Search the Community

Yes. Don't know Angelo Dulio (but Ingram and Yangs descriptions). Full Enlightenment has the same deep structure always. Only one Nothingness/Reality/Infinite Consciousness/Universal Mind. Without a second. But the way & style being talked about it later varies from perspective to perspective. And to be more precise: The ego (as technical term) or character continues doing its thing. The separate-self-arisings/elements gets understood/seen in real time (and in all its aspect) as illusions moving in oneself, and are transcended and normally cut off (Trekchö) as Illusion. Unnecessary. Awakaned Awareness takes over, and lives ones life much more efficient than the old biased separate-self ever could. Waaay more pleasant. "One" just gets out of the way. Like a lense of perception, normally with some kind of location/center, with I-feelings and I-thoughts. That drops. What remains is an Understanding/Realization of that which can never not be there, Reality itself. That is Nothingness/Infinite Consciousness. The essence of all appearance, including the visual field, is that. That Nothingness is infinite, since any boundary to anything else would be form, an imagined arising. and while there are Infinite Perspectives in Indras Net, non-dimensionally "hovering" or being manifested/imagined in Nothingness (out of which you normally forget all but "your" perspective (and call that your life), the Awareness of all of these perspectives can ever only be that Infinite Nothingness, which is also the essence/Suchness of every appearance. Deep Structures of the process towards Enlightenment. To get there, you need at least the following Awakenings (discrete "hard" STATES, induced by meditation, psychedelic, karma, ..., that one can not jump with just conceptual thinking/videos/whatever. That ends with one form of Solipsism or another, a cul-de-sac) the ego-mind becoming a fully transparent witness (Mahamudra. Yoga 1 & 2): Death/Transcendence of the ego/person. Outcome Transparent Witness. Not yet death/Transcendence of the Indviduality/last subtle separate selves. Nonduality with the visual field (Mahamudra, Yoga of One Taste, Stage 3). Induced and boosted by the step above. the visual field becoming boundless/infinite (further ripening of One Taste Yoga): Infinite the Awakening that Consciousness is Nothingness, nothing that can ever be pointed to, and the Awakening that each and every appearance of the visual field IS Nothingness, its essence is Nothingness (further ripening of One Taste Yoga). Generalizing this awakening/understanding to any possible manifestation. the Awakening to this boundless infinite visual field/Consciousness being also timeless, eternal, never-not-here. Deathless alway-here-Mind. the "you" becoming nothing at all, no center, no lense, no feeling, no thought. Or all of that moving through you like the wind: Mahamudra, Yoga of Nonmeditation, stage 4. The visual field remains, but without you. Impersonal. That is a ripening process of Impersonality (similiar to the ripening of Nonduality in the Yoga of One Taste), which ends suddenly with waking up, or Full Enlightenment, crossing over to the Dharmakaya or whatever lingo floats ones boat. That is Full Enlightenment. Basis Enlightenment in Mahamudra. Fully Waking up to ones True Identity. The Awakenings of Yoga of One Taste, Stage 3, are already called Enlightenments, for example in Zen. That is a much more common Enlightenment than the real one, Basis Enlightenment. That is why for example Leo emphasizes in God Realization that True You/Reality/"God" (I am reluctant to use that word, not because it is technically incorrect, but because it can lead to a lot of Separate-Self-Boosting) imagines everything. That becomes fully clear with Full Enlightenment/Basis Enlightenment, realizing the full identity of oneself and Reality. Infinite Nothingness manifesting/imagining the whole gig. Like in couldn't be different, nowhere and in no dimension/time/anything. Can't be. That was a longer musing than I expected. These are the Deep Structures of the process of Enlightenment. that I have found in ANY Enlightenment-Path-Description. (like in: a few hundreds of books later. You know, nutcase...). You can have that and do that with cessations and a concentrative meditation path, or Dzogchen/Mahamudra. One doesn't need cessations, as Ingram and Yang confirm. Both (and also Wilber) changed later to include Mahamudra/Dzogchen elements. That gave at least yours truly something to think about. Good book for Mahamudra: Pointing out the Great Way, Brown. Many posts of yours truly on that also... And one little warning: Without the corresponding Awakening states, one will a) not understand (or get) Nonduality or Union with the (infinite) visual field by just conceptual description (for example of the one of yours truly above). No chance. But you can recognize when that starts to happen when you know the map of the path. You can know how to induce that with practice, and how to make out of a spark a forest fire b) not understand the full Impersonal nature of ones true being (Nothingness), the death and transcendence of the separate self. That is impossible before it fully happens. But one can get at least an idea when the ripening of that happens. When it fully happens, its clear. Unmistakenably so. Waking Up. So the "game"/path is to induce these states, via for example the practices described above. And then there is a cycle of meditation state->realization/understanding->boosting more meditation state (because it got more impersonal) -> more realization/understanding n+1. "Thinking" ones way to Oneness/God/ItsallIMAGINED and itSAULGOODMAN doesn't work, only leads to Ego/Separate-Self-Solipsism. The 5 aggregate frame is from the earliest phases of Buddhism. Buddhism tended to end at (and emphasize) causal states back in the day (like Nirvana/Cessation/Nothingness as state). That mostly got replaced (transcended and in included) with superior realizations later, Nondual in Ken Wilbers language (Nagarjuna, Madhyamaka). That basically means not loosing ones Identity as Nothingness being the whole Infinite Field (and the essence of that being Nothingness, not metaphorically but literally, as direct experience) as Nothingness. A nice statement from that stage is: - We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.- Kalu Rinpoche. That is a statement one doesn't normally here from the early Buddhism phases. There is only one Nothingness, but the states can be a bit different on however the Nothingness is approached. However one defines Cessation, Nirvana, Nirvikalpha, nirodha samapatti, its all in the class of Causal State experiences of Ken Wilber. Causal in the meaning of Source, Nothingness. Nice article on nirodha samapatti https://medium.com/@rogerthis/lets-talk-nirodha-samapatti-insights-into-valance-and-the-supposed-ontic-primacy-of-consciousness-fd78a38f3d28 Yours truly would recommend forgetting the concept of Mahasamadhi. Cultural Baggage. Why should that happen? So much effort for the whole imagined/manifested show, and then its game over when one understand what one is? Doesn't happen in practice, and why should it? For the first time, one can play and celebrate manifestation without the fear and lack and cycle of suffering. That is the True Nondual Realization. It is not the scarcity and quite negative perspective of escaping suffering and reaching Nirvana that early Buddhism/Hinayana had. It is the full celebration of manifestation, full with Agape, and if done in an integral way and with intelligence just a beautiful dream. See Francis Lucille for example. He calls it life is a celebration then. It is. He has a very sane perspective on all of that. And please feel invited to review my archieve of posts for more details because yours truly is God, marvels all day at his own perfection, of course has madly fallen in LOVE with himself, and nobody else is awake, you are all dreaming, and only God can describe himself in the best way of all Multiverses possible since there are no others, and everbody else is wrong because or biased and so on and so on (put in the Solipsistic Ramblings of your preference n+1), and its all imagined anyway!!! Sorry, just kidding of course. If you like that channel, just ask and you will helped by various proponents of Absolute Solipsism and other funny concepts Selling Water by the River PS: Very necessary, after all this conceptual overkill of yours truly: Bassui: After having read the letter, drop it into the fire Much more true than all the stuff written above: “frog pond plop” Basho

So, lets go through it. Number of Pictures 1 5 9 2 6 10 3 7 11 4 8 12 1: Identity with THAT (That=anything, any CONCEPT. Body-Mind. Ego. World. Whatever. n+1). Roger Thisdell stage 1: 2: Wiping/Process of Transcending the Identity with any self-concept (Body-Mind. Ego. World. God. Whatever. n+1) 3: I AM (identity with being, but nothing specific anymore. "Opaque" witness, not fully empty) Roger Thisdell Stage 2 4: Wiping/Transcending/Killing the BEING anything at all 5: There is still some Identity: I. But nothing specific at all, pretty empty. A pretty empty "Transparent" Witness. Can be quite nondual (One Mind/the whole visual field. One (but a not empty one), united with the nondual visual field. Many Psychedelic Experiences throw one here. Nondual, but not fully empty, Sense of transparent/pretty empty Self/Witness still well and alive. Roger Thisdell stage 3. 6: Wiping/Transcending/Killing the transparent Witness 7: One is No-Self. Nothing. Buuut: Identity with No-Self/Nothing, the perceiving or understanding of being Nothing. Still one arising/subtle identity/concept too much. A Portal to the Absolute. Awareness OF Emptiness. Awareness OF Being. Any Awarness OF is still not fully nondual. Even if Awareness OF Emptiness/Being/Infinite/whatever n+1 . Psychedelics can bring one here, if "one" gets already quite empty, but Individuality (very subtle/murky here) is still there. Roger Thisdells Stage 4: 8/9/10/11: Understanding and letting go even this last self-referential concept/thought/identity 12: Nothing. Pure Suchness. Infinite Consciousness so empty that there is not even a Watcher/Awarerer/Identity with No-Self. Final Enlightenment. Ultimate Reality itself. Only then, daily life is nondual, infinite, enlightened. And the bliss of ones True Being, NOTHINGNESS, flows freely. Really no separate self/individuality left. Only then one is really the whole Enchilada without any filters/lenses/localization of any separate self/individuality. The character keeps continuing doing its thing in ones True Self, Reality itself. The price of that: Any self-reflective awareness of being anything (separate) at all is transcended, and can be seen happening within oneself. Understood, and no longer believed, mostly just cut off (that Illusion again). And that is not even being the "No-Self Self" of Thisdells stage 4, or picture 7. To be fully everything in daily life (fully nondual) without any separation, one needs to be fully nothing at all. Totally empty. Any separate self, however subtle, fully gone. And the last remnants of Individuality or separate self can be very very subtle. Only that gets the permanent bliss and love flowing that has got its home in the Nondual True Self. "We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all. Kalu Rinpoche" Roger Thisdell Stage 5 And by the way, any just conceptual identity with anything (The THAT of I am THAT), That=anything, any CONCEPT. Body-Mind. Ego. World. Whatever. n+1), even with God/Reality/whatever, is picture 1 of the path in daily life. I AM THAT (That=God/Reality/whatever). Because it is normally not a nondual awakened state in daily life, but just some ideas taken away from a trip that got one to Nonduality. A hang-over of the trip, while being currently not at all in an awakened or nondual state. And hopefully it is at least this (a hang-over from a trip), and not just some pure conceptual trip without any change in states towards at least a bit awakening, and not just a pure head-trip. And actually a much worser starting place, because the lovely concept of being God blows up ones sense of self (THAT) tremendously. Neti Neti didn't get easier with making THAT bigger than it was before.... Pour encourager les autres.... Sorry Selling Water by the River

