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Awakening is a radical and often sudden change in how you experience the world on a moment-to-moment level. The type of awakening which is probably most referenced is awakening to Oneness or non-duality, which coincides with the loss of self-referential thinking and experience of self in space and time, reflected in the deactivation of the Default Mode Network (DMN). Spiritual transformation is when the awakening creates a lasting but incomplete change where some parts of yourself will never be the same. Your first awakening tends to coincide with a spiritual transformation. For non-duality spiritual transformations, this coincides with a lasting relative deactivation of the DMN. Enlightenment is when the awakened state becomes your new baseline, i.e. what you operate from most of the time (~90% of the time). After many awakenings in different ways and contexts, the tower topples over and flips. And for non-duality enlightenment, this coincides with a lasting and more significant deactivation of the DMN. Your enlightened state might refine over time in subtle ways, maybe filling in the remaining 10% and for non-duality enlightenment maybe eliminating self-referential thinking altogether, or through more embodied manifestations (in the case of non-duality: purifying egoic responses/behavioral patterns, contractions, "defilements"). I used awakening to non-duality to illustrate each term, but you can substitute it with any type of awakening; awakening to God, Love, even intellectual awakenings; but of course, the terms are less commonly used in this way. An example of an intellectually focused (or moral) spiritual transformation I had was the transition from a hedonistic to a eudaimonic value system.

"physical presence of someone who's seriously skilled and awakened" I am surprised noone has not done a retreat, expo,etc for this group. I feel like this forum has some of those people.

ok, here my Olaf-version-take: "The delusion is that there are humans who are unenlightened. " There appear Olafs who have appearances of thinking/believing they are separate Olafs, so one could say there are unenlightened Olafs. But since there is only the Infinite Ocean freezing to an imagined Olaf, watching its own substance while doing so in a nondual way, actually there is no (unenlightened) Olaf. It just appears to be so. Actually, there are just some perspectives of Infinite Being ("humans" or Olafs) that have I-thougt/I-feeling-arisings (which makes them believe to be a human/Olaf) in their perspective/mindstream, while forgetting in real-time ("in-space") all other perspectives appearing in their Infinite Being. While being also these perspectives at the same time. Indras Infinite Net of Olaf-perspectives. And then one could have Olafs observing or contemplating all of that. But since there are no actual Olafs, but only the Infinite Ocean, there is in reality no Olaf observing unenlightened Olafs. Only the Infinite Ocean having fooling-itself-thought-feelings-arisings appearing in its Infinite Being. So its basically appearing Olafs talking to themselves, while there is only one Infinite Being, splicing itself up in infinite perspectives. The Infinite Ocean modulating itself as "freezing Olaf-appearances" and wondering what it really is. And what those other Olafs are. And for an Olaf to verify that for itself beyond any doubt, an Olaf normally need considerable time in nondual impersonal awakened states. Selling Olaf-ISM by the River

i am no longer addicted to habits, i am awakened to heaven mindless habits make a person dead see the world through innocence and then all around is heaven you're not heavy you're my brother as the Hollies reminded us children are at the ignorance stage not innocence although this is better than most

Imagine... We are on a forum called Actualized. We agree that there is something like Infinite Being. Absolute Reality. Which can be realized in Awakened Nondual States. Which (as a lucky coincidence) are also supposed the reduce suffering dramatically. At least according to the testament of thousands of people over the millenia. And more or less the only way to generate stable nondual awakened states in daily life is meditation. Or cutting off the internal bla-bla that most of the time talks me/mine. And this me/mine is by definition a part, a broken fractal of Infinite Being. Contemplation will never cause the awakened nondual states that are necessary for the realization of Infinite Being. At least for all non-prodigies. Contemplation is a necessary and good starting point. And it comes in every tradition I am aware of before serious meditation starts. It is ok if one doesn't have the discipline or Karma to seriously engage in this path. Or engage it later. But belittling meditation and/or those who actually seriously engage in it... oh well. Brings great Karma for sure. Something to think about? How did this kind of contemplation work so far in creating serious nondual awakened states? And no, small you is not everything. That is just new cloths for the conceptual identity of a separate-self. Why is it that every single meditation tradition does something like neti-neti to get rid of false identity (and any identity at all btw., since Infinite Being has no Identity)? Well, I guess you are young. Life automatically brings along some crocodiles that bite sufficiently enough to challenge any assumption that contemplation alone is enough. The smart way is to start meditating before the crocodiles show up. Because... ... there are crocodiles in the River, that will always bite every single being, sooner or later.

I do my best to always check myself to make sure I'm not like this. It takes genuine humility to not lose yourself. Realize how tiny and insignificant you are and how LITTLE you really know. Being awakened isn't any better than being asleep. Being asleep is natural. Awakening is painful..the truth is painful and can be alienating and I see lots of people who are aslee.. living happier lives than me and fitting in society better than me..so being awakened doesn't mean shit in terms of living a superior life. It feels like there is a thin blurry line that separates being '"truly awakened"' and being delusional and pretentious. I don't know it myself... I don't know if being "awakened"' is just a self-help and self-empowering kind of word that leads to the trapping of oneself into a lost forest. Something certainly feels real..but it is being shrouded by a kind of cunning falseness. Not sure if anyone will understand what I mean..but looking forward to your thoughts.

