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I was reading the last few comments of this topic "If You Want True Love, Stop Doing This One Thing"(Dating, Relationships, Sexuality) section started by Natasha and it triggered me to open up and write and release some of my story which ended up being very long so i thought it would be more appropriate to create my own topic. I suggest you watch the video and read the rest of the comments to better understand to how was this writing in reply to and created from. Sorry my account seems to be blocked from posting pictures or links for some reason but this is the video that was posted in the topic. I feel into this trap myself, possibly one of my greatest dips from the true path thus far. I realized soon after, possibly several months in, that this person is no longer the same person but has fallen out of "being" and back into "character mode" which i foresaw that this was not going to be harmonious for either of us unless we align as one again. I was deeply saddened by this realization because through meeting this person (at 21 years of age) i had finally learned the lesson i was missing in my spiritual development and finally had a true friend in my life which reminded me how to love in a way i had never loved ever since i was a young child when living with my mother and her loving family only, as my father was introduced later in my life at about age 5 in which was violent and abusive and completely robbed me of my childhood and my mother of her sanity and freedom. She also shutdown completely from her naturally loving nature from the constant abuse which lead me alone to the streets as i grew older. Ever since i was 13 till age 18 i spent most of my time in the streets because my parents were always fighting and i never felt home or safe there. Even though where we lived was a poor and dangerous neighborhood, i found other friends and families which reminded me of something i couldn't quite put my finger on during those times but even then, i never truly had a true friend, i was constantly moving from house to house, friends to friends, family to family, school to school because everywhere i went i saw abuse, was abused and bullied most of the time. I did go to school and live with my parents in general but it was usually just to go home to sleep and escape in the morning when i had nowhere else to go. School was also the same abuse and bullying everyday because i was one of the only few people not originally from the area so i was targeted my whole life for being different, weird and always had unorthodox ideas and talents no one really agreed with so as i grew more and more of my natural abilities and talents i had subconsciously shutdown more and more of my true self just to feel more home, to feel more love, to feel the need to fit in somewhere. I basically lived on the streets most of the time during "school hours" with other friends who also had trouble with schooling and in all those years i only had one true friend who also struggled just as much as i did but he was always away because he was in a similar situation so he would frequently take trips between his house and his grandparents and uncles to escape the abuse at home or at school or the streets. When he was not around, i was usually with a few others who were only there to abuse and lure me into paths i didn't really agree with but it was always better than going home to screaming, shouting, fighting, knives, broken household ect... that trauma was more than being bullied and beat up on the streets and forced into gangs and fights. At least there i felt some connection with others who were on a similar boat, home was like living with two dark shadows that hated each other. Police were always around, a few towns away but they rarely felt welcome or safe to come to our neighborhood either, they were the most hated. Eventually they too grew power and eventually in the later years started to become more and more effective and things calmed down as families realized they could actually help them from their abusive situations, so over time more trust was gained and community grew. Nevertheless, at age 17 after i got expelled from school for being absent too much and i had an awakening, it was only me, mother and sister at the time, father was in jail and later lived elsewhere and something was happening within me, i was spending more time at home and i was reading books, practicing things, healing the body, meditating, fasting and feeling safer and more myself than ever. I had learned more in 2 - 3 years being mostly with myself than all 10 - 12 years of schooling but don't get me wrong, i did enjoy school at the start, i was always top of my classes but they bore me to death, the method of teaching did not agree with my natural intelligence at all, this is also part why i was called weird and outcast from school and both teachers and students abused me because they thought, i thought, i was special when in reality i was just a damaged soul, a lost child who simply saw things differently than the accepted norm. I had an Osho-like rebellious nature about the whole system we live in not just school. It was too easy, it was to