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I realised all this spiritual work i'm doing is just for my ego. I'm just wanting to be a better person but within that there is separation between me and other. I want to be better than others which is just more ego. The ego is incredibly sneaky and it always wants to be in control. Last night I had a balloon with nitrous oxide and after inhaling the whole thing got a 20 second ego death. It really freaked me out and makes me think whether or not nothingness is synonymous with love as my ego was terrified when regaining control and the nothingness just seemed scary. However I have had much better experiences on mushrooms. Maybe i should just stay away from nitrous oxide.

The question by @Anirban657 is how to be aware of awareness. Below is my reply to Anirban of my understanding of Nisargadatta Maharaja words. ----_-----------------+------------------------------- I am not self realized and never had the nothingness exp. But the words awareness is aware of itself is not used by all.It is confusing the seekers. First of all Awareness is not an object or thing or feeling or emotion. The word try to be aware of awareness makes you think you can experience awareness as an object that is impossible. The eyes cannot see itself.This is just a pointer. Awareness or Infinity or Self or God is beyond everything. Awareness is beyond the waking state,dream state,deep sleep state. In deep sleep awareness is aware of unconsciousness. In dream it is aware of the dreams. In waking state you know what. But in the waking state when the sense of me,body experience,thoughts everything is gone what will remain ? Pure empty waking conciousness or no-thingness with out any objects.So awareness is aware of this. So finally Awareness is beyond everything being,non being,sleep,waking,dream any exp non experience,Nothingness,Emptiness what ever you call it name it. So you can never expirience awareness or in short drop the words awareness is aware of itself.How to be aware of awareness. What ever perceived cannot be the perceiver. You cannot experience yourself you can only know what you are not. By knowing what you are not you know what you are.-Nisargadatta Maharaj Hope this is clear. _------------------------------------------------------ Is my understanding correct ?

@Anirban657 @Anirban657 I am not self realized and never had the nothingness exp. But the words awareness is aware of itself is not used by all.It is confusing the seekers. First of all Awareness is not an object or thing or feeling or emotion. The word try to be aware of awareness makes you think you can experience awareness as an object that is impossible. The eyes cannot see itself.This is just a pointer. Awareness or Infinity or Self or God is beyond everything. Awareness is beyond the waking state,dream state,deep sleep state. In deep sleep awareness is aware of unconsciousness. In dream it is aware of the dreams. In waking state you know what. But in the waking state when the sense of me,body experience,thoughts everything is gone what will remain ? Pure empty waking conciousness or no-thingness with out any objects.So awareness is aware of this. So finally Awareness is beyond everything being,non being,sleep,waking,dream any exp non experience,Nothingness,Emptiness what ever you call it name it. So you can never expirience awareness or in short drop the words awareness is aware of itself.How to be aware of awareness. What ever perceived cannot be the perceiver. You cannot experience yourself you can only know what you are not. By knowing what you are not you know what you are.-Nisargadatta Maharaj Hope this is clear.

The difficulty results from the fact that awareness is nothing. The mind cannot grasp it in the same way it can grasp a wall or tree or a thought. So by trying to become aware of awareness you are really trying to realize Nothingness/Emptiness. Yes, it's frusrating. There is no way around that. You are being asked to grasp the ungraspable. Through lots of practice the mind must become very still. That stillness of mind itself becomes the empty awareness of awareness. You. Are. It. Try focusing your mind on nothing in particular and just let it sit there. The more it sits there, the more Emptiness will dawn on you. Don't try to grasp it. Let it wash over you.

@flowboy Impartial or unbiased self observation without self criticism is a huge win. Even with a small bit of self criticism,,,still a win! Maybe you'll get an unexpected surprise and feel your own nothingness from the hot cooking. It seems weird writing those words. Regardless, you are still observing.??

I will express my truth and if it is of no use to you, by all means, please disregard it. I am not the body. Nor am I the thoughts and feelings which comprise the personality/ego. I am the silent witness who has no opinions. Quote from Maurice Nicoll - THE FEELING OF NOTHINGNESS “When the Work says that a man must come to realize his own nothingness before he can be re-born, it does not mean that he must humble himself and so on, but that he must by long self-observation actually begin to realize that he is nothing and that there is no such person as himself. The object of this is to get into a position, psycho- logically speaking, between the opposites...Why is it so important to get somewhere into the centre of the pendulum and not swing to and fro? Because here, between the opposites, lie all the possibilities of growth. Here influences from higher levels can reach us. Here, in this place where one can feel one’s own nothingness (and where one is therefore free from contradictions), influences and meanings coming from higher centres, which have no contradictions, can be felt. Not regarding yourself as good or bad, not priding yourself on being just or otherwise, not thinking you are well-treated or badly-treated, not being caught by either movement through identifying, you come into this mid-position. This is not easy! With personality active, it is impossible.

