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No, it is not beyond. It is just that. But there are many facets to that insight and many degrees of depth to it. I merely said that enlightenment teachers do not understand that 5-MeO can go there as directly as it does. If there was a pill you could take which would give you the level of consciousness of a Zen master with 40 years of daily practice, 5-MeO would take you there in 15 minutes and possibly even give you a deeper insight into that than that Zen master has had. Of course, the difference is, after 60 minutes, you'd be back to normal. Whereas the Zen master is stabilized in his insight. The purpose of 5-MeO is to give you a very deep glimpse of total nonduality. To show you how little you know and how worthwhile it is to pursue.

This seems to suggest I am a blank screen and external stimuli enter to color the blank screen with images, sounds etc. This feels like a degree of separation. An anolgy closer to nonduality would be there is a blank screen from which pixels arise. The screen and pixels are one. Rupert Spira uses screen analogies a lot.

@hundreth I really appreciate that you went out of your way to find the sources which you were referencing. However, I do want to note that Leo is still more or less right about his assessments of JP. JP MAY talk about eastern religions and myths, but he always finds a way to sneak his agenda into them, westernizing them without realizing it. For example, he talks about ying and yang quite a lot. Every single time he will proclaim that "it symbolizes order and chaos!" No. No it doesn't. Ok, maybe you COULD interpret it that way, but the origins of Taoism don't give a shit about hard dualities like "order" and "chaos." The whole point of the symbol is to point to the fact that "all is one." It tries to convey that seemingly opposite things are one and the same. The symbol is a glaring signpost for nonduality. JP, however, relentlessly uses it as "proof" that "even the eastern people agree with me about order and chaos!" Man, I really used to like that guy (followed him for a solid year before he got famous) but as I've started to grow and develop myself, It's becoming more and more clear to me that JP is stuck in his own paradigm. Again, he MAY find sources from halfway across the world, but he will warp their meanings to fit the overwhelmingly western map that he wants to see.

Uh oh. Make sure you're not just regurgitating nonduality jargon Leo's told you. If you've had profound awakenings of your own, awesome. But I can see some ego doing the talking here Don't make the mistake of proclaiming outright that existence is "not real." You don't actually know this. It's real and unreal superimposed upon each other at the same time. If you experience this directly, you might find it delightfully simple. But that in itself is complexity. Remember, we're talking about literal infinity here! OF COURSE it's complex. And OF COURSE it's simple. It HAS to be both! Try not to settle on definitive conclusions about reality, that's a telltale sign of delusion.

Ok, so I feel a little destabilized. Maybe you can help me resolve the confusion somehow. So let's say you work as a cashier at a supermarket and you have all these metaphysical concepts in your head (that Leo keeps talking about), like god is nothingness and all that. You go to work and the mind keeps repeating: This product doesn't actually exist etc. Sometimes maybe the ego gets into a fearful state and you need to take a pause because the mind needs some cooling. Is the problem here too much inquiry/contemplation and too little meditation? Leo said somewhere that most people need a few years of meditation before they are able to do even 5 minutes of inquiry, because their mind is so rampant. I am 21,tried to cut back the inquiry/contemplation to focus on mindfulness meditation and emotional mastery as I have frequent anxiety attacks, but as I'm working from home all day, my mind naturally tends to go towards existential questioning, which most of the time freaks the ego out and can't focus on work. What should one do in this case? Is avoiding spirituality for a while but keeping a meditation practice the way to go for a while until the mind becomes more equanimous? Or am I just resisting feelings too much? Or am I not going out enough and just lost in the mind all day, losing touch with what is actually in front of me? I calm down a whole lot when I hang out with people or when I have a dog nearby that reminds me that I take things way too seriously, or when I workout at the gym and not think about nonduality for a while. As a personal assessement of my case in the spiral dynamics, I suppose I'm halfway into Green but needing to focus a lot on Orange as there is not nearly enough integration done there. I was much more loving, calm, easygoing, at peace with life and generally flowing, not taking any problem too seriously and comfortable with confusion before having all these spiritual concepts in the mind. Even my meditation was much more powerful before having a lot of nondual concepts making the mind restless. I don't really know what I'm doing wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

Because when you finally realize it, you'll say, "OMG! It's NOTHING!!!" There are many words for it that we use: Nothingness Formless Everything The ALL Oneness Nonduality Absolute Emptiness Void Mu True Self No-self God Brahman Infinity Absolute Infinity Apeiron Etc.

my girlfriend is religious, completely clueless about nonduality..is it better to find someone who understand this field.