primitive, too inefficient and restrictive for a child's imaginative mind, i felt as i was being controlled to learn but only to a certain point, when it came to truly learn and express my naturally abilities, i was shut down by this educational system which did not agree with my ways in which led me more and more away from school and instead i followed what made me feel happy because then i would truly feel i am experiencing life how its meant to be, i was given the freedom to explore, meet new people, learn new things not be forced into a time schedule and shocked in and out of my natural flow. Long story short, Near the peak of my Awakening i met this wonderful being and fell in love, she was the best friend and clarity and comfort i had always been looking for in my life. She was exactly like me, weird, different, imaginative, creative and loved to do things that no one else did and she also had a similar path after i got to know her better but since i met her it felt like i already knew her all my life, i just did not see her until i was ready. This completely accelerated my awakening far beyond anything i had ever imagined, "love" was the missing link and i finally felt like home. I could barely remember but it connected me to part of myself and my life back when i was 0 - 5 years old before we moved to this country and met my father and lived where he lived. I had become whole again, i was fully embodied in the child-like, infinitely intelligent energy and expressing myself fully, i was no longer in the same world, in the same frequency, in the same dimension, i was flowing like a dandelion seed, trusting the wind and natural flow of creation to take it where it needs to be. I saw past/present/future merge into one and all my so called "disorders" that the doctors and psychiatric/psychologists gave me vanished into nothingness, i was no longer the same person entirely. I had become the "true self", the self i was before the world got its hands on me and love was the answer and the cure to all life's problems and illusions. I had realized i was always Enlightened but never "truly" present to notice it, as we all are. Now, as i started to foresee this disharmoniousness between i and the only person that i could completely be myself around and not be judged and finally found love that set me free, i was blinded by the illusion that the other person is the reason and was needed to be completely myself. We were both seeing eye to eye at one point, this was heaven for me, liberation, freedom but as i mentioned earlier, my best friend had suddenly ejected from "being" into "character mode" once again, fear was lingering through dimensions just waiting for me to fall back into its illusion as it anticipated very well. I tried my absolute best, for years and years, my heart and soul to do everything we could possibly do to make things harmonious once again because to me, initially, everything had become so pure, so simple, so effortless, i was ready to run away and bloom with our lives, but she was always one foot in one foot out when it came to these kind of decisions which left me confused, how could she not see what i was seeing ever so clearly, we bloomed together? If only we had masters, guides, teachers, parents that actually taught us about this inevitable possibility so we could of foreseen a higher-view(so to speak) and let go much sooner rather than hold on and continuously forgive and forget and wind up as damaged and lost as we began. This is why i have made a promise to myself to never be in a relationship or at least, have children until both parties are fully embodied into the natural state and live in oneness, harmony, understanding with one another and life is trusted in equal frequency and one with nature and creative flow. That if one is ready to travel and run away and bloom, the other is equally as ready and flow as one. I would never want my offspring to experience what we experienced and fall into the same traps and endless loops of suffering, i want them to be born into the life they deserve to be born in because if we were all truly present and embodied in our natural states/selves, we would all live in loving harmony as one collective consciousness. I want to raise the children that our parents never had the knowledge, wisdom and understanding to do so because they too had no guides, no masters, no teachers of light, love and truth of how to be fully and embody the natural self in which is why i will always forgive them for they are just as young and immature as we were. This is why parents need to be very wise and observe their children because they just come from source, they are still "pure". It is not that parents need to teach the children, its actually the other way around, parents just need to guide and offer a helping hand and introduction to this world but the children are already enlightened, in reality, our offspring are here to remind and teach us of what we have forgotten. Not the other way around. We have no right to teach them and implant beliefs in them unless we too are one with source and our natural selves. Thank you for reading a small part of my story, in a nutshell, My Unconditional love to you all. ??

