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Toby, enlightenment has been mythologized quite a bit. It has also been said that the enlightened are aware of all their past lives. Assuming you are on board with ultimately nothing is separate...nonduality...advaita, there is something to ponder and question. All major states of consciousness (waking, dreaming, sleeping)...you are referring to are of one body/mind. All the past lives too refer to one individual. If there is no other or separation, then why would having more awareness of this specific body/mind really matter? Are you constantly aware of every inch of your skin...consciously...all of the time? Do you fantasize that one who is enlightened would be? There may not be conscious awareness of every inch of your skin every second, but don't believe there is a lack of awareness at any time for any piece of skin. Prick it with a needle and you instantly are aware of it. That is the Unborn mind - as Zen Master Bankei put it. It is not a matter of conscious awareness, because there is much the subconscious will notice that the conscious mind does not. Do you believe that there is no subconscious mind for one who is enlightened and it is all conscious? It is not a matter of being aware...you are that Awareness. Even now, when you wake up in the morning you say you slept very well. Part or even much of the night was deep dreamless sleep, but you say you slept very well. Why? Because you were aware. You never cease existing in the middle of the night. How do you know? Because you were aware. You might learn to be consciously aware...like a lucid dreamer...even when dreaming knowing it is a dream and keeping awareness. You might even learn how to do this in deep dreamless sleep. But do not make it a requirement of enlightenment. As it pertains to one specific body/mind...and you are really the All/Oneness, such a skill is not really needed. It is kind of like the sun...as long as there are no objects (planets, etc.) there is no light to be seen. A sun with nothing around it is just in blackness. In deep dreamless sleep, there are no objects...so it appears to be void...nothingness. And so it is experienced as nothing for me. I have no interest in gaining some skill in being consciously aware of nothingness for hours on end. I also have no interest in gaining the skill to know all of my past lives. I am not really this body/mind...or conscious awareness. I am all awareness...conscious, subconscious, superconscious, etc. What you are asking about has no relevance to enlightenment (IMO) - and is over focusing on the body/mind when you are Oneness/Everything. It is over-focusing on some kind of "me" that retains conscious awareness. Enlightenment is far more about realizing there is no other (seeing through the illusion of duality) and the cessation of suffering. You are the one shining the sun...whether you are conscious of it or not. You don't have to be conscious of it all, nor is it a requirement of enlightenment to be conscious of it all.

Its only a monster and sadomasochistic if you see it that way Solving the relativistic dilemma of good/bad moral/immoral was something I sought to figure out for years even before I knew nonduality existed, but it was only prior to finding nonduality did I even get a solution proposed to me. If you actually go back and read the Bible with a nondual context it makes far more sense than it ever did. I'm pretty sure there are books out there that put Christianity into a nondual perspective. Nonduality was also very popular with the ancient Egyptians and greeks. (Where hermetic philosophy derives from) And considering that psychedelic use has been insanely popular throughout human history and they typically point you towards nonduality, you start to see a overall big picture in all of these ancient texts that seemingly everybody missed. You can call it a repackaged form of God but thats such a bland statement because the term "God" isn't as magical and mystical as people make it out to be. In short it can be summed down to your creator. Well remember YOU are this big infinite singularity. And that created you, so it is God. Which also means you are God. But there are so many notions and connotations people hold with the word "God" I tend to use it sparingly. Hermetic philosophy was one of my first introductions to nonduality in which it sort describes the universe as one giant living mind. Like your mind, but infinite and you are contained in it. Everything you are is a derivative of what reality is capable of. Bunch of other stuff like absolute truth and relative truth etc etc If you'd like to take a read: https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/content/books/ebooks/kybalion-a-study-of-the-hermetic-philosophy.pdf

You’ve been high on nonduality the withdrawals will be metaphysical play with fire and you will get burnt

@Nic Turquoise, then nonduality. Physical stuff, achievement, and thinking is a shadow. Live in & give your light of unconditional love, compassion, and communicate the understanding of suffering. You’ll need to go through ALL of your own bullshit, so you can help others realize theirs. Otherwise, they’ll convince you circumstances are king, and also trigger “you”. The success you’re looking for is pure Joy.