Almost all colleges are a blend of blue, orange and green by definition ESPECIALLY in the west (I'm tempted to say ALL COLLEGES but I will just say "almost all" for now because there's no way for me to know for sure). The whole idea of rising in spiral dynamics stages is that your relative levels of consciousness are also rising. A stage yellow person sees more of the deep sameness in everything than a stage orange person, for example. Everyone in the west is so damn paradigm locked into duality that even people on this forum who've been exposed to nonduality struggle to realize it. People who've never heard of it (almost everyone you'll ever meet), therefore, have almost NO CHANCE at even realizing that they've locked themselves into falsehood. No matter what college you go to, the dualistic paradigm will be assumed and unchallenged. No matter what college you go to, consciousness will be assumed to be a byproduct of the brain, that we are our bodies, that we are born and that we die. Self development or self actualization will never be prioritized, being a functional member of society will always be number one. And as we've discussed, society these days is absolutely blinded to self development... so training yourself to be a good society member might be the exact opposite of what you want as a Truth seeker...

@30secs your intellectual knowledge about nonduality doesn't matter. live it every second instead. remember, it's not about knowing.

Martin Ball wrote amazing book :Entheogenic Liberation: Unraveling the Enigma of Nonduality with 5-MeO-DMT Energetic Therapy This book is also very good in -depth guide to properly using psychedelics in general, and how to avoid delusional miss- interpretations of one's trips.

Yes, but he also drank quite a bit of ayahausca. I've discussed this issue with him in private at length. His consciousness of nonduality seems legit. As in: permanent nondual awareness. But he admits, and I agree, that his awakening was rather unusual and unique to him. Not a typical result.

Linkėjimai iš Škotijos I am about to do tripping with my buddy soon who has never tried LSD (altough tried some mushrooms). Only a year ago he resisted the idea, but recently after realizing the depths and significance of nonduality, he himself told me that he feels ready and wants to try it with me. Since he has strong understanding in awareness I know it's going to be easy with him. I was thinking about what we could do while tripping, but then realized that no matter what we think of doing, it boils down to the INTENTION (exploring nondual nature of consciousness) and then surrendering, surrendering, surrendering to the experience. And the way this exploration of consciousness would manifest is really out of our mind control, altough depends on the awareness of the moment of tripping itself. I find it best to just set the intention and flow seeing where it takes it. I've done quite few trips, both with friends and solo, so what I'm thinking with my friend is to just flow in the authentic direction of my trip, doing the usual - meditating, listening guided meditations, exploring objects and talking. Do the trip for YOU first and foremost, and as already mentioned by someone in the thread, this will be an example for others who are tripping with you. Listening to this while peaking can be one hell of an insightful and enlightening moments for your friends (if they are open to it):

I am not enlightened and I haven't had not even one little awakening experience. But from all the videos / books / posts I've seen / read, my conceptual understanding of the nature of reality is: I. Reality is not physical, it's experiential. II. Experiences occur inside intelligent empty awareness (God / consciousness / nothingness). Nothingness is what creates experience and perceives it. III. Experiences are not separate from nothingness, they are made out of it. IV. There is only one thing that exists. All 'individual consciousnesses' are interconnected and inseparable. Reality is indivisible. So, that's my basic understanding of nonduality (please correct me if I'm wrong or missing something). I don't want to seem arrogant, but the reason I've created this thread is that I'm frustrated by seeing posts the authors of which (it seems to me) severely misunderstand non-duality (things like "Leo is a narcissistic psychopath, he thinks he is God!"). It seems like a very simple thing. Why do people so often misunderstand it, or maybe I misunderstand it myself?

