looking for the next moment that will be a better moment, a more full moment, a more complete moment. And of course, non-duality could just become something else you are looking for. We could turn non-duality into our new goal. But the word ‘Non-duality’ actually points to what is already present here and now, within this present experience, as this experience. We’re not talking about a new goal for the seeker. We’re talking about life as it already is. non-duality is not in time. If life ‘as it is’ is already perfect why do we continue to seek? The real question is ‘Who is seeking?’. What is this seeker? Where is it? Can I find it now? And is this seeker who I really am? I seem to be a separate individual who is looking for something to complete myself, but is that really who I am? Does this seeking really define me? Am I really something that is incomplete, something that seeks completion in the future? You pass through all these different layers of questions and ultimately you get to the fundamental question: ‘Who am I?‘ That’s where everything leads to in the end. So, who am I? If you ask most people that question, they’d probably reply with a story about who they think they are. They’d give you a description about what they’ve done in the past and maybe what they dream of doing in the future. They might tell you a story about their role in life – that they are a father or mother, or a business person or baker -where they work and live, and how many children they have. They’ll quite literally tell you a story about the past and future. They’ll basically tell you a story about who they were in the past and who they think they will be in the future – not who theyare in this moment. But the question is, ‘Who are you now?’ Normally that question is answered by describing the past or an imagined future. We are living with a thought-created story about ourselves. I am a shop keeper, a doctor, a lawyer, an artist, a spiritual person. (Someone who calls themselves a ‘spiritual person’ might even tell a story about how they are not a person, that they’ve transcended time and space and that they have no relationships because they have no self and there are no others. Despite the content of the ‘I am’ story, it’s still a story! Maybe, if you see yourself as ‘enlightened’ you have convinced yourself that you are not telling a story, that you’re beyond stories. But isn’t that just another story? We all seem to live with an image of who we are.) It’s a case of mistaken identity? Exactly. Is the image of yourself who you really are? Does it define you? And here’s the problem. When you live with an image of yourself, that image can always be improved; you can always have a better story. If you have the identity that you are successful business women and you’re making a lot of money, maybe you hope that one day you’ll make a fortune and be a famous millionaire. Or the story could be that you’re a spiritual person and one day you’ll become enlightened. So, are you saying enlightenment is just another story? Well, it’s always about ‘me’ completing myself in time, isn’t it. The enlightenment story is equal to the ‘one day I’m going to win the lottery’ story.Within the story you are always incomplete and always moving towards a future completion. On some level we feel incomplete now – there’s a sense of lack, or of not being whole. Everyone lives with that, although not everyone admits it or realises it. This is how the search begins: the sense of being incomplete now, that something is missing now. Then there’s the urge for a future fullness, a future completion. Something wants to complete itself in the future, but it begins with a present sense of incompleteness, a sense of lack. That goes right to the root of it all – a sense of lack that everyone is trying to escape in various ways. The sense of lack doesn’t seem to go away, it might for a while but it soon comes back. Well yes, this is the problem. Even when you get what you want and you think you’re satisfied, very quickly dissatisfaction starts up again: ‘I finally got what I wanted but it didn’t complete me.’ After twenty years of spiritual seeking you finally have the awakening experience you always wanted, but you still don’t feel complete. You make a million dollars and then you realise you still feel a sense of lack. You finally find the man or woman of your dreams, and you still want more. This is the problem with trying to complete yourself in time, trying to complete yourself through getting stuff and having experiences. There’s always more. There’s always a future. Why does the seeking, or the sense of lack eventually start up again? Buddhists see that everything is impermanent. However amazing, blissful, or apparently fulfilling something is, it will pass. Whatever you have you can lose. If you finally got all the money you wanted, it wouldn’t be enough because you can always have more money. You can be more successful, more