@DrewNows It’s of course up to you, all roads lead to nonduality. Mine is one thing at the buffet. The buffet is all yours.

@Bob Saget Yeah... that's how mushrooms can be, especially when you're so inexperienced and you take a dose of 3.5g. Your first dose should have been 1g. What happened was, the mushrooms were showing you nonduality but it is far too radical for you to accept upon first contact. The Truth is too overwhelming and the ego recoils in horror. The mind gets lost inside itself -- this produces the sense of insanity and hell. As you develop and become more conscious, and as you trip more, you become better able to surrender to Truth without struggling with it, and the trips becomes deeply enjoyable and profound beyond anything you can imagine. The more conscious you are, the more you meditate, the better you are able to control your mind during the trip. People with no meditation experience and monkey mind will get lost inside their own minds on mushrooms. Your mistake was starting with such a high dose. Dozens of trips are required to slowly get a feel for how to surf in the psychedelic headspace. Every trip builds on the previous. No two trips are the same. With each trip you figure out a bit of the puzzle. Mushrooms are one of the most challenging psychedelics at higher doses. They can get really twisted and they can easily butt rape you. Especially if you're egotistical and cocky. Don't get scared off. Just get more serious and lower your dose to something you can handle. Getting humbled by a psychedelic is a very good lesson. It lays the foundation for all future psychedelic work.

It appears that what you actually believe is that your logic is more powerful than your feeling / vibration. That you need someone else to be happy, and that you can attract that someone else through a mindset of codependency & conditional love. That taking risks gets you into trouble. That rejection = pain. Furthermore, you believe this all applies to everything. That believing in yourself is stupid. That you must suffer when things don’t go as planned. These beliefs are how you feel, all the logic in the world has nothing on how you feel, and what you really believe about yourself, because, you are literally creating your own reality. Put how you feel first. Do not make conditions to your feeling good. Do not give the universe ultimatums. Do not blame. Put how you feel, first. Your power is not conditional, stop minimizing yourself. It is all pervasive, ever-present, it moves mountains, and creates universes - believe in yourself. Living through conditional happiness, is suffering. When you create this suffering, when you doubt & limit yourself, your inner being will not go there with you. It can’t. It is infinite intelligence, and unconditional love & happiness. It can not be otherwise. It does not pretend otherwise when you do. It is perfectly natural for you, to let go of your resistant thoughts of self doubt. The universe says yes to what you focus on. The “secret “ that anyone in nondual awareness knows, is nonduality. There is only you. So when you blame, assign fault, justify failure, etc - it is readily seen, that you are kidding yourself, short changing yourself - you are what is in your way - not someone else. It is readily seen, that you are experiencing exactly what you are attracting. There is not, nor has there every been, an example to the contrary.

@SoonHei You’re trying to pack the illusion, and lots of people, into your nonduality.

Balance is on the way, or, on the path, to mental equanimity, useful for life, but in realization of nonduality, there is nothing to balance.

For about a week I've been struggling to keep my addictions at bay. I would binge on social media, YouTube, and porn and then struggle to stop myself in neurotic ways. This made me extremely lazy to the point of ignoring my meditation routine and not posting daily here like usual. I have been mostly consistent with my yoga routine except for one day and learning about nonduality and psychology so that's something. Yesterday: 24 minutes of yoga