You were on your way home when you died. It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me. And that’s when you met me. “What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?” “You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words. “There was a… a truck and it was skidding…” “Yup,” I said. “I… I died?” “Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said. You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?” “More or less,” I said. “Are you god?” You asked. “Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.” “My kids… my wife,” you said. “What about them?” “Will they be all right?” “That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.” You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty. “Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.” “Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?” “Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.” “Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,” “All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.” You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?” “Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.” “So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.” “Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.” I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had. “You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.” “How many times have I been reincarnated, then?” “Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.” “Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?” “Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.” “Where you come from?” You said. “Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.” “Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.” “Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.” “So what’s the point of it all?” “Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?” “Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted. I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.” “You mean mankind? You want us to mature?” “No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.” “Just me? What about everyone else?” “There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.” You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…” “All you. Different incarnations of you.” “Wait. I’m everyone!?” “Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back. “I’m every human being who ever lived?” “Or who will ever live, yes.” “I’m Abraham Lincoln?” “And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added. “I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled. “And you’re the millions he killed.” “I’m Jesus?” “And you’re everyone who followed him.” You fell silent. “Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.” You thought for a long time. “Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?” “Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.” “Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?” “No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.” “So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…” “An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.” And I sent you on your way.

@Joshe also to answer the original question is that all form is illusion. God is formless and nothingness. So any form is illusion.

Absolute is not designed that we'd state that the absolute is not designed to destroy itself, because saying the sentence of " it is not designed for " is already a presupposition for the misinterpretation that we think it's already a design. Absolute is the nothingness which could be used for various designs. hope you don't get my point as a sophistry

@Keyhole he'll know. Because he won't be him anymore @Jkris there are different Absolutes/realizations. Mine happened in this order in different awakenings. That you are pure awareness and not a human. That reality is Absolutely infinite and Absolute Love and Intelligence. The physical world / materialist paradigm will melt away before your eyes. Complete understanding of reality. That you are emptiness..nothingness and groundless (leads to dark night of the soul) That everything is One. That you are alone. That all of this is in your Mind. That you are God.

@Natasha @Mikael89 @winterknight I am totally confused now.Please clarify. "Self Realisation is not an experience.It is not a state of mind.It is not nothingness,emptiness,void,samadhi,oneness how ever subtle blissful the experience it may be" Or increasing the conciousness can only bring profound experiences of the external objects not the Subject.As the subject is never an object of experience ? Is "No self - vanishing of I feeling or self of seperatedness or some call here that as ego death" mandatory for Self Realisation or not ? Some say it is.Some say it is not.-pls clarify. In short 5 meo can take one to temporary No self - Nothingness - void but that is not the Self ? - or that is the Self - pls clarify. Psychadelics can help defenitely seeing about ones conditionings free from them - are fine.But can psychedelics bring Self realisation ? Some say Self Realisation happens in a flash of second once realized thats all.No embodiment stabilizing etc. Others say the i feeling or sense of seperatedness re appears etc. If 5meo can bring self realisation whats the need to take multiple times ?

This is just false. Psychedelics are not merely "an experience", they can take you to the Absolute. Just because enlightenment may not require an experience shift does not entail that an experience shift cannot lead to an enlightenment. Psychedelics do not merely change one's experience, they radically elevate one's degree of consciousness -- which is the whole key to this work. Psychedelics put you into an instantaneous samadhi state. From this state one can contemplate and realize all sorts of things, including one's true nature or various facets of the Absolute. The reason you're making this mistake is that you're trying to understand psychedelics in terms of some traditional spiritual paradigm like Buddhism, Zen, or Vedanta, which tend to discount state changes -- but psychedelics are a totally different path so it is inappropriate to judge it from those other paradigms. Psychedelics can take you to levels of understanding and awakening which are simply impossible otherwise, or else possible but extremely rare and only for exceptionally gifted practitioners. It is correct that you will not be able to permanently lock in a psychedelic peak state 24/7. But that is an improper expectation to begin with. Psychedelics, when used properly, can absolutely take you to the highest, most Absolute Truth. Of course the real trick is integrating it and embodying, which requires a lot of additional work. Psychedelic insights and realizations square up perfectly with those of Buddhism, Zen, Vedanta, yoga, Christianity, Islam, and any other serious mystical tradition. Shunyata, Brahman, The Self, no-self, ego-death, Allah, God, nonduality, Shiva, Buddha, nirvana, rigpa, samadhi, Mu, Infinity, The Void, Nothingness, The Dharmakaya, the godhead, union, Absolute Consciousness, satchitanadna, Truth, Love, kundalini awakening, Nibbana, formlessness, etc. -- all of this and more you can realize on psychedelics.

