Search the Community

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?

This work takes a certain kind of maturity. You're not ready for the full implications of nonduality yet. What you call nihilism is just a fear of becoming groundless. Yes, reality is meaningless, but what you fail to understand is that nihilism goes full-circle into divinity and infinite love. It's precisely because everything is meaningless, that it can be unconditionally loved. Drop your ideological positions and petty personal needs. Then the true beauty of reality will be revealed to you. Or don't, and stay stuck in your egoic, contracted paradigm. Either way is fine.

@zedprotect I've also been questioning this topic lately. What I struggle most with is that a lot of the stuff we talk about in spirituality such as consciousness, awareness, the ultimate, kundalini, nonduality, spirit, god, samadhi, bliss, presence etc. bla bla doensn't necessarily contradict the paradigm of a (physical) world we know. Because a physical world does not exclude subjective experiences. For example: Recognizing that you're not your thoughts, but the observer/awareness behind the thoughts, doesn't automatically mean that consciousness is fundamental and that you are in essence "the absolute" (whatever this is). This could solely be the process of a physical brain becoming aware of itself. How the fuck can you know that what you're conscious of is of any trustworthiness? How do you know it is not any subjective bullshit experience? Same goes for psychedelics. How the hell would you know that what you're experiencing is not just a simple halluzination? Yes, I get it: It seems like your whole world collapses and this altered state seems super real to you. But guess what, your brain can make you believe anything it wants! And yes, there is the Ego with all it's selfish needs and wants and inferior motives and self-deception. Ok, but this doesn't prove anything about a spiritual dimension. Kundalini could be just some regular neural stimulation that affects the brain in certain ways Spontaneous epiphanies or "awakening experiences" could also be just brain stuff It seems to me like a lot of this spirituality stuff is the ego's way of trying to construct a new illusory reality for itself, in order to be free of suffering. Can't it just be that if you tell our moldable brain long enough: "Hey, I am not this human body, I am the whole universe" (which in a sense is true because all is the same physical matter) it will eventually believe it and thus relieve the "person" of suffering because of the depersonalization process that has taken place. And the possible illusion that you might be the ultimate consciousness or whatever could also be welcome by suffering brain. What if there really is a physical universe (which we do not yet fully understand, and probably never completely will) and the emergent brain phenomenon "consciousness" of an evolved lifeform in the person of Eckhard Tolle is telling somebody just this very moment: "you are not your thoughts, you are infinite awareness bla bla"... This, of course, it just some input to think about. I always try to keep an open mind and be aware of the possibility that truth might be beyond my accessibility. But maybe not.