duality is supposed to be fully embraced with responsibility. life can't get any juicier than that. beneath duality there's nothingness (infinite potential) and duality is the result of pure magic. the fact that the universe can experience a human being, say "i", write poetry and appreciate music is just a infinitesimal display of the supreme power of existence. fight no i find what i points to for i is yet another finger

@Leo Gura and so it must be! @andyjohnsonman remember relative to your ego whose sole focus is on your survival..nothingness is gonna seem the oppositie of everything that it actually is! Keep in mind that You with a capital Y made it that way so that the small you can even exist!

For the past few weeks, I've noticed a few spiritual teachers talking about this idea that you essentially have no real choice or free will in what happens to you or what happens in regards to your life. And that everything that happens is determined by the God head as destiny. That God already pre-planned everything according to God's plan. I'm someone who has extreme anxiety about the prospect that I could be destined for failure as in, not being able to get into the college I want for Animation. Or being able to get that dream job I've always been wanting for a while in animation and story telling. Never being able to find a love partner, never losing my virginity, not being able to be hired for the most part and screwing it up when I do get the job. That ultimately my family may give up on me and kick me to the curb as a lazy good for nothing loser and me eventually losing all the friends that I have. My parents have been arguing since I was a kid, I think I was scarred as a result, I've been compared to my hot tempted aggressive and sometimes vulgar and disrespectful dad sometimes as though it's just me as well. And there's nothing I can do about it. Even though I'm mostly never like him. The only thing is that sometimes I have some anger issues and a big mouth. But I've been working on it and getting much better in that regard. Trying to own my mistakes. And I'm much better now. I've been bullied and rejected alot as a kid and in high school. I've never felt like I felt in because of different personalities. Sometimes I'm just shy and introverted and I feel very insecure about my self. I'm insecure about my looks since I'm a bit skinnier for my age, I've been called ugly alot growing up and even though I do groom pretty well and made progress in improving my style, I still feel subpar next to most other guys. I just feel like girls will reject me, end up leaving me or find a better looking guy than me. And I may end up dying a Virgin. I've been having horrible struggles trying to secure a job and have alot of confidence issues in myself and my abilities since without getting job experience now it might make it next to impossible for me to get hired anywhere down the line. Also I feel insecure about my art since I feel like I'll never be good enough for a collage and that I'll always be skipped over for better artists. And add this anxiety that God fixed it like this, or if you want to say I'm (not ego self) God, somehow decides to be cruel to this life experiencing form and curse it from birth, made it like a futile loser perpetual failure unloved, unworthy for love in the eyes of others basically complete futility. And that my only choices is try to counter act this and fail, or well, commit suicide. Me committing suicide would be surrender and well the only true relief from this. My one true act of rebellion and the one thing that could bring some pleasure, no matter how scarred I am to die. Or what lies beyond. Though I am emsly curious to know if this awareness or concuousness that I'm experiencing continues after death, or if it's just darkness and nothingness a complete lack of concuousness forever. Though we'll never, I'll never know until and unless I die I guess. And I'm teetering slowly on the side of suicide, trying to find some excuses to try to stave actually offing myself. Like, finishing game of thrones, hoping to get lucky or proven wrong or something like that. Help.

@Leo GuraAnd Leo, to be radically open-minded includes taking all sides into consideration, or as many sides into consideration. If someone shows you this, it does not mean that he/she is "anti-psychedelic." It does not mean the person is not interested in enlightenment. Look closely and carefully into the person. This clip has to be looked into very carefully too. You also have to question whether or not the person you are talking to has profound experiences already or have experienced Truth/Nothingness/No-self/Riding the Ox Backwards. Did he/she experienced it with or without psychedelics? If so, describe it. Let's see the work of the enlightened human being and how deep is the enlightenment.