My Wife is Jamaican, born there and was there for the first 20+yrs of here life, but she came here to Canada for a better life in her words, but we vacationed in Montego Bay a Year or so ago, fist time there for me, it was very nice and beautiful, I met her family out in the country, they accepted me and it was great fun and a learning experience for me.. My Wife is all about Jamaica, listens to Jamaican podcasts and videos, but wants to live here because she says it offers her more opportunities, but there are struggles here too even though we are in a so called Wealthy Country, we just have a higher standard or quality of living, more established survival systems, but everyone here wants to go to Jamaica, lol, its so nice there, and its like a paradise really, we went to Duns River and Blue Hole, and I saw the country from both sides of Montego Bay area, its just the social systems are not in place. I luv Bob Marley, watched lots of docu's on him when I met my Wife, and recently saw the "One Love" movie, he was highly Awakened, but its crazy how he changed things in the world and in his own country in many ways.. All the world has huge problems, just different problems depending on the region, everyday I hear about the problems in Toronto on the radio, its nuts the politics of it all and its not really a hard fix if we decide to work together and see each other as we see ourselves, this would fix many problems in the world...but I'm looking forward to going back to Jamaica again one day:)

Yes that's it:) For sure Leo is intelligent, and is highly Awakened and a very good communicator, this has nothing to do with Identification problems:) anyways have fun:)

Then I guess the only thing that remains is to wish you fun exploring the mechanisms of manifestation while diving even deeper into the illusion, while being an illusion. Bon voyage! Watch out for the crocodiles Consider that maybe you can not judge that, because, um, ehem, well, you know ... ... .... The aspect that you don't have access to nondual awakened states sobre tells about the still remaining filters/lenses, of, um, Leo. Do you really need more crocodiles to get "Enlightenment is a low ..." bitten out of your separate-self mindstream? The trap you are falling into is precisely described in Wilbers Religion of the Future, getting lost in the fascination of the higher subtle realms and how manifestation works. There is nothing new with it. Just read Chris Bache "LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven", or Stan Grof "The Cosmic Game: Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness". There are endless accounts, both contemporary and historical. Thank you for the second part, you are also doing quite well in this field since lately, Chapeau! .And the first part is a compliment that I can not avoid giving back since you are also very firm in your perspective.

To give a preview on these facets of True Being. To know these states are real. Awakened (impersonal, not personal, no empty witness or duality of any kind left), Nondual (boundless and infinite field/vastness, Unity, Oneness) and Groundless (mere appearance, really just mere appearance or hologram-like character of the world hovering in Infinite limitless Nothingness, that behind your body), no external world if it is not imagined. Eternal and timeless and absolutely fundamental, since its boundless and can't go anywhere else, it is more fundamental than time in mathematical language. And how one imagines past &future&"background-fairy-tale-of-the-separate-body-mind" real time right now. Just more appearances/modulations appearing in the Infinite vastness/Infinite Being. Infinite and spaceless (since space is literally imagined in it, and with that any 3-,4-, or n-dimensional space, be it euclidian, non-euclidian, or whatever of the infinity of possibilities) Blissfull and salvation, since the separate-self-contraction suffering/bad-feelings and thoughts can get cut off/transcended in real-time by just looking into their nature. They appear & literally "move" within True Infinite Being, as its "modulations". Without psychedelics, one needs a looong time of this here: That cutting-off of the separate-self-arisings real time is what unlocks the states mentioned above, and their resulting insights/realizations. Basically cutting-off real time separate-self arisings done proficiently enough= creates awakened states (above) and same effects as psychedelics. And with psychedelics, one still needs to do this until the very end. Else the whole elephant won't show itself. But at least one knows then that there is an elephant. Psychedelic Pro: Prooves that nondual states are not mere fantasy, and gives nice awakened states on which to cross-check if ones meditation-path is moving one there. And of course explore the Multiverse with its myriad of Realms and Beings, from Angels and Demons to ET&Aliens. And understand the mechanisms of manifestation/appearance (Chris Bache, Stan Grof, Rick Strassmann) for example). Psychedelic Contra: Doesn't deliver transcending ones personality/ego fully. This here: "That cutting-off of the separate-self-arisings real time is what unlocks the states mentioned above, and their resulting insights/realizations. Basically cutting-off real time separate-self arisings done proficiently enough= creates awakened states (above) and same effects as psychedelics." So we get God-realized Egos. Not stable realization. A mighty trap. Somebody ought to make a video including that trap also. Committing blasphemy against the holy Liturgy of the church of god-realize-your-ego and then getting drowned in the River by an Infinity of Gods.

