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It wasn't a metaphore and it wasn't a belief. I've had the experience of awaking from life to see that it was just a dream. You can too. At this level of realization, ordinary life as you knew it is over. You are literally physically dead. Don't assume you've got enlightenment figured out. There are many depths to it. Realizing no-self is one thing, and realizing that all of reality is unreal is yet another. It is possible to be so conscous that you look around the room and the very physical objects you see around are realized to be non-existent. Someone could point a loaded gun to your head and you would not care if they pulled the trigger because you absolutely know it is unreal and makes no difference. Your true nature is infinite and unkillable. Because you already are death itself. "There is no doubt whatsoever that the universe is the merest illusion." -- Ramana Maharshi At this point I sometimes forget that 99.9999% of people -- even those who pursue enlightenment -- have no direct experience of what I am saying, and so to them it sounds like nonsense or exaggeration or cute metaphores or philosophical theories or some word game or me misinterpreting the scriptures. It is not that. It is precisely as I said. The only problem is, it's too damn radical and requires years of hardcore consciousness work to glimpse without 5-MeO-DMT. Many of you guys are still underestimating the full ramifications of nonduality. It's far more radical that you presently realize. That is okay. It's impossible to understand it so long as you are yourself. All I would suggest is, don't get cocky. Don't think you got this thing figured out just because you watched some Rupert Spira videos or did a few hits of LSD. There's more to the rabbit hole than meets the eye, and lots of people I notice are starting to get too cocky here -- starting to dismiss all reading and all theory as mental masturbation -- just because they've dipped their toe into it or watched a bunch of over-simplified neo-advaita videos. The scriptures are voluminous for good reason. This stuff ain't so simple as people first expect. Show respect to the wide range of subtle literature on this topic. Read all the books on my book list in the Consciousness category. Only then will you will start to apprecitate the depth, complexity, and subtlty here.

It was LSD. I have not done 5-MeO in over a year. At this point I am extremely sensitive to even small doses of any kind of psychedelic. A recreational dose will send me into full-on Buddha-like nonduality with all the classic insights you read about in the scriptures and books. It's quite amazing.

yin and yang. Nonduality: There is absolutely nothing I need, ever. The Dream: As a video game character in a simulation-less simulation, I have many needs. A good idea is to fulfill them. Gives me something fun to do while I'm waiting to die. Nonduality: There is absolutely nothing to seek. I am that I am. Tat tvam asi. The Dream: I can spend my entire life seeking and still not find everything. How cool is that? Nonduality: I am Nothingness/God/Brahman/Consciousness/Awareness/Einsof/Abyss/Allah/White Whale/Flying Spaghetti Monster, and I just sit there, being myself. The Dream: I am a unique video game avatar, with quirks, strengths, weaknesses, and apparent free will. I can spend my entire life in the dream discovering myself. That involves lots of suffering, but also lots of peaks. The cool part: I can learn to make suffering just as meaningful as the peaks. As mah neighbah Nietzsche once said, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how." Nonduality: In order to discover myself, I have to die. The Dream: In order to discover myself, I have to live.

check out science and nonduality youtube channel. there are tones of scientists connecting consciousness, enlightenment and physics

@WildeChilde The difference is what you're identified as. If you identify with being a tree in the forest, when that tree dies, that's the end. But when you identify with being the entire forest, you never die. Materialism says you are the little self. Nonduality means you are the Infinite Self. It's a very different paradigm. Yes, the little self will die. In fact, it never really existed. But the Infinite Self is Absolute.

This is very common for newbies. If you see the true masters, they are all very relaxed and enjoying the moment effortlessly, without thinking about spiritual principles. And there is nothig worse than preaching spirituality, nonduality to people. Some quotes for inspiration: “My family hates me when I am a Buddhist, but they love me when I am a Buddha.” Forgot who said that ”The goal is not to perfect yourself, but to perfect your love.” Jack Kornfield ”You didn’t come here to be perfect. You came here to be real.” Ralph Smart (?) Jack Kornfield himself once told about a student of his that said, “I am dissapointed” Jack asked, “About what?” “You! Because I thought you were calm but seeing you in this retreat, you look like a italian shoesales man.” In other words, although Jack has been practicing meditation for decades, he is still imperfect. He said one time that he always skip a step on the stairs to save time. I don’t know if you mentioned this in the Dropping The Roles You Play video, but that is ine role that we, self-help junkies, should all be very mindful.

