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I was a seeker of Truth before I knew that there is such a thing as a 'path'. Around 5-6 years ago when I understood that science gives no definite answers to my questions I turned to philosophy. While reading Heidegger's Being and Time and inquiring into phenomenology of my being, I had a two-week long something that I later learned to be ego death. At that point I had no idea what had happened and began studying psychology and started psychotherapy. Some time after stabilizing my psyche I stumbled across Leo's videos about meditation and started practicing irregularly I learned about the path, enlightenment, and started studying mysticism. Mystical experiences kept occurring periodically. What I would consider my core practice is contemplation, becoming directly conscious of what something is. That usually requires sincere description of what I think of it and seeing if it is actually the case. That leads to 'enlightenment experiences'. Ultimately, all practices collapse into one indecribable thing which is best called 'present moment'. Few months ago, with contemplation, I became conscious of what I am, what the other is, what the world is and what is God. Fireworks were spectacular and I 'fell' into absolute nothingness which is absolute infinity. Recently I tried LSD for the second time with the intention of finding absolute love. The substance did deliver.

Sure, I also had a dream in which I died and there are no words to describe nothingness. Theoretically, when you die, you let go of all your earthly attachments. No one knows what happens after death but death is the opposite of life. It is said that death is the release of suffering because attachments bring suffering.

From my perspective, nope. Death has no consciousness. Consciousness is life and death is the opposite. There's no consciousness to be aware of nothingness. "Nothing" makes no sense when you're dead.

As I conceptually get it, yes, but not as you. There won't be any "I" there, thinking about it. I mean the current "I" i.e. the current "You". After death, SQAAD will cease to exist so you won't be somewhere as SQADD thinking "Oh, so this is what death is like", having also SQAAD's identity and memories. Maybe it will be something like a breakthrough on 5-MeO-DMT were you feel like floating (being) into an infinite void experiencing everything timelessly . Who knows.... At the moment I ve had only one breakthrough experience on Bufo Alvarius, saw the white light, got thrown in the vast nothingness etc. (similar as many people describe in trips or after life experiences), and I was thinking that if let's say I become very old lying in my death bed seeing my end coming, i would think "heh...let's see if it will be like that bufo alvarius trip". But as I said above, 'I' won't be there to experience it anyway. Or will I... ?

So it’s been a month since my last post on here and felt like giving an update. After getting off I actually started feeling a tiny bit better. I was starting to do some self acceptance and it came along actually in the beginning. I was walking on some old trails I used to run on in Marin County over the Golden Gate Bridge. That was kinda where it ended. After about less than a week in I started falling into a worsening depression I haven’t fallen in in years. Mental breakdowns have become basically a daily thing. My only friend who lives next to me isn’t a available for me to talk to him just to have someone to talk to so I’m alone everyday. My dad has been going off on me on how I’m a loser because my suffering “doesn’t make sense” and how I just need to “man up.” I wake up everyday feeling too numb to get out of bed. I’ve had to leave work early a couple times now because I’m barely able to hold back tears. My mind won’t stop. It. Just. Won’t. Fucking. Stop. I can feel even in my body that this entire self is something I’m holding onto in yet trying to drop even a single belief like “ I CAN’T” (my bottommost core belief) because my entire sense of self is revolves around this addiction to holding this belief. This entire self is just a giant lie. Everything I say is a lie. Everything I think is a lie. The way I hold my body is a lie. I don’t feel suicidal per say as I don’t want to resort to that. I honestly just want help. I feel like I’m truly not good enough and that I can’t. I just fucking cant. Relative to what isn’t the belief. It’s that I can’t. Affirmations and such have been a disaster. I’ll be on a run (and now I’m hurt) and when I start feeling that core “I CAN’T” and I affirm “I CAN”, so long as I affirm “I can” there has to be the underlying belief that “I can’t.” Ralston talks about this in his book Pursuing Consciousness when it comes to beliefs, self-images, ideals, etc. I feel like I’m going crazy right now and this is getting worse every single day. This is exhausting. I want this to stop and I deeply want help. I don’t want “just accept yourself more” as I live in a house and an environment that is driving me mad. Self acceptance doesn’t help me move out. I tried learning programming, following the advice of @Bluebird who kindly helped give me some tips, after about a week of not being able to focus (struggling still now being off adderall and with ADHD) and feeling totally confused and still frustrated because the thought of being another programmer just eats at me and also because it’s so hard because of my ADHD, I had to stop. I have a life purpose but honestly it’s so demoralizing because it feels so beyond me. I’m tired of this man I just want help. I’m tired of feeling so dead and numb. Depression feels like nothingness and pain. It’s a hollowness that literally eats you away. I can’t afford therapy, I can’t afford neurofeedback, I can’t afford a life coach. Why did I have to grow up with a mom who tried killing herself every week? Why does my dad have to moralize to me? Why did I have to put on meds to that hurt me more in the long run and didn’t help anything? Why can’t I drop this addiction to suffering and this goddamn identity? Why can’t I just stop my mind for just 5 seconds? I don’t want anything other than help.