Solipsism and Infinity of Gods is what you end with when you have understood a lot about the manifestated side of Reality/Consciousness (infinite mere appearance hovering nondual in Nothingness), which you can (more or less easily) access via psychedelics. But one oneself is not normally fully Empty/Impersonal Consciousness then. Not full Impersonal Nothingness. Of course one then has to project the remnants of the Inviduality/feelings of being OF something on reality (I am God, sovereign, all of it, all of this God/Buddhafield/Universe/Dimension). Because, as per my last post, the separate self can't fully imagine not being there anymore. If it could, it would be gone right away/enlightened/wake up. Traditional Great Masters had to "generate" this Nonduality/Unity states (infinite mere appearance hovering nondual in Nothingness) via getting empty/impersonal/transcending the separate self. Believe me, that takes a looong time of getting pretty empty/transcending the separate self arisings as an optional show within oneself. So they understand the impersonal empty aspect of Nothingness/Consciousness BEFORE they understand the manifested side (nondual, infinite, mere appearance hovering in Nothingness) of Infinite Consciousness, because these states they only get when being fully empty and impersonal themselves. Pure Consciousness/Reality, nothing specific, no separate self left. Its some kind of "build-in-quality-control" of the classical meditation paths (Neti Neti): You only get to see the Infinite/mere appearance/nondual Nothingness-aspect of the manifestations of the visual field (any kind of field) when being fully empty/Nothingness. So what should one get to see in theory (and apparently in practice also) if one ends up after "seeing" the infinite manifestation of Infinite Consciousness/God while not fully being nothing/Nothingness/God-proper? Solipsism (1) (or the separate self remnants realizing its identity with THIS universe/Buddha-Field/all of it). And that is "true" in so far that there are psychedelic experiences that very much feel like that. But a partial truth, there is more to go, higher truths... Full Enlightenment/Deep Identity Change to full empty Nothingness. and pushing even further, see Video "Infinity of Gods (2)", OTHER Gods/Buddhafields. Or Infinity of Gods. Thats the utmost peak of that cul-de-sac, because: Oh no, there are OTHERS like "oneself". And an Infinity of them. An Infinity of Gods. Problem: Very Nondual and infinite and Oneness and being Ultimate Reality/Absolute indeed.... So, a (2) continuation of another partial truth (1). Not the end of the story, but something that can happen, depending on the path up the mountain. A direct experience, that needs to be unpacked and interpreted. And the final truth is: Full Enlightenment/Deep Identity Change to full empty Nothingness. No other. One without a second. And: Nothing further. The understanding that one fooled oneself in ingenious ways (like, the whole show, a rabbit hole infinitely deep...) , and the complexity how one fools oneself, comes included with Enlightenment (by definition). Its all appearance within oneself, all illusion. What would be necessary now,at (1) or (2), would be to fully die/transcend ones separate self-arisings, becoming fully impersonal and nothing/empty, realizing ones Deep Identity with Nothingness/Absolute Reality. And then one throws out (better: transcends, or spots fast enough while it arises in oneself and just cuts it off, automated-style) each and every subtle concept/feeling of oneself and of the Absolute/Reality, for the Absolute CONTAINS them all, but is NONE of them. The Absolute/Nothingness can only be described in negative language, of what it is not. In-finite. Not finite. Not measurable, not defineable. Reality itself. But for that, one needs normally a lot of time in these empty and impersonal states (if ones name is not Ramana, one probably does). So how much 5 MeO can a human take, and how empty of any form of separate self are these states really? The tried and true technique is and ever has been meditation, or transcending/dying of each and every arising of the separate-self (transcending, or spotting fast enough while it arises in oneself and just cuts it off, automated-style), delivering as much time in these empty impersonal states, the Portals of the Absolute, see one of my last posts, as necessary. By the way, I am in no way against psychedelics. Psychedelics plus meditation. So psychedelics alone remains a dangerous path with potential for ego/separate self-inflation, instead of full ego/separate-self transcedence/death, until spiritual culture fully gets to grips with these quite new phenomena of highly efficient psychedelics like 5 MeO and so on. But the psychedelic path is here, and it won't go away. We will see its challenges, disfunctions and trainwrecks, its sweetness for the ego to hijack it for narcicissm/solipsism/hybris and ego inflation, being explored first time in scale in broad daylight here in this forum. Probably until the end of our days. But also the vast potential of this path. Let's see if the dark side or the light side of the force prevails. I don't know, let's see. Probably a mix of both. In the longterm, the light side of the force prevails as always, simply because the Kosmos wants to grow in evolution/complexity/awakening to itself, but until then if history shows anything any misuse and f***up possible will be fully expored and savored by humanity. Until it finally gets it right. So: Show must go on. And I am waiting and looking forward very much for the first ever fully empty/impersonal/fully enlightened Alienmind walking here on earth on two legs, thinking and understanding the Kosmos/Reality in non-linear ways like never seen before in simple non-psychedelic-boosted human mind-streams. The content and aspects of that post is more elaborated in my previous posts. Selling Water by the River

Yes, agree. Please allow me some further musings (not specifically adressed to your post, just some general ramblings).... Others don't exist. Yes. But at the same time, "oneself"/separate self also does not exist. Exist=Ex-ist, or literally: standing out from Reality. Practically: really doesn't exist. Just an illusion. Has the same level of reality/existence as the tree "one" watches: an arising illusion. In reality, when the separate self illusion no longer arises, the tree is watching itself, perceptions perceiving themselves. And practically speaking: If one gets rid of the fake illusory separate-self, the problem of "others" is also solved: Non Dual. No others. Not Two. But also not one.... Because one doesn't make sense without two. Reality itself. Is not one. Is not two. Is infinite. And that Reality is fully empty, fully impersonal, perceptions perceiving themselves. If one gets rid of others first before getting rid/transcending ones separate self, one gets the solipsism-narcissm show. And nothing with real Nonduality, not two, but just a ego-show of the highest degree. Neti Neti. The deep structure of EVERY spiritual path. Before becoming everything, one has to become nothing. Nothingness. Because if one doesn't, one isn't fully empty/Nothingness, which is the essence of every appearance. Path (1) is hard, its transcending/letting go/death and dying of the separate self. Path (2) seems easy (just change some concepts/thinking, et voila), but backfires at the end. It just doesn't work, suffering continues. So if one is not fully empty/impersonal/fully Nothingness (goal path 1), only thing left to do (path 2) to is to project this more (like an empty witness) or less (like the fully narcicisstic ego-separate-self-grandiosity-show) onto a more or less nondual field. True nonduality is being fully empty/impersonal. Its very easy to get a nondual experience merging with the visual field while not being empty, still being a separate self with individuality: Just drop some Psychedelics.... Nondual is not enlightened (or fully imperpersonal Nothingness being Everything, or Reality itself). But Nonduality is a prerequisite of realizing true Nonduality, or the fully empty impersonal Enlightenment/Nonduality, realizing ones Identity as Reality itself. Empty, Impersonal Nothingness, or Pure Empty Impersonal Infinite Consciousness. The essence of all arisings, Infinite Reality itself, the Absolute. Thou shalt not be able to see my face; for no man shall see my face, and live. - Exodus 33:20 Selling Water by the River

@davecraw Do you have evidence that anything is real and not imaginary? It is all shapes and colors and feelings in your experience but what is the real substance of all of this, what is the real context behind all of this? nonduality has some profound philosophy behind it but in the end, it all boils down to direct experience. If you want to "go back in time" for example, you don't change the date, that would be silly, what you do is start imagining everything in the past. if you want to go back to Egypt in 5000 BC, you don't invent the time machine that takes you there, you change your experience from this one in the 21st century to that one in Egypt, and Tada, you are there. You see, the past doesn't really exist, what exists are things that happen in your direct experience at this eternal moment. Every second passes and you are still there, here and now, just things change nothing more. All there is, is now, not the past, not the future, it is now only. Nah, this post was not created in the past, it is created here now as long as I am able to see it, and what I also see is the information that tells me that it happened in the "past", but it happening here in front of my eyes, once I take my eyes off it, it stops existing. I am the one who is generating the post and you. But Obviously, Reality is made in such a way that is consequential and connected and "real" that it makes you believe that the past is really there and you are just a small part of this materialistic universe.

