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We are looking for the ultimate truth or explanation to life. To understand ultimate truth we need to explore our ideas of what we think reality is. To explore reality we must first release any pre-conceived notions. Be aware that when you transition into the next dimension