@SoonHei What is the limit to which this illusion of yours will continue attempting to convince you it’s real? How honest are you in terms of “your path”? How far would you go to know The Truth? - Will you go beyond where anyone has gone? Wouldn’t you obviously need to, to realize nonduality? ” is it possible that there is a "reality" outside of this one” Consider, you just asked that question, a question about the nature of Self & Illusion, and quite easily accepted an answer from your own maya, which of course, this response is as well.

@11modal11 Who are you asking all these questions to, while “you’re enlightened and nondual”? How is it you still believe in objective answers, in nonduality?

@Chrissy j Yes, consciousness is basically the same as hyper-lucidity. You become so lucid you realize there is no difference between difference and sameness. You become conscious that the metaphysical distinctions underlying your entire sense of reality are all meaningless: self vs world, life vs death, real vs unreal, something vs nothing. All of these distinctions collapse and you are left in pure nonduality. Reality becomes indistinct. Your identity collapses to zero and expands to infinity simultaneously. At this level of lucidity, life as you know it is over. You have awoken from "life". You realize that your entire "life" was just a dream. You have died and awoken to realize that death is impossible because you are God. You are suspended in an infinite eternal state of Nirvana. You have achieved actual immortality. You realize that your true identity is an infinity singularity, which includes inside it every living creature that has ever existed or will exist. You are so lucid that you have 100% omniscient understanding of all of reality. You realize that you have created yourself using infinite intelligence and that nothing exists but yourself. This degree of consciousness cannot be imagined or believed. It is extremely radical. It defies all scientific or rational explanation.

Real vs unreal is a duality. Nonduality = all distinctions collapse into a unity. At this ultimate, Absolute level of consciousness, there is literally no difference between anything. There is not even a difference between real and unreal. Practically, you should make a distinction in your mind between level of consciousness vs level of development. Enlightenment work is about raising your level of consciousness. Personal development is about raising your level of development and changing your life around. Both are very important.