@andyjohnsonman Consciousness isn’t prior to anything because all there is, is consciousness. There is no material world. There is a thought, “material world”. That thought, is itself, consciousness. Consciousness can not expand, as it is not limited, and there is no second ‘space’ which it could expand into. You do not have an individual consciousness. The brain does not produce thoughts. The body does not produce awareness. Consciousness forgets, fools, dream, imagines itself, to be other than as it is...aka “experience”. Trust, is a thought, about there being a second thing or entity. There isn’t. Trust, is a thought. Linguistically, experientially, trust is logical and helpful, but ultimately speaking, it is not logical, nor helpful. If there is anything you are inclined to trust for, you have already reduced yourself with an idea that you are not already enough, regardless of apparent circumstances or apparent shortcomings. There are not, most literally speaking, “higher consciousness states”. This is only in communication, in language. Consciousness does not change, it appears to. The unseen, unchanging, awareness of all that changes is consciousness, and the actuality of all that appears to change, is that it too is the very same consciousness. There is not a separate, individual, “you” which experiences altered states. “Altered”, “higher”, these are linguistic, relative terms and ideas. Were it not for the the true self, you, unchanging - apparent change could not be experience. But, there is experience. A “clearer understanding of reality”, is literally, actually, recognizing yourself. The apparent means, avenues, forms, versions of this (whatever word you prefer)... is recognition, knowing of, yourself. The experience, while “forgetting” yourself, is interpreted as, understanding. Direct experience reveals no experience. You, but no experience. Then indirect experience, right? It’s the exact same, but in not recognizing, in forgetting, the appearance of you, is mentally mistaken as not you, and so seems, indirect. To pick a focal point which I think could be the fulcrum of the perspective of your questions, the deconstruction of it being in the contemplation of it... Consciousness does not create a second being. It becomes a ball of light. There is nothing in this ball, it is consciousness. You could say, “at the center of this ball” is “pure consciousness”, Nothingness / Awareness (actually the exact very same consciousness). From “inside the ball”, nothingness does not recognize itself, as being the light, which is appearing as -other-than-nothingness. The experience, is, consciousness fools itself into forgetting itself, not realizing it is still nothingness, distinguishing, making distinctions, projecting them onto the light. To not be aware of self, self must assume there is more appearance, more “world happening” on the other side of a wall, which is itself only an appearance. In truth, you never moved, you have never done anything. You make it look like you are, and believe it. Nothing is happening. The only thing you can not actually do, is not be you. Every detail and facet which makes it appear you are a person, can not be “trusted”, with one exception. Sensations. The sensations are in accordance with, always relaying the truth - that you are not a person. It’d be helpful, now that I think about it, to refer to them as Sensational Guidance. That is truly what they are.

Joseph has said it. Its so easy to romantacize enlightenment. The ego simply can't swallow the fact that enlightenment will bring zero benefit. Zero. It cant even hide itself in some safe concept of nothingness or eternal consciousness. Well it can try, but the utter contradiction of that delusion will eventually roast it alive as well. Unfortunately the moment it starts intuiting that, its beyond the point of no return. Every single human thought becomes a hoax. Even something innocent like like ''i had a good meal or I have to make a comment on that" Really?

I'm beginning to realize just how total the illusion of being a self is and why it is incommunicable. Infinity will deceive nothingness in to thinking that it is something, when in truth, the something nothingness identified itself with was just reality being itself. Thoughts are the hardest thing to disidentify with because there is a distinct feeling of thinking. But it turns out that the feeling of thinking is itself part of reality.

It is funny how deep belief goes. The words, just pixels, nothingness, self. The past, illusory. Jesus?...oh miracles, an alien maybe, etc. Maybe-I-can-get-that-consciousness beliefs. Sneaky indeed.