Very interesting collection of quotes. He is definitely smart enough to understand the difference between Solipsism and real Nonduality. But I don't think the dark move you describe happenened. He doesn't need to do that just for his brand. If he wanted money & fame & validation & attention & whatever, he would probably just start the mother of all cults. Smart enough he is.... I believe something else happened here: Many trips, and fully being this Imagined Universe/Multiverse, which he then called God. What I would call Buddhafield with a Buddha/Manager/God of that Reality/whatever you want to call it. Something has to run and be this show. In mystical experiences and/or trips you can become that God. Merge with it, or become it as Identity (Wilbers high subtle and low causal levels). Still not the end of the story. Because: What is the essence of that Buddha/Manager/God of that Reality/whatever you want to call it? Nothingness. And during these trips, it became clear for him that he actually was that. The Reality of that Multiverse/Buddhafield, already a nondual merging with all of that. Sovereign. But not fully empty. So far, so good. Not fully Empty Impersonal Consciousness/Nothingness. Wilbers High Causal, Nothingness. The Gateless Gate and Gate-Keeper, after which real Nondual Enlightenment waits.... Steven Wolinsky writes of something very similiar (see below). Funny thing is: His trips have shown him 95%+ of the properties of Reality, and more or less fully shown him how this God/Buddhafield/Void Universe works, merging with it in a nondual way. And realizing that being that was more true to his true core than the everday waking character. But not realizing the Abyss of the Absolute, not the totally empty Nothingness. He thinks he has it, but if one is still aware of an "it", ... But there is/was still a very subtle "he" perceiving "that" or "being" that left. Then he doubted that to be final, doubted everything, and tried to reach out for "something" beyond (see his Video "Infinity of Gods". And he says in the Infinity of Gods video then "conincidentally" at exactly that moment another God/Buddhfield/Multiverse/rReality reached out (by free will) to touch him as God/Buddhafield. Thus maintaining the sovereignity of both him as God/Void Universe, and the other God/Void Universe. Then he postulated an Infinity of other Gods or Buddhafields, just like "him". Basically, he had to deviate from classic Nondual/Infinite teachings, invent the Infnity of Gods theory, to make place for his experience that there was still another God/Void Universe reaching out to him. All of wich exists, but all of which is still form, identity, ... . Not the absolute Abyss of fully Empty Impersonal Nothingness/Consciousness, or the essence of Reality itself.... and of course, it doesn't really make sense to talk of oneself as the God/Void-Universe running/being this dimension. Even if one is that (because one is all), its too risky to talk like that and make onself confuse or inflate ones separate self/perspective with that larger more encompassing perspective/being (a larger Holon, the Void Universe Buddhafield God Holon containing all lower perspectives/Holons within it), or cause that to happen at others. But that is another topic... That seems to be more or less the end of the road where you can go to with Psychedelics with the separate self not fully gone, but 95%+ gone. An awareness of emptiness, of God, of the Infinity of Gods/Buddhafields/sovereign Manifestations, even an Identity with it. And having ones fellow God-buddies reach out to oneself (Infinity of Gods). With a little bit of confusing the properties of that Buddhafield-God, like sovereignity, and projecting that on himself. But all in all still an awareness OF something. and By something, BEING something..... the very last remnants of a nearly totally empty Individuality/Identity aware of ... [something], whatever that is at the moment. Awakening n+1. At least while tripping. Not fully empty, not fully impersonal, neither while tripping, and definitely not after the trip. But proclaiming that this not empty identity is a higher Awakening than the full empty impersonal Enlightenment to fully empty impersonal consciousness/Nothingness, and then truly being everything. Including the Infinity of Gods, the infinity of other Void-Universes-Manifestation-Dimensions. If he would look deeply into the emptiness (or mere appearance) of all that he experienced during these trips, all his assumptions/concepts/pet theories, all his last remaining last Individuality-arisings, and let of them die, truly die, truly transcend them, disidentitfy, let go.... we could get to see an Enligthenment to true Nothingness, a final waking up to his True Being, being so empty that it can fully hold and be everything, also while not tripping. That would be the end of his grasping for ever new insights, understandings and Awakenings n+1. It would also be an end to him as separate self. I doubt that can be done using mainly/only psychedelics, because of the time one needs in these empty states to truly get rid of every last separate-self arising/and last Identity/any awareness "of" something, without frying ones brains. But I could be wrong on that, I don't know. Lets see if Karma holds that for him Enlightenment on his path. At least from my side he has the best wishes to bask in the final liberation and bliss that that brings. And with that step, he would integrate his teachings with the collected experience of humanity on Enlightenment and waking up, and even push the knowledge into the manifested nature of the Multiverse, or into knowledge about form/manifestation, further. Knowledge of the Absolute (Emptiness/Nothingness) always is the same, at all times, forever. Doesn't change, and can only be realized by being it, letting any cloud darkening the Sun of ones ever burning Primordial Being finally evaporate. Water by the River The quotes from Steven Wolinsky, The Way of the Human Part 3 "In 1995, what “this” was became clear enough for “me” to describe because, for the first time, “I” could “see” that this was beyond the VOID—and, more importantly, there was not one VOID but an infinite number of VOID universes. In other words, the VOID appears to go on forever. However, it does have an end, and when the end is reached, the NAMELESS ABSOLUTE is revealed. To best illustrate this, imagine, you are in an oil well (VOID) in the middle of the Sahara desert. While you are in this oil well (VOID), you have all the experiences contained within that particular oil well universe. From inside the oil well universe (the VOID) an infinite number of experiences exist which are true and specific to and within that particular VOID (oil well) universe only. But when or if “you” were to expand and reach the top of the well and climb out, you would be in the desert (the NAMELESS ABSOLUTE) and “you” could “view” an infinite number of VOID universes (many, many oil wells) which in Quantum Physics could be likened to parallel universes. In India, beyond the WITNESS and the VOID OF UN-DIFFERENTIATED CONSCIOUSNESS lies the SUPREME WITNESS which Quantum Psychology calls the NAMELESS ABSOLUTE. Now, within “our” VOID universe are the concepts of energy, electromagnetics, gravity, space, mass, time, distance, location, God, enlightenment, One Substance, quantum physics, Archetypes, paths, religions, etc., etc., etc., etc. But these are true only within our one particular VOID universe—they may or may not make any “sense” within other VOID universes. It can be said, then, that the SUPREME WITNESS is beyond the infinite number of VOID universes. The most powerful Archetype in “this,” “our” VOID universe, is the collective concept of GOD. The concept of God and a seeker after God or truth are Archetypes of such magnitude that it impacts practically everyone in the world. Most religions are based on an omnipresent God who somehow rules the universe." and " The “space” between the VOID universes (VOIDs) is the NAMELESS ABSOLUTE. For descriptive terms only, this is the difference between SELF-REALIZATION and GOD-REALIZATION. The realization of “NOT-I-I,” the VOID OF UNDIFFERENTIATED CONSCIOUSNESS is SELF REALIZATION. GOD REALIZATION is BEYOND SELF REALIZATION and the VOID OF UNDIFFERENTIATED CONSCIOUSNESS. It is the NAMELESS ABSOLUTE and it is the NAMELESS ABSOLUTE which erases all other dimensions including the VOID. In the NAMELESS ABSOLUTE, even the VOID must be gone beyond. " Only problem with the last paragraph is the definition of the wording. Leos God-Realization corresponds to Wolinskys Self-Realization, and Wolinskis God-Realization is the Realization of the Absolute. PSPS: Yesterday, pretty much by conincidence I drove by and visisted the ruins of Monastery Disibodenberg, where female mystic Hildegard von Bingen lived and worked in the 12th century. I didn't know she was living there when deciding to visit the place. A marvelous atmosphere of a large monastery in ruins, in a forest on top of a mountain, where Hildegard lived and worked. The rays of the Divinity running this Reality/Universe found their ways at all times, all places. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kloster_Disibodenberg https://www.google.com/search?q=monastery+disibodenberg&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiE3qSH0f_-AhUIn6QKHQHpBHIQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1745&bih=845&dpr=1.1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen

@Razard86 hmm Yeah I kinda get something what you say if you look at infinity screen but I need to experience nonduality Hope it will not shock me

For the love of God. Solipsism does not equal nonduality. There is no “you” to be alone.

Yes. Nice that you write this post. Very true. >"Solipsism, yes. But from the point of view of God (which is not a point of view, obviously, but using that word as a means to understand ourselves). Not from the point of view of the ego [separate self]." Not from the point of view of the ego/separate self! And Solipsism from "the view" of the One without a second, or Absolute Reality/Infinite Consciousness/Suchness/Reality itself doesn't even really need to be mentioned. Because there literally is nothing else, like in "never could be". So it doesn't really make sense talking about it. To whom? "Others"? The consciousness of the mind-stream of other beings can be directly intuited/felt/realized to be ones own empty consciousness at certain levels of Awakening. But Impersonal, Totally Empty Concsiousness. It "wouldn't work" any different way, it has to be empty. Technically speaking, "IT" would not be compatible to fit into the perspective/mind-stream/consciousness of another being/perspective if it weren't totally empty. Just Awareness, AWARE, and nothing else. Empty. Impersonal. How could a consciousness with "my" personal properties "fit" into the mindstream of another being. It couldn't. Therefor, Nothingness, totally Empty Impersonal Consciousness, with another mindstream (feelings/thoughts/subtle feelings of being/separateness/....), structurally exactly the same as ones own mindstream, with the same essence - Nothingness. Which is also the same essence of very appearance of the visual field also. All of that can be directly realized. With certain levels of Awakening, one can directly intuit that the separate-self illusion arisings (I-thoughts, I-feelings) in the mindstream of other beings has exactly the same structure than ones own mindstream (and its I-thoughts, I-feelings). One doesn't read the content of thoughts (some do), but directly intuits their structure/process, in the exactly same impersonal consciousness than the essence of ones own mindstream. And that essence of Nothingness/Impersonal Consciousness is also the same essence of EVERY appearance of the world in the visual field. Also, a direct experience in Awakenings, and something that gets constant in Enlightenment (to paraphrase for example the Mahamudra-system): "Crossing Over to Enlightenment happens when every thought/concept/feeling ("internal" arising) and every appearance (world/visual field form) is seen as empty-thought-concept and empty-appearance arisings in Infinite Awareness-Space". And that is what one is: IMPERSONAL Empty Consciousness. Or better "Nothingness", to make sure that nothing is projected onto it, or that its not fully empty. It is literally Nothing, but with the capacity for sentience. And even that isn't always active, see Deep-Sleep. Definitely, it doesn't include separate-self arisings/confusion/illusion arisings "on top". That is "the screen", and its capacity for sentience/awareness/consciousness. To make it specific: Talking about Solipsism could only make sense from totally empty impersonal Consciousness or Nothingness. And then it is not necessary! (Because it invites more mis-understandings than the clarity it delivers). Talking about Solipsism from any ego/separate self perspective doesn't make sense. And if you are at that empty level of infinite (!) impersonal Consciousness/Nothingness, one without a second, it is redundant and totally unnecessary to talk even about Solipsism. >As long as there is an identification process, there is delusion Yes, exactly. And any form of Solipsism applied to the level of the delusion/relative/ego/separate-self level only can increase narcissm or (separate-)self-grandiosity, which is the No.1 building block of the separate self, the most seductive one, the most dangerous delusion mechanism of Maya. One of the very last things to go. (And then one can guess what makes Solipsism so attractive for egos/separate selfs? Well, one can go ahead confusing the little separate self/ego with the full glory of God/Kosmos/Reality, and feel veeeery important, and boast around with absolute claims.) That (the danger described above, and other dangers) is why by the way in Tibetan Buddhism (and practically all spiritual traditions) Realized Ones normally NEVER speak about their attainments, and at least tend to downplay them, state them smaller, because that tends to boost ones self-importance. And that is not good, neither before or after Enlightenment. Brings bad Karma, not as happy-as-can-be-life. And the same holds also for the not-realized or not stable realized ones. Not publicly announcing ones realization has got other negative effects (like not much examples, or making it appeat to be nearly impossible to reach), but saves oneself (and others) in being more on the "humble side") from the burden of self-importance/self-grandiosity. So its a balance, see one of my last posts with the Video of Ken Wilber. And second factor: Even if you know Absolute Reality and are enlightened, that does in no way mean that ones relative life automatically already expresses the potential that this realization opens up in terms of compassion, ethical living, and embodying the truth. It provides the potential to do so, and also tends to unfold this way. But it is not assured. Ken Wilbers "Wake Up, Grow Up, Show Up". Over the long-term, when Enlightenment becomes more common, only the "Wake Up, Grow Up, Show Up" stable and mature versions of it will find group-approval/consensus. Because only that version of it is "cool", the other versions are "less than cool", or "pretty uncool". And if with Solipsism one can boost the importance/self-importance/grandiosity to hilarious proportions, confusing ego/separate self with Reality/God, and claiming stuff that is just not appropriate to be claimed for any separate self/any perspective in the Great Net of Indra/Reality/any being, but only for God proper (Nothingness, Impersonal totally empty Infinite Consciousness), well, then one has exchanged the former separate self with a new vastly-blown-up"God"-ego-separate-self, an ego/separate self blown up to cosmic dimensions and self-importance. And then good luck transcending that, and the suffering that goes along necessarily as with any separate-self identity. The big big risk that at least yours truly can see on this forum: Exactly that tends (not at every case, depends probably on the baseline-"blessing"/Karma of narcissm and self-grandiosity already in place) to happen with frequent usage of Psychedelics. 95% of the properties of Infinite Reality get revealed (the relative side, like ones identity with the whole universe (this Infinite Void-Universe, Buddha-Field, or "God" if you are so inclinded to call it that way), but not the fully empty/impersonal Absolute side of it, Absolute Impersonal Emptiness or Nothingness/Abyss that can never be seen. (And by the way, as Steven Wolinsky for example writes based on his Awakenings/visions, there are and infinite Number of Infinite Other Void-Universes/Buddha-Fields just like ours, each with a God/Buddha at its center running the "show", while being it. And none of that is the Absolute, its all relative stuff, manifestation. Not the absolute empty Abyss of Nothingness.... I remember a video somebody once maid about an "Infinity of Gods", sovereign just like oneself.... "). At least not completely, because the Psychedelics don't kill the last remnants/rest of the last subtle separate-self arisings (mainly "Individuality", or a very subtle hard to spot feeling of still being there as anything at all, or an Awareness "of" Emptiness/Nothingness/Nonduality/whatever. Still an Awarness "of"...). And, to make it even more seductive or dangerous: One is not aware what this last "individuality", or "Awareness of ..." is, or that that is still happy and busy and active, destroying ones crossing over to Complete Realization, making one still suffer. If one would understand these last remnancts of Illusion, of "Individuality", one would instantly wake up and stay that way. Knowing what one really is. If Realization of ones Identity with the Absolute Infinite Reality/Nothingness ends after the trip, maybe there was still something active blocking the full Realization throughout? Little remark, included after a waaay to long rambling: If somebody has truly read until here, and thinks all of this post is all BS, please quote the number 147, to show that one has actually read most of that dry and boring musings of yours truly until here... ( : . Thank you, very kind. Well, nothing of what I have written will proove anything for those persons having fallen heavily for that trap. especially those who do it just by thinking and watching videos, and boosting their narcissm already with that tremendously, and didn't even walk the Psychedelic path properly, but are parotting concepts & dogma from someone else. In my humble opinion, it doesn't speak for the forum that such an ego-show can happen without more highlighting these obvious mistakes. So for the "all is understood by watching the vids, but never did a trip"-fraction: Maybe consider taking one of the harder psychedelics like 5-MeO, have most/95%+ of your ego/separate self handed on a platter to you, and then come back with maybe a little bit more existential humility and awe in the face of Infinite Consciousness/Reality, and the way it can easily kill 95% of you with a little chemical and smile while doing so. Luckily, normally their tone of writing, loaded with self-grandiosity, narcissm, and writing style that generally is not "so filled" with bliss/love/compassion as one would normally expect of Divinity/Absolute/God-Realization, showing for every reader with at least some form of working spiritual compass in the heart, that their suffering probably has not ended, and they are peddling conceptual ideas and not actual realization. and if they "camouflage" their writings a bit more towards the "humble and loving/compassion side", at least it gets more pleasant and softer to read And as always, Bon Vovage for "everybody"! Selling Water by the River