Good afternoon everyone, my name is Trent and I am seventeen years old. I am currently working on a book which has a main theme of nonduality, being one, and the corruption caused by the ego. The setting is a Lord of the Rings/Skyrim like world, yet all many of my own ideas. Some background about me before I share my excerpt; I have struggled with bipolar depression since I was about fourteen years old and it has been both a blessing and a curse. Throughout the struggles and suffering, especially around the time my grandmother who I was very close with passed away, I was at my worst which included suicidal attempts. During this time I became fascinated by the mind and conscious and my curiosity led to me looking deeper into it. It was about this time I found Leo's videos and they altered my perception of what reality is, and they have vastly helped me grow by recognizing many of my own evils and my mistaken view of fragmenting myself from reality rather than accepting the wholeness which we are. The excerpt from my book I will share is about a demon named Aviramus telling his story to a man named Archen. I will not share the complete context so that my ideas are not stolen and that it leaves what you read open to interpretation. I am more than happy to hear your thoughts and perceptions on my writing as well as improvements I can make. What I wrote I have experienced myself. Is this what it means to be enlightened, or am I mistaken? Is the experience which I have had similar to any of yours? Without further ado, here it is. "I was ever so weary after the battle which had lasted days, how many I cannot remember. Even with two Antipodes I was still mortal, so I ordered my undead to guard me while I rested. I collapsed, surrendering to my dreams. I had never been one to dream often, but the Antipode of Ignorance allowed my subconscious to roam free. In my dream I was in a black room which went back in every direction beyond my vision, chained by my legs and arms so that I was raised above the ground, vulnerable as a blind deaf man in battle. I saw the ghosts of all my brethren which I had brought back in undeath surround me, screaming at me, cursing me to damnation. ‘Why would you slay and exploit us, Aviramus? You wish to save us, but perhaps it is you who needs to be saved.’ ‘You claim to be enlightened and our liberator, but if you were whom you claim to be you would not murder your brethren to gain power.’ ‘Ostracizing yourself on Grandeyus you scrutinized and judged us, but at least we did not give ourselves up to the temptations of the Dark Creator!’ Their curses made me tremble and ache with guilt and pain, the very feelings deep within me which I had dreaded confronting for so long now confronted me, and there was no deliverance.” Tears fell from Aviramus’ eyes, plummeting to the ground scalding where they landed. His breathing became heavy and his jaws clenched, he felt horrified simply recalling the corpse of memories from long ago. The King’s gaze returned to Archen, and he reluctantly continued his story. “As the shadows within my nightmare continued to attack me, I looked at them carefully and realized they were not the literal spirits of my brothers, but phantoms created by my ego to break my mind so that I would succumb to him. All the guilt and anguish which had burdened me for so long, I realized it was all within my mind. I broke the chains with newfound strength and roared into the infinity that is my mind, refuting my ego which had plagued me for so long. ‘Crawl out of your corner, fiend! You wish for my downfall, so come and finish it once and for all!’ All the ghosts of my brethren recoiled and hissed, fleeing into the darkness. For what very well could have been an eternity, the silence was ever so loud… anxiety consumed me, for I did not know what would ascend from the depths. Silence…silence…silence. At last, I could barely begin to make out a silhouette creeping from the murky depths, getting closer and closer. The being was identical to me yet did not consist of flesh but rather blackness, blackness so intensely ebon that the surrounding darkness appeared light. The only things which were not black were his eyes, smoldering scarlet, so imbued with hatred that it could be tasted, a taste which cannot be described with words. It stared at me silently for a moment, before speaking to me. ‘Confusion, blindness… deluded by desultory fantasies of saving those whom you merely think you care about- why do you burden yourself with such trifle endeavors? They are of no benefit to us, nay, they are helpless, ignorant. They are not like us and they never shall be. Your quest is in vain, no one can be saved, not unless we save ourself. We were damned from the start when you gave into the deceptions of Father. He does not love us and he never did! He made a mistake sundering man and we both know it, do not deny it, for we are one. I would not say these things if we did not believe them. We are better than all, our power unmatched. Let us seize the remaining Antipodes and overthrow the Shade, and then we can overthrow Father, yes, we can show him the mistake which he made and then we can recreate the world in our own image, a place of eternal sanctuary. There shall be no suffering, no misery, no anguish! Why can you not listen to reason? Why do you not understand, despite all the obvious evidence?’ I felt astonished, mind-blown. These were all my deepest, darkest desires, the things which I had pushed away and ran from for so long incarnate. But I had pushed them away for a reason, had I not? This was the lower consciousness part of me which had chained me down for so long. Now was the time to break these chains. ‘Put your selfishness aside! You say we, but these desires are not mine. They are yours and yours alone. I can tell that your sole purpose is to survive and why would it not be? Corrupting me from within all your existence, poisoning the mind. You are but my subconscious which has festered into a being, but you are not real. You are nothing! Attempting to fragment me from the rest of reality, deceiving me from the truth. You cast aside our brethren as if they do not matter, but why can you not realize we are all one? It is you who does not understand despite all the obvious evidence!’ ‘Deception… you speak as if you are the victim, ah the irony! You speak of being one, but you refuse to accept me. You demonize me but forget a very important piece of information. You were the one who was fragmented and locked away! You were the evil of a man which Father saw as unworthy! No matter what you do, your blood will always be that of a demon, the shard of the soul which Father did not want to corrupt his precious world! You have opened my eyes Aviramus. You are the only deceiver here, you are the one who has chained me down. Now is the time for me to break these chains.’ ‘Then let the chains be broken!’ I roared. I pounced upon the shadow and the floor which had been beneath us shattered, as we fell into eternal darkness sealed in each others grasp. Our eyes were locked, and in his eyes I saw myself and all the things which I had hated about myself and the world. ‘Do you see the things which have haunted us? Do you now see what I tried to save us from?’ ‘Nay,’ I replied. ‘I only see a being who could not become one, a broken shadow who put himself above the rest.’ ‘Then let us separate forever, and leave this reality of damnation!’ It shrieked. Simultaneously we seized each others necks and mercilessly snapped them. The last thing I remember was seeing both our bodies separated from our heads falling into infinity. My point of view was no longer from my eyes, but from far above. The barriers of language make what I then felt difficult to explain, but I will try my best. There was no I. All the things in reality; every human, demon, tree and stone, all the water and fire, animals and insects, the stars and the suns, bliss and sorrow, were all that there was, is and ever will be. I awoke where I had been when slumber consumed me, and looked around with new awareness. I was no longer me, rather I felt as if I was all. My love for everything had increased infinitely, for finally I had realized we were and are all one. Finally, I was enlightened. Archen, many perceive enlightenment to be the absence of emotions. These people have been deceived by higher powers who tell them that wisdom comes from suppressing their natural feelings, and they say these things because this makes them easier to control. True enlightenment is a level of awareness which allows you to acknowledge your emotions for what they are. Pleasure, pain, and neutrality all are impermanent, and subject to inevitably fading away - if you choose to let them. However, many people do not see it that way. When they allow themselves to be strangled by the tendrils of emotion, they drown in it and feel as if that current feeling is all that there is. Look at your brother. He has become so consumed by hate that he no longer realizes it is all in his mind, but rather thinks it is all there is, and he believes that by slaughtering everyone they will be liberated from his self-conjured reality of never ending agony. True enlightenment is obtained when one realizes this, and becomes disenchanted to these emotions, realizing they do not have to be controlled by them, and in turn become dispassionate. They are then released from the chains of their ego which have grown over time, and they have finalized their place in this life. They no longer wish for conflict or support certain factions, for they know that everyone is one being, and by hurting others, they are hurting themselves. They realize they are no longer a fish in the ocean, but the ocean itself."