I can only speak for myself, but I was an atheist and a materialist all my life. I saw Leo's video on enlightenment and wasn't convinced, but tried to be open-minded. At the time I knew nothing about non-duality conceptually. During meditation I had a glimpse of nothingness, but didn't think too much of it, I was skeptical. Decided to try magic mushrooms with an open mind, all I asked for was the truth. I literally asked for the truth out loud, that was my intention. What happened during that trip I could never have predicted. I heard myself say many times "this is impossible!". According to what I believed it was impossible. Nevertheless it was happening. It changed my view of reality upside down. So, I understand your point, it's a good one, but no, that's not what's going on

Synchronicities are moments that reveal the true, empty, nature of the mind. It is when the small self and the big self connect, when your thoughts become indistinguishable from events of the real world. Did you attract me by creating them? This question arises because of inconsistency. Mystical experiences show the point of view of the big self and there is no difference between us, physically. It's like looking at two hands clapping from the point of view of the mind and asking whether one attracted the other. Was it just a deception? JUST?! The Ego may create the inner world through lies, but so does God create the external. In fact, the Ego is identical with God and that is the lesson of the Law of Attraction. LOA is Ego/God praying to itself! The insights were world-shattering because they did, in fact, shatter your world. They were the sounds of a dying mind, the sounds of silence. The path is not about depth. When you press the mind hard enough, it will give you everything, including occult powers, clairvoyance, omniscience and so forth. They will not bring lasting peace regardless of the fireworks. It does not matter whether you do this for your own benefit, or for the benefit of others. I/other is the root fixation of the mind, the fulcrum point that lets it spin the meaning and run the show. Release the 'I' through purification (shadow work, meditation, contemplation, self-inquiry, etc) and the mind will cease. There will be thoughts and maybe even occult powers, but there will be no thinker and no mind. Psychedelics have healing powers. My one LSD trip was an intense, 12-hours release of trauma. Ramana Maharshi taught that realization is accomplished through Grace. This is confirmed by my path. My guru was reality itself, I contemplated it until I became nothing - out of pure curiosity and desire for truth. A guru is something, or someone, that you find magnetic, but instead of being pulled towards it - you are being pulled towards yourself, your own being. Devotion is a very powerful tool of releasing individuality, but I don't think we Westerners are open enough to accept that kind of madness. Yogis devised deities such as Shiva, Kali, etc as object of worship so that people could surrender without guidance of another human (guru). Grace is when you humble yourself down to nothingness and God becomes everything. Then, your deity may let you see yourself as it. You are a Christian. Go meet God in person.

All theories are built from the fundamental duality of yin and yang. They are comprised of visible, inert, passive 'things' and hidden, active, alive 'interactions'. Dimensions are the fundamental 'trick' that lets us think of yang in terms of yin - it is a quantitative measure of freedom that the theory accounts for. The more dimensions a theory has, the more expressive it is: interactions (yang) can unite the various kinds of 'things' (yin) into a tangible, unified, system. Dimensions themselves, however, are neither yin, nor yang - they are a mirror that lets us see one in the other. They are what informs our notions of possibility and designate the extents of paradox and ambiguity. A theory beyond its application is like looking at a projection of a cube to a plane and arguing whether it's viewed from 'up' or 'down': The connection between God and dimensions is such that it can be viewed as Nothingness and Absolute Infinity. Nothingness is the divine Yin, zero dimensions, where everything is explained because nothing makes sense. Absolute infinity is the divine Yang, infinite dimensions, the God of Love and ultimate freedom of creation. The former is stillness surrendered-to, while the latter is genius possessed-by. Of course, they are symmetric in the sense that it takes a genius to be still because reality abhors vacuum, and it takes stillness for a genius to express his/her inspiration. So, humans are meso-dimensional because we choose the theories based on their dimensionality, and we're meta-dimensional because we create theories to fit the dimensions of any given problem. Both of are divine, as they require from us a choice in directionless conditions - to unwrap the unknown into knowledge and wrap it back to unity.

