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That’s incorrect. It’s nothing to do with duality but rather with challenging ideas to make us think about what we says. The part about being indefensible is not entirely correct either. For if that were the case then Leo would be unable to make money of his site or videos, let alone be able to post videos. If every position (including non duality) is indefensible then what you are left is either paralysis from being unable to pick a side or people staying attached to what they know because you cannot convince them otherwise. The chicken or egg question isn’t solved by nonduality, rather it just ignores the question. I mean it really doesn’t matter which came first. Duality is also not groundless for something is either A or not A. That’s simple logic, but unfortunate existence it a bit more complicated than that. Even existence and non existence are opposite ends, there isn’t a middle ground there. Objective reality does exist, we just can’t know it. But that’s not really mind blowing, that’s high school biology. Criticism is tenable to a degree. Those who say otherwise don’t understand how much they benefit from its fruits. And positions are most certainly not indefensible for again, nothing spawned by humans would exist. Opinions and beliefs clash against each other. There is a reason that Skepticism didn’t flourish beyond Ancient Greece and why the munchausen Trilema isn’t insurmountable. Science is proof of that. No matter what you believe you must accept somethig on faith to get anywhere. Sadly people just assume nonduality to be truth, but it is ultimately as “indefensible” as any other position.

and duality is not separate from nonduality. after all, all is one. duh. I see often people talk about ego and it just all seems a little misguided. sure it makes sense that people want to "shed their ego" or however it is that's popular to say it. but you do not destroy what is ego and make it leave, you simply find a way to stop seeing the illusion of ego - the belief of it - you cease from being slave to it. if anyone thinks that even leo, or sages, or buddha, or the divine are without ego that you are gravely mistaken. look to what transcending means in other aspects of self actualization. everything is the same and yet it is all so different. what was true before enlightenment does not become false after enlightenment. chop wood before and after yada yada ... it is not to eliminate a lie of a belief and replace it with true belief. careful that this is not what you are doing! enlightenment may be to remove the illusion that you were trapped under before. but that illusion is ... idk... "morality" might be a good way to say. illusion is morality. the belief that one thing is right, is the limit to knowledge, that this is the best way and all other ways are wrong. The baby believes a boob is for food. and child understands that food is food, not boobs, boobs are for babies! a teen understands that a boob is sexy. an adult understands to not objectify the boob, it isn't an object to drool over, perhaps instead they come to see it as a symbol of motherhood and/or being a woman. and the woman who's had to face the sorrow of losing that symbol to breast cancer, she'll learn that the boob is nothing, there is no meaning to it, being without your boobs don't make you not be a mother nor woman, they are just flesh that we carry like all the rest. that who we are is not determined by the symbols we worship lmao. but clearly only one of those statements is true! no, no, they are all true, it is just that one holds more importance to you in your state of being. they do not stop being true because you have transcended past that viewpoint. they do not become less true. I like to think of it as, we remember various ideas and perspectives. and when it makes a difference to apply these as a practice or strategy or action or errand if you will, then they become useful. and that usefulness we call "truth" - see? once it has been found less necessary, it has been found to be nothing more than an idea to remember. this is what transcending belief is. to make it not THE necessary reality of it. to move past dependence on the belief. transcending the ego? it is to see that life is not limited by the symbols, the belief, of what we've worshiped all our life. those symbols and beliefs don't stop existing. there is just more perspective to it, that helps us to be wise in our behaviors. I use the word "I" all the time, the concept of the self is iconic to imply ego! but what other word would I use to describe the ego that I constantly experience? see - ego is duality. and nonduality cannot be... the absolute, infinite... without all of duality giving contrast to oneness. when does the ego go away? in your lifetime it won't. at best you'll get glimpses of the absolute. never be fooled into thinking you've obtained it. we always were within the absolute, but the absolute has always been greater than just the ego we experience as existence. that is what ego is. it won't go away. it is as fundamental as perspective itself. the ego isn't a bad thing. what is "bad" is for someone to get carried away by the ego as if it is the only truth. it is just one piece of the infinite truth. and yet it is the only piece we have to work with at all.

There is no deception. That fact that you think there is any is itself the deception. To claim deception you need to know truth, but how can you know truth? Ultimately we call enemies of our beliefs deceived. But there is no deception. All people do is follow what they believe to be true, because there is nothing else we can do. Everything we act on is a belief because there is no ultimate grounding for any of it (including nonduality). Its like I said, for a guy who is a pyrrhonist Leo doesn’t act like it at all.