@yawning_ Thank you too! About what you said about being what you identify with, the problem with that idea is that no matter what you do, the consciousness that an organism has is dependent on its body. This is why if you cut a human brain/head a certain way, literally slice a human brain/head a certain way that keeps the organism alive, you can cause a split of consciousness into 2 different experiences, both experiencing different sensations (sight, hearing, etc.) This has been proven with neuroscience. I first heard about this idea of consciousness being split in Waking Up by Sam Harris. Let's say the 2 organisms originally were enlightened when they were just 1 organism, the split can now cause those 2 organisms to lose enlightenment faster since they are now 2 different organisms. Basically, it could be like having 2 egos, and 2 different stories, even if those 2 were originally 1 ego and 1 story. This can sound scary to a lot of people. So my point is that even if you switch identities with someone, you still can't just simply switch experiences with them. That's not how it works. What are your thoughts on this? It was nice talking to you. @Serotoninluv I appreciate your advice, but I take my contemplations very seriously. I don't just spout random nonsense. Everything I said above is true. God created our infinite reality and human beings in general are unenlightened due to a number of things including a huge lack of responsibility, thus they see reality wrong and are suffering all the time. This is a fact. I'm always open to learning more, but this does not mean I can't state the facts. It was nice talking to you also. @Joseph Maynor Honestly, I no longer believe that you're Coral. I get such a Yellow vibe from you. I think you're Yellow and just now starting to move into Turquoise. You might have somewhat of an intellectual understanding of Coral, but this does not mean you're at that stage yet. I also seen in another thread where you said you can be "enlightened as fuck" and still have an ego. That makes no sense! Enlightenment is when you drop your ego. The more enlightened you are, the less ego you have. Also, you're wrong about Turquoise people being attached to ego and trying to make an impact "on reality." Turquoise people are usually the ones who say everything is an illusion and then they do nothing to help the universe. This is because they're delusional. However, they are definitely not attached to ego. The Turquoise people I've seen and spoken to are the most detached people on the planet when it comes to ego. @cirkussmile Coral is not simply nonduality. Spiral Dynamics is not simply nonduality. See my post above about stages of consciousness versus enlightenment. @Haumea2018 You seem to have many preconceived notions about enlightenment. Ideas, beliefs, etc. Drop all of that and go discover things for yourself. You don't know what an enlightened person takes seriously until you actually become enlightened.

One big problem of the Bible as many know is verifying if whats in the Bible is the full and completely uncensored version of it. Which as others has pointed out, its contents has been cherry picked. You can find nonduality interpretations in the Bible easy. In fact you can in most religions and even ancient philosophies. Egyptians and Greek were big pursuers of the nondual path. Its all the same thing just explained in different ways with different abstractions etc from my perspective. Then when the source author is no longer around all you have is interpretation through YOUR lens and not the authors lens. You'll go around in circles doing that. It seems awfully flawed to need to read a book to find God and then basically be indoctrinated into the most popular religion of that area as well as the teachers interpretation of the teaching. This is all outward seeking and not inward seeking. All the suffering I see due to religion to me seems to come from following that religion with no inward seeking. Its a closed locked down box that refuses to realize its more than a box. Beware to not use religion as an opening for the ego to project itself onto the world.

@Nondescript You are God, looking for Truth in a book. The words in books are pointers, to look within. That’s correct, there is no duality of good and evil. This is an illusion. What you hold as evil, is actually, you, which appears evil, only if denied, as you. The realization of this, is often referred to as awakening. The full realization of this, is often referred to as nonduality, or nondual, and there is no more illusion. I am not right or wrong, I am maya, your illusion, another pointer, to you looking within. Consider a horror movie you’ve watched, which had evil content in it. You readily see that is not evil, because it’s just a movie. Same thing, with reality. A wise man once said “do not attempt to go, where you have not yet been”. What I said (above) is where you have not yet been. To “get there”, you’d first need to address, what is, or ‘where you are’: Indoctrination: the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. That word is a pointer to where you are, when that is accepted, it is realized. Then you can begin to see pointers beyond that.

@seeking_brilliance You can have a direct experience of whatever is present in your direct experience. The marble both is and is not Absolute Truth. Depends on how you look at it. Remember that in the end, all dualities will collapse, including your duality between duality vs nonduality, relative vs absolute, and you vs the marble. Be the marble, be the universe, be God

In my experience videos like this and people like him are quite valuable to see to what extend your mind has made nonduality and the stuff that is being said by leo into just another worldview. Notice if you instantly try to categorize/demonize this person to dismiss what he is saying. Can we try to see if there is some truth in his perspective? After all, the truth doesn't care if it's questioned to death.