I resonate more with the second group. I find myself being pulled toward this process. I've entered nonduality - usually with psychedelics and a few glimpses without. One question on your phrase "they know that it is the only way out". I've had awareness/realization that what my self wants will not materialize or be fulfilled. All the hopes, desires, intentions, planning, goal setting and actions will never "arrive". Yet, my mind-body often behaves otherwise. My mind engages in thinking like "As soon as xyz, then. . . ", If she would just xyz, then. . . ". "If I had just said xyz, then she wouldn't be upset with me". As well, when I sense distance with my girlfriend, my body produces neurotransmitters and hormones. I yearn to hold her. I feel anxiety that I may not hold her and feel the intimacy again, there is fear she may leave. My blood becomes more acidic, I feel pain in my gut. I interpret her actions and inactions as signs she is losing interest in me. I desire reassurance to settle the insecurity. I feel motivated to please her. People advise me to "set boundaries", "to develop better communication", "to take care of myself", "to articulate what I need in the relationship". This can be tempting as "The Way Out" of uncomfortable feelings and suffering. Yet, sometimes I'm aware The Story is the issue and that my self is trying to get something, somewhere that doesn't exist. That the loss of The Story is "The Way Out", Yet, in spite of this The Story and associated feelings continue - even when I am aware it's just The Story. What is the next stage? To just be aware of The Story and all it's thoughts and feelings? Or to focus on the illusionary nature of the self and Story to reduce the strength of The Story?

So to be clear, you are arguing that enlightenment-which at its core can be described as a transcendence of dualistic concepts- is itself a dualistic concept, i.e. a person is either Enlightened or Unenlightened? This strikes me as a paradox. If enlightenment is a realization of nonduality, then how can you apply dualistic concepts to it? I vastly prefer the Buddhist description of enlightenment (or at least the one that Thich Naht Hanh uses in his writings). You are already enlightened. Everything that encompasses enlightenment is already within you, the process that we think of as enlightenment is just the process of pealing back the layers of ego, mindlessness and other bull that prevent us from recognizing our "inherent" enlightenment. This removes the dualistic nature of enlightened vs. unenlightened, but what I really like is that it removes the idea of "achieving" enlightenment from the equation. It turns it into something you "realize" instead. This solves the problem of applying dualistic thought to something that by its very nature is nondual, because there is no distinction. An unenlightened person doesn't become enlightened, rather enlightenment itself is a never ending state of becoming more enlightened. Long story short, I like Leo's way of presenting enlightenment as something with stages. It helps limit dualistic thinking and emphasizes enlightenment as a process, while still acknowledging progress along the path. Just my two cents.

@Outer Stephen Hawking, for example is a major scientist. Or Sean Carol. Or anyone else. You haven't investigated this issue deeply enough. Philosophy of Science is a very nuanced and deep topic. Stay humble and open. There is way too more this nonduality stuff than meets the eye, or than most nonduality teachers teach. The applications of nonduality are very far-reaching. Just be willing to investigate rather than arguing. Be thought, patient, and careful in your research. Go read 20 books about epistemology and philosophy of science. Take a few university courses on it. Then we can talk further.

@StephenK Mouse and I don't really disagree on much. It's mostly just a difference in emphasis and style. He wants you to take a very narrow approach, pure neti neti -- because that's the approach that apparently worked well for him. There is value in that if your only concern is the direct pursuit of the Absolute and nothing else matters to you and you are 100% motivated to get to the Absolute. For a few people that will work. But for most people it will not simply because they have a lot of psychological obstacles to deal with first and they won't resonate with neti neti. Each path has its pros and cons. And then there are issues outside of the domain of strict nonduality, like epistemology or philosophy of science or mastering your emotions or how to be a good human being or what you should do with your life... none of which will be adequately addressed by neti neti or any other one method or teaching. The fuel of all these spiritual debates is that one person tries to push his spiritual path onto everyone else because he feels his path is the best, assuming it will work for everyone else. This assumption is totally false. But that doesn't stop the person from trying because he's a firm believer in his one path. Because most people haven't seriously walked multiple paths and they have been radicalize by one teacher or another and turned into zealots. There's nothing new about this. It's been happening since the dawn of time. Everyone believes their path is the best and should be adopted by everyone else. You have to appreciate that reaching enlightenment is a totally separate matter from effectively teaching and spreading enlightenment. The greatest spiritual achievers are not necessarily the greatest spreaders and teachers. The teacher has to meet the student where the student is at. And many enlightened people don't know how to do that. In the same way that the best physicists are rarely the best physics teachers. To whittle all of life down to neti neti is extremely short-sighted in my opinion. And as a teacher, it doesn't make sense to me. As a teacher, I have to be open to a variety of tools and methods. There are SO many amazing tools for raising consciousness and personal development that I would never want to abandon them all for neti neti. Some spiritual paths are very narrow, emphasizing only the Absolute. Other spiritual paths are very broad, emphasizing diet, right conduct, compassion, psychological development, paranormal abilities, right relationships, etc. Neither one is best. There are tradeoffs to each and you have to choose for yourself which is right for you at which time in your life. Personally, I employ both types of teachings, narrow and broad. I find both incredibly worthwhile.