God Realization from what I have seen is just understanding more than the usual psychedelic Awakening (where one just projects an ego in nondual unity on the visual field or Nothingness or whatever). Like, how one imagines the past real time right now (which one does, and it doesn't exist anywhere else). And how one imagines everything else just to fool oneself (like parents, job, being a person,...). The problem with God Realization is: There remains a subtle "realizer" of all of that. Very subtle, very hard to transcend, since this is just a totally empty "Individuality". That is the last hindrance to Enlightenment, which then is therefor also stable if that element is seen through. Wilber calls it Empty Witness (see for example Religion of the Future). But not fully transparent and fully boundless nondual without individuality. And that is why God Realization is not stable sobre. These remaining separate-self elements kill the Awakened nondual states after the trip. In Enlightenment, all of that is totally obvious, and since these components are in place, or rather there illusion-counter-components (like self-existing personality, space, time, outer world, duality/out-thereness) are seen through in real time. Below, the outcome first, and then which kind of illusion-part of the separte-self structure it shuts off. Awakened (impersonal, not personal, no empty witness or duality of any kind left), Nondual (boundless and infinite field/vastness, Unity, Oneness) and Groundless (mere appearance, really just mere appearance or hologram-like character of the world hovering in Infinite limitless Nothingness, that behind your body), no external world if it is not imagined. Eternal and timeless and absolutely fundamental, since its boundless and can't go anywhere else, it is more fundamental than time in mathematical language. And how one imagines past &future&"background-fairy-tale-of-the-separate-body-mind" real time right now. Just more appearances/modulations appearing in the Infinite vastness/Infinite Being. Infinite and spaceless (since space is literally imagined in it, and with that any 3-,4-, or n-dimensional space, be it euclidian, non-euclidian, or whatever of the infinity of possibilities) Blissfull and salvation, since the separate-self-contraction suffering/bad-feelings and thoughts can get cut off/transcended in real-time by just looking into their nature. They appear & literally "move" within True Infinite Being, as its "modulations". That cutting-off of the separate-self-arisings real time is what unlocks the states mentioned above, and their resulting insights/realizations. Basically cutting-off real time separate-self arisings done proficiently enough= creates awakened states (above) and same effects as psychedelics. And all of these states and/or insights above one can happpen one at a time, or two, or three combined... Any combination possible, and that creates the myriad of half-baked and different Awakening & (smaller) Enlightenment-descriptions ("Kenshos in Zen"). Ever heard some people have new Awakenings all the time? That is that. For truly awakening to what one truly is, beyond any doubt, one needs all of them. When that Waking Up happens, it is definitive. Because it kills the former illusion of being a separate-anything. That can never be believed again. It is dead. It always ever was an illusion. Even the God-realized ego/separate-self. All a dream. There was never anything else than the Infinite Ocean of Being, formerly with ignorance and illusion arising within it, and now back to the real state of "things", the ignorance no longer arising. Basically, one gets all facets of the Infinite Absolute True Being all at once, and once this happens Infinite Being is totally obvious. It is You. All of it. And can't get more Infinite than Infinite and more eternal than eternal, that is why it is final. The rest is just more appearance IN You (or consciousness OF x, man, woman, Alien, Alien n+1,...). Interesting for sure, but not so urgent. Got Eternity and Infinity to explore, remember? And even if getting distracted by the Lila-show for a moment, "it" is "just there", by just reaching out and killing the illusion-aspect that got re-established by just looking into its nature and just finding the Infinite Ocean of Awareness-Being. Your True Self. So in summary, God-Realization as used here, is a step in the right direction, but it is still not true Enlightenment. Of course, what is sold as Enlightenment is in 80%-90%+ cases not Enlightenment as waking up out of the dream, but just some nondual "Awakening". A dual dream has become a nondual dreaming. Dreaming nonetheless. What Leo calls (correctly) nondual BS. Zen differentiates between Enlightenments (Kenshos), and fully waking up (calling that Great Enlightenment). Only in the latter one there is waking up from the dream. With the former one, a nondual, or god-realized, or whatever ego/separate-self continues dreaming its nondual dream... Lovely place to be at, but still a dream So God Realization is between the naive nondual-Enlightenments with a dreamer still well and alive dreaming nondual-unity-dream, and true waking-up Enlightenment is beyond God Realization, since even the "subtle" one having the God-Realization is seen through as more dreaming. And one can wake up only once, then any separate-anything illusion is ruined for good. That illusions never recovers its fully. And then, one can go still playing with the Aliens for ever new insights, if one is so inclined... So it is tricky, because Leo basically has a Pre-Trans-Confusion in Wilbers lingo. Sorry Leo, but needs to be said. God-Realization is "higher" than a standard nondual-awakening (Nondual Unity Awakening of ego still believing its background story like parents, world, others). These are the Nonduality or Enlightenment-Fundamentalists he criticizes. but it is lower than True Enlightenment, since the final individuality/separate-self/God-realized-ego is not seen through. And once the psychedelic state delivering most of the items listed above wears off, this remaining not seen-through-in-real-time individuality/separte-self/ego kills the awakened state. and since it is all very subtle and impossible to fully understand without having had these awakened states, it is also IMPOSSIBLE to understand True Enlightenment from the perspective of God-Realization before it truly happens (else, one would be already fully enlightened when having seen through the last subtle elements of separation/individuality), Water by the River recommends the age-old recipe of Matthew 7:15-20 "You Will Know Them by Their Fruits". And the proof for that is: Psychedelic Godrealization doesn't last. When the psychedlic wears off, the filters/lenses/contraction of the remaining separate self/ego kick back in, and bye bye awakened nondual states (the ones listed above). And even during "God-Realization", the remaining individual projects itself mightily on all these insights. And then we get Infinity of Gods and stuff not for the faint-of-hearted as compensation. While there is only one Being/Reality, we now have an Infinity of "god-realized" egos. Basically, God-Realization never gets rid of the Individuality/Separation fully, there is always a subtle "someone" having all these realizations. Selling "going all the way" by the River PS: Roger Thisdells version of that. vs. Even the God-realized ones need to fully jump into the mixer Void PS PS: https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?q="God Realization"&author=Water by the River&sortby=relevancy

Compassion. Less construct-awareness and generally lower level of for example growth on the Spiral Dynamics spectrum equals more suffering. Beings less aware/consciousness generally suffer more. Way more. Because they are more hypotized by their constructs/world-views, and reject many more situations appearing in their mindstream than for example someone on 2nd-tier SD. That is why stable Awakening needs compassion towards them (because if one doesn't have it, one will suffer/get angry/whatever oneself, and bye bye nondual awakened states). That is btw not new-agey-talk, but a "hard" fact/reality. Nothing easier to kill ones nice off-the-pillow-awakened nondual state than getting annoyed. Took me a loooong time to get it. Wisdom (or Awakening) and compassion (openness,love,bliss) form a pair in Mahayana-Buddhism. Because they got this around 2 milleania ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva And even from a metaphysical perspective it makes sense: If True You is all of already (which it is), if one walks around disliking certain aspects of oneself ("others") because they "lack" development, one cuts nondualty in two, shutting off awakened nondual states.-Literally. It is not a sin of the acorn to be not yet an oak. And one more perspective: Consider the stupidity less-than-wise/smart-behaviour of the whole world as divine entertainment. True You is playing a trick on itself. Better be the one laughing in a compassionate way and not the one being annoyed. But that has also to be balanced with compassion in order to not become cynical or negative. Certain local VIPs that yours truly is very fond of seem to be truly getting this now. Chapeau! Selling Water while swimming in the River & humming along:

The Art of Mastery covers it well, But really his trilogy is important and I've read it multiple times. Book of Not Knowing Pursuing Consciousness Genius of Being Then: Art of Mastery Or go straight to it. I also stay in touch with Ralston over email he is usually nice enough to respond. Please don't see me as awakened I am not I have experienced significant health benefits and survival benefits but not some deep awakening something which I wish to pursue. Thanks for sharing Leo's Video, I have watched it before but don't remember him mentioning vacuum. Will re-watch!