Well science can be more truth-oriented if we are talking about the most holistic possible understanding of reality. In terms of your life, the truest holism is to reach absolute truth like Buddha. But in terms of thinking and understanding reality, true holism is to inclusion of everything and thats also possible to very big extents, not to 100% extent but to very big. Opinions aren't problem. Problem is to identify with them. Why do we defend our ideas about consciousness and nonduality so much? this absolute, thats relative, this true, thats false, this real, thats dream, this nondual, thats not nondual, bla bla bla many attachment to terminology I think doing that is pretty much green or orange thinking, we hold our precious ideas as a truth. Rather why don't we just hold them as important, instead of holding them as true? They can't be non-important anyways, thats our values, but why do we so quick to think that if its important for me then its absolutely right? You might think that intellect is important or spirituality is important, and then you think that its true for everyone and thats how life is and should be. But no, its just valuable for you, which is very good thing, but thats not the whole story of how life is or how life should be. Life can be with or without that. Because simply some people consider these things as important and need them in life and some don't. So its both! Moreover, some things are not people at all. If you disidentify with your opinions you might see that now you can create holistic approach and be true system-thinker. True system thinking is all-encompassment. Include everything, every variable including limitations of your mind, perception and your personal tastes, values and inclinations that will affect end result of created systemic thought. So if you want to have systemic and holistic conceptual understanding of life/reality, you must include not only your non-dual staff, but everything from science, philosophy, psychology, economy, politics, history, maths to art, esoteric, cosmology, fairytales, religion, mythology, conspiracies, astrology and occults. From what bums on the street might think about life to what your family might think about life. From including your own biases and personal preferences to biases and preferences of people who conducted your books, articles, i.e. your research base. From holding the paradox that everything can be known and nothing can be known, that we don't know that we can know and that we don't know that we can't know. That we know that we don't know, and that we know that we know. That all exist, and also don't exist. That everything is one, but also that its not one but many, that its infinitely one and many interactions of one infinity. Coz most people don't perceive reality in that way, and that fact must be included too. That nothing is paradoxical, yet for our logic its all paradoxes. We must include our feelings, emotions and all of our subjective experience as variables too. You need to use both logic and intuition. Cold-hearted abstained approach implying you only care about what's most correct and also warm-hearted compassionate approach implying that you do it out of care and love to knowledge. That knowledge and facts are just mind at work which isn't true, and yet mind is the only possible mean of knowledge to understand anything at all. That everything is metaphors, and yet metaphors are only reality that we have hence they are real. That all is real and illusion in the same time. That all is meaningful and meaningless. That there's evolution and its purposes, and that there's none of that. That its a game or show, and that its important and divine. That world doesn't need change, yet it needs change a lot. That all of your experience is absolute and relative in the same time. And in the same time its not absolute, in the sense that you are not in the state of absolute. That all is one, yet there are many layers of one which are interconnected but also have their own partially separate world. So how to do that? I think that the only thing you really need is to exclude identification with your thinking and with end result. No identification assumes that you abstain from need to change something or to make impact or to survive or to be right as a person or to get somewhere. Instead aim to create holistic understanding which will be as right (relatively) as possible. Don't identify with your model. Mind that you can't be 100% right, but also that you don't need to be 100% right. The aim is not to be perfect, you can't be perfect, but also you are already perfect. You are just creating systemic thought. You don't really need to include things that are low interest to you, but then you need to keep in mind that your end result is not as complete without those things, and it would be different with that things. Also, keep in mind that you probably won't be able not to hold your opinions as precious to some extent, so also include that in your holistic model. Then exclusion of wrong things will be done by inclusion of them!!! LOL how funny is that, you include all your biases, and all cultural superstitions about life, and this inclusion will make you to see bigger picture. Those stories can be fitted into bigger picture to extent that bigger picture makes bigger sense now. Because those biases can HIDE something very much true. Stories about santa clause may hide something behind them, including that its actually true entity! if you came to conclusion that its not then you can search why those stories exist at all or where do they fit into bigger picture. because EVERYTHING FITS BIG PICTURE. Big picture includes places where you discover that all lies have aspects of them which are correct. Once that is taken into consideration, you can see how exactly it fits in. So maybe Santa is just metaphor of something, maybe he is real, maybe its all non-sense stories that exist because of some other factors, and maybe its all of the above! Now you can see how those stories are right and how are they wrong, and that its two sides of the same coin. Some of them can reflect one aspect, some another. After you have your conceptual systemic model of reality (which will be forever expanding, so don't settle for anything), now you can use it for a change of your life, for share, for impact and for a good. Now it can be much more useful for your life or for life of society. Now its more correct. Or you can just simply enjoy creating and discovering knowledge and expand it further. I don't mean you first need to learn a lot, you actually create your understanding every moment, so you can use that principle right now with what you already have. Whatever you know, just don't identify with it. And see how you can understand reality truer, or how you can really use your knowledge for better. Not only truth can be seen clearer but also life can be better. It also feels good not to identify with opinions, it gives you opportunity to feel value and meaningfulness in all that, to use your intellect in much wiser ways and to grow. You even can survive much better and live much better if you don't identify with your opinions. You didn't even started to expand your model but its already holistic understanding once you don't identify with it. Now the question, to what extent thats possible?

@Leo Gura It's not that I don't see that there are no real alternatives anymore once one fully grasps the significance of self actualization/personal development. I can never go back to the life of playing video games and eating junk food. My concern is with the more "basic" personal development stuff, which I seem to need most at the moment. Like creating a business, learning marketing, understanding how money works, creating a way to make money and all this stuff (maybe pickup, to get this area handled). I focused everything on Enlightenment/Psychology/Philosophy. And even though I need to figure some of this stuff out in my life, I can't find the drive to investigate my time in learning it somehow. Sometimes I think I'm deceiving myself with all this nonduality and the more theoretical stuff in order to avoid "real world" work.

great author of how to survive lectures if only JP is introduced to nonduality and enlightenment and actually inject that into his paradigm... he'll become amazing author of how to live lectures

From personal experience, spirituality let me down time and again. It said to question everything except what it was teaching. When I tried multiple times and had no success rather than place the fault in the claims it made it said there is something wrong with me. Science is at least honest when it says it doesn’t know and that the knowledge it has is provisional. Spirituality claims certainty and when pressed as to how and why it hides behind “ego” and “mind” and nonduality (which is a contradictory word).

@pankoo Good for you. Why would I think you're trolling me? I'm happy to see people getting enlightened, or having glimpses. That's the whole point of what I do: sharing the profundity of these insights with people. The whole point is that no one is in control of when these insights dawn. It's not up you or me. For some people it happens in 3 days, for others it happens in 30 years, and for others it never happens at all. I've seen old ladies who hardly know anything about enlightenment have big breakthroughs very quickly while more serious students of nonduality stay stuck. It actually helps to be a newb at this. The more conceptual knowledge of enlightenment you have, the worse it can be. Keep in mind, you probably have deeper to go. And beginner's luck tends to run out.

@vikisss1 You're barking up the right tree. All distinctions ultimately collapse. That's what allows for nonduality/oneness. If any distinctions whatsoever remained, it would still be duality. The distinction between ANYTHING is a false one. Including the distinction between existence and non-existence, and life and death.