@Dodo you are missing some of the critical points in your reasoning. 1) there is no time, therefore everything is already “there”. Infinity exists now. 2) If you have experienced the nonduality of existence you would know that essentially and existentially there is no distinction between forms of manifestation. Word human is artificially created word of distinction. 3) there is absolutely no choice. There is only the illusion of choice. Which ultimately comes from one source. So if you really understand the non dual nature of existence you would stop arguing about anything. Because ultimately no choice and choice are the same. It’s all about perspectives...

I've had some glimpses into nonduality, yet don't get the "there is no reality" thing. What is the definition of real? Are reality and existence different? How can one say something does not exist? My experience now seems like existence just "IS", while reality is my interpretation of existence. My story.

Ego is within nonduality, it is not separate. I suppose its fair to say an egocentric perspective is a dual perspective.

@soul haha I giggled cute word play! I like the way you have shifted what "I" means. I warn tho, since it is in fact on-topic - i notice people seem to think that all is self means their current state of ego is everything there is. it isn't. transcention is, in a cute way, to extend the ego so that it is more encompassing the kitty doesn't cease to be real because it isn't the ego you are limited by. she sure exists too, and as long as you are trapped in duality, she remains true and not-you. have you ever been the kitty? how about every kitty? only then can you trully say you have been infinite. as long as you only accept that you are part of the infinite, and do not include [the kitty] and [you] and [you being the kitty] and [you remembering being the kitty but no longer being her] and [you not remembering having been the kitty despite having been so or perhaps having yet to been so or really time is just an illusion so both are true and false] and [you before you knew you were the kitty]....... and who knows maybe the kitty can do all these things too so if she can you gotta do those as well! But sure as hell you gotta go be the kitty without ever having been not-her nor having ever again been not-her, just been the kitty and not anything else beyond that. so unless you have done all that, you can never actually truthfully say you have been the kitty. and as such you can never truthfully say you have been the absolute. And so in this way, you are always locked in ego, you will never leave it. you are always locked in duality, and will never leave it. even if you do somehow manage to be the kitty in all those ways and then some, don't stop there, because you gotta then go do that for all the kitties as well, all ants and all humans and all of all individuals, and all atoms and waves and gluons and particles and quantum states, and all concepts too. and especially the ones you never came up with yet, as well as been all of the nothingness to counterbalance all of these, and every false belief as well. And did I mention all of existence (and non-existence and outside-the-box-of-existence-and-non-existence) we can never fathom: AKA all of that what we can fathom can fathom also can never fathom? Without being all of that, and in all the various dimensions of being that that I mentioned about the cat plus some.... without all that you will only have glimpses of something awe-inspiring, some thing that you claim to be the infinite, the absolute, god - but that is just a belief upon its ending, even if it is true in the moment of it. its ending is its death for you and you return to your brittle ego. and unless you're having that "glimpse" right now you can't say you're in it truthfully - just because you are the absolute and the absolute is you don't mean the same thing as you accomplishing that level of consciousness - only that level of belief! And even if you manage to be "in" that existence of the absolute -"in" as in a conclusive "within" and not the limited within that is duality aka ego. Even being that conclusive absolute, but taking the action to state you collapse to be limited ego and not unlimited absolute. By having this conversation we prove to be finite dual ego, and by taking the action to not partake in the conversation we in fact do the same regardless! this is the nature of duality and nonduality to be perfectly frank. so be careful. You can never "be" the absolute in its wholesomeness of it - you can only be in its image.

If you think there's somebody else then that is not solipsism, since the self is all there is according to it. In fact I think solipsism is nonduality. Multiple humans, animals, etc, one self.

@DocHoliday Last night while driving, I cried uncontrollably about life's meaninglessness and the inevitability of death, then I laughed uncontrollably about life's meaninglessness and the inevitability of death, then I cried uncontrollably because the beauty was too overwhelming. Tonight, I watched your video and laughed some more. Thank you for sharing As for fight club...yes. I was a Bob. Then again, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Anyone who is "not ready" to hear about spirituality will likely forget about it the next day. I call this the vampire rule. You know how vampires can't enter a house until they're invited? IRL, don't talk about nonduality unless someone explicitly asks you about it.

Well said. Ime, that path leads to the experience of nonduality, which is incommunicable, in any literal sense. When we see the truth in this regard and are then living without the suffering....we tend to want to know the whole truth.