Ah, you know, enlightened enough As I have already told you. I flinch a bit from calling me Inliytened2 , but yeah, "I" know what I am talking about. Solipsm: Useless when talking with separate-self-well-and-alive beings, because they always tend to project their Identity on it and blow it up to nondual Unity-states with the Infinite Field of Being (often with the help of some, um, less-than-legal substances). The Godrealized-Ego. But yes, there is only one. One-ness. If Solipsism is not just a concept projected by an ego, but a truly realized Way of Being, truly realized that "the" same impersonal Awareness looks through each set of eyes... perfectly fine with me. And also Absolutely... True! As long as there is an "other", Infinite Being has not been realized, and Solipsism becomes just another conceptual booster for the separate-self to hijack & suffer. The magic word is impersonal. Not only personal, but truly empty and impersonal infinite Awareness/Being. And here a Koan for you: Who are YOU really? "I" know "you" know it. Idealism: Empty appearances hovering in "the" groundless Infinite of True Being. So idealism is obviously more truthful than materialistic views. Appearances = "Consciousness stuff", or Suchness. Has become totally obvious and always "verifiable" after a long time of practice cultivating awakened nondual states. Oneness? Ever found anything&any"one" that possibly could be outside eternal&infinite&groundless YOU? So yes, its talking to myself... But what else is there to do? All my thoughts. What I have written in the last post, to my knowledge, you can copy & paste from nowhere. That is why I do the Muppet-Show-Selling gig, because if someone else would have already written all of that in the way I like it, I could have saved myself the trouble and instead go do something else, along the lines of my lovely hobbies. On your command, my dear dream-brother : Hach... I truly love Aliens&fairies& Angels and demons! Fascinating stuff. Imagine what kind of adventures "we" will have, this life and the Infinity of lifes yet to come Ok, I have no doubts that some will still put me in the corner of the closed-down-minded Buddhist r******reductionists (sorry, have yet to adopt on the new very courteous customs at this lovely place here, got a bit of a hang-over), and I admit its my job to make that pidgeon-holing at least a bit more challening... Let me know how I am doing! It is just that I prefer to have the peace & stability of resting in Infinite True Being in my nice little comfy valley after having come down from the summit. And not to be disturbed by any grasping for the alien. Or for any other "wave-surfing-easing-the-pain-that-a-still-contracted-self-contraction" causes. That is why I chop-chop any such grasping in my mindstream as soon as it feels like coming from a lack, or from grasping/suffering/self-contraction. Because if the fascination comes from the self-contraction, it is just a new game to keep the self-contraction spinning-suffering-reliefing itself in experiences/understandings and so on. Exploration for enjoyment yes, for grasping no. The True Being of yours truly has infinite time to explore infinite realms. Luckily, that has become self-evident by just "reaching-into-it" and realizing its eternity, or always-here-nature again. I can hold eternity within the palm of my hand. You know what I mean. Can't disappear. So why be in a hurry and not relax the self-contraction and enjoy the show the shows itself here on this lovely planet? But each being has to burn its "exploring-the-Multiverse-grasping-Karma" on its own speed. I just sometimes tell little tales about which kind of choice on the path to the Infinite has been benefical for me. Up the mountain to the highest Summit if Infinity Absolute Reality, or up to the secondary-summits with the Aliens sitting on top of it. Of course, I don't expect too much immediate success doing it, but it still needs to be done. "At least we can say that we tried" by the River

Oh well. Where there is not stable realization of Infinite Being and nondual Awakened States sobre in everyday life, there is only suffering-in-cycles wave-surfing. Wave-surfing up and down Maslows pyramid. And one can also appreciate the lovely lady & lovely alien when resting in True Being or after having fallen into the Infinite Ocean. Just too much preference for wave-surfing understanding consciousness of woman/alien n+1 prevents dropping into the Ocean of Infinite truly Impersonal Being. Which btw. is an Awakening which one can't anticipate or imagine in any way before it really happens. If one could, it would have already happened... So lets hope it doesn't need a major or minor crocodile (like the one has that has bitten you out of the pretty much non-stop-psychedelic gig of last year) to wise you up on wether the summon bonum is dropping into the ocean or surfing ever higher waves. Spiritual Intuition can make one skip some of the crocodiles, one doesn't need to get also bitten by the crocodile sitting at the fork of the road with the sign "Summum Bonum: Wave surfing or falling into the Infinite Ocean?" Selling the eternal boring broken record of dropping in to the Infinite Ocean of Being instead of wave surfing by the River PS: Selling & broken record: Yeah, you are right: I guess I start to sound like this guy: So surf the largest wave ever dear Leo, and then after have done that I wish you that you have the Karma to finally drop into the Infinite Oean that You Truly are:

Nothingness or suchness is the essence of every appearance, appearing in Infinite Impersonal Being. Form(or appearance) is Nothingness, Nothingness is appearance/form. The same "stuff/non-stuff". Realizing this beyond a doubt is Enlightenment, expressing and stabilizing these awakened impersonal states in daily life is the path that follows after it. Infinite Being lives itself, the universe "universes", without any contraction into a centre of perception and its lenses and filter-illusions. Consciousness OF a woman, OF a man, OF a human, OF an alien... any consciousness OF or more radically, any consciousness OF anything, be it self-reflective or not, is like a show of states (appearance/form/temporary/not really existing but just appearing) rollling "before" the impersonal Awareness of True Being. Which is pure Impersonal Awareness, unaware of itself if nothing arises, but with potential for sentience. Infinite Being. And which is Nothingness if nothing arises/appears. The consciousness OF something (man/woman/alien) is wave surfing on the ocean of Infinite Being, stabilizing living from the impersonal nondual awakened states where this Infinite Reality if Infinite Being is obvious (and "living itself") is dropping into the Infinite Ocean and becoming it fully. And afterwards, one can still do wavesurfing, or consciousness-OF-x exploration. And rumour has it that wave surfing the Infinite Ocean can become quite tiring & stressfull & and a bit less than relaxed if done for too long by a separate-self-contraction. And at some point when one doesn't want continue surfing ever new waves (of which there exists an Infinity of, forever and ever to be explored by God "itself") the dropping & dissolving & and fully BEing the ocean can happen. But wave surfing is all fine and well as long as it is fun... Selling neoprene suits so that the dropping into the ocean feels comfy for all tired wave-surfers by the River

That is not the case in the higher states of for example Mahamudra stage 4 Nonmeditation, and neither in Dzogchen. The mind runs along quite nicely, but the thoughts are moving like leaves in the wind, as appearances in Infinite Being. The shutting off is emphasized in Theravada-approaches, leading to the Jhanas and cessation. Cessation is not the goal nor the highest state in all later developed Mahayana systems. The goal their is nondual Enlightenment sobre, while thoughts and the world arise in Infinite Being. And one can contemplate about Infinity all day long in these awakened states. Selling Water by the River

If you want to call realizing Infinite impersonal eternal True Being (and staying awakened nondual states sobre) reductionism of Consciousness... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism "Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena.[1] It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts.[2]" Luckily, Infinite/Absolute/Nondual Being doesn't have parts. Nondual. Only in duality/ignorance it appears so as being divded and having parts. Nondual doesn't have parts. So reductionism doesn't apply. Selling better don't play reductionism with Nondual Infinite Being by the River PS: Wise new video by the way. Meeting all children of your True Being where they are at. Stabilizing from yellow to turqoise to coral and so on. Nice. A solid base to stabilize the love that resides in Infinite Reality if it is not divided.