Amazing description and visualization of what a full 5-MEO experience is like.

Nah, he should make a movie or some badass art through some engine to explain nonduality.

@giglio https://www.actualized.org/insights/nonduality-and-idealism-is-not-god-realization

@Carl-Richard Looks like you created a meta-duality, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! Meta-duality > nonduality (apparently God can create new terms out of pure imagination)

Mmmmm... aint nothing more entertaining than waging an online nonduality war against your imaginary dream characters, right? No offense man, but maybe it would a good idea for you to take a little break from this site and move on to www.get-a-life.com. Just a thought.

Agree, important point. Since I am quoting already a lot today, I hope you don't mind me hijacking your comment, and quoting some passages from "Pointing Out the Great Way, Brown" again. Maybe that is interesting for some.... Bold markings and [...] by yours truly. THE OUTCOME: THE NATURE OF ENLIGHTENMENT Contrary to the slow ripening of meditative experience throughout the preliminary and essential stages of meditation, and even the gradual ripening of awakened wisdom [Awakened Awareness] during extraordinary meditation, crossing over to enlightenment is an immediate and compelling event, wherein the mental continuum undergoes a series of fundamental and enduring reorganizations. One implication of the term nonmeditation is that the "journey ends." There are no more stages. Pema Karpo says,The journey ends. Going by stages stops. There are no stages that go anywhere else. You find the perfection of everything that came before, without stages. (PK, f. rib) There are no stages (sa med) beyond this point ... a. Basis Enlightenment The first enlightenment moment is sometimes called samadhi-enlightenment (mnyam bzhag) because it typically occurs during continuous, uninterrupted mindfulness. When the conditions of the extraordinary meditation are exactly right, crossing over occurs. A profound shift occurs during which seemingly individual consciousness, and all ordinary sense experience and all false concepts associated with it, drop away. The vast awareness-space of the dharmakaya becomes the point of observation. Seemingly individual consciousness (yid), the point of observation throughout the entire path of meditation, is now found to be a mere concept (btags pa), which drops away. Basis-enlightenment is said to be "beyond all notions," "beyond examination," "beyond representation," and "beyond false concepts" (TN, pp. 5 19-20). Tilopa says: When the mind comes to an end, The three realms become absorbed therein.... Through the nonduality of self and other you become the blessed Buddha. The mind becomes absorbed through the force of the ripening perspective of [vast awareness-] space. Then, the five sense systems and their objects, the aggregates, and the elements also dissolve in the perspective of space. The seeming reality of individual consciousness along with its functions and activities gives way, leaving only an infinite ocean of awareness-space. Basis enlightenment leads to a very "new view of the way the realized mind stays" (TN, p. 5 17). When the concept of individual consciousness or "mind" is finally eradicated, a profound rearrangement takes place. Awakened wisdom[Awakened Awareness] now comes forth unobstructed, no longer as a brief glimpse or flash but as that which saturates all experience. It has no real support (brten), yet serves as the ground or basis for all experience. Therefore the first moment of enlightenment is called basis enlightenment. During the ordinary special-insight meditations the practitioner searched for certain knowledge within arising events of the ordinary mental continuum. During the extraordinary samadhi meditations the practitioner located the simultaneous mind as the source of certain knowledge. Now, with basis enlightenment, knowledge takes on a new epistemological locus of knowledge. Awakened wisdom comes forth but not in association with either the ordinary or the simultaneous mind. Awakened wisdom [Awakened Awareness]has no basis. It is without coming Ong med) and without going ('song med), in that it does not arise from the seeming activity of the relative mental continuum. Awakened wisdom [Awakened Awareness] is self-originated (rang 'byung). It is simply there, and with basis enlightenment, stays there. Basis enlightenment is called, "wisdom beyond the world" (TN, p. 542)." So also according to Mahamudra/Tibetan Buddhism, the Deep Identity Level Shift of Basis Enlightenment/Great Enlightenment is sudden (contrary to the slowly ripening of Awakened Awareness before), self-evident, and there is no stage beyond it. Awake or not. Other Traditions call the shifts that happen before that event "Awakenings", some even Enlightenments. But qualified Enlightenments, "smaller" Enlightenments, partial gradual "awakenings" refining the mindstream to make it conform to the Big Shift, awake or not. Its a question of choosing the words. But they tend to differentiate clearly between the final thing/Great Enlightenment/Waking Up, and the events before. I agree with Inliytened1 that if we call this Great Enlightenment/Basis Enlightenment/ Waking Up, that one is either awake or not. Digital, either or. Before being awake, one can maybe postulate there are gradual changes/"Awakenings", preparing for the final big shift (called crossing over to Enlightenment, or Basis Enlightenment in Mahamudra). Or waking up, like in awake or not. If one knows or has realized what one truly deeply is, one knows what one is, and also what everything else is and only can ever be. Awake or not. If one is not sure, one is still asleep/dreaming. Awakening n+1 ain't it.... Selling Water by the River

No, that dream just happened. I didn't contemplate about that too much. Sure I did contemplate the topic, but I never had real problems with that. A bit yes, but not too much. Maybe because when that contemplation of "other" became a real existential topic, I was already practicing (and concentrated on) staying in boundless changeless limitless Awakened Awareness (infinite, nondual, mere appearance). When you are in that state, it doesn't freak you out that "others" don't really exist, but one can directly intuit that the same Impersonal Consciousness that Oneself and Reality really is, is also the substratum/essence (Nothingness/Consciousness) of their mindstream. You can intuit/feel their Illusion-arisings of I-feelings/I-thoughts of being something specific as being exactly(!) the same as the illusion arisings in ones own mindstream. The exact same mechanism how "others" fall for the illusion, as oneself does and did. Once one knows the structure/pattern/gestalt/essence of ones own Illusion separate self arisings, one sees them in "others", or other perspectives of the same consciousness. That doesn't cause shock, but limitless empathy. It is You (not the separate self, but the real you, Impersonal Consciousness, totally empty), litereally You looking through all eyes. That is the core and source of all empathy, but now without any filters and flowing freely, directly intuiting und knowing that it is You looking through all eyes. Then, where should the shock come from? All beings are children of the Real You, Impersonal Empty Consciousness (not a of separate self blown up to God-like proportions). Including what one formerly thought was "oneself". Only the separate self arisings/gestalt need "others" for love, validation, belongingness, self-esteem, the whole Maslow-Pyramid stage 1-4 up and down is made out of that. Couldn't be different to get a society going & surviving. Impersonal Consciousness and the bliss flowing from it doesn't need it. So it could make sense to transcend all of that already to a large degree before entering the terrain where there is no "other". The gentlemen who wrote "Enlightenment: Behind The Scenes, Leavitt" describes his final Enlightenment experience when he directly realized that he IS his daugther. Literally the same consciousness. Not as metaphor, but literally. Didn't cause a shock, but infinite love. Disclaimer (not written for you Breakingthewall): All of the above is only valid when one speaks from an Identity and mindstream of Impersonal Empty Consciousness, not from the perspective of a psychedelic boosted separate self (or even worse, not even having the psychedelic experience and just playing playing mind-games having watched some videos), blowing itself up to God-like dimensions and playing God. The entrance price for all of that is literally the transcendence/death of large or most parts of the separate self, and the final price is its complete demise/complete transcendence (transcendence of the separate self part, and then include the remaining functional character. Transcend and integrate, not transcend and disassociate, see Ken Wilber). Death/Transcendence not of the functional character/Ego, but of the separate self arisings. The main indicator for the separate self still being well, alive and active is narcissm, or self-grandiosity and self-importance. Preferably in the form of preaching from upon high. On the other side, that is not even a bad thing, because then every newbie with at least some intuition, common sense, and a not too narcisstic karma can spot that from a mile away. Instead of transcending/slowly annihilating the separate self, one boosts it up to God-like dimensions with doing that. Good luck ever transcending that! Doing something like that can destroy ones life. There have been cases like that, final station mental asylum or next life, or in the "best case" just a miserable unintegrated life full of suffering- end of disclaimer - I don't know if that view/frame helps. Maybe it is a nice exercise to feel deeply into the essence/consciousness of what you are, and then deeply into the consciousness/sentience of "another"? Its the same Nothingness/Consciousness. One can directly experience that (if oneself is completely empty, just pure impersonal consciousness). It is not philosophy or a nice idea, but a direct experience. But one has to be completely empty. The own lense of perception has to be completely empty of separate self arisings (=high speed cut off of any of these arisings before they grip/hypnotize oneself and elaborate fully, Trekchö-style. Needs familiarity, training and high-speed of attention/spotting, aka the goal of meditation. Please see my last decription-posting of the Pointing out the Great Way Mahamudra system, link below), only then one can intuit that. A colored lense with stains will not let that intuition/understanding pass. As second step, one can feel that essence of every appearance of the visual field as Nothingness, hovering as mere appearance in infinite Nothingness, at a certain point of practice Which is necessary at some point, because as Daniel Brown said: One can not understand the Totality/Wholeness from a partialized stance. Nonduality has to be there before that understanding. One has to literally become all phenomena appearing in the Infinite Boundless Changeless Awakened Awareness field (that is Nonduality), and then see what all of that is and who or what is aware of that. Then, at the end of the Road, Infinite Consciousness/Nothingness IS everything: Your Mindstream, the mindstream of others, the appearance of the world in the visual field, every though/feeling. Infinite, boundless, limitless, nondual all there ever could be. Everything that could ever appear appears in that, made out of that suchness/Nothingness/Consiousness as its essence. Then, one experiences/becomes/is... Home/safe/Indestructable/eternal: And that actually is not shocking. But if feels like one is at home, now and always, wherever you go in relative reality. No Fear: Somewhere in the Upanishads it says "Where there is other there is fear". If there is only oneself, which is indestructable (no moving parts, just Nothingness that can't disappear), there is no fear. Infinite Love: The recognition that there is no other in the whole kosmos, but only the suchness of ones being, bound together in a infinite nondual field of love Infinite Freedom: When the bliss/love of your own indestructable infinite true being flows, what could you ever want that you don't get, or ever be taken away from you? Total freedom. Then we have Eternal/Indestructable, Fearless, Love, and infinite Freedom. But before one gets there, the illusion-mechanism/Maya/Lila had to place some strong "illusion-protection-mechanisms" in front of these properties of the enlightened mindstream, because if it wouldn't scare the separates selves, who in his right mind wouldn't attach his own mindstream to these properties of the enlightened mindstream. And the strongest one is probably the need for "other" or "others", Maslow stage 1-4. Somehow I mostly fail to write short posts. Maybe I need to go to a training "Concise writing for Dummies" who went off the deep end of Emptiness... Selling Water by the River