You are infinite Nothingness right now. When your body dies You Will "return" to Formlessness /Complete abscence of everything perceivable (Fundamental Reality/Infinite Love still remains). You are always it and you've always been it. We are Just waking You up. Don't want to freak You out but in Truth You are doing it.

Be careful not to limit God to nothingness. You are much more than that. When you become directly conscious that you are God you will realize you were perfect the entire time and you were living this life the entire time. It takes a lot more consciousness to see this though. So keep doing the work and the Truth will dawn

Trust me You do not want That. You want nothingness. Nothing Can compare no life no experience anything Can compare with TRUTH. Stay devil forever not my problem. Angels surrender and return to God.

@Nahm Will i everexperince that life? Ok Mby not 1000 years. But 100 years. I want to experience that life. And ofc nothingness Sounds Nice. But i only want it AFTER i had that life experience. Because then i have had the experience i want and can truly let go.

Then after that. Being nothingness Sounds nice. But NOT before that @Nahm

@SQAAD words are used to point out something that cannot be pointed out.It is just word preferance.Thats it. Nisargadatta Maharaj says there is nothing like not knowing. It is neither being or non being it is neither awareness or conciousness.It is not emptiness or nothingness.It is not witness.It is not knowing or not knowing. Words doesnt matter.Whats important is go with in and once realization happens everything will become clear. The problem is reading the books and trying to understand the wordless with mind. Getting caught in the word game. So final advice emphasized is start the practice.Dont ask questions.Dont Read books.Dont read books.Dont read books. Dont read dont feed the mind. Dont have questions or doubts and be desireless. When doubts come enquire who is having the doubts ? ------------------------------ 1.Pranayama. 2.Japa or meditation. 3.Self Enquiry. ------------------------------

That's right, God is Nothingness, and Consciousness is Nothingness too. The word consciousness is tricky. People use it in different ways. The way I teach, consciousness is the only thing there is. But the consciousness I speak of is not produced by any human brain or body. And it does not end.

@Leo Gura What do you say about Andre Doshim Halaws elaborations on consciousness in "God is Nothingness". He says that consciousness is dependent on the body and ends with it, as opposed to Nothingness which exists regardless as the formless, underlying foundation to the world of form, but ultimately one with form. He says: "Some readers may be wondering why I say that Awareness is not the Absolute(...). If pressed as to whether or not consciousness is the Absolute, I would say, that, Mind is not Mind , yet neither is it no-mind. (...) In Nothingness, there is some degree of awareness present -it is not how most people imagine brain death- albeit unconditioned, object- and subjectless. The Consciousness (for lack of better word) of Non-Being is so subtle that the moment we try to reflect upon it to check if we are conscious, we are jarred back into 'bein' and into our ordinary dualistic consciousness. I hesitate even to call this experience 'pure subjectivity' as that invites a metaphysical position that I am not willing to support.

@Inliytened1 when you say i am awareness or nothing. Is awareness or nothing an experience? Does self enquiry take one to nirvikalpa samadhi where the absence of body,mind and sense of me vanishes and experience of the 1.no-self 2. nothingness Then the final enlightenment or realisation Experience of the awareness or existence or suchness or isness happens ? Please explain in detail. ???

Yes. Perfection, Paradise, Heaven, etc. But Love is yet distinct from Perfection. You cannot reduce Love down to anything else, even though Love is identical to Truth / Being / Consciousness / Nothingness There are aspects of the Absolute even though it is ONE.

I can't integrate the duality between the aloneness and togetherness of reality and was hoping you could help me. And in the asking of that I feel very vulnerable because maybe I am wrong, maybe I'm attached. It's easy for others to get stuck on a technique that helped them to see their nature and have a breakthrough, how are you to cope on your own if that wasn't a technique but a person? Yesterday I was watching the river and there were these flies sort of bouncing along the surface as the river flowed beneath them and then my kid splashed them and I watched the drops of water merge and the flies scattered and just magically reappeared. Then we walked home and there across from the road the sun was straight ahead and it lit up all these flies that were dancing magically in the road as dragonflies ate them, and I saw that life itself is just a dance or movement and tricks of light. And it's as if to see the dance you have to stop moving and stay still and be the stillness that allows the dance to occur, but yet the stillness is incomplete, it is illusory separate from the dance, and you have to reenter the dance of survival and love. Leo and Winterknight are both mostly correct in their perspectives and need to be integrated within oneness. People don't understand that therapy is not therapy, psychedelics are not psychedelics. Nothingness is not nothing and love is not love. It's Schrodinger's horse, as we ARE the horse and we are sadomasochists.

Winterknight clearly said it is not no self and nothingness or emptiness.It is something beyond that which cannot be expressed in words.

@tsuki I get the message, you prefer playing with yourself. It seems to be a common condition around here. Leo thinks psychedelics and personal autonomy is the magic that results in awakening to Love. Winterknight thinks that therapy will result in awakening to Nothingness.