So I'm, I'm going to be more careful in the future about about distinguishing between those things and also just about accommodating a more diverse value set in my audience cuz if you have thousands and millions of people watching, uh, you have a, you have the whole rainbow, the whole gamut of different value sets that people have. And in the past I would teach from like my own value set, of course, and it's difficult to see outside one's own value set. But that's what higher consciousness does for you. That's also what suffering will help you to see. That's also what interacting with other people and getting feedback from them, or like you know in your relationships you'll realize that your girlfriend has a different value set than you do, your husband has a different value set than you do, your children, your parents. And so a lot of what relationship dynamics and problems revolve around is just these differences in value sets and also not appreciating a different value set than yours and trying to push and project yours onto them. And of course, you can do that with your audience as well. I was wrong for assuming that everyone should be interested in my values. So in the future, I'm going to be making my teachings more, we might say, universal, kind of trying to accommodate or it's not like I'm going to be adopting other people's values so much, but it's like I'm going to be, I'm going to be um, underscoring that like, "This piece of advice is for this kind of value set," sort of thing. And also encouraging you to like be true to your value set because a lot of you guys who watch me can get sort of seduced by the charisma of all this and some of these cool advanced ideas, some of the truth in these ideas. You can kind of get seduced into that and then you can sort of like start to think that, "Well now I should be following Leo's value set." Now of course, this is all going to be implicit, you don't tell yourself that explicitly, but implicitly you're just going to be trying to like follow my value set without even knowing what's happening. But then five years later you'll realize that this isn't working for me, and the reason it's not working for you is because you should have been following your value set, which is probably different from my value set. And even within spirituality, see, there's different even value sets within spirituality. What do you want out of spirituality? Don't assume that what I want out of spirituality is the same thing as what you want. Maybe what you want is to transcend suffering. Maybe what you want is loving relationships with humans in your life, um, maybe what you want is bliss. That's not why I do spirituality, even though some of those things are are still good, um, from my point of view, but that's not where I'm coming from when I do this work. So that's something I'll be emphasizing more in the future. I was wrong in teaching in a confrontational, judgmental, heavy-handed and arrogant way. That kind of style, that's the kind of style I adopted when I first started, and um, and the more I do it, the more I see the limitations of it. I realize more and more that it's inappropriate to and bully people into self-actualizing. I was wrong for teaching for egoic reasons. I was wrong for getting egoic pleasure out of lording insights over my audience, and that just doesn't serve my audience and it corrupts my work. See, I started to reflect more and more on my work during this time off and really asking myself, "What are my true motives for doing this work? Why am I even doing it? Why am I putting out all this content? What am I getting out of it?" I'm not doing it so much for the money, so what am I getting out of it? And then when I dug deep into that, I, I noticed certain egoic pleasures that I get, um, and then what I realized is that that had a, it felt like it was corrupting my work and that it really wasn't serving you. And then I sort of start to ask myself like, "Should I be doing this for my pleasure?" To a certain extent, yes, cuz like if I don't enjoy doing the work, then why, why do the work at all? But on the, the other hand, if, if, if I'm just like serving myself in this endeavor and it's not serving the audience, it's at the cost of the audience, it's not helping you to awaken, it's not helping you to get a deeper understanding of of existence, if that's not happening, then that's an error in the style, something needs to change, and that will be changing going forward. I was wrong about what I'm going to call here "weak people." By weak people, I mean people in life who are struggling, um, maybe people with mental disorders, incels, people stuck in a like a deep victim complex, uh, just in general people who are suffering a lot in life. It's easy when you're successful, relatively successful, if you're in good health, which I'm not, but if you're in good health, um, and uh, you know, if you have, if you have some status in the world, if, if you're somewhat famous, if, uh, if you have a good financial situation, um, if you have a good emotional state of mind where you don't have a mental disorder or something like that, it can be very easy kind of like to turn a blind eye or to be dismissive to these kinds of people who suffer from these kinds of problems and who don't have these kinds of things in their life, and to not appreciate how difficult it is for them to create that, right? Because everybody starts at a different place in life, uh, for some people creating financial success and abundance for themselves, it's going to be a lot more difficult for others just based on where they were born, what kind of family they had, whether they were abused or not, and like in this work, the spiritual work, the psychological work, you know, if you've been abused, that's a very different mountain you have to climb than someone like me who wasn't. And so thanks to the suffering that I went through, like I made a connection, I made a connection with those kinds of people because I could, I could see, you know, I can see what it's like to be in a sort of an unresourceful, deficient state where it's difficult to help yourself, you feel helpless. If you have a serious health problem, you feel helpless because you don't know how to fix it, you try stuff and it doesn't work, it's kind of out of your control. Well, likewise, you know, if you're, if you're born in some awful third world country, it kind of feels like it's out of your control. Now that doesn't mean it's out of your control, there's still stuff you can do, of course, but still, that's very different than being born in a nice neighborhood in California. So I have more compassion for these kinds of people. And in the past I would kind of speak down to that, and that was wrong of me to do. I was also wrong in speaking bluntly without tact and sensitivity to people's feelings and values, feelings and values. And uh, and basically the reason I did that is because I was so focused on this notion of Truth, and I was prioritizing that above everything else. And again, there's certain benefits that come with that, but then there's downsides. And so now I'm more sensitive to the downsides. I was wrong in using too much profanity and crass and sensitive examples. As I mature, I look back at that and kind of cringe. I was wrong in my tone interacting with people sometimes. The tone that I would use would be too obnoxious, too harsh, too judgmental, too kind of like finger-wagging, which is wrong. It's just not effective, you see. And it's a trap, you know, doing this whole YouTube shtick is a trap in the sense that there's a pressure to want to perform. It's like a performance when I'm up here. It almost feels like a performance. It's not just like a normal conversation, you know? I put a little bit of like acting into it, a little bit of like emotion, a little bit of like charisma in order to make it entertaining. But, um, but you know that gets in the way of truth, of course. And, um, and then it kind of like it incentivizes almost like a creating of a subtle drama. And, and again, I mean the whole internet is full of this kind of drama, but then I started to notice, like, I mean it's, it's not like my content has very obvious drama in it, um, relative to what you find on the internet or on YouTube. But still, like again, um, some of these things that I'm talking about are very subtle points, and many people would just kind of dismiss it, overlook it, or say, "Oh, it's not a very big deal." But, um, but again, like the more advanced I get, the more conscious I get, it's like the very subtle stuff that starts to bug me about my work. I was wrong in using violent communication. I'll have an episode about violent communication coming soon that's going to be powerful. It's like a shift when I learned about this concept of violent communication, and then I looked at how I communicate. It's like I saw a lot of things that I wasn't seeing before. That distinction of violent communication is very powerful. In a nutshell, what it means is a sort of inflammatory style of communication, but I'll elaborate more upon that in the future. So in the future, you'll see me using less violent communication. And violent is not just in the word choices that there can be violence or inflammatory word choice, for example, using excessive profanity might be one example. Um, but then it's also about the tone, right? So it's a combination. It's the tone, it's the word choice, and it's also the intent, it's the intent and the motivation behind every sentence that is being said and every paragraph that those sentences add up to. And it's also the subtle judgments that are laden within that. So this is a very, very subtle topic. I was wrong in viewing people as fools and idiots. What happened over time is that as I was figuring out more of these deep aspects of reality, um, I started to develop a contempt