I don't know what else to do, so I will post here. This is my emotional babbling, feel free to ignore this post if you don't feel like it. I seem to keep messing up other people's lives. A few weeks ago I left a bump in my parents new car. I just got my license. My mental health declined a bit for a few weeks after that. Yesterday I came back from a 2 week vacation and today, an hour ago, my first day back, I get into a bike accident with my mom. I took the wrong direction out of habit and she landed, I did not. Her glases are broken, her hip recieved some damage and her kneecap is open. When it happened it felt like a dream. Like I would wake up any moment. I know people here probably have way worse things they've accidentaly done but my emotional state is very unstable. I felt no guilt, nothing at first. I can hear her downstairs in pain when she takes a wrong step. I don't think its all too bad (she walked home at least), but the thing is that my parents will go on holiday (ironically the same island I was on) in a week. She can't get glases till then and we don't know if the pain subsides till then. I'm in a weird space right now. Sort of like looking over a very high cliff, unsure if I will fall any second. I am used to suicidal thoughts coming and going but there's nothing yet. Just an odd sadness, and like none of it is real. Its so strange, the day began so lightweight. So happy. What does it mean? Am I bad luck? I feel like bad luck. What should I feel? Should I feel guilty? Cuz I don't. I am afraid of that emptiness in me. I keep imagining very spiritual people in my head, looking at me (Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle) asking them to look at me. I want to be looked at and I want to see what they see. I don't know what I am anymore. So many times I have messed things up and felt broken afterwards. But now I just don't know anymore. I want to leave. Just hours ago I thought it would be nice to have a last few months at my parenst before I go to university. Now I feel like I need to disappear. It also feels silly to me, like nothing bad really happened. But then I don't know if anything bad happened. I just don't know what it means. Why did it happen? Why does it keep happening? Its so mysterious to me. I don't know how long this odd nothingness will last. How long before the guilt comes. I think I destroyed their holiday. She can't even take the stairs. She can't see. Why should she go? I was the sweetest when it happened. I am still sweet. I held no judgement against her whatsoever. I accept her anger, I want her to be as angry as she wants to be. Like I said, I just didn't know what else to do. I feel idle wanting to share this. Oh how painful haha. Its just so painful. Things just topple over each other. This looks so silly now that I look at it. Such a long post, trying to get some redemption from people I don't even know. Life is so stupid. I am a fool for thinking it could get better. It doesn't seem to work for me. It is embarassing, all of this. I don't care though, I don't know who else to talk to. I'm excited to see what others think, will someone reproach me or will people try to soothe my guilt. Or will no one answer at all. It doesn't matter, I just needed this to be put somewhere and I like this place. All you people here are so wise. I just keep asking why, why why. Why does anything happen. But I feel like things just happen as they please. I had made a whole plan of it. I had written down goals and intentions. For the coming months. I was so hopeful. Excited even, as I rarely am. Maybe this is what Leo means by growth sometimes leading backwards. Some part of me doesn't want goals. Doesn't want happiness. Whenever I am somewhat happy something gets in the way again. Maybe life is harsh so that we may turn inward and find happiness there. Like this. It keeps knocking me down over and over again. But whatever, I have to think. Thanks for reading. Maybe you'd like to share if you feel the same, or otherwise.

"Genetics" and "Hardwiring over millions of year" is a passing illusion, it is a ruleset that is true from a limited perspective and from a relativistic perspective. At the core, you are not made out of hard genetic wiring, the hard genetic wiring is made out of consciousness and it is occurring within consciousness and is dependent on your perspective on those things. The more you believe in this stuff the more it becomes your reality. Fundamentally god has no limits and no rules and is not bound by any physical thing. Your potential is unlimited because fundamentally you are not hard physical stuff but mind stuff. You are the nothingness from which stems endless possibility and capability. Genes are a huge trap and limiting belief. You can master your emotions fully and satisfying. Once you are fully awake tho, there really is no need for that, many masters like to stay grounded and enjoy fear or some anger here and there. It is human, it is not inherently bad, you learn to enjoy suffering along the way. Stop loving only the good stuff

@Paul92 Just observe how you are doing it right now in this moment. Moment to moment you are actualizing your present experience. This is beyond causal chains, it is a direct ability. You cannot explain the universe by causal chains, because you always come back to nothing, how did something come out of nothing. The truth is that nothingness never became something, you are still nothing. It is just that nothingness has no limitations and there is nothing that is not possible for it. You are judging whats possible in this world. But before the world, there was no set of possibilities. Things being possible only make sense in a limited experience and ruleset which didnt exist before the existence of the universe. You are using magic to create words out of nothingness because that is possible. God is creating reality out of nothingness every second.

@who chit thats fine but to realize that one has to reach the thoughtless state and then the nothingness and the permanant vanishing of I feeling isn't it ?

Nothing exists but everything is nonexistence inside nothingness that doesn't exist. And it's also not real.

@Leo Gura this is all duality , the absolute you guys talk about is just another form of duality , that's why you get all excited and start talking about words with capital letters . There is a reason they call it Nothingness ...