This attitude is overly-simplistic, overly-reductionistic, & misses a giant swath of the spiritual terrain. To teach spirituality and not teach the metaphysical nature of Love is incorrect not only from the standpoint of doing your students a disservice, but also from the standpoint of Truth itself. By shutting off your mind through self-inquiry, you've disconnected yourself from the very source and purpose of existence and awakening: LOVE. Love is not an emotion or feeling. Love is identical to Truth. This is the danger of Neo-Advaita and Neo-Buddhism as commonly taught in the West today. The nuances and depth of awakening is lost, reduced to a binary flatland. I have interacted with many enlightened masters. I was once told of the following case: A modern day Buddhist came to an enlightenment self-inquiry intensive, inquirying into the question of What am I? After a few days of intense inquiry he had an awakening to Absolute Love. But he immediately rejected the awakening as inauthentic because his Buddhist dogma led them to believe that Love is not a real thing. He was trapped in looking for Nothingness. This is a mistake. The Love is right there, yet you deny it. We are not really in disagreement here. There are just aspects of the Absolute you have not yet become conscious of because you've over-reduced it. I understand that some of you guys will disagree with me. But I can only lead you as best as I know how. Whether you want to follow is up to you. Nothing said here should be taken as dogma. Discover the many facets of the Absolute for yourself. Directly! Through no human source. P.S. I have no problem with you guys doing psychoanalysis. My only point was that psychedelics will take you deeper than any talk-therapy will. But of course you're welcome to use them both. I support the use of multiple tools.

That really is the most profound question anyone can ask. The problem is nothingness is a man-made concept, because nothingness has never existed.

Wow. Just had this insight after my kriya yoga meditation. I needed to write this down. It feels like I have seen through the physicality of reality. I had to draw it out on a piece of paper. I felt like I was this lucid bubble, inside the bubble are a set of sights, sounds, feeling, sensations, thoughts that float around in nothingness. My bubble fuses with other bubbles that contain a set of different sensations. What the fuck is going on hahaha. These sensations are located precisely nowhere! How am I creating this? Consciousness is the container of experience but how is it actually creating it?

A realisation that struct me today. More deeply than just the thought of it. It was an experiential realisation. Here is how it unfolded. Death is conceptualised as the ending of “some-thing”, that thing being human life. When in fear of death it invariably equates to fearing “no-thing-ness” which is synonymous with emptiness. All fear essentially leads to fear of emptiness, nothingness or death. It must, as it is great depth of all fear. The thing one cherished or only knows then vanishing, is the immutable fear. The unknown is feared as it entails stepping into something inconceivable and comprehensible to present experience. The very fact death entails not knowing is the fundamental fear itself. The fabrication of our everyday life is the utilitythrough which we use to distract ourselves from the inevitability of death. This is my most recent realisation that has really had me deeply look at how our decisions are structured and how we interact with life. It seems to me, our relationship with this fear determines the fundamental quality of ones life. Contemplating death had been a regular exercise of mine and this realisation has just urged it that little further. Hope this provides some value to others!

I am curious to know this, i had one experience with 5 Meo Dmt but it was very frightening even if it in the longterm definitely stilled my mind. Buy I am eager to finish this but in a much more gentle way. Just wanted to know if peyote and ayahuasca lead to the same realization of oneness and nothingness or if they lead to more illusions, maybe in combination with food fasting and meditation. What I an concerned of is people say after a 5 Meo experience every other tool or medicine will lead you to that same experience. So me having had the experience of losing my mind, could another psychedelic just lead me to that Bardo state again or will it be alright

I did the same. Try to draw a million point on a paper. Circle 1000 of them. Imagine no one have a clue about reality and 1000 of them like to spread all days their best 'scientific view of life' of course none of them base his knowledge on anything but 'absolute truth' not a perspective created by their life upbringing. You is a point. Your brain focus on the basic beliefs as lenses on some of these points. Each random point formes your 'unbiased' worldview. When we say science is shit. It is not an idea. It is pure solid absolute understanding of 'truth of life'. We all come from the same exact path than you. Eating billions of knowledges will not makes you truthful it only makes you another telling point on an Infinite Map of possibility. There is no way to prove something unless experienced with your soul and body deep in the bones. You know things with head. But reality is not a collection of cloud-model. Readings 1000000 science paper doesn't make any points. It only prove a story' a fantasy in the head of one. Sure there is truth in science. But does it work on Logic or faith. Everything is pure faith- Logic is a belief. Not a godly rule. An illusion of sense in a chaos of nothingness. Absolutely everything is a cloud. When we told that the experience of a 'me knowing things' is a delusion. It is realised just as hard as looking the fire in the sky burn the retina. This is a self belief about what the nothing is. Do you think that Reading quora 100 years would makes your opinion stronger than everybody ?

Its the place where boundaries between literal and metaphorical dissolve. That's how it seems to me. You can see the layers and layers of truth, layered on top of nothingness. Hindus also get way to literal and open it with a chisel and hammer. That is also interesting. IDK if it works.