All I write is meaningless prattle. Empty symbols. Why bother saying anything at all! You are saying there is first, non duality, and second, reality. Doesn’t make much sense to me. Sure I have a hard time really (uh.... hm. Experience nor understanding nor seeing really captures the meaning at all. The meaning doesn’t either lol meaning is just a higher level symbol lmao. It fails at it too.) But uh, yes, I struggle to really “capture” nonduality I mean of course I would. It is beyond limits, and we can only sense/think/process limits. It’s a fools game to chase after what can’t be captured, but the wise man finds the profound everywhere she looks. All I attempt to do with this thread is remind people that knowledge is not truth, but belief, lol. Aka ego is you in every way (and me too, a different ego you could say, I mean by definition ego is in dual perspective, me v not-me) Also thanks for finding me profound, im flattered... I’m pretty sure I just sound like an ass in this thread almost didn’t even bother to start it grr it’s hard trying to explain it tho. Everything I say is riddled with irony and contradiction.

@Alien Well, of course, if you're into this work, that already makes you rather exceptional. My theory is, some people just naturally like to get their mind fucked. Those are the ones who gravitate towards nonduality. I'm like that. With that said, even though I love a good mindfuck, I also love my ego. So a tug-of-war must happen. The real test of how much you love a good mindfuck is: if there was a mindfuck so deep the only way you could glimpse it was by killing yourself, would you do it? The only reason you're gravitating towards it right now is because your mind doesn't really understand the extent of the mindfuck. You like little mindfucks. But you do not like big mindfucks which will totally obliterate you. The big mindfucks will take you totally by surprise, and it's good they do because otherwise you would probably never approach them. The whole problem here is that you are being asked to kill yourself. And of course you can't want that. 3 billion years of evolution are pushing their finger on the scale. But we can sucker you into it by having you believe that it won't be real death, but just like an mini "ego-death" -- which your mind can rationalize to itself as being "cool" and "good". But, then one day you will discover much to your shock -- No, we were talking about actual death! But then it will be too late. You will already be dead. And you will be pleased. But not in the way you expect. In other words, we have to use the mind's self-deceptions against itself to escape itself.

No, there's actually remarkable and uncanny similarity between all trip reports. Almost everyone experiences nonduality at high doses. The question is, can they stomach it? When clueless people take psychedelics, they don't understand what they're shown because it clashes with the materialist paradigm so much, and they are so clueless they don't even understand that materialism is a paradigm. You cannot take a random person off the street and blast his mind with full nonduality. It's way too much for him to handle. He's gonna freak out and not understand a damn thing. But if you take a person who's been struggling, chasing nonduality for 3 years, going to meditation retreats, doing self-inquiry, etc. and you give him a blast of psychedelic, he will love you for it. It will be the greatest gift to him. Because he's ready to receive the Truth. He has a context for it. His mind is primed. Unfortunately once a person has been chasing enlightenment for 3 years, he's been programmed with so much dogma from gurus, that he is reluctant to take a psychedelic, because the gurus told you it's somehow impure or sinful.

Jordan B Peterson Actualized Yale Courses BAUS Chuang Yen Monastery Vsauce Big Think Jonathan Pageau PBS Space Time Science and Nonduality Fight Mediocrity Crash Course Sam Harris The Bible Project Culadasa MeaningofLive.tv Isaac Arthur The school of life Philosophy Overdose The Royal Institution Brian Johnson Talks at Google CSLewisDoodle Gary Weber

Good share. Shows how that guy's lack of nondual study and proper context lead to a failure to integrate his experience as deeply as he could. I wish more people who tripped studied nonduality and contemplated existence. It would make things so much easier for them. Notice how the materialist paradigm is visible through his trip report, i.e., "the brain". It's not allowing him to fully grasp what was being show. This is the problem of naive people doing psychedelics. They get in over their heads and never really understand what they experienced.

@Shroomdoctor It's a really tough balance to strike. People come from so many different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences here. If we crack down on New Ageism too much, people will rant and whine about "censorship!" and totalitarian rule. If we let freedom and egalitarianism reign, then all opinions are valid and then you get a natural cross-section of all the worlds spiritual ideas, which are immense, wide, and crazy to most Western minds. So it's a damned-if-we-do,-damned-if-we-don't situation. Personally I'm not a fan of mixing UFOs with nonduality. But some people are really into that. It helps to distinguishing this forum from the Actualized.org videos. They are two very different things. This forum is for you guys to share ideas. And in a free marketplace of ideas, you have to expect that some crazy ones will get shared. We might have to crack down on New Ageism a bit more in the future. I'll be keeping my eye on it. I'm just giving you guys fair warning so you don't scream and holder "censorship!" if we start cracking down. The point would to be keep this place free of BS and distractions. Maintaining a good community means having editorial standards and specialization. I would rather have this place be more about strict nonduality than people debating about UFOs. We might have to re-instate the a New Age sub-forum, so that the Meditation/Consciousness sub-forum is more about strict nonduality work.