for human intelligence because, frankly, there's a lot of stupid stuff that humans do in the social domain, in the political domain, in the business domain, on in the social media domain, even in the spiritual domain, maybe even especially in the spiritual domain, right? There's a lot of stupid stuff. But, but then if you start to tell yourself that over and over again in your own mind, you kind of start to program your own mind to look at mankind with this kind of contempt. And, um, and of course, that's because you start to look at people, you start to look down at people because they're not awakened, they're not construct aware, they don't know all of these sophisticated self-deception mechanisms that you now know. Um, but then this becomes its own kind of trap, you see? And so what I've been doing is I've been, um, I've been looking more at just very successful, talented, genius people in society across media that have their own kind of specialized, narrow intelligence. Like, they're really good. They have a sort of a genius at what they do, even though it has nothing to do with – they have no idea of what spirituality is, what awakening is, what construct awareness is. Like, they're not that sophisticated, but they're just interested in a different set of things, and they have a specialized intelligence in that set of things, you know? Like, you can look at someone like, for example, a Steven Wolfram, like a really brilliant scientist. He doesn't understand some of these spiritual topics we talk about, but you can recognize the genius, the intelligence, in that narrow specialized thing that he's doing. And then what's important is to recognize that kind of genius all across the board within society, you know? People have perspectives; everyone has a perspective. All these perspectives are basically limited; many of them are contained fantasies and nonsense and garbage, a bunch of noise. But there's signal in that noise. And so really, the more mature, the most mature way to go about this is to kind of recognize and appreciate this kind of narrow intelligence in everything people are doing. And, um, and valuing the uniqueness of these different perspectives and how they can contribute, right? How they can attribute to you, how you can make use of the signal in that noise? So you can take somebody that you disagree with, somebody that normally you would look down upon because they're not "woke" or whatever, and you can find that signal and look through the noise. That's tricky because usually what our mind does, our mind tends to focus on the noise, especially if there's more noise than signal in some perspective. We tend to focus on the noise. We demonize and judge based on the noise, ignoring the signal. But then, if you adopt that kind of attitude, you know, you can find something wrong about almost anybody, even any spiritual teacher, you know? You could take a spiritual teacher, you can find, say, Guru and criticize him about some little thing he did wrong, and then you can get hung up on that. And you can do that for every spiritual teacher, and you can do that for every scientist and every philosopher and every social media influencer. But at the end of the day, after you're doing all that, what do you get? You get a sort of cynicism and contempt and a sort of disgust with humanity as a whole, which is which is not very effective. It then becomes difficult to learn from these people, and fundamentally, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't sit right with you because what you want is you want to be out there experiencing and exploring all these different perspectives, and you want to be rather joyful about it rather than being moralistic and contracted in this kind of negative, judgmental mode. And so I was definitely falling into that trap, and of course, this is kind of the trap of arrogance, which, uh, I'm certainly very, very guilty of. I was wrong in speaking about and assuming levels of consciousness of other people and spiritual teachers. You know, part of the thing that I'm trying to do is I'm trying to, like, one of the things I regret the most about my work is that I can see, um, like little exaggerations that I just sneak in in certain areas. It's like 90% of what I say is powerful stuff, but then, but then my ego sneaks in certain little exaggerations or jumps to certain little conclusions, make little assumptions, you know, going just a little bit overboard, a little bit beyond what would need to be said if I was being strictly careful, strictly truthful. And so as I'm trying to align my own mind more with truth, that kind of stuff is not acceptable to me anymore. And so I'm working through a process of trying to just make everything that I say as crisp and sharp and accurate, right? It's like it's a sort of a dedication to the accuracy of your speech. And so in that respect, you know, a lot of times people will ask me, "Well, Leo, what do you think about this spiritual teacher and that spiritual teacher? How enlightened is this person, and then how enlightened is that person?" And then, like, strictly speaking, I can't be inside the minds of any of these people, right? I can strictly speaking only speak about my consciousness. So I have to make a leap. I have to kind of jump to a sort of conclusion, make certain assumptions and certain sort of interpretations and predictions, right? It's not, it's not some sort of absolute knowledge of somebody else's level of consciousness or development. I have to go out a bit on a limb to talk about that stuff. So there's, there's multiple choices I have there. I can just be quiet, which is always the wise choice. The wisest choice is always just to, you know, if you're not sure, just be quiet. Um, but then, you know, there's a trap to want to speak about stuff that you're not quite sure about. And, um, and but see, it's not that simple, though, because most spiritual teachings don't actually consider the perspective of other spiritual teachers or people. What they do is they just present you a single perspective on spirituality from a certain teacher. Part of what actually Leo does is that we consider lots of different spiritual teachers. We name them, we consider their perspectives, read their books, and we compare all this kind of stuff. And we try to figure out, you know, like we use one spiritual teacher's teachings and perspective against another in the sense that we try to use one to compensate for the gaps in the other. And so you're sort of damned if you do and damned if you don't in this situation. Because if you're learning from any kind of spiritual teacher, first of all, you have to decide which one to learn from, and there's different qualities of them. So how are you going to judge as a student? You have to judge somehow, and somehow have some kind of sorting process for who you're going to listen to because you can't listen to all of them equally. And then also, when you start comparing them, you're going to notice that there's important differences in the detail of what they teach, and often times contradictions. And they can teach exactly the opposite things - one guy will say meditation won't make you enlightened, another guy says he got enlightened through meditation. So what's true? And strictly speaking, you don't know who's right because you can't get inside their heads, but you still have to make certain evaluations here. So um, it's tricky, but I'm going to be more careful about just not leaping to judgments and conclusions about the levels of consciousness of others, even though, you know, again, it's like, man, I wish I could just not talk about it at all. But on the other hand, it has to be talked about because my own awakenings and understandings of consciousness and doing this work have led me to very important realizations about gaps in certain teachings and teachers. And I feel like that's important to discuss, even though when I discuss those things, it doesn't mean that I'm 100% certain that I know that teacher's level of consciousness. So keep that in mind. I was also wrong in giving out too many answers without helping to facilitate people in discovering their own answers. This is a huge sticking point for me, uh, going forward that like I have a tendency to want to give out all the answers. I've had this realization recently that, um, it's really limiting the power of these teachings because you're getting ideas in your mind, abstract ideas of things that should actually be experienced by you. So, really, I'm thinking about how to help facilitate people more into discovering their own answers rather than just giving you all the answers. That's more powerful. The trick is that it's difficult to do that through this medium of just a video or an audio that really requires a kind of Socratic method, going back and forth, which just can't be done through this medium. But I'm thinking about how to, like, structure the content more so that maybe I'm giving you more exercises, maybe asking you more questions. It's difficult because I don't like the idea of just making a video where I just ask you a question and give you an exercise, and then it's on you to go and do it. It's like, um, but, um, that's still something I'm working out. I'm going to be working out over the next year or two how to make subtle changes there to make that better. About my work, I was wrong in underestimating the intelligence and potential of my audience. I spent a lot of time thinking about my audience and getting inside their heads, their perspective, and it's difficult to do that because, of course, when you have an audience of a million, it's like you have every perspective out there, every value system, every level of intelligence. Frankly, some of my audience members are stupid, and some of them are brilliant, and everything in between. So, who do I tailor my content towards?