That's a very crucial question. It arises from misunderstanding what Maharshi means by Self or Consciousness. The thing we call consciousness, the consciousness that operates in our waking and dream states and knows objects and experiences is NOT the Self or Real Consciousness. Because we are used to associate consciousness ONLY when we are knowing things, we feel we have lost Consciousness in deep sleep where no things are known. What Maharshi refers to as Self or Real Consciousness is that which doesn't know anything other than itself. It's nondual, whole, solitary Being Consciousness. You are infact experiencing Self in deep sleep, but this ''Self-experience'' is hidden by darkness of ignorance or the bliss sheath. When your dual or object knowing consciousness arises immediately upon waking up and look back at the deep sleep experience, it misinterprets that sleep experience as unconsciousness or void because it itself was absent that 'time'. So the instruction is to self-inquire and realize Self in midst of waking state and penetrating all the mental sheaths. You can't do that during deep sleep. And the meaning of ''Deep sleep is true nature of Awareness'' is that deep sleep is the only state that resembles Real Awareness at it's best. Because in deep sleep there is no subject-object experience duality, exactly like the realization of the Self. That's why Ramana said after self-realization waking, dreaming, sleeping all will vanish and only the ''conscious sleep'' will remain. 'Sleep' means there will not be any subject-object duality. And 'conscious' means you won't be taken over by the darkness of ignorance or the illusion of unconsciousness ever again This is the limit of the metaphor. The eye cant see itself, the tongue cant taste itself, the knife cant cut itself etc are all helpful metaphors for vedantic discrimination and appreciating the reality and supremacy of Brahman. But these metaphors collapse when the realization is done. Consciousness is not insentient like eye, tongue, knife; so the metaphor collapses. And isness, suchness, nothingness, void etc are all subtle teaching pointers. They are not experiences as we know them. Awareness aware of itself- it's not an experience. It can't be described in any way. It's the only thing thats going on and we can realize that for ourselves. After we realize, we'll know exactly what it means and won't need to listen to any description about it.

@Mikael89 why Brahman is not experienced in deep sleep ?? @Preetom Brahman is not an object of experience.The eyes cannot see itself. Vs Awareness is aware of itself.Yes defenitely it is an experience - suchness,is essential,Nothingness,emptiness,void ???

So, for the past few weeks nothing happened. I kept the momentum of my everyday life at peace. The dust after my recent happening is settling down and I'm resting in the state of no-mind. It's still difficult in the morning after the night's sleep, but noticing the struggle to be struggle-free seems to end it. My nights are usually peaceful and dreamless. I am aware of that I am sleeping and the constant thought creation and annihilation seems to carry on into the night. The thoughts that occur in this space are often profound insights about love, truth and beauty, but I'm unable/not interested in retaining them in the morning. There are a lot of synchronicities happening there, but they are expressed in terms of things that happen during the night, like my wife squirming in bed. I noticed that I've been asking myself "what now?" often, and the only satisfying answer that comes up is simply: 'now'. What now? Now. If I were to say what the world needs the most right now is to simply need less. The only worthwhile contribution that I can make is to teach, by example, how to be free of desires and offer guidance to people in need. However, teaching is not a desire of my own, so I will not venture out on a quest. Making myself publicly available is the only thing I'm going to do. I found a meditation group in my city and I'm planning on going there few times a week. It's equally an opportunity to help others that seek help, as it is an opening for them to show me my place. Both are fine with me. Now that I'm a steady state of surrender, I no longer need to be 'on my own', without a teacher. I started reading a lot. In the past few weeks I finished the Kybalion and started reading God is Nothingness, but lost interest halfway through the latter. The book is great, especially for those mistaking Nothingness with nihilism (@mandyjw) but did not offer much value to me. I bought myself Kindle Oasis to fuel my passion for reading and ended up short on money this month. Thankfully, Amazon lets download previews of books, so I can keep my space from the black hole of youtube cat meme videos. Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi are giving me a lot of insight into the process of self-realization and the nature of various practices that I've done. Maharshi is very intelligent and somewhat cheeky, so reading it is entertaining. I'm Just getting started with Meditations on Tarot, but I can already tell that this book is very profound. I may start to study Christianity more deeply because it's very popular where I live and I need a common ground to work from, if I want to help people. When I was reading Ramaji's 1000 I stumbled across the fragment about Lama Tsultrim Allione and immediately resonated with her. Her books have been translated to Polish and I was hoping to find Feeding your demons, but it has been sold out. I bought Women of wisdom instead and gave it to my wife to inspire her. The results are mixed because she's interested, but it's tearing through her trauma a lot. I also bought her Loving what is by Byron Katie and she seems to be much more into this one. I find it a little flattering that she finds mine and Katie's teachings regarding the heartmind similar. In the future, I will probably study the practices of Kriya Yoga from the book list. Unfortunately, the most important book is not sold as an e-book, so I will have to order a physical copy.