Hey Leo, bear with me. It's not easy to explain or ask questions on topics like this. So, here goes. We, everyone in this world, technically is living in duality. We live in a 3D world and in a linear time. And, of course, we live in an ego (mind & body). This life, as we know it, is what makes understanding of non-duality complex. When a person experiences becoming the No-self (Nothingness), and transforms back into his/her ego on earth (aka Riding the Ox Backwards), it does effect other things in the person's life--the time it happened, the place it happened, the circumstances in which it happened, the events surrounding when it happened, etc etc. It does have a major impact in the person's future--literally. It will fit into the person's circumstances very well and very clearly. What do I mean by this? What do I mean by literally? Well, it's like seeing your entire life spread out in a film, from beginning to end. Then, you decided (as God) to go to the future (like two decades) in your life and cut out some pieces of the film and insert new pieces in hopes that your life will be better. Then, as the ego, when you start living in the film (matrix), you realize that you did edit your film as "God." This will not be easy to explain in post(s) because a person will have to go into details writing a book. However, if a person decides to try to induce such experiences, I doubt it will be as meaningful. I'm not trying to be negative, ok? I have doubts. That's all.

April 28 Chapter 276 What happened last night First day Aya diaries Costa Rica. Rhythmia organization center Ayahuasca is a plant medicine Finished Gerry Powells speech There is a mother spirit in Ayahuasca. It does not taste pleasant The first serving. Felt like a 2 hour loop of constant thinking non stop Just me thinking about everything that did not matter and kept me out of my current moment and I couldn't get my thoughts to shut off. I felt trapped in my head. 7.25 I felt so much self love You feel like you are dreaming But you are still awake Second half was my anxious stressed self coming out about me constantly thinking about things that don't matter, keeping me out of the moment, an addict's mentality, constantly want more and more, but mommy Aya showing me this is how my mind works, you constantly want more, but in reality you need to just chill, center yourself, you are perfect where you are. Day 2 Interview with Jeffrey It reduces cravings and increases clarity and awareness Day 3 17.42 I took the second dosage. It was too much. I had an ego death No self identity. I completely forgot who I was and I became nothingness. Mommy Aya told me to think about death constantly. I resisted but then I thought about it. I was like an old man in a hospital bed. I saw blackness and I was in a state of Ether, I didn't recognize myself although I was aware, but I felt disconnected, like I would touch my body and be like what this is.. No worries, attachments, or identity. Mother nature kept repeating in my head 3rd ceremony ??? If you are thinking about Michael Jackson or anyone else, you are disempowered 3rd trip Day 3 Day 4 Mind goes blank Took the first serving of ayahuasca I took the second serving and I lost my cool and freaked out. Most scariest experience My body felt like it was melting, it was heavy to move, and I was gonna puke, The visuals were very intense and going so fast, They say Mommy Aya intentionally tries to overload the brain to make it to surrender. The were like strobe light changing every second. But when I opened my eyes it was layers upon layers of sacred geometry patterns So here I am where I feel like I am gonna throw up but can't but at the same time I'm bombarded by these geometry patterns and when my eyes are closed, it's all the fast moving strobe light. Naturally I freaked out I got a panic attack and I wanted it to end so badly and I was fighting against it, at this point the shamans helped and I realized I had to surrender to it Once I did that, it felt calm and the geometric patterns dissipated, 6.09 It brought back my memories. I lost my grandmother when I was a child. And I never got a chance to say bye. I felt mommy Aya telling me to let go. I didn't even know I was harboring this guilt. I also forgave my abusive ex. Interview with Gerry Powell. Struggled with addictions. You wrote a book Interview over 11.03 The plant is amazing. The goal of ayahuasca is to merge you with your soul again ... Most beautiful human experience 23. Invite your soul to merge with you. 24. Money addiction. 25. 14. 08.......this is so much easier with addictions 26.interview over 27. It's Friday. 17.25. I was super anxious when I woke up. And my anxiety morphed into self doubt, I was thinking everyone was judging me, I felt paranoid. Mommy brings out your subconscious and dramatizes it immensely to show you who you are. Shaman raven tried to calm me and told me to give a breath of kindness to the anxiety and say that it doesn't serve me anymore. 28.when you laugh here, it's like non stop. What a waste of energy to care for what people think. I learned self acceptance. 21.35 29. Other people's experiences. Celestial surgery. He melted into the grass. 30. Purging. Purging felt better. I also experienced like a big yawn, felt like a spirit exiting the body. 31. The food was good. Breath work. I cried, I screamed for no reason. Breath work was wonderful. 32. The sad day came. I had to say bye to Rhythmia. 33. It was wonderful food. Next - life after ayahuasca Depression. I would drink full bottles of tequila alone Part 4 Life after ayahuasca How have I changed Only one month after I left Rhythmia. First few days weren't fun. I missed that place. I was feeling spacey when I went to the coffee shop, dreamy, disconnected Dissociation, it was scary, I'm not shallow anymore more like hippy, I want my goals to be about consciousness. No alcohol cravings. 9.27 I never drank in a month I felt an intense need for spiritual learning. I developed a love for nature. I'm a tree hugger It doesn't change you as a person, just makes you a better person. End.