I would guess we all would consider ourselves "non-dualists" or aspiring non-dualists. So the biggest problem we encounter on the path to achieving non duality is this evil demon called the "Ego". So it appears that the only thing that escapes nonduality is this Ego entity. Only in the presence of Ego can one be un-enlightened is what's said (in other words ofcourse). So what is this Ego entity? If it's real then non-duality is not true. If it's not real, then non-duality is already true before we started the search. So what is this 'shedding away of ego layers' people keep talking about. After all in true nonduality, there should not be a difference between Ego and no Ego. That's like pointing at the naked king who thinks he has clothes on... This is so big that it means the following statement is absolutely true: If you are not enlightened now, nonduality is not a correct teaching because there exist an entity beyond non-duality. If you are enlightened, then there is no need for non duality teachings. What's up with that? Based on this, turns out that Neo-Advaita is the most plausible advaita of them all. It has been ridiculed on this forum.

I dont know what to say about this video. The only thing i know for sure is that i am not as developed as i thought i am. I am puzzled in a weird way, i haven't fix basic needs yet but i still bother with nonduality. Maybe i am chasing two rabbits...

@pluto amen. @Mighty Mouse Shhh here he comes - omg dude that was so funny ? @Joseph Maynor There are stages and it could also happen all at once. The stages, anyone could do and get ‘there’. Anyone. The all at once, 1 in a billion odds I think. My 2 cents....There’s realization of the duality of one’s own mind, conceptual nonduality, mental equanimity, the oneness experience, the absolute experience, then the ultimate blow out that actual reality is literally you and there is no other thing (the Alone ❤️), they’re is no thing at all, you are not a thing and not not a thing either, everything sensed is completely your illusion, what you are in actuality is eternal. That last one, doesn’t matter if it’s on a trip or not, it is so permanent it could not be undone even if you tried. *It’s not that you experience that you are everything - you are still you - and you experience that everything is you. Sounds subtle, but it’s all the difference. There is no unseeing what you are and what is illusion. When someone says it’s not an illusion - lol - God, you, it telling you, that they are real and not illusionary. Consider how funny that is, when you know you are them the whole time. They just don’t know what they are. Nothing wrong with that (obviously lmao!), it’s just very funny in a mind f way. Wether this eternal you is love itself, or a void of nothingness without conscious awareness of it’s self...clearly we can agree no one believes anyone, nor should they, so it’s limited of course to experience of what you are. It is worth considering though, that if you consider yourself conscious as a result of the body & brain, but you don’t think God is conscious, you are actually saying you are conscious and God is not. Also, very funny. Side note, lots of people claiming it’s a void, who have not experienced the mental equanimity, let alone the rest. It is not helpful to anyone on the forum when someone speaks with false confidence from fear and ignorance. Every time someone does this, they are hurting themselves the most, that is the nature of self depreciation, you’re further from any realizations, as the path is through the self. One’s own healing should then be the priority, not a forum comment. Stating enlightenment is not real reveals you have not experienced it, or any of the most profound experiences, and solidifys that you won’t. Short of a human never having formed an ego or any concept of self as human, Enlightenment is a real experience.

@7thLetter Of course there is no absolute best way to live. But characterizing self-actualization as closedmindedness towards negativity is like characterizing being a man as closedmindedness towards having a vagina. Why you gotta frame it in such a silly way? And nonduality transcends positive/negative anyways.

But it doesn't work like that... I get evidence for both that it's ugly and beautiful. It's just how it is... There are ugly and beautiful parts of my life too. I could easily quote what you are saying and say that what you're saying is just a belief.. Really I am in a process of looking at all my beliefs, including those picked up in nonduality. I just want to see things as they are. And I dont have evidence that my beliefs change my reality directly. They may change it indirectly because they would change my reactions, but that's another story. What I'm saying is that I could be in my biggest depression and something amazing might happen which contradicts your theory that my state of mind shapes the outside. And vice versa. What I'm saying is that reality doesnt give a fuck about what I think or belief. It is the way it is independent of my opinion or view. I could believe delusions all I want, and believe them to the point they are true for me, but reality would still not care. I could believe I can go through a wall all I want, but I will still get my face smashed if I try is what im saying. I've observed before I had a belief that I cant go through the wall. This is what shaped my current fact that i cant go through walls in this reality. It's not that I first had to have a belief on the matter lol? You see how there are big holes in this belief-manifestation theory? It doesn't hold up. Manifestation is prior to beliefs in my experience and beliefs are based on the manifestation.

This is just untrue. There are dozens of techniques which lead to nonduality/enlightenment. It's a mistake to assume that only one school or one technique has a monopoly on Truth. If that were really the case, everyone would be using that one technique and nothing else. The vast diversity you see in the spiritual marketplace bespeaks the multitude of paths up the mountaintop. As you do more research and experiment with diverse techniques yourself, you'll start to see this.

Same thing as nonduality, which is a self refuting term.

I don’t think it’s the position that is left when others are indefensible. It can be argued that there are more than two halves to things. But non duality is the assumed position when others are done. It’s not what’s left, it’s just one of many. But something either is or isn’t, at least for some things. So that takes nonduality out the window. All nonduality is is a viewpoint, a judgment. It’s hardly the truth.