... and no imagined rodent has been hurt Enlightenment doesn't mean that one is always right when it comes to relative truth like the things you mention. It just meaning knowing what you truly are, and what Reality is. Answers to both is the same. And on top, having that accessible all the time means nothing else than being to switch off/cut-off any ignorant I-thought and I-feeling of being only this little body mind, which makes the states (1)-(4) available all the time. And this can be done (without lying to oneself) if the Awakened State is accessible anytime (1) Infinite boundlessness of the Visual Field (and any other perception/dimension) (2) its groundlessness, or mere-appearance (imagined) character "hovering" in Infinity (3) the eternal nature of this Infinite Reality/Consciousness is always known (4) there is no (zero!) separate-self I-thought/feeling still hypnotizing. Impersonal. Empty. Silent. Vast. Yet, giving rise to all appearances and thoughts. And if one chooses to, one can cut off these thoughts/feelings off in real-time. The magic word is real-time, Or high-speed cut-off of any thought/feeling arising that ignorantly believes in being only this body-mind. Speed & strength of awareness, before any thoughts starts hypnotizing oneself and are believed&elaborated. And that takes normally many years. But its worth it. The high-speed cutting of of (4) isn't always necessary, but that ability is what opens up the Awakened states described in (1-3). And if thoughts then rise again, simple mindfulness lets let flow in Infinite Being without believing them, if (1)-(3) are powerful enough. And: Being able to generate (1)-(3) with (4) induces so much bliss that the annoying separate-self arisings don't "grip", even if they are not cut off in realtime but just watched in mindfulness. Ego-wanting/avoiding only grips when one is not in a positive enough state already. One has a human, but one isn't one. True Being is Infinite Reality. That doesn't mean one does stupid things for to ones relative vehicle, like James hand-into-the-fire. Beings who know their True Nature are not brain dead. And that is having Absolute Truth always available. Or Enlightenment. It is not an idea, and there is zero doubt about it that this is final. Can't get more infinite than infinite, and there is and only can only be THAT. And any Alien, ET or way-out-spectacular-appearance-of-consciousness appears only in THAT. Nice to understand&see, but not really urgent in any way. There were enlightened Zen Masters who thought Japans Imperial Wars were great. So one can be totally wrong on relative stuff. But the Absolute stuff must be handled. Selling smiling little annoying Buddhist-rodents by the River