When I say in subtle ways, he basically uses NLP-type techniques to induce weakminded people to kill themselves. This is entirely different than standard nonduality explanations as those of Rupert Spira, and I KNOW you are smart enough to know better than this false equivalency. "You are not born and you never die" with a long explication of how consciousness relates to perceived "reality" is VERY different than "God is death and we are already dead." Those words are chosen for MAXIMUM NEGATIVE IMPACT on the psyche of the weakminded. And the evidence for my assertion is that IT WORKS. People have killed themselves after following Leo. I haven't heard of any of Spira's followers offing themselves. Of course there's a lot of apologetics and denial around this, but you judge the words by their emotional impact, not by the many possibilities of meaning you can twist them into with labored justifications.

I think Nonduality is spreading like a wildfire through society. As evidence: Ralph Wiggum "Everything is Nothing".

Hi Ayham, I remember that very well. Facing everything the separate-self can throw at you head on.... And it can throw a lot... Maya is not letting one off the hook easily... The Game-Changer for me was the book "Pointing Out the Great Way, Daniel Brown". At least for me personally, 95% of the meditation system out there would have never worked for me. They would have been too unpleasant, or needing more much willpower. Or I would have get stuck in the several traps there are, where ones practice can "bottom out", and lead nowhere.... So I can not highly enough express my gratitude for the heroic pioneering effort of Daniel Brown translating all these books, and getting the (in my opinion) most sophisticated meditation system of the planet to the West. It has been practiced and refined for hundreds of years, developed further, elaborated in hundreds of Tibetan Books, producing a steady stream if deeply enlightened beings. It achieves a precision of technical vocabulary in the stage decriptions of evolving meditation, meditation experiences, resulting understandings and insights about ones mindstream and Reality emerging at different stages like nothing I have ever seen, and I studied more or less all major meditation systems, reading a few hundreds of books. The book is several hundreds of pages. It lead to me awe and deep respect of the Mahamudra-System when realizing at certain stages that I just had experienced the exact same flow of meditation experiences and understandings/insights than Tibetan meditators hundreds of years ago. Of course I can't summarize a few hundred pages of the book with the musings below. But I try to give a first taste of the system, with some personal experiences with it, and how it all developed for me, just to show off how great and oh so wonderful I am . No, just kidding... Because I would have loved to have had something like a"user experience" with certain meditation systems like that 15 years ago, to get a feeling for a certain path, and the experiences others are having with it. Concentrative Meditation: I would recommend starting with concentrative meditation, the Elephant Path (all Tibetan schools use it). There are several stages of concentrative meditation that must be mastered, and tools learned doing it. They are very well described in Pointing out the Great Way, and "The Elephant Path: Attention Development and Training in Children and Adolescents", in the chapter of Daniel Brown. Here is explicitely stated what one learnes while learning concentrative meditation. By the way, that system is in my humble oinion more sophisticated than Zen or Vipassana, because it includes techniques like easing up and intensifying. That is essential for making it efficient, and these techniques are just not there in Vipassana and Zen. These aspects (easing up and intensifying) one learns there by conincidence, or not at all. In the beginning, you don't stay long on the meditation object (breath, stone, candle, not so important), but just catch yourself when you have wandered off, your monkey mind taking you on a ride and elaborating something else. Now: Don't put negative reaction/feedback on that, but move attention/focus back. You can only control focus/attention, you can't force what thoughts emerge. So meditation is always moving attention back from wandering off, and the more you do that, the more pliant the mind becomes: Less wandering off, and if wandered off much faster to move it back. And when that goes quite well with a little bit less wandering off or loosing attention. Then, when its more automatic, you "ease up", which means you use less energy and focus, and see if you can stay on the object. If yes, good: Ease Up. Easing Up brings more clarity to what else goes on in the mindstream. Which lets you notice more of the subtler arisings of the mindstream emerging. When you drift off more than, then intensify: Inhale strongly, increase focus, energize. And see then if you stay more on the object. If you do, ease up. Find the optimum energy balance you need to stay on the object. One balances easing up and intensifying then.... Then your clarity will increase, your energy will become nice, joy can start to arise. And then you do that for a few months, a year.... Meditation Experiences of Clarity, Lucidity, Bliss and Non-conceptuality (silent mind) can occur, but also go again. They are just experiences passing in you. This way, you train your focus and make your mind pliant. When you can stay on the objects for a few minutes without totally getting lost in elaborated thoughts, and keep some focus on the object while wandering off in thought a bit, you have partial staying.... at some point you have pretty good staying on the object for a few minutes. Meditation without an object: Then comes a big change, that you can start doing then: Change to the Mindstream of thoughts itself as meditation object. And try to stay mindful of the mind watching that mindstream. If you can keep doing that (which takes a long time), you can start taking the meditation into daily life. Investigating the Nature of thoughts: See Pointing Out the Great Way for that. Thoughts are no different than consciousness, which is empty/nothing, yet has clarity/awareness, so its not a nothing at all. If you look into a thought, you don't find it, it disappears. Is cut off. One can never see or find a thought. Looking into a thought, an experience of un-findability arises. Empty, nothing specific. But with clear alert awareness of consciousness. Empty and aware. Nothingness, yet something that is not nothing. Nothingness. Emptiness. Consciousness. And more important: When really looking into the nature of a thought, it evaporates. Is cut off. Disappears. Reveals its nature of emptiness. With exactly that phenomenon is worked in the "Skill of Recognition", see below. Doesn't that effect appear as very useful to get thoughts and the mindstream under control? Of course! That effect of the thought evaporating, revealing its nature as Nothingness/Consciousness when looking into it, and generalizing that oberservation and understanding on the whole mindstream and all events it contains and can contain. That is understanding the continuum of the mindstream. The nature of thoughts. You don't control the thoughts which arise, that is why you/the person is also empty, a concept. Because what are you, if you don't even control your thoughts, and what thoughts arise? After having mastered Concentrative meditation, and having understood (contemplation) the nature of thoughts as consciousness/awareness/emptiness/suchness/Nothingness, you can put that into practice: Skill of Recognition: (1. Yoga of Mahamudra system) Now it gets interesting. That was the decisivepoint for me once I understood that, and implemented it. Afterwards, it started to get nondual pretty soon... If you look HOW the thoughts emerge, (1) out of what they emerge, (2) what they are, (3) in what they move (4) into what they disappear ALL of that (1)(2)(3)(4) must be present. Thoughts DO appear. From "something". Stay in "something". Consisting of "something" All of that is Emptiness, or Consciousness, or Nothingness. Thoughts are made of "that","move in that", "dissolve into that". and you will never SEE that, or can say what it is. Nothing. But not a blank nothing. An aware Nothing. Actually the essence of all world-appearances, but that comes later, when it gets nondual, at the Yoga of One Taste. What happens if you investigate into emerging thoughts this way, is that they get FASTER. VERY FAST. Like 20-30 emergent thoughts/feeling arisings per second, most of them rudimentary. The mind does this to keep the illusion going. To make it too fast for you. But at some point, you learned to get that fast also... Basically, looking into a thought, one sees its Emptiness/Nothingness (one doesn't find the thought, it evaporates). It is cut off. Dzogchen calls this cutting off "Trekchö". Daniel Brown called this stage a "High Speed Search Task into the unfindability of the nature of thoughts". A High Speed Search task into their emptiness, into their nature as consciousness, as Nothingness. So the emerging gets fast, very fast. Daniel Ingram also mentions that. But at some point, with enough practice and familiarity, YOU get faster. You spot and cut off every very fast, subtle, fragmentary thought arising. None of them "grips" you anymore, since you have seen them all, and their structure. Just thoughts arising very fast. You don't control which thoughts arise. Depended origination, they are just emerging by themselves. You can focus on just their arising (of thoughts), just their staying, just their going away. At some point, they just emerge, looking into their nature is automatic, and they immediately dissolve. No duration. Just emergence, and poof gone. And when you are fast enough, you get a continuance of staying mindful. When that happens its pretty clear what happened. Your attention got so fast that you can stay mindful even through the high-speed thought emergence. At the end, they come very fast, they don't get "elaborated out". Thinking, or elaborating the thoughts out, is slower than their emergence. They emerge already fully complete with their content, and then slowly get "talked/elaborated" in your mind. Natural reaction: So WHO the f*** am I (pardon my french) when I don't control what thoughts emerge and if they appear fully with their content in a fraction of a second, and get elaborated later in a hypnotic show over several second? good question... to be answered later. Outcome is: You know the nature of every possible thought (Consciousness-Emptiness-Nothingness), of the whole mental-continuum of thoughts, all that there can be. Their nature. you can cut off or transcend/just watch your normal mindstream in most daily situations without getting caught up/hypnotized by it, which already here leads to a lot of bliss. Not sufficient bliss to get ones separate self completely handled, but already quite wonderful. That is the start of real freedom. You know how your mindstream hypnotizes you, and gets faster when you actually look into each thought arising and its nature. At some point you get fast enough to cut off every arising, or let it elaborate in a controlled aka mindful way. Yoga of Unelaboration (2. Yoga of Mahamudra-System) Here, you finish off with time. You open up the eternal always here mind. Past and future become deeply understood as imagined/manifested right here and now, not really existing. Only the eternal now exists. Not as idea, as concept, as understanding, but as felt and lived reality. Deeply realized. Always Here. Eternal. How ones True Being can be immortal/eternal/always here becomes a very real possibility here. Later on, the emerging possibility "of how that could work" become validated beyond any possible doubt. Pointing Out the Great Way: "From where does the first mind-moment [the thought-arising] arise? Then, where does it stay? Finally, where does it go when it stops? The "mind" in which all this is happening is Always Here. Always Here Mind. Time is not "out there", self-existing. You only notice time because of change, of emerging