Actually you aren't inside a dream, and unless you can actually give some solid evidence to suggest otherwise I'm sticking with the physical universe. All lucid dreaming shows is that we can influence our dreams if we are aware of them. Then again we "close our eyes" and what we can do in each reality is markedly different, not to mention the stability and stubborness of this reality leads me to think of it as "default". You don't KNOW it's a dream, despite that many spiritualities think so. Spiritual experience isn't proof of teachings but a RESULT of them, important difference. They end up confirming preconceived notions, so there is a cognitive element to them. It's only a "dream" insofar as our brains construct reality on a "best guess" through our senses. We are actively "hallucinating" reality. It's impossible to be "non-conceptual" for if you were then nothing would make sense, you would not have "insight" or "divine knowledge". It would be indecipherable chaos. The "no evidence reality is physical" is nonsense, it's literally all around you. If it's physical you can interact with it, touch it, feel it, experience it through senses. Even in your dreams things are physical. The exception is a few sensory illusions. While you could argue that the mind makes distinctions between physical and nonphysical, I can argue it makes the same illusion of oneness. Oneness, nonduality, these are concepts. Simply believing in them allows my body to experience such a state, but when I stop believing in them then the distinctions return. It makes me doubt the truth of oneness and nonduality, seeing them as merely just another lens to see the world. Also, just because "awareness" and "consciousness" are mysterious and poorly understood doesn't mean we can make judgments on them. As for the free will not being real, you're late to the party on that. Though the answer to the question is rather foggy.

Of course real high-quality science is not in opposition to spirituality, and vice versa. Science just needs to be purified of its metaphysical dogmas and to clearly understand its limits. That's all. Science has always been corrupted by dogma, and it will continue to be for centuries to come. Science is in the process of weeding out its own dogmas. But this process takes millennia because people are so stubborn. In the next few centuries nonduality will to incorporated into science, and after that happens, every scientist will say: "Duh! Of course the universe is nondual. Those scientists in the 21st century were just stubborn materialistic fools."

I'm not good with all these spiritual words for everything.. ..but are the two aspects discussed in this tread(infinity/nonduality and finite/duality) what we mean by SHIVA and SHAKTI?

Hooray! I'm glad it makes sense to you. This is just information theory. The more cuts you have, the more 'bits' of information you have. So nonduality is a complete lack of information: zero. But it is 'made of' infinity so to speak. If you bend the metaphor a bit more, then the infinite paper and the infinite cut are actually the same thing. Duality (and information), is infinity cutting itself. But BEWARE. The metaphor is not the territory. I'm just talking like a run of the mill scientist, and playing fast and dirty with words and concepts (cuts).

The same link as between the number 1 and the number 2? So here is my poor metaphor for nonduality versus duality: Imagine a large sheet of paper that is infinitely large in all directions. It is perfect paper, it has no discernable attributes other than the fact that it's infinite. You can however count it, there's exactly one nonduality. Now, get some scissors and some infinite time and cut the paper in half. Now it has an attribute a cut (or boundary if you like). And if you count the areas, there are now two areas - this is duality. Interestingly you've created a finity (two) from two infinities: the infinite paper and the infinite cut. End of metaphor.

@LastThursday True! This is maybe a better headline.. "No link between the nonduality and duality, awkward?" But then it all falls short, because, how could there be a link? Hehe, reality is so slippery! Guess Ramana Maharshi was right.. "Silence is the highest teaching"

This guy is great for this Sometimes I wonder if I found the most wise guy or the most crazy guy ever. In my opinion, he is one of the most sane people I know, but appears as insane because we live in a society where insanity is considered normal. He is also good to fuck with your understanding of nonduality and shake you out of any trance.

Alternate title to the video: Heart of Space reacts to nonduality in 2014

@Shin Well, to be fair, they are from the psychedelic generation. But they don't talk about it because it would destroy their reputations and because their job is to teach you their systems, not to help you explore the entire domain. And honestly, many of them do not have enough experience with them. Nonduality teachers tend to have a very narrow focus. This is both good and bad. But Shinzen Young, for example, became a Zen monk after a deep psychedelic experience.