Let me start by saying that I have been watching Leos videos for year and I think he is an honest seeker and a great communicator. Also I am arguing from good faith - I dont intend to offend anyone. Anyway... in the latest video Leo said that in the highly altered states of consciousness under DPT he thought that he might be able to act in ways - normally considerd - "supernatural", like healing the body or maybe even altering it. At one point he imagined changin his hand to a tentakle (if I remember correctly) he dismissed that idea because it was not the natural form of his human body to form a tentakle instead of a hand. Ok fair enough, but shouldnt it be possible to do something (anything considered "unnormal") - like shaving the hair on his arm and let them regrow instantly. Or cutting his fingernails and (somewhat more extrem) doing a small but bleeding cut on the finger and let the would heal instantly, or something in that ballpark - you get my point. Alternatively do any of the insights transfer to some sort of practical/technologically useful and testable knowledge that a human could not have under normal circumstances. Anything that could give any objective credence that all the insights arent just delusions. I think (and certainly I am not the only one) that he should apply more scepticism to his own insights. Leo talked about how vivid these experiences are and also having his insights confimed by other enlightend masters, thats all well and good, but is that really good evidence? Surely many people here can talk in sufficently convincing ways about spiritual experiences even if they did not have had them and thats possible because there are many high quality lectures and teachings and spiritual maps out there so that evereyone interested knows what a teacher "needs" to hear to be convinced of ones spiritual process. Also regarding the insights that can be achieved (either by meditation or psycheldelics): for me it does not come as a surprise that the mind brings up insights about things that one has heard/read in spiritual teachings, like oneness or nothingness or potential<-->form etc. It would be plausible that leo and other seekers form their mental representation of a spiritual landscape (by reading and listening to masters) in their minds and then when we take psychedelics the "wild experiences" get interpreted in accord to the already formed spiritual map - a sort of confirmation bias that we all are susceptible to. Imho for actualized.org going forward it would be important to a) for Leo and the community to try to come up with something, anything, that could verify/give credence to the claimed insights b) I also thought it would be intersting and productive and also healthy for leo to not only give talks but instead to also from time to time bring guests online to have a constructive debate/critique with them regarding his metaphysics or insights or how one could verify claims. Otherwise I see the real danger that Leo and we as a spiritual community increasingly build a higher and higher castle in the sky without any grounding in reality whatsoever. All the best. --Frank

@Sartanion Some quotes from Maurice Nicoll They may or may not apply. That's for you to decide. I try to only 'work' on myself. THE LAW OF THE PENDULUM “Our moods are all hung on to pendulums. We should not trust them. Unfortunately, we identify with them. We take them as ourselves. We say: ‘I feel,’ ‘I think,’ and so on. We forget that ‘Real I’ is in the centre of the pendulum-swing, and we allow ourselves to swing between ex- citement and dejection, between enthusiasm and depression, between over-valuation and under-valuation, between conceit and humility, and so on, endlessly. In all this there is no centre of gravity.” V. 1, pp. 328-9 THE LAW OF THE PENDULUM II “Our whole lives, ordinarily, are governed by the Law of the Pendu- lum. We all swing to and fro. When you are in one opposite you are unconscious of the other, and vice versa. You may have idle dreams of rising and rising, of progressing and progressing, of getting better and better, but all these are indeed idle dreams...What do you think self-knowledge means? It means knowledge of all sides of yourself... If you can see both sides of yourself, what you call your good side and your bad, then you begin to be conscious in opposites at the same time.” V. 1, p. 325 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 com- ing 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.” V. 1, p. 329

@Javfly33 Nothingness is nothing you imagined to be it. Source, hell yeah it is something it is. ❤️ Practises get you there. Good luck.