famous, move loved, more spiritual, and so on. You attain the tenth level of consciousness (whatever that means) and then you want to be on level eleven. You want to get to the top! The self wants to be bigger, faster, stronger, more. Basically, we want to be special in some way – the self wants to stand out against other selves, and complete itself. It wants to be something, not nothing. We want to be certain about who we are and have a fixed and complete story about ourselves. But the nature of stories is that they can never be complete. And so the seeking goes on and on – always waiting for a permanent sense of total completion that never comes. How exhausting! I don’t think people realise how exhausted they are! We live on autopilot and we don’t question our seeking until this way of living breaks down, and we call that suffering. When everything is going your way and you’re getting everything you want – if the seeking mechanism is working for you – why would you question your reality? But what tends to happen is that it sooner or later life stops going your way! Then we find out that we are not in control of life and that we can’t have what we want. This whole seeking mechanism starts to break down and we suffer. When you are suffering you might start to ask, ‘Is this who I really am? Do I really need all this stuff I believe I need?’ So, we are all suffering in some way? Yes. Some people appear to suffer in extreme ways and others seem to suffer less, but everyone is suffering in their own way, even if they don’t realise it. Like we’ve said, ultimately life brings you to the question: ‘Who am I?’ Everyone comes to that question in their own way. Eventually you might start to ask why you’re suffering and question all these fundamental assumptions we’ve been talking about. Often people come to the message of non-duality through suffering, pain or distress. In other words, when the seeking begins to fail on some level, something else can begin to open up. What does the message of non-duality have to offer the suffering seeker? The wholeness or completeness that you are looking for is not be found in the future. The wholeness that everyone is looking for is actually already here within this present experience, within this present moment. The wholeness that you’re looking for – is what you are. It sounds like a total paradox when you try to understand it with thought and it really goes against everything that we are conditioned to believe. It’s not about understanding this with the mind, with thought – it’s about really seeing this for yourself, in your own experience. In a way, this offers nothing to the seeker – it is the experience of being a seeker in the first place, that’s the illusion. And it’s that illusion that this message exposes. If we ultimately cannot understand this message intellectually is there anything that can be done? No one can give this to you or teach it to you. You need to see it for yourself within your own present experience because that’s all there is. You won’t see it in someone else’s experience. It’s not a second-hand thing. It’s about this experience, right now. It’s not something to find in the future. The wholeness you look for is already appearing as everything that’s happening now: as these thoughts, sensations, feelings, sounds, smells. Perhaps this is the wholeness we’ve been seeking. And perhaps wholeness doesn’t look, sound, smell, feel or taste anything like your idea of wholeness – your concept of wholeness! Everyone is looking for their concepts of wholeness (or enlightenment, freedom, love) but true wholeness is not a concept. It’s what is already here prior to concepts. So again, here’s the paradox: perhaps there is only ever wholeness, and within that wholeness we go out into time and space and look for wholeness! Within Home, we’re all looking for Home. Everyone is trying to come Home, but they are already Home. They are what they seek, and do not realise it. So, the message of non-duality points to this ever-present completeness – in the midst of present experience. We are like waves on the ocean, looking for the ocean, longing to be part of it? Yes. That’s a great metaphor. You are like a wave in the ocean experiencing itself as separate from the ocean. The wave asks, ‘When and where will I find the ocean? Who can give the ocean to me?’ But the wave was always the ocean, from the very beginning, even in its seeking! It’s the ocean looking for itself. Even within the ocean’s failure to find itself it is still the ocean; every wave is one hundred per cent water. As all the authentic spiritual teachers have been telling us for hundreds and thousands of years, you are what you seek. Although ‘non-duality’ is just a word, what it points to is the possibility that you are not who you think you are. It’s the possibility that what you are is not this seeker, broken or incomplete. What you are is simply this open space of awareness (consciousness, awakeness, Being) in which absolutely everything seems to come and go, and that space is already at rest; it’s already Home. Is this open space that I am impersonal or personal? Well, it’s neither and both – unfortunately that question implies that it could be one thing or another thing. But space is not impersonal as opposed to personal. Thought creates opposites but in reality there are no opposites. When thought appears in the space, immediately there appears to be a world of opposites: up and down, light and dark, inside and outside, or impersonal and personal. All opposites depend on each other;all the pairs of opposites arise and fall together, and the open space holds all of this. The personal life story is just something that is appearing and disappearing in the open space that you are. ‘You’ appear and disappear in you! Does that mean that the space is impersonal? It’s impersonal in the sense that it holds all personal stories as they appear and disappear. But at the same time it’s not opposed to the personal, because that would be another story! The open space is not a rejection of anything. Like we said before, non-duality is not against duality; it’s the open space in which every thought, feeling and sensation is allowed to appear and disappear. It is the ocean that does not reject any waves, because it is all the waves. So it’s not really personal or impersonal – it holds all these concepts as they come and go. Anything can become a new form of seeking for the individual, a new identity. Yes exactly and if we’re not careful the ‘impersonal space’ state can become food for a new form of seeking! ‘One day I’m going to reach or become an impersonal state of pure consciousness.’ It’s another way of being special: ‘Everyone else is stuck in the personal but I’ve transcended it!’ It’s the same seeking, the same game; it’s just taken on a more subtle form. This open space is not something that the individual, the character, the seeker can attain. It’s the same seeking mechanism as: ‘I have gone beyond the self.’ Only a self would proclaim that! It’s like a wave claiming that it’s beyond the ocean. The seeker is very sneaky! The seeker cannotreach this open space for the seeker appears in this open space. Why do we need to tell any story about ourselves? Yes, and why can’t we just be the space in which all stories are allowed to come and go? Why do we need to hold on to any one of these stories? At the same time, we do not need to reject any story. Again, if you’re not careful, non-duality just become a new war -a war againstimages: ‘I’m not that image!’ But the very moment you say you’re not something you’ve definedyourself! You’re defining yourself again, and again, and again when you say ‘I’m not that! I’m not that!’ You start to see the genius of this seeking mechanism. It’s absolutely, infinitely ingenious!It wants to be something, anything: ‘Let me tell a story about myself, any story! I don’t care what it is!’ What is always open to be discovered is that what you are is not an image. It’s not any image; not even the image that you’re beyond images! Not even the image that ‘I am not an image’.You are not the things that come and go, but at the same time (and this is crucial) what you are is not separate from everything that comes and go. What you are, as the space in which everything comes and goes, isintimate with all of those things, in the same way that the ocean is inseparable from the waves. So, ultimately there are no separate waves. The ocean is appearing as the waves. The ocean is the waves. Then you can’t even distinguish between the ocean and the waves. In present experience, the waves of the ocean appear as thoughts, sensations, images, feelings, sounds – everything in present experience is simply a wave. What you are as the ocean is the waves as well! You are not the thoughts, sensations, images, but at the same time, what you are, as the open space in which all of these appear and disappear, is totally intimate with all of this. So, awareness and the contents of awareness are the same thing? Yes, awareness and all that appears in awareness are absolutely intimate! The ocean cannot reject the waves, why would it? Awareness, wholeness, oneness, or we could call it consciousness, takes form as everything that appears. Consciousness is not some blank empty slate behind everything. That’s how the mind interprets it. The mind interprets these words asthings. Consciousness is not a thing – it is everything that appears. This is why you cannot talk about non-duality! You cannot talk about intimacy. Rooted in that knowing that this is impossible to put into words, we are still free to play with words. We know we cannot use words to capture non-duality; we’re just using them as pointers. We are pointing to something that ultimately cannot be understood by the mind, it cannot be captured. Every wave that appears contains the ocean. That