Leo's Video Jacques Derrida, Deconstruction, Post-Modernism & Nonduality i did not understand it at all all other videos i think i can grave to the bottom what he is saying but in this topic i'm lost how deconstruction practice is carried out? can explain this?

so much dualities moral is egoic or moral is non-egoic, these are the same things because if everything is you then the world is just one ego, if everything isn't you then world is many egos. both ways these are egos or selfs and no-self or yes-self, two same things! U think Buddha would think that ur world is dual, my world is non-dual, u are ego and i am not ego? why then he didn't answer on whether there is god or no? coz it was the same thing for him, god exist or god doesn't exist. same to the extent there's no difference between same and not same. for him everyone's world is nondual coz theres no more difference between nonduality and duality, truth and untruth, someone's living in dual world and someone's living in nondual world. Someone's being selfless and someone's being selfish. Same things. Jesus did extremely selfless act but he was 'rewarded' for that in the end So is it selfless or selfish to do that? I'd say there's no difference. Difference is only in relative levels. What u call selfish is being identified with smaller things, what u call selfless is identified with bigger things to the extent when identification equals to no identification at all. no-self = true-self remember U pursue truth only because u want reward in form of knowing whats' true U breath because ur body wants to be rewarded with living this whole game of rewards is just mechanism or stream of existence. Even to escape samsara and attain moksha is about reward of not living here again. LOL but irony is that u only can attain full moksha if u cease identification with any kind of karmic stream or actions at all once u attained that u can say: LETS EAT as Buddha did. coz theres no more difference, then u might want to escape samsara because u see that there's no more difference between existing and not existing. getting rewards and go on with karma, or not getting rewards and cease to be. So if we talk in levels. Then u see that enlightenment goes hand in hand with morals AND 'good', they do not contradict each other coz u speak about morality of rules, ethics and laws which is dualism of me vs world these staff is about interpersonal relationships. and these rules are essential to live with other people so they won't kill each other but problem is that these days ppl use these rules to create goodie goodie self-image thinking that this can be good thing. very much useless and relatively 'egoic thing' as far as I noticed but truer morality and fairness comes hand to hand with non-duality of me = world why do you think jesus said the famous golden rule: do to others what you want for yourself ? because thats non-dual perception, if everything is me then why do I want to hurt somebody if there's no reason for that other than my thought stories? then you can only hurt someone if u really got physically attacked, thats self-protection what all martial arts advocates to do, no one teaches u to use your powers at all, but everyone teaches to protect urself from immediate attacks. martial arts btw are very linked with spirituality its also good for the attacker. coz he will learn couple things about morality lol but if u are safe then why would you do that non-sense at all? u don't do it if don't follow your self-image in thoughts. so if u r not attached to your thoughts then you would only do some 'immoral' things only because of your immediate instincts and well instincts can also go out of hand sometimes because in your non-dual world there's no difference between lie and no-lie for instance same things because both are thoughts, however now you have less reasons to lie because there's no more attachment to your stories of past and future, so u no longer need to save ur past and future self-image BUT there's always now, so you might have reason to lie in the now to save your life in the now lets say someone is attacking u and u lie to them to save ur ass, thats your body talking and if we dig dipper in non-dual we can reach final frontiers where existence is equal to non-existence. physical pain to no-pain. now u don't need even to use ur instincts coz u transcended them. now here those who want to live will do all sorts of things to keep their body attached to life as sadhguru says. now comes another quote of jesus: Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either why? because instincts do not work anymore. nothing is different at all. thats when morality becomes extremely 'selfless' because now u can try to kill me on the cross and i won't reject idea! why not if my heart tells that its alright? if heart tells its alright then thats what I do coz i trust thats good and alright. but if heart tells me to stop and don't die on cross, then I don't do it and that will be alright too. by heart I mean following and being in tune with flow in its totallity U see these saints were saints because they followed heart on their micro-level. Because in complete non-duality you not doing anything, everything is decided spontaneously. (Jesus: don't think about tomorrow as tomorrow will care for itself) its hard to force being moralistic on urself, but its easy to surrender and flow but for macro-level u need rules and ethics and ideas about perfect morals because society has to be constructed in some way, otherwise its no different from jungles, and most of us will be dead in jungles quite quickly or the Boddhisatvas? they could escape samsara but choose to comeback to save everyone else. BECAUSE thats not decided by their mind, its just decided upon them. Its complete flow. but for all our relative lives the only difference is: do u want to act morally to uplift your self-image (thats in dualism) or do u want to act morally because thats what ur heart tells u (thats in non-dualism)? since its hard to listen to heart, I guess its already great if u can do conscious choice and separate good seed from bad seed because what goes around comes around