“If I were to advance any thesis whatsoever, that in itself would be a fault; but I advance no thesis and so cannot be faulted.” Nagarjuna Derrida He criticized modern philosophy and intellectual tradition. Post-structuralism inspired Derrida. They say that all symbols and words are arbitrary. Any word that has any kind of meaning is a label that was completely arbitrary selected. It says that all meanings are structurally determined from the difference with other symbols. A word isn’t merely pointing to a physical object, but it gets its meaning by its association with another signal. To really understand a word, you need to understand all the other related words. Derrida was interested in how language shapes how we think. Language is not just words, it also includes logic, science, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and even all human thinking. For Derrida, the meaning of a symbol comes from: - All its historical uses - The network of all the current symbols in the entire web of the language For example, to understand science you will need to know what knowledge, truth, experiment, contradiction, element, etc. But his says that in order to fully understand a word you will need to understand each word in the language. Because this word is only one node of an infinite graph. Meaning is composed by present and absent symbols. Language is ultimately a set of symbols that are ultimately grounded on nothing! And every symbol has an infinite potential of meanings and it is constantly evolving. For Derrida, there is no such a thing as an ultimate meaning and that we are very sloppy thinkers and philosophers as if there is a factual definition of a word. A belief doesn’t exist on its own… you have a vast field of knowledge colors your interpretations and beliefs. There is always an interpretation. What Derrida wants to say is that there is no correct objective way to read a text – any kind of psychological or philosophical position. Because meaning is so sleepy and complicated, even the author who wrote the text, even he doesn’t understand what he means when he wrote it. There is no correct interpretation to any event or text. The essence of something is its structure – a table is a table and it is nothing. By creating the distinction, you are creating the object. The essence of something it is its distinction. Everything is relative for Derrida and there is no best description or interpretation. Western tradition is logocentric, Derrida says. There is an absolute faith that you can describe Truth and Reality with words, logic, and language. Deconstruction means that you can deconstruct every concept and idea. All thought is dualistic and happen between binary opposites. Mind vs body, nature vs culture, inner vs outer, me vs them, scientific vs spiritual, first vs second, existence vs non-existence. In order for the mind to work at all, it needs to create all of these distinctions. But as soon as you try to press the distinction further, it collapses because they are grounded. Since everything is interconnected and interbeing, nothing can be isolated – not even language. With Deconstructionism, Derrida illuminates the dark part of the equation: like emotions and logic. Reality is neither real nor illusion – it is undefined. Science tries to have a definite narrative for everything. Like history with Columbus. Derrida says that it is just a narrative and it is actually more complicated than that. A post-modern would criticize all of these narratives. Derrida says that you cannot find Truth with words because they are all relative and ultimately groundless. What is Deconstruction? You take any logocentric argument and you start to question its conceptual distinction until you break them all down. All conceptual distinctions in a text are unstable – and this is because Reality is nondual. Every distinction must collapse. The result of deconstructionism is that the essence of concepts is that they have no essence. It results that no argument or thesis can be advanced because deconstruction is the exhaustion of all views, hierarchies, power structures, privilege, justification. It results on an endless playfulness of reality – everything just flows. Reality just is, without any preference. Every philosophy is a house of cards – there is no preferred point of view of reality, everything is groundless and relative. The impact of Derrida in culture at large was nihilism and relativity. The problem with Derrida is that it doesn’t go far enough. Yes, language and concepts are logocentric and dualistic, but there is a deeper layer – Derrida kept stuck on the level of concept. Derrida doesn’t know that he can know reality without logic. You can do it with nonduality. The nature of reality is distinctions. Derrida criticizes institutions, politics, and ideologies. Institutions are based on philosophies (Communism and Marxism, or Capitalism and Adam Smith). Derrida was raised on these ages. In the dictionary, when you look at a word, you will find more words. Language is ultimately subjective, words mean different from person to person and from time to time, so it cannot be that language has a way of reaching the truth.