which we are pointing to is within every experience; whether you are in the office or sitting on the meditation cushion, walking in a supermarket or attending a non-duality lecture. Whether there is extreme pain, or intense sadness, that is still the ocean. It is the ocean appearing as pain, the ocean appearing as sadness. Oneness is not limited to a particular experience. It expresses itself as all experience. So, the invitation is to come back to present experience, and rediscover the ocean, and that invitation is always there, in every experience, in this experience. This present experience is the ocean that you have always been seeking without realising it. What is actually happening right now? What is appearing in this present experience? I don’t mean the story of what’s happening to you, I don’t mean what do you think is happening; I’m saying look at what is actually happening now. Come back to the present thoughts, sensations and feelings and rediscover who you really are in the midst of these waves of experience. What you truly are must be there within every experience, otherwise it can’t be who you really are. If it’s something that comes and goes, it can’t be who you really are. Who you really are, as the ocean, does not come and go. Where does suffering come into this? If who we really are is complete why do we suffer? Suffering is forgetting who you really are. We suffer when we don’t see this completeness – this intimacy – within the present experience. When we don’t see that every wave that’s presently appearing is part of the ocean and therefore allowed in the ocean, we start trying to escape this moment to attempt to reach the next moment. We experience ourselves as not whole or somehow broken so we attempt to move away from this moment. In truth, that movement is not actually possible but we try anyway because that’s how we are programmed. We try to move away from this moment to get to the next moment, to tomorrow or next year or to ten years time. We start to use time to achieve this. This is the origin of suffering. We try to escape what’s happening now. We try to run away from aspects of our present experience. We try to escape these thoughts, sensations and feelings and get to a future place where things will be better. That’s the movement of suffering. Within suffering you’ll always find seeking. Seeking is the basic mechanism behind all of our suffering. We label certain elements of experience ‘bad’ or ‘negative’ or ‘dark’ or ‘dangerous’ or ‘unhealthy’ and that’s because of our conditioning. We have been conditioned to label things as ‘fear’, ‘sadness’, ‘anger’, and do on, and to judge these as negative, or not-okay, or bad, or sinful – basically as expressions of incompleteness, as threats to completeness. Because we don’t seethe completeness in these waves, because we can’t find the ocean within these so-called ‘negative’ waves, we try to escape them and that movement ‘away from’ creates the suffering. Then we create stories and identities around this suffering: ‘Oh, I’m a victim of my suffering. I’m a victim of fear and pain! Why is this happening to me? How can I escape this experience?‘ Suffering is a great teacher. Maybe it’s the best teacher but we often don’t see that, because we don’t realise what suffering really is. Normally, we do all sorts of things to avoid, deny and numb our suffering. We take medication, drink alcohol or try to distract ourselves. Of course, there’s ultimately nothing with doing these things either! But suffering is always an opportunity; it’s an invitation to discover the completeness in what you are running away from. Which aspects of your experience right now are not okay? Which waves (thoughts, sensations, and feelings) of the ocean are being rejected right now? Which waves are not being seen as part of the ocean? Basically, what are you at war with? This is always the question that suffering leads you to. Within the experience of suffering you’ll always find seeking. You can believe as much as you like that you’re not seeking, or that you are free from the self, but whenever there’s suffering there’s seeking. It’s the story of ‘me’ looking for something, escaping something; it’s the story of incompleteness or of feeling that there’s something wrong with you. So, the invitation – not a demand – is to take a look at what you are at war with right now. What’s the story? What are the images you are trying to hold up? What are you defending? What are you rejecting? What are you running away from? Look a little deeper. Perhaps these images of yourself are not who you really are. Maybe these stories don’t define you. We suffer when we try to hold up images of ourselves – ‘I’m strong, I’m enlightened, I’m a success, I’m loving, I’m kind, I’m happy’ – which conflict with life as it is. And in the end, all images conflict with life as it is – no image can match this moment. This moment is the fire that burns up all images. In