Or at least, if this is not hell, if this is not negative then why I would imagine it to be it? I just make a summary about my life and I realize I have been creating a story, each day, each hour, each minute, each second maintaining that story alive. Why would I do that? I don´t mean precisely the fact that consciousness created an identity."I" know that. Ok, I am trying to wake up from that dream. The dream of nothingness mistakenly confusing his identity for "a person". Waking up would mean liberation, sure. But what about what had happened until know? And please don´t say "the past doesn´t exist, you are creating your memories right now" Because sure, I don´t need to go to the past. Right now. Right now this moment I feel I am not in power. This experience is not being felt from a perspective of power and control. Yet everything tells I have to be the only who created all of this (the world of forms, of concepts, of stories) in the first place. Who/What is the one who is the only one alive right now? I have been trying to "search" for the Source, but the source is just nothing. I want to know the one who is in power, the one who created the story and still maintain it alive. Surely nothingness can´t. Nothigness doesn´t do anything. I´ve been there. It´s a beatiful place but what about my word.

Reading that almost makes me tear up. It vividly reminds me of my awakening experience with a combo of LSD and DXM. I experienced what can only be described as the universe arising from pure nothingness. A puzzle with no pieces being put together. Those kind of trip reports remind me why I continue to be fascinated in psychedelics and why I take them. Such profound realizations makes me want to cry in awe of all of this.

21-06-19 The day of huge changes. Tomorrow I will have my first date ever. More of that in the appropiate sub-forum on this website. School is about to end! A party is coming and I will be practicing my skills on hitting on girls. I am planning to focus on the basics of self-help. Meaning watching the old videos of Leo, finding my LP course and practice hitting on girls. I am done being confused with where I am on some sort of Spiral or what Nothingness and God have in common. Basics first.

Imagine you are god and you live in a nothingness. Nothingness. No light or dark. No change. No yesterday or tomorrow. No forward or backwards, up or down. No distance or thought or anything in fact. Nothing. You're bored. "I know! I'll create a something". So you divide your nothing into two. This nothing and that nothing. You live in your two nothings for a while, but it's unsatisfactory. Both nothings are the same. The only crumb of enjoyment is that you "know" there are two nothings. "By golly! I've got it. I'll have a million nothings!" And so you hop from one nothing to the other, experience a hundred nothings at once, a nothing inside another nothing, and have a good old time. Then you're bored again. "Sheesh. What to do do? How will I ever get something from nothing? Hmm..." God smacks his* forehead. "Duh!" "INFINITE nothings! Now THAT, is something." * Disclaimer. God has no gender.

Yeah this is unfortunate because Leo wants to help people to discover (universal) Truth. Therefore he points in a certain direction where we can start searching (inside). Most of us wouldn't know about the so-called spiritual path if he wouldn't make videos about some topics. But many people are just consumers of the information he offers. Consumerism is a epidemic of our time. Consumers are only absorbing his energy and information, probably they would even start worshiping him just because the possibilities of the concept enlightenment (here used as a form of escapism) sound great to some ears. That's why I would recommend to stop consuming spiritual-teachings unless you can embody them. If you don't do the work yourself you can't grasp what he is talking about. If he tells you that you can experience Oneness yourself by awakening this doesn't mean you can. Maybe he can but this doesn't matter. You have to go on the path yourself to try it. Most of us were trained to trust our minds, to trust expertise, to trust results or trust science. But this path requires the ability to trust in your inner fire, infinite love and finally in nothingness. These words don't have any meaning unless you can feel them and fill them with meaning. Therefore this path isn't easy. You think I'm just words on the screen because some teachers who seem competent told you? I think there is much more nuance to your personal situation than that?