Don't you guys think you may be considering this in too simplistic and binary a way? I mean no offense, but it's similar to posts on Reddit where someone asks if an ego death on shrooms will last forever to the degree where you live the rest of your life without an ego, and then you'd just sit there ineffectively, not knowing if you're the person or the chair. I believe (from research and direct experience) authentic spiritual transformation would ultimately enhance human life, not morph it into something impractical and ridiculous. I think it's worth considering the subtleties here, and recognizing answers won't be so obvious or even fit within your current logical framework. I've found this video of Adyashanti and Loch Kelly helpful in providing a description of the awakened everyday state (not just peak experiences on a meditation mat). This would be closer to what it actually means to live in an egoless state.

1 hour ago, Water by the River said: Like any other being, it seems to me you strive for what brings you satisfaction. Now you equate pleasure with bliss or non-suffering. Which I didn't do: The Sat & Chit in Sat-Chit-Ananda, or the bliss & love that a sobre Awakened Nondual State brings is also not pleasure, and I assume you are well aware of that. So lets look up Wikipedia (I know..) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure "Pleasure is part of various other mental states such as ecstasy, euphoria and flow. Happiness and well-being are closely related to pleasure but not identical with it." "Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment OF something". For example of Infinite-Consciousness-chasing-exploration. The bliss or love of Awakened Nondual States doesn't NEED the enjoyment OF something. Then we would have to consider the nondual essence Nothingness behind all appearance as OF something. Which luckily it isn't, because it is not OF something (but Infinite Being, Nothingness and nondual appearance and not something specific IN/OF it) Selling the basic difference between pleasure and between causeless Sat-Chit-Ananda by the River

The issue that after you experience heroinepsychedelic levels of blissconsciousness, nothing less will satify you. Ken Wilber once wrote something along the lines of certain states of bliss can only be accessed in higher subtle realms or states of Awakening, and Heroine/Opiades can give a foretaste. Of course that is addictive. It is a kind of unearned divine bliss, not accessible sobre because the structure to do that is not in place. Of course that wreaks the whole growth path and its dynamic. And that is why heroine is truly evil stuff. It is true that nothing less will satisfy oneself than the awakened states True Being brings along. And that it is normally a long and hard road achieving that sobre. But what is the alternative? Addiction? Meditation done in the right way/technique, over long time in daily practice (even if its carried into daily life and not on the cushion) early over a decade can produce fascinating results. I can testify that, and I consider even short amounts of meditation as adding up if done with the right technique. Key is getting it working in daily life, then the necessary time of thousands of hours can be added up. The strength of consciousness to transcend former identifications is strenghtened always, even by small amounts. Which can add up over years, decades, or lifetimes.

No my friend. Consider there are Infinitly Consciousness enlightened Awakened States and Realizations (where that is totally obvious and how that holds for Infinite Being/Reality) that maybe you haven't had yet. Hey, I start talking like you Selling demon-eddies-in-the-River-are-not-permanently-without-suffering-but-rather-the-opposite by the River

No, not human logic. Basic laws of duality when Infinite Being splits itself apart and plays hide & seek and return to the source. How do I know that? Well, there are Awakened states where that is blatantly obvious what separate-self arisings that hide/cloud True Being are (separation= a spectrum of evil, from very mild to very very dark), and how they they literally contract the original Infinite Blissfull Being just with their arising into duality and separation. And contraction IS suffering, it is directly realized and felt that way, a cluster of sensations and contractions assembling a localization and center, most often in the head. And if one is able to cut them off fast enough, the Infinite Field returns to its original state: infinite and groundless and nondual without a center again. And full of love and bliss. True Being is boundless infinite Nonduality and (your much absolutized) Infinite L-O-V-E. Sat-Chit-Ananda. and anywhere were that Awakening and love (when the clouds of ignorance is removed) is not and where it is clouded by separation, there is just necessarily suffering (in cycles and various degrees) and the self-contraction. It is totally obvious and infinite/absolute that it is a no-brainer. And that realization my friend, that is absolute. There is no realm where that is not the case, because you know, Infinite True Being. Nothing outside of It.Either nondual and infinite and mere appearance and love, or duality and out-thereness, and fear. Somebody ought to make a youtube-viedeo about it. “Reality unfolds like a fractal divisions within divisions reunions within reunions. Consciousness polarizes and depolarizes it expands and it contracts back it diverges that it reckon verges and it keeps doing this forever eternally and that is the dance of consciousness or Infinite Mind” Aha. And now lets think that to the very end. And again, I am not talking about animals, nor rocks or bacteria. But higher level beings and their evolutionary lines, starting on a certain level of complexity. A molecule can not be evil, but the game of Karma/souls and return to the source starts at beings/perspectives with some level of self-awareness. But thanks for commenting, I understand you and your behaviour a bit better now. I assume you think that something like a (relative, just appearing, but appearing nontheless) soul "storing" in a higher dimension all this self-contraction or openess/love, and other lessons and the impact it had (on others, and oneself), from life to life, doesn't really exist, even in a relative way. Or is subordinate to hey, its all imagined anyway. Which is true, but forgets the power that suffering and/or love still holds for a separate being to either be awakened in sobre states or not. Including you my friend. I have a bit the feeling that you believe yourself to be a bit above the game of cause and consequences, or in other words Karma. You still are not telling why you stopped doing psychedelics and what happened, and write more about crocodiles. If you don't just want to escape via psychedelics (spiritual bypassing) and want to find genuine happiness and sobre Awakening in daily life, I wouldn't consider myself (or my relative being) to be in any way above this game of cause and effect. How about this view? "Although my view is higher than the sky, My respect for the cause and effect of actions is as fine as grains of flour." Padmasambhava If newbies take over this way of thinking (like lets go into a haunted house and try some DMT to meet something really evil, or blow up your relative life & values and just do spiritual/psychedelic bypassing, and I don't know what other less-than-smart-irresponsible stuff)... all these a bit less than funny posts in your forum where people somehow go for spiritual bypassing, although you write in places that is a no no?) and follow their idol, and then wreak their lifes... Ever considered its actually YOU in just another form suffering that? Literally You? Not metaphorically, not only true in some way out psychedelic states, but literally, all the time, just Absolutely True. Is that intuition and resulting love and compassion still so far away from your sobre life? You think that Infinite Intelligence will not give you some "less-than-positive-credit-points" on your Karma-Bill for just letting that happen? Where are your clarifying comments when a 20 year old again writes some irresponsible stuff that anybody with some more life-experience will see will f*** u* their lives? And what does Infinite Intelligence have in stock to finally correct such tendencies? Crocodiles. But is that really necessary? Although the law of cause and effect and the crocodiles are just imagined, their imagined bite creates very painful imagined sensations. As we are all probably quite aware of. Ok, that was the sermon for the sunday at the imagined church of Selling basic cause & effect by the River