@Nondescript This is where Christianity and nonduality meet. "This is not a shared space. For it to be shared there would have to be two. Here there is not even one"

I didn't watch the videos, but I haven't watched any of Leo's either. How can people accept ..the kingdom of God is within us...from the Bible and reject other parts? It also says Satan masquerades as an angel of light and seeks to devour and destroy. It says Jesus is the only way to the father. All paths don't lead to the same place. That is a lie that is being believed by even some Christians. The Bible doesn't say that. I am not saying nonduality and Christianity can't cooexist (neither am I saying they can, I do know know.) When ever you are experiencing the Absolute, know that it may not be the true God you are merging with. I only mention these things for those contemplating Christianity. If you are not, just as Pharoahs heart was hardened, you will not believe me anyway, and that is your choice. If this is against forum rules please delete. I will not be offended.

Dude, captivating. I believe you experienced what you say you did, for what that’s worth. WHAT DID HE ASK YOU??? I’ll let you know what I see. I’ve had nondual / pure/only, experiences, but I had one which was “outside” of nonduality, which of course in words makes no sense at all. Of all I’ve read and heard, only one person described this same experience. What you’re saying is intriguing and I appreciate your openness and sharing very much. What did he ask you!!!! Heck of a cliff hanger man!

@Sockrattes Did you experience the elves, then learn about McKenna’s experiences, or the other way around? The absolute is called the absolute because it’s absolute. There’s really no possibility of mistaking it, as, it is the absolute. Once experienced, it would not matter to you what anyone called it / you, that’s how absolute it is. Also, how does the term ‘nonduality’ register with your experiences? (If at all, not trying to assume anything)

@Psyche_92 Very nice. The direct experience of ego death and full nonduality can be sooo beautiful.

@Amanda R Batista It sounds like you have experience with personal development and you are engaged in common personal development techniques. Your comments about metaphysics, Leo's love video and mystical love experience suggests you are drawn toward something beyond personal development that involves an awakening of the heart. My hunch is that nonduality may resonate with you. If you want to explore this area, I would recommend finding a nondual teacher or two online. Based on the feel of your post, I would recommend Lisa Cairns for you. She has a youtube channel with lots of videos. I recommend starting with videos over the last six months. She teaches from her heart and doesn't over-intellectualize. As well, she is balanced between personal development and nonduality - which I think may resonate with you.

I am in your similar situation. I just rejected following all sects because the way they developed is through power transition and collective egoism. These People sided with this companion of Muhammad and became this major denomination while other companions choose that person and they became the companions, while those who rejected both called Mu'tazilites(Isolationists) who accepted rationality and philosophical inquiry and later gave birth to the sufi mystics who are as muslim as was the prophet. Civil war broke as result of who sided with whom and they fought aggressively with so much blood in name of who has the sole divine right to say that he represent allah or nonduality, this insanity continues until today. Everyone by definition is a Muslim(one who total surrender to will of god or non-dual universe or circumstances laid by this non-physical, indivisible, non-dimensional god) because he was born on state of fitrah(complete surrender when they were babies and toddlers, not being able to take care of themselves and completely surrender to their care givers and many die due to lack of care) Life is struggle and as Prophet said"The strong believer is preferable in the eyes of god, than weak believer". Just stay strong and years pass quickly. Our lives are short and things get better with time.

1. Have someone punch you in the face. 2. Then immediately try to pretend you did not just get punched in the face. Truth / Nonduality is not mistakable, like the punch in the face is not mistakable. “Yeah but what about.....what if....this guy says.....you’d have to admit it’s possible that.....this one time I....you don’t know.........anybody could be.......” - clearly you skipped step 1.

@Nondescript Nonduality is interesting.

@Nondescript I hear you, and I respect your faith ??. I think the more you look into yourself, the more you’ll find a really delightful, complete, and even infinitely funny, compatibility. “I am that I am”, and “The kingdom of heaven is within”, are of the wisest most insightful words ever written. Not to mention this little doozy...gets me every time!..... "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” I like to take that as, he didn’t say, “Unless you get real serious and figure everything out...” I like to think he means, keep it light, fun, compassion, play. When I think about the possibility of the merging of nonduality, Christianity, and what you have overcome in your life - and what that stands to do for others - goosebumps man, chills. Very happy and excited for you.