This is exactly how average citizen thinks when someone claims that enlightenment is real u r doing same mistake, it's just ego defense you cannot claim something is not real if you dont experience it for yourself also all new age bs is getting proved by non bs science. Check out science and nonduality YouTube channel

Ever since I was 14 I kept having this guilt about literally everything. Guilt about materialism, guilt about enjoying things, guilt about being sad sometimes, guilt about being happy sometimes. It's like every thought I have, anything I read, everything being told to me, it all triggers this guilt mechanism. It usually happens when someone says something I do not agree with, but they are more well-read than me or more experienced or it's something that I'm not ready for yet. Then I'm just harsh on myself and beat myself up, that why can't I be a "good" person in that area?. It basically paralyzes me in life. So much that sometimes I feel guilty to even brush my hair! (not literally, I still do maintain a healthy hygiene lol...) Now I'm 20, and I started self-help, studying Leo's videos, reading articles, butI keep having severe guilt trips and I don't know why??? Could it be black-white thinking or certain dogma? Moralistic thinking? How do I get to the core of this emotion? I'm sure there are unresolved things in there but it's unlike anything I've dealt with before. It's super hidden. If this helps, I used to be the most hardcore Christian when I was 14 but it only lasted 6 months, then I was totally atheistic (until finding nonduality), but this guilt behavior continued and still continues. What could it be? Also, it's not always present, it comes in "waves". That's why I can have great insights, give quality advice and function well, and I'm also quite healthy, both physically and mentally, but after a while it comes back. I am curious to know where am I mistaken when this problem is present? And how come it's not always present, just sometimes? What induces it? Thanks in advance!

True nonduality is a concept. Also if true nonduality means that truth = false, than it's the same as saying false nonduality means truth = false. Contemplate That's not an absolute statement. An absolute statement does not exist, but a pointer can point to what is absolute right here and now - in experience. The only thing we can know. Are you going to believe your experience or your thoughts about experience?

@Leo Gura I thought in one of your videos you said that thoughts and concepts are not "it". That "it" cannot be explained or understood. I've read over 50 "spiritual" books in my life. Most were self improvement or meditation type books. At the time, many resonated with me and seemed to provide insight. Yet in hindsight many seemed to promote the development of a stronger, "healthier" illusionary self image. . . Over the last couple years, I've had several glimpses into what appears to be nonduality, usually with the aid of psychedelics. Glimpses into that which cannot be explained with concepts and language. I acknowledge I know very little of what is available in written and spoken word, including whole areas like epistemology. Yet, very very few people I encounter these days resonate with those glimpses. It seems like the mainstream stuff is oriented toward developing a healthier mindset to live a healthier life in a dualistic world. For example, 10 years ago "The Four Agreements" would have resonated with me. I would have discussed the book with others and integrated the teachings into my life to be a healthier person. Yet now, it seems like bullshit. It's purpose is to replace an old "unhealthy" illusionary self image with a new "healthy" illusionary self image. In the second half of the book, I got the sense that there was pressure to conform to popular paradigm's of self improvement. Now, there are only a few people I feel a connection, such as Rupert Spira, Lisa Cairns

No, just the opposite. Derrida's philosophy fails to go far enough. Buddhism takes deconstruction much further. Derrida is the exact opposite of "clear". I mostly just brought him into the picture as a segue into negative theology and nonduality. And I wanted to share his insights about language, which are quite nifty. And I wanted to mount a critique of Western intellectual tradition as a whole, for which Derrida is a nice launching point.

It doesn't matter that it teaches about greater good and greater bad. For all I know this COULD be true or untrue. We can't know just because the ULTIMATE is not the greater good or the greater bad that those forces do not exist too. Those dualities of greater good and greater bad are already inside nonduality. The story about the apple that teaches that all our suffering began with eating the apple that started the duality of good and evil itself. Perhaps the apple represents identification with the body. It's sweet, but it's temporary.

We already discussed this topic last week. Watch your gossip and projecting. The fact is you do not know any other person's mind. So focus on your own psychopathologies. Any nondual school can be easily shown as a cult to a casual observer by cherrypicking things. Nonduality sounds insane to any ordinary person. If you spliced together snippets from all my 300 videos and showed it to a psychiatrist, he would call me an insane dangerous narcissistic psychopath and recommend immediate clinical intervention. And of course, if Ben turns out to be a Zen Devil, that shouldn't surprise anyone either. Plenty of them around. By now you should be aware of the infinite trickery of the mind. No one is immune. NO ONE!

@Driven62 If I were you, I wouldn't wait for nonduality to fix that. I would self-reflect or use a therapist/coach type person to help me investigate the root source of the fear. When did I develop it? Where did it come from? Why is it there? This is a shadow work -type of issue. And then, I would try to expose myself to more ridicule in real life (trying to stay mindful while it is happening). Pickup can be great for that if you are a dude. Try walking up to a hot girl with your fly unzipped and tell her you want to make babies with her.