On that point he is wrong. He hasn't become fully conscious of infinity because his physics background is in the way. Reality is actual Infinity. In fact, that's the only thing that exists: infinity. Every other object is just a consequence of infinity. Reality is infinite both as a whole and as every part of the whole. Infinity contains within it an infinite number of infinities. This requires a radical, super-human level of consciousness to realize so it's not surprising that very few people realize it. Even those people who are into spirituality, meditation, and nonduality rarely reach Infinity.

if anyhting this stuff has made me more psychopathic to an avg joe, beacuse acknowledging nonduality - i just want to freely play around with this field and manipulate it as self extension jsut like on my body i wanted to manipulate it to grow muscles or change hair color or somehting

@Ero wait thats why im confused. "Lower consciousness state" what does this have to do with enlightenment? This is what im asking essentially almost in a nutshell. Even if I perceive nonduality everything is ultimately anextension of self, but why would that place limits on how i engage with it?

READ WHOLE THING BEFORE RESPONSE! okay so this is going into the meditation section because, well, it has a lot of do with that. I gotta friend who did one tab of acid, and realized he was god he said. He did it again 3/4 a tab and smoked weed with it this time too and had a bad trip saying everything disappeared (ego death) with lots of hallucinations and freaking out. It was really bad. He then did dmt (a lot of his 100milligrams) a week later on the same day since it was weak dmt but he said time disappeared. He got no visuals. Ever since the second acid trip he’s been tripping out it seems like. Maybe it was the dmt. Changing all his life plans(he wanted to go to LA to be an actor or something along those lines maybe a director but now wants to travel across America. He said he wanted to hitchhike it last I heard), give his life to god letting god run the show (but he wants to keep a little bit of his ego he said so...i don’t know what that means) being really weird and not himself, talking really monotone, being super nervous looking and monotone and odd and bugeyed while explaining his plan to let god Run his life while saying he has no plan he’s just gonna let it happen, practicing mindfulness 24/7, and he says he feels like the next jesus(he’s been learning enlightenment from the Bible without other enlightenment study or minimal study, except what I say about it and the Bible and now some Alan Watts). Found out today that he has a family history of bipolar disorder. These psychedelics plus being a pot head is fucking him up I think. Some of this stuff seems like it could be really good, but really I think it’s a manic episode. He has took a drastic change. Within a week or two span after the dmt. I feel a dark energy. Today he took a vow of silence for a week. guess he is not talking even at work. My friend who just turned 19 your old friend is doing all this. Any advice for how to help my friend? Me and my other friends are really worried about him. Can you give me some insight on understanding what he is going through? Like what is going on here? I feel like he is falling into a dark place. And pushing too hard on enlightenment. It isn’t healthy I’ll tell you that. You would have to see it yourself to understand really how drastically he changed. It has turned neurotic I feel. He has a spiritual ego now which I get. Maybe a god complex type deal (next Jesus) it looks like to me at least. And possibly it is a manic episode. Are we just overthinking it? I doubt it. We have all noticed. And I feel like ppl do change drastically after enlightenment sometimes. But this huge shift came after the second acid trip and dmt. Not his first experience of god. After his first he just had an ego lash back. Now shits getting wacky. Any advice would help. Thanks a lot. Let me know what y’all think is happening. Maybe it’s all good honestly we will have to see EDIT: I guess I just want to know your guys opinion on what is happening with him and nonduality and his psychology and how to help him back to a healthy version of himself. And I guess I’m just asking how normal is all this after psychedelics? Maybe we’re just misunderstanding it.