this moment there could be pain, sadness, fear –any image that says that what’s appearing shouldn’t be appearing, that you should be happy, or free from pain, is a false image. Is this about cultivating more presence? What I’d say is forget about trying to become more present; that can just be another form of seeking. It’s a beautiful idea, but it’s still the same seeking mechanism. ‘One day I’ll be present!’Ultimately, you cannot become more present; for you are presence itself. Like the word ‘non-duality’, presence is just another pointer to life as it is. It’s another pointer back to who you really are. There is already presence and there is only presence. Everything is already appearing inpresence. There is only this moment. The past and the future happen now; they appear in this presence, asthis presence. There are memories about the past and thoughts about the future appearing in this presence. It all happens now. Every sound is a present sound; you’ve never heard a sound that wasn’t now. You’ve never heard a sound in the past and you don’t hear a sound in the future! You’ve never smelled anything that wasn’t smelled now. Ultimately, you’ve never seen anything that isn’t seen now. It’s all present! So, it’s not really about a separate entity becoming more present; it’s about rediscovering presence here and now. Presence could just be another word for consciousness, awareness or Being; pick your favourite word! What you are is presence itself, so you cannot become ‘more’ present, just as the wave cannot become more or less ‘ocean’ than it already is. And that’s always there to be discovered. Life is the constant invitation to discover this in the midst of present experience. Life is the constant invitation to discover who you really are in this moment. Who discovers this? Well, who asks that question! Source: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/what-is-nonduality/ I really liked this interview. It's like a neat summary of non-duality in an everyday language.

Resurrecting Jesus - Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic by Adyashanti Adya gives beautiful commentary on Jesus from an Awakened Non-Dual perspective “Of course, there are those churches today that are inspired by the real living presence of Christ, but as a whole, Christianity needs new life breathed into it. It needs to be challenged to awaken from the old structures that confine spirit, so that the perennial spirit of awakening can flourish once again.” “Imagine if you took it on in yourself to reorient your life trajectory toward your divinity. Your divinity: I so loved the world, that I gave it all of myself. Imagine your birth as an act of pouring yourself forth into life as a loving means of redemption. Imagine your human life as what you have come to redeem. And when you’ve fully awakened to all of it, then you’ve fully redeemed your human incarnation.” “Spiritual autonomy is knowing who and what you are—knowing that you are divine being itself, knowing that the essence of you is divinity. You are moving in the world of time and space, appearing as a human being, but nonetheless you are eternal, divine being, the timeless breaking through and operating within the world of time. To Jesus, spirit is everything. Nothing matters more than spirit or, as I like to say, divine being. Divine being is what Jesus is here for; it is the vitality source from which he moves, from which he speaks, from which his critique arises. He is the living presence of divine being. He’s a human being too, but he’s here to convey divine being, and that comes out most clearly in the Gospel of Mark. This gospel uniquely conveys Jesus’ search for himself. Mark’s Jesus is a Jesus who is very much a searcher: he’s looking for his identity, he’s looking for his role, he’s experimenting, he’s finding out what works and what doesn’t. He’s on a journey, and he’s inviting all of us along for that journey with him as if we were also the disciples.” “Once again, eternity is peering through the latticework of time and space, and this sense of eternal stillness and deep freedom is what the iconic image of the seated Buddha conveys. What this image doesn’t convey is a sense of humanity, of a real flesh-and-blood human being. But in the Jesus story, it’s as if the still point that the image of the Buddha evokes within us becomes” ― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic UK Audible link: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Resurrecting-Jesus-Audiobook/B00JFAL5GO?pf_rd_p=1f9c9693-8f74-4098-8f15-d9ce59415341&pf_rd_r=ECGR744PXNWBE18JCT14&ref=a_pd_Fallin_c5_PN_1_2

3 cosmic characters ? God (the risen life. The awakened life) ? Satan ? Initially called the God of mastery but now renamed as Hale. Only 2 things exist in the universe that make sense. ? Intent or will or purpose (motive) ? Ability or skill or weapon The motive is represented by God. The skill is represented by gwael.