thoughts and appearances. time is a mere construct/concept. No change of appearances/thoughts, no time. "One" doesn't control the content of the emergent thoughts "Through dependent origination certain propensities [thought capsules with their full content already "inside" emerge] at the very subtle level ripen into subtle movements within the temporal mental continuum, which in turn become constructed into and elaborated as coarse-level thoughts [get elaborated into long thoughts that get told in awareness over several seconds] and appearances" dependend origination: "one" doesn't control which thoughts emerge. "The skilled meditator can view events transforming from very subtle propensities to specific subtle mind-moments and constructed coarse thoughts and appearances seeming to arise and pass in the temporal mental continuum through a process of dependent origination" Seeing and understanding the emergence of the thoughts (fully formed out with all their content, but not yet elaborated in the mindstream, emerging in the Always Here Mind), and seeing this in real-time because ones attention got fast enough, is a game-changer. That stage is very hard to fully understand in Pointing Out the Great Way. At least for me, it took me a long time. . I would have been faster with coaching.... Yoga of One Taste (3. Yoga of Mahamudra System) So here it gets nondual and mere appearance, floating in Nothingness. No more a solid and external/duality reality "out there" anymore. But an infinite limitless field of Infinite Consciousness, manifesting an appearing world of mere appearances arising in it. A loving blissful boundless timeless field of bright lucid Awakened Awareness. This is where probably (my pet-theory) the Endohuasca-System starts working. https://dmtquest.org/endohuasca-magic/ The practice is basically taking the insights of stage 2 and putting them into practice, specifically also in daily everyday life. With that, one gets enough time and momentum in meditation to really make the difference, to get it nondual. To make all that with sitting meditation on the pillow, at least for me it would have been a full-time job. And I did a demanding career and some other stuff in the meantime also... The view taken all thoughts/mental events emerge in the Always Here Mind, or Simultaneous Mind (which means nondual). same with all world appearances. The essence of all thoughts is emptiness/consciousness, and the essence of all visual field appearances is also emptiness/appearance/consciousness. That is called the "One Taste" of every arising (thought or world-appearance). Nondual in other words. and being aware of the emerging high-speed stream of thoughts emerging already with full content, but getting elaborated in the seconds following, and cutting off most of the emergent thoughts by looking into their nature, which has been automized by this point enough clarity and mindfulness is generated that at some point The Visual Field/"world": Becomes mere appearance and infinite/limitless becomes mere appearance appearances 1) the world no longer feels "out-there". Everything arising just arises in oneself. 2) appearances loose their solidity. One can not tell if they are solid "objects" out there, or just appearances happening in the timeless Always-Here-Mind 3) At some point later, with a lot of meditation-mindfulness-momentum, the "inside" feeling as pure empty awareness, a very transparent witness, but not even that because the awareness is no longer separate: the visual field becomes really mere appearance. One looks at something, and its just appearance hovering in Nothingness. You feel into it, and its essence is the same as the indescripbable Nothingness behind ones head. luminous mere appearances, very similiar to trip-descriptions. the limit of the visual field, and the wondering of "what is behind it", become limitless or infinite there is "nothing" behind it. One just imagines a border/boundary of the visual field one imagines that something must be behind it (like 3D-Space continues". No, 3D-space is imagined in dimensionless Nothingness/Infinite Consciousness. 3D-Space is not self-existing, dangling out there. That was a biggie for me, took a long time to get, and could have been much faster with coaching. Guess I am quite a visual person Time is gone. Timeless Everything can only happen here, and now Past is imagined here and now , future also here and now the "subject"/"me", the separate self Gestalt/arisings, feeling and being separate from the whole Reality, slowly gets transcended and dissolves, more and more aspects of the person/separate self are seen as arisings moving within oneself. finally, after a long path of transcending every identity/I-thought/I-feeling of the Ego/Body-Mind/character, it becomes a transparent witness, nothing but still something witnessing the visual field. At some point, One can't tell AT ALL what one is, nothing positive is left. I am not the body/person, anything. Only aware Emptiness. But somehow some murky Witness or something like that still there. One literally doesn't know what one is, besides the nondual field... One becomes the visual field of mere appearance, one is that in a nondual way. any sense of location or center slowly dissolves. One becomes the whole boundless timeless field of mere empty, groundless appearance. Sometimes lucid and shimmering, like mere appearance. Some traditions call that already Enlightenment, or Kensho/Satori/Awakening. And it is in some way. But Nonduality is not already Full or Great Enlightenment, where there is absolutely no doubt about ones nature, and the nature of reality. That can become clear like ice-cold water thrown in ones face. Nonduality can be very well experienced by a separate self, just try some psychedelics.... To reach Nonduality sobre without psychdelics, one already has to be quite empty or transcended the separate self, but not necessarily (and normally) fully. With psychedelics, you don't need to empty (or have transcended the separate self) at all. 5 MeO will do that for, even if you don't want. Not fully empty, not the last step (no traces of Individuality/transparent witness left, see above), but very very much. that brings us to the last stage, Stage 4 of the Mahamudra System, the Yoga of Nonmeditation. And here is where meditation, and the long time it enables in these very empty states of dissolving every last speck of individuality/last very subtle separate self arisings/last very subtle illusions, becomes paramount. Only this 4. stage enables the final crossing over to fully, without a doubt, knowing what Ones True Self, and Reality, really is. Without that, suffering, grasping for ever more Awakenings, and still being a bit "gaslighting-ability" of the finality of ones realization/awakening, continues. Yoga of Nonmeditation (4. Yoga of Mahamudra System) What is already the case, from stage 3 Yoga of One Taste: The visual field/world already arises in the Always Here Mind as mere groundless luminous appearance, with Nothingness as its essence in an infinite limitless field of Awareness Space in the timeless Always Here Mind so many ingredients of the True State of Things, ones True Identity as Boundless Changeless Timeless Reality are already in place. That is already very lovely, filled mostly with bliss. Like really really nice. But not fully the Unshakeable Unchanging Reality that one intuits to really be, with its Infinite Love, Peace and Bliss. Only one thing is still missing for conforming fully to the enlightened mindstream, and fully crossing over to it with the sudden recognition of ones True Identity, Reality itself, Absolute Impersonal Infinite Consciousness, Nothingness. and that is the last remants of the Empty/Transparent Witness, or what Brown calls artifical activity. The last remnants of individuality, of I-feeling, I-thoughts arising in oneself. The last aspects of being a bit separate from Reality itself, from being not fully empty/transcended. A very subtle transparent witness, already being nondual, identifying with an infinite nondual field. Bassui (Zen, in Three Pillars of Zen) calls this Awareness of Emptiness, or Awareness of Beingness. A very subtle feeling of still being aware of SOMETHING, even if that is infinite Nonduality. Not full and complete nonduality and oneness. Still a subtle (very subtle) separate self aware of the Totality. Not the Totality being fully aware of itself, like in perceptions perceiving themselves. One can do NOTHING here to cross over to Full Enlightenment/Basis Enlightenment. Because that would be an act of a separate self. An effort. A movement of a separate self WANTING something, manipulating the mindstream, grasping for the understanding, doing something.... One can only automize the meditation/mindfullness, staying fully present, letting the Awakened Impersonal Awareness flow by itself, let IT do the meditation itself, get out of the way... Bringing out the full force of this Utterly Impersonal Awakened Awareness. Ones True Identity. And that is the last contra-intuitive trap: ONE CAN'T FORCE IT ("artifical activity"). Because forcing it would be a separate self arising doing it. One can try to force it (for example Koan-style), but then the Crossing Over normally happens in a moment of grace, of relaxation, when artificial activity is not present. And once the last very subtle remnants of the separate self are seen as moving within oneself, just changing and temporary arisings/movements consisting of I-thoughts and I-feelings, the last subtle lenses ("Individuality,separateness") are recognized and dropped/transcended/no longer believed and just cut off/let go/Trekchö-style. All and any center gone, no separate anything remaining anywhere, forcing its claws of suffering into the natural bliss of Enlightened Infinite Nondual Empty Reality itself, perceptions perceiving themselves, shimmering in Infinite Always here Nothingness, in Infinite Nondual Consciousness. The Universal Mind, Nothingness. Realizing that nothing is lost if the separate self illusion is realized and seen as that what it really is, and always was: Just appearances happening and moving within the Always Here True Self/Reality. All that is lost is an illusion, what is gained is Reality itself and its inherent bliss. And indeed welcome home, to a home you never left, on a journey that never really happened.... Bon Voyage! Selling Water by the River PS: By the way, that is not a nice theory and beautiful claims, but a path actually walked over many years (although because of lacking coaching and not being too smart sometimes from my side making it take longer than actually needed). But I am still very very thankful that I picked that path, and not 10-15 years face against the wall Zen-monastery Koan-style. That would have also maybe worked (but I don't know, that system has many pitfalls the Tibetans have identified and made maps for to avoid these), but would have been much less pleasant, at least for me. Would have felt like digging a hole with a shovel instead with a climatized excavator, doing most of the meditation in daily life instead of some hardcore-monastery-fulltime-environment. So I can understand all those that don't like meditation, because it is maybe the hardest thing one can actually do, depending on the system. Give this system a try! PSPS: Before one maybe starts thinking that nothing matters, and Karma is just an Illusion, since Individuality and everything else is an illusion anyways, and nothing matters, like ethics, common sense, Karma, compassion and so on: Be sure that reality will give you a crosscheck if that is really the case, or just a funny idea/concept. And then let's see if suffering hurts and grips, or is still just considered an Illusion. Compassion and Boddhichitta for all beings (which are nothing but the same One Reality without a second) actually is a pretty hard entrance criteria to any of these states decribed above. With honest and practiced compassion/ethics/Boddhichitta, one has the support from all of Infinite Reality on ones path. And how much intuition and intelligence emerges in ones mindstream is guided only by this One Infinitely Intelligent Reality without a second.