You really motivate me to read Ralston Thank you for that. By the way, do you know what is his view on authenticity, what it is? I understand it as that, which arises from nothingness (no biases, no beliefs etc...), but maybe he goes more in-depth in his books?

I sat to contemplate today and I tried to become conscious of my hands and fingers. I could feel my fingers but could not detect the source of that consciousness. Then I moved my fingers but funnily I came to realise that I am not controlling my hands,figures or my thoughts. Here comes the paradox- I neither exist nor do I not exist. Nothingness Please comment and my realisation in wrong then please correct me. Thanks!

@Truth Addict There's no difference between God and Nothingness, so there's no comparison. That's stating a fact.

@Leo Gura This is what's giving me the most trouble. If i try to remember what i was before i was born, it's just nothingness, no memory, no consciousness, just blank which is same as death. And how can you say this is godhead? This life is only thing I've ever known, nothing else.

Facets: ”I am God” No-Self Infinite Intelligence Goodness Creation Devil Nothingness Emptiness Void God-Head Fractal Absolute Infinity Infinite Power Stuff that you feel has never been talked about it Etc. States: (The many kinds of) Altered States Different types of Samadhi No-Mind Access Concentration Cessation of pain Paranormal States Psychic States Siddhis (I personally would still count this as a state)... and don’t hold back against the materialists... 3rd Eye Openings Turiya Etc. Stages/Cognition: Acclimatizing to new states and making them your default stage, what that process is like and how it relates to personal development and how one can put this into their everyday life. Stages of cognizing God post awakening.

@Paul92 Paul as a biographical, biological, physical entity is constructed fiction. A narrative. But there is a True You -- the True Self/No-Self/Nothingness/Void/God. Your true nature is not human but God. You are God thinking it is Paul. So when you realize that you are actually God, you will also realize that God has Will. God has infinite Will, in fact. Paul's will is a tiny splinter off God's infinite Will. So in a sense you will discover Paul was never really in control. But then you will also discover that since you are God, you control and create everything. As God, you have Will which you can use to create. So literally God allocates a tiny percentage of its infinite Will to this body of Paul's so that it could create a life. As a human your creative capacities are not infinite, they are limited so long as you are in a human form. If you exit the human form your creative power will be infinite, you can literally materialize physical objects out of thin air. But at this point you're not a human any more, you are the Godhead. You are that which you were before you were born. In the end, everything is God's choice. But the kicker is, you're God! But simultaneously you're human None of this is to be believed. You must discover if it is true through consciousness practices. The more conscious you become the more of God's Will will be at your disposal. Eventually you and God will merge into one such there will be zero distance between your lifting a finger and God willing it so. The definition of a devil is someone who thinks he is separate from God. The devil seeks to separate itself from God and rule using his own will. But the devil is always just a partition within God. So the devil is tricking itself into thinking that it is in control. Eventually the devil must surrender control and accept that it was God all along. This merges the devil back into God as if the separation never even happened. That's nonduality in a nutshell. Nonduality polarizes into duality and then depolarizes back into nonduality. God is the doing non-doer

@Shaun No. It feels like, you are in the complete black hole that you cant even see your body and stayed there billion of years. After that you forgot that you have a body that emptiness and you become one, which is emptiness again. Its just so big nothing has a place in there just you, which is endless and beginless existence. Or just close your eyes concentrate do you feel something that you cant see or touch but you feel it, it looks nothing but you feel it, multiply that feeling with billions, it completely takes over you and your concsinousness leaves this body and be ifnite emptiness(nothing is left within you). But the crazy part is when you (not this me) realize this , you understand that there is no word to explain this, because words restrick meaning of this. Its like real and unreal is exist and not exist at the same time. Like you are exist as nothing but nothingness cant be exist. I cant really describe it. Its empty but infinitly heavy and now itself. That felt like final stage, bottom or ground.