the logic for a consciousness-only existence is... really solid. basically you only can be sure consciousness exists. so there's no reason to assume anything is outside consciousness so, instead, the regularities and consensus of life is because there is one consciousness, conscious of everything, holding it all in place. that's idealism. and then nonduality goes one step further: you are identical to that larger consciousness

@StrangerWatch you can’t go beyond self-interest even as an enlightened person. To truly go beyond self-interest requires a level of development which is way, way (way) beyond just nonduality perception. Dont worry about it, and realize that seeking enlightenment is the most constructive thing you can do with your self interest.

I don't like the idea of banning people for a mere difference of opinion. People here are banned when they violate the list of Forum Guidelines. The amount of flack I would get for banning people who disagreed with my philosophy would be endless. I have to bite my tongue a lot on here, so as not to appear dictatorial. People who don't buy into enlightenment won't hang around here very long anyhow. They will naturally lose interest. The more realistic problem is people creating factions over their favorite version of nonduality while poo-pooing the rest. This is a much more serious problem which has plagued every spiritual community since the dawn of human civilization and spilled much blood. And the sad part is, people still haven't learned the lesson. What we need most of all is tolerance and compassion for other perspectives.

First I want to say, that I have a strong desire to create a life that I want. I am currently in a stage where unresolved confusions seem to come back to me from the beginning of this journey of nonduality. They may seem infantile or like obvious self-sabotage, and maybe that is the case. But maybe I'm really not seeing something, and I think I would benefit if somebody is able to give me a new perspective. Point 1. is what is mostly confusing me. 1. This whole situation seems to be so absurdly relative. "Having life circumstances that I am not satisfied with and wanting to improve them" Why is this even a thing? Somehow I am. And then somehow there is a situation that someone wants to change. I don't even know why I am here or what this is, so how can I possibly know what's good for me, what I have to do, or what even is an improvement? Improvement based on what? Based on "This is not satisfying, there has to be something else"? But that's just a belief. This right here is all there is. There is only now. It's absurd to me to create something, when the basis of this whole "journey" of creating is so grotesque and mysterious as in: [somehow being somewhere and then somehow changing something to create pleasurable circumstances for someone]. How can I possibly know what is good for me? It doesn't seem to be a good idea to act with incomplete information. 2. This whole thing of optimizing life, having a life purpose, improving myself, staying healthy, seems like just a big pretending game. We pretend that there is a world. We pretend that there is a brain. We pretend that we are this body. We pretend to have free will. We pretend we know what is good and we and the "world" needs. We pretend we are on a journey to somewhere. Examples: The world is a thought story, yet one of the good options to create a good life seems to be to make an impact on the world. On what world?? Isn't it just pretending? Just like a kid pretends to be a fireman when playing with it's toys. Why nourish and optimize a "brain" if it doesn't exist? I don't try to optimize another made up organ. What is the difference between a complete made up organ, like "Unicornrainbow" and "Brain". If the brain REALLY(!) doesn't exist, why pretend that it does? We don't pretend that "Unicornrainbow" is an organ inside us. So "brain" seems to be there. And there seems to be a difference between a scientific established concept and a completely made up concept. Either the brain exist or it does not exist. The other option is silly: "It doesn't actually exist, but let's pretend that it exists because it exists somehow but doesn't actually" (????) So we pretend again. If I am really, really, really!! not this body. Why create good circumstances for this body? Why search a partner for this body? I'm not concerned about creating good circumstances for a unknown body in china, because I didn't identify with this unknown chinese body. But I identify with the body that is currently typing this text. Isn't it then the better way to completely disidentify with this body also and don't bother about anything anymore? Just completely not giving a fuck about anything anymore in a consequent way, even if it entails physical death. Wouldn't that be the more authentic option since this body is not me? I am aware that I am also this body, since I am everything. But thats hypocrisy to everyone coming with this argument. You care way more about the continued body which is appearing beneath you than any other body or thing. So it seems that this whole life is just farce. It's just pretending. Which isn't bad in and of itself. If you embrace it, it could actually be fun. So is this really the way? Pretending "as if" and then act "as if"? Embracing this dream, since it is all there is?