EVERYTHING. Every possible state, definition, enlightenment, experience, belief, form, person, emotion, feeling, language, symbol, animal, plant, scenery, spirit, psychic ability, video game, infinite, finite, right, wrong, morality, immortality, duality, nonduality, order, disorder, life, death, etc. YOU! - With that said, it’s up to you what you want to do with this understanding. There is only you, in and as EVERYTHING. This is why they call it expanding your consciousness! Or you can say that you don’t exist. That sounds scary, huh? Well, what if I told you that YOU is NOTHING to be scared about!? Being scared is imagined by God! Lower states of consciousness simply means you are not aware of what God is. God ain’t gonna judge, though. But you will. That’s why it’s a mindfuck. Or could be as clear as pure water ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And everything in between, so to speak. But who is speaking? Oh yeah, God. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not in a high state of consciousness all the time. I’m certainly not. That would actually be unintelligent and limited. You can be highly conscious even in what we consider lower states of consciousness. Just notice how foolish your mind works while in the lower states, and you’ll eventually get tired of it.

DMT Quest has made two books and several fascinating videos. https://dmtquest.org/questions-for-the-lion-tamer-1/ and It is really fascinating stuff, that can explain a lot of other phenomena in an integral way. Among other things, they postulate that the Endohuasca-system is triggered by a) Meditation https://dmtquest.org/meditation-hypnosis/ Get Gamma-frequency of the brain up, and the endohuasca-system probably starts flowing.... In Ken Wilbers system, subjective states (Upper Left Quadrant) have correlates in the body (Upper Right Quadrant), and vice-versa. Causing positive feedback-loops, increasing lucidity and nonduality, bliss and so on. The transformation of the whole self/identity, in stages, making states permanent.... Principle: States are free, stages are earned. When the mindstream conforms to the requirements of these systems, stabilizing and enlightened mind-stream. Daniel Brown did a study with his "Pointing out the Great Way" students and a advanced Brainscanner. Result: Gamma-waves boosted to the max.... Maybe helps to take transforming the baseline state via meditation to "trippy"-levels more serious... b) Dark Retreat (The Tibetans do it for 100s of years, several other tribes do it, tends to induce visions. Some kind melatonin-pineal-gland.connection). c) Special Breathing (Wim Hoefer, Holotropic Breathing, Tummo, ...) d) Other stuff (Near Death experiences, cancer in certain areas of the brain (pineal gland), Kundalini, ...). trigger the body-endohuasca-system. Some meditation-states, especially advanced ones once stabilized in daily life (post-samadhi), or hardcore pillow-meditation-states, are quite "trippy" and (1) change the visual field towards "not external/nondual", "lucid,vivid,bright, groundless mere appearance, Nothingness as its essence, "hovering" in Infinite Nothingness". (2) kill the localization sensation of being in the body, making one no longer localized in the infinite field, but being the unbounded wholeness of Reality. (3) And bliss. Ken Wilbers once linked that drug addicts of Heroin get previews to the bliss of certain meditative states, and of course get addicted to that. Although I have never tried Heroin and am not so stupid to try, in my experience I can confirm (1) (2) and (3). And having these states in place, it becomes possible to intuit and realize what is aware of the whole Enchilada, being also its essence: Nothingness. Perceptions perceiving themselves. Ones True Identity. There are definitely bodily/energetic/chemical changes going on in these transformations or stabilizing these states as stages. The two books are actually a good reading for everyone belittling meditation and the permanent and deep transformations possible (@Breakingthewall, I know you don't and are open. I just write in general, as always). The states induced by psychedelics that are ripping ones heart open to Infinite Love, bathing ones sould and being in heavenly bliss, and opening the separate self contraction to the Infinite, are also available to the body by endogenous means. Or else, how would the stereotypical enlightened one with a halo depicted around the head "oozing" bliss "work"? Auto-Suggestion? The receptors in the body are there anyway, else psychedelics wouldn't work. Just add a system where an enlightened mindstream (empty, fast enough to spot separate-self-arisings, very high Gamma/Delta-waves/meditation states) triggers the body-Endohuasca-system, and one has hypothesized a possible mechanism growing and transforming baseline-consciousness to the Infinite. A system that could explain the manifestation of the potential of the human being, ranging from atom-molecule-animal-primate-human to Infinite Being/True Identity, ACTUALIZED on a permanent and stable basis. Certainly not boosting trippy states to the " stratosphere" where one can no longer "walk straight", but a lovely way to life ones life... ACTUALIZED sounds (at least to me) more like: Realized ones potential, like in "permanently". Not only for the trip, and then again with the next trip... That would be "actualized temporarily...." And of course "Exo"-Huasca of course also works.... Selling Water by the River

Lets take Ken Wilber take on that, on which I agree: The Ego as functional character handling daily life stays. The enlightened ones have strong egos, and left their mark on the world. They knew/know what they really are. Hard to shake that first-hand-knowledge of ones True Identity, so they are not easily scared away. The separate-self-arisings/Gestalt/structure: What goes in True Self Realization are the separate-self-arisings, or the exclusive identifying with the character ....even if the separate-self remaining is its only an empty witness-anything basking in Nonduality, but with some subtle Individuality (=separateness) still intact - The usual psychedelic hang-over separate-self-identity still haunting a not so selfless/empty mindstream). The separate self arisings as "identity" are then replaced by being Reality itself, CONTAINING a hopefully functional character/Ego. The separate self is dead after realizing ones True Deep Identity. Literally. If its not dead, its not Full Enlightenment. Why? True Identity=Nothingness, manfesting Reality/Totality and being its essence, nondual and infinite. But nothing specific you can point to. Perceptions perceiving themselves. The separate self arisings, including one of its main components/building blocks, NARCISSM/self-grandiosity, get killed/transcended/no longer believed/cut off/seen as fake illusion objects moving in oneself, and discarded on that Deep Identity Shift of Full Enlightenment.... ... Not the functional character (which some also call Ego). One doesn't get stupid and cuts that off, and remains a stumbling nutcase ever after.... Problem with the term Ego often is: Ego=functional character arisings PLUS separate self arisings. Because our society fuses these two Gestalt-structures as one, because it doesn't know any better and doesn't have much examples to the contrary. ... because the separate self arisings (and especially NARCISSM/self-grandiosity) are recognized as being actually one of the largest defense-block against the realization of ones True Identity, Nothingness/Reality. Bon voyage! Water by the River

Please excuse the following musings from my side: Instead of saying Enlightenment is already the core of each being or each being is already enlightened (which is not incorrect in certain ways), let's try saying they all have Buddha-Nature. then lets define Enlightenment (just for the practicality of it) as the Realization/Understanding of ones Buddha-Nature/Reality, and the deep shift in Identity that comes with it. Some once said the Enlightenment is an accident. And practice (meditation, contemplation,psychedelics, ....) makes accident prone. That emphasizes that it can't be force by willpower (since an ego/separate self arisings would be that forcing, which prevent it), but one can set the right conditions for it to happen. The right conditions are for example described in detail in the Nonmeditation Yoga phase of Mahamudra in vast technical detail, for example outlined in "Pointing out the Great Way, Daniel Brown". After the Yoga of One Taste (training the so called simultaneous or nondual mind, in which nonduality with the appearances of the "external" world have is achieved), this stage follows. In the Yoga of Nonmeditation, one trains to get go/transcend/understand, disidentify,integrate of the last remains of the separate self arisings that prevent the final realization, or Great Enlightenment, Enlightenment into the Real Nature of Reality. These last subtle, very subtle feelings of Individuality (or being separate in a very very subtle way, like feeling one with the Totality, or a subtle "watching" or "understanding" the Totality/Reality) block the full realization. When everything ("external" world appearances and the last "internal" arisings of separate self, which then are the empty witness) is seen as just arising in Infinite Awareness/Consciousness/Reality, crossing over to Enlightenment can happen (but can't be forced, it is an "accident"). Quote from Pointing out the Great Way, Daniel Brown "Basis Enlightenment [Basis=Reality. In Zen that would be Great or Final Enlightenment] : The first enlightenment moment is sometimes called samadhi-enlightenment (mnyam bzhag) because it typically occurs during continuous, uninterrupted mindfulness. When the conditions of the extraordinary meditation are exactly right, crossing over occurs. A profound shift occurs during which seemingly individual consciousness, and all ordinary sense experience and all false concepts associated with it, drop away. The vast awareness-space of the dharmakaya becomes the point of observation. Seemingly individual consciousness (yid), the point of observation throughout the entire path of meditation, is now found to be a mere concept (btags pa), which drops away. Basis-enlightenment is said to be "beyond all notions," "beyond examination," "beyond representation," and "beyond false concepts" (TN, pp. 5 19-20). Tilopa says: "When the mind comes to an end, The three realms become absorbed therein.... Through the nonduality of self and other you become the blessed Buddha" The mind becomes absorbed through the force of the ripening perspective of [vast awareness-] space. Then, the five sense systems and their objects, the aggregates, and the elements also dissolve in the perspective of space. The seeming reality of individual consciousness along with its functions and activities gives way, leaving only an infinite ocean of awareness-space." Bon voyage! Selling Water by the River