Hello, I have recently just got into spirituality and nonduality and it feels like total emotional roller coaster. I have just recently dropped the materialist outlook on life, partly because it didn't really feel right, but mostly because of Leo's video on brains. On an intellectual level I suspect that I'm something more than just this person, but for some reason when I read about no free will it makes me feel really miserable. Yesterday I felt really happy, active and really enjoyed everything around me but today I feel somehow drained and empty, yet in some sense I feel peace, and it goes like this for maybe a month. I know it's not really that bad and other people probably have worse problems, but I just needed to share this and hopefully get some advice on how to drop the seriousness and just enjoy living. I am also beginning to feel like there is no real freedom and everything is just determined and I am somehow trapped, which I hope is just false fear. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a nice day

God is Nothingness. But what you're missing is that Nothingness is identical to Somethingness. Thus, everything you see before your eyes right now is God. Somethingness = Nothingness. God = Everything. This is the essence of nonduality. All distinctions collapse such that everything becomes Nothingness. Nothingness is NOT a blank void. Nothingness is precisely everything you see around you. You are holding Nothing as distinct from Something. Which is a duality. When that duality finally collapses, you will realize, "Oh shit! Everything was Nothing the whole time! There is no difference between existence and non-existence, life and death, reality and fantasy."

@David Turcot Great post. You’re at the peak of conceptualization, (your OP), it can’t take you much further. A breakthrough is around the corner which will recontextualize literally everything. This God mode you’re referring to cannot be understood, or imagined, or conceptualized, or described with any words. Only direct experience will do, though it is not an experience, nor is it nonexperience, to think of it in those terms and apply negation, is to be stuck in duality and denial of it, it is not of the mind nor is it no-mind, nor is it time, nor timeless, not meaningful, nor meaningless, it is not “the void” nor is it voidless, all of these are the dualities of your own illusion. It's The Being -the only being- with all the universes and galaxies obviously an unfathomably tiny illusionary, and totally insignificant, speck of a thing you’re doing, as insignificant to you as any single rain drop falling somewhere else on the earth is now. Until “you’ve seen” this, you have not been outside of the illusion to see what you are and that you are outside of the illusion, the manor in which you actually exist, doing the illusion - you will remain an ego - even if you nullify duality in your mind and achieve mental equanimity, or believe your thoughts of what you are not, for your entire life, even if you did practices for 18 hours everyday for the rest of your life. Until this, you will not know what you are, nor the true nature of your life, nor the actuality of others, reality, illusion, or God - you’ll be happily & cleverly resting, abiding, in a comfy trap of birds eye view of duality & spirituality, no self, oneness, “being”, nonduality, infinite, etc, etc. Until this, you’ll be less than honest, and you’ll know it. So you will either live this life knowing that and denying it, or doing what must be done to have this realization. What you rule out, what you discredit and don’t do, is exactly what will prevent this realization, the teacher you don’t like is your ego tricking you, the psychadelic you don’t like is tricking you, the “idiot” you don’t listen to IS your ego tricking you - and you’ll see all the world through a lens a fear, while in total delusion & denial of your fear. It will flip you and your entire reality on it’s ass, rewire your brain to accommodate the knowing of the Truth, and you will never for a second be able to see anything the way you do right now again.