Nice post. Let me add some musings from my perspective. >But there is a catch. You see through all the egos games. If you speak from an Enlightened perspective you will not be understood. Every ego is afraid of absolute truth. Yes. The separation/separate self/Ego HAS to be scared by/avoid the truth, by definition. Else it would end soon.... Not so good for a nice, long, interesting game/show/Lila.... But at the same time, every separate being is deeply drawn back and attracted by its True Nature, which fragrence/bliss it never fully forgot, and only partly manages to avoid, closing down to this bliss and the following various projects to get it back via a variety of experiences . And these two contradicting drives (Pull of Illusion and Pull of Truth) drive the separate self sometimes quite nuts... >The final stage is to do activities just for the pure joy. You start to walk the path of appreciation. Yes. One couldn't do different. And it couldn't work different than that. Nothing left to force oneself to do something one doesn't want. No more internal conflicts, conflicting motivations. Luckily, if you have made it this far, your motivations are normally aligned with the Universe, because you have understood and trained compassion for a long time to stabilize resting in your True Nature/Awakening, see below. >You can also start getting attached to trying to alleviate suffering but that will take years of practice because egos will blame you for their feelings and accuse you of being the source of their suffering. They will demonize you and call you a victim blamer, arrogant, a narcissist, and a gaslighter. You will need to cultivate a deep compassionate patience should you choose to engage in helping others who suffer. Wise words. That is why in all Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist training systems compassion has a nearly (or fully) equal status to the training of wisdom, transcendence and Awakening. It is considered as an equal companion, laying the foundation, of wisdom/transcendence/Awakening/Enlightenment. Strange, is it, if the same systems consider all the be an Illusion, a magic show? So why do they do that? In relative reality (our life), one can not maintain stabilized Awakening (let alone Enlightenment), when you are constantly annoyed by the Truth-avoidance-mechanisms of ones fellow separate-selves, and react with negative emotions towards that. These negative emotions/reactions do shut down ones nondual experience of the visual field being groundless mere appearances hoving in Infinite Nothingness. And more easily to understand: They shut down ones love, which is the same as the acceptence of the here and now, which is the only thing happening/being imagined right now, and actually the True You in a nondual way. So these emotions are just incompatible with keeping the nondual realization ongoing, an auto-immune-reaction on parts of your own True Being, cutting nonduality in two creating duality. And that doesn't... feel good . At least my experience. And that of many others. By the way, if something happening requires immideate "not-accepting"-action, like running away from an attacking bear, that is of course also done. Staying open and fearless, and not constricting the love/acceptence of this present moment doesn't exclude acting wisely. It is not so wise and smart to serve as food for the attacking bear. There are better things to do with your separate-self-vehicle than that.... Only Empty Mirrors are stupid enough to get their frames teared down by confused attacking bears, see my Signature of the post below, but that is another story as explained in the Job Profile for Empty Mirrors. My theory (experience) is that these "less-than-loving", non-so-compassionate, non accepting/closing down emotions cut off the Endohuasca-system: https://dmtquest.org/endohuasca-magic/ , solidifying the mere-appearance infinite nondual field of lucid world-arisings hovering in infinite Nothingness, made out of Nothingness as its essence, and making it solid&external or appearing "out there", duality: the "normal" state of the separate self, often less than loving, imprisoned in duality most or all of the time. So it is impossible to live in a stabilized Awakening (let alone Enlightenment) without deep compassion for other not yet realized beings. You can not blame an acorn for not being an oak tree yet. That would be rather stupid. All acorns got and are Buddha-Nature (or can realize their potential by becoming an oak tree). It is for example not the way society raises children, which is a similiar topic. We don't blame children for not being adults yet, but acknowledge their potential of being adults themselves, and raise them up to that potential. Every time I write Selling Water by the River, it is to acknowledge by the way that what is being doing is Illusion. But a nice one! What else is there to do? And since there is only appearance/illusion, there is no difference between reality and appearing illusion in some way. And Karma/cause effect fully works/holds, works like a clockwork, driven by infinite intelligence. Even if its only imagined... that "I" am "selling" something that is freely available to all (the Water of the River). Actually, there is only the Water of the River. That the water of the River is the Buddha Nature of every being, the Nothingness that is the essence of all of Reality. So nothing that could be superior to anything else at the end of the day... Actually, there are no others to safe. And yet, that is what tends to appear to happen normally. And should happen on a relative level, as it is in the nature of things... And that is paradoxical from before the Gateless Gate, but not afterwards... It is only the True You manifesting in endless perspectives.... sometimes appearing (only appearing) confused in some mindstreams, and in some not. The "Core" never gets confused, since it is Nothing(-ness). It contains the confused or unconfused mind-stream arisings. And Maya is the great seductress (hey, "somebody" has to orchestrate the illusion-show. Else it wouldn't be there! ) but there are even more elements build into our reality to guide souls back to their true nature. One of the mightiest and most powerful ones are probably: What is more attractive? An Ego/separate self preaching arrogantly with self-importance and narcissism from upon high, or a being radiating love, compassion and wisdom/bliss? and guess what feels better for the being doing that why does every being yearn for bliss/peace, intuiting that that is what one really is? In a practical experience, compassion/love increases ones realtive happiness in every way. A happy, integrated "relative" life, delivering on the stages of Maslow what the separate self need to thrive and not scream for attention most of the time, resulting in a separate self that is much more easy to transcend than a drama-show-separate-self, that constantly requires attention and maintenance, and suffers lack on the lower levels of Maslows pyramid (financials&job, friends/partner, health, security needs, belonging-needs, self-esteem, self-actualization...) And also speedens up self-realization significantly, or even enabling it, and stabilizes it. That even shows in the fact that countless studies asking humans about their deepest/strongest sources of relative happiness in life is human connection (which is based in large parts on love/compassion, or resonating deeply with "another" soul, seeing and being seen, which then yields natural compassion out of that resonance. At least if its done in a healthy way). Selling Water by the River PS: Ken Wilber: Wake up, Grow Up, Show Up

I agree that large parts of Buddhism/"Hinduism" and any other Spiritual Tradition had major impacts from psychedelics, and genetically/"karma-developed" realizers. Yet, most of them did some kind of meditation, often for very long times. And I don't believe (personal opinion, based on what I have seen) that only tripping will get you really to a deep identity with your True Identity, Absolute Reality itself. Especially its essence, which Hawal for example calls Nothingness (because the essence of the Always Here Reality is totally empty, Nothing(ness) at all. Only this way (totally empty), It/True You can be totally infinite and manifest anything. For sure, ignoring or not using, or advising against psychedelics, or the "hurricane" to blow away 95%+ of the separate self arisings/clouds covering the sun(True Nature, see some of my last posts) is in my opinion not the most efficient and integral method. Why not use these tools as a preview to the fulltime thing of stabilized Awakening, enabling to perceive the visual field as lucid hologram-like mere appearances hovering in infinite timeless Nothingness and disabling/transcending the separate self arisings from a level of separate self bodymind mindstrem to being a mostly empty witness but still some kinds of very very subtle layers of Individuality/separateness still going on, like an empy-nothing-consciousness watching (or even being) some kind of mere appearance-infinity. But still with some very very subtle levels of the separate self arisings still active. and these very fine last layers/filters/clouds of the remaining separate self arisings/individuality/being not the Totality at the deepest Identity Level fully, prevent the full realization, which would make IT stable after coming out of the trip. To become fully Everything/Totality on a stable basis, one has to be totally Nothing(-ness). At least for me, this seems totally logical in theory, and is also demonstrated in practice time and time again of what kills the solidity of the visual field (and makes the visual field mere empty groundless appearance hovering in Nothingness) and its "externalness/not nonduality", making "It" one seamless infinite nondual Totality/whole: Being the Nothingness fully,and stabilizing in that. Short form: "We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all." Kalu Rinpoche So, why did the actively psychedelic using traditions either disappear (Vajrayana in medieval India), or go underground in secrecy? My theory is: When you got a monastery with meditation technique (that is maybe not the most efficient one), bringing less than a few percent of the people to Enlightenment, and supplying that with the goooood psychedelic stuff ... (which was not so gooood in the past, nearly nobody had 5-MeO for example, mainly Mushrooms and LSD/Ergot/... and some DMT. Well, you can imagine the show of the ladies and gentlemen inside which are by definition confusing in the beginning phases of their Psychonaut/tripping-journey parts of their separte self arisings/Ego with the Infinite Field of Totality hovering as mere appearance in groundless eternal Nothingness when they take the psychedelics. that probably has led to an Ego-show of the highest degree of only partly transcended Egos/separate selfs.... Imagine who would not like to join the club/monastery if rumours of tripping occur? the support from the community to such an institution would have been shut down after quite fast after a few scandals of "not-so-enlightened-living" But most importantly (and at least my experience): To stabilize Awakening in daily life, which brings the bliss and freedom from psychological suffering) that everybody (wants independend of outer circumstances), one needs a deep identity shift towards ones True Nature, which is Nothingness as "Subject"/or better Deep-Identity with the nondual Totality and Nothingness (Halaw) as its essence, which means no remaining separate self arising not spotted and "not believed"/"not hypnotized by"/not transcended/not cut-off fast enough. and that takes time, hundreds if not thousands of hours resting in empty Suchness (which can then already be done in daily life, but the beginning phase without some (or a lot) sitting/meditation is probably difficult. and one doesn't get enough time in the psychedelic state to do that, and even more important if you meditate, you get direct feedback on if you transcend your character/separate self arisings/Ego or not: If you don't, then the visual field doesn't get shimmering mere apperance, but stays rock-solid and "out-there/external/dual. If you just drop psychedelic, it is probably impossible to not project certain remaining aspects of the separate self on the Totality, leaving it not totally empty of separate self/subject, but a mix of the Truth and remaining separate-self-illusion-arisings. and Everything Else (the infinite Totality of the visual field/"external" world hovering as mere groundless imagined appearance in the always here Nothingness. again, the very nice summary of Kalu Rinpoche: We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all. All of that means that I believe that one has to and should do both, psychdelics AND meditation, preferably an efficient meditation-system (broken record of mine: I recommend for example Pointing Out the Great Way, Brown, and in general Mahamudra/Dzochen), I have written in my past posts about this topic): get Awakenings and previews of the real state of things via psychedelics, and hopefully don't get the separate self/ego blown up by that to epic proportions by projecting the properties of the epic/awe-inspring Absolute Reality on the separate self individuality arisings (that is Maya giving you a hugely seductive kiss) and get deeply established in ones True Identity (Nothingness), so that one never forgets ones True Nature in daily life never loosing the Deep Identity of being the Totality, the visual field staying nondual and as lucid empty mere appearances. I have written about the Endohuasca-System, which is (I believe, and also my experience) triggered by stabilizing these empty states of transcending the separate self: https://dmtquest.org/endohuasca-magic/ never loosing the bliss of ones own True Identity One of the largest experiments (both in scope of people doing it, and psychonauts having gone as fare as ever before, and further) is being conducted right here in this community/forum, and in general with the ongoing psychedelic revival. We are sitting in the prime seats to see if those belittling meditation (and emphasizing only psychedelics or also only meditation, one or the other) or those that recommend both methods to be integrated and used together) end up living a beautiful, satisfying and blissful life, stabilizing their True Deep Identity in daily life, and explore more of the depths of the Kosmos. My personal belief is that the Totality gives one a lot of insight into the structure of the manifested/relative side of Absolute Reality by doing mainly (or only) psychedelics, but so far, as I see it, Absolute Reality doesn't give the full bliss and stable Awakening in daily life to those only or mostly or only doing psychedelics. Opposite examples welcome, I have not seen one so far that fully stabilized ones True Nature as Deep Identity (and the ensuing Liberation), neither historical nor contemporary. Even if it exists/existed/or will happen, think about what that says about the success rates of the paths psychedelic only and meditation. I also assume, since Absolute Reality is all there is, infinitely intelligent, all powerful, certain areas of exploration of the Multiverse are blocked for part-time-separate-selves only doing tripping, but falling from grace/loosing Awakening after the trip. As this worlds contains many many traps that stabilized the illusion of Maya/Duality/Separate Self, from what I see this minefield doesn't end when doing psychedelics, but actually starts there at the highest level: Blowing up ones Ego to epic proportions via projecting the separate self arisings/identity onto the properties of the Infinity Absolute Reality is a hugely seductive trap, but blocks the stabilizing of ones True Identiy (fully empty Nothingness -in Halaws definition- Core Identity), and being nondually Everything in daily life. So, ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts, and watch one of the most interesting shows of the Multiverse developing right here in this forum, and in the psychedelic revival at large... Bon voyage! Selling Water by the River >PS: Can you imagine driving a car then your mind just randomly goes into a Salvia trip? Sometimes I have the feeling that exactly something like that happens with fellow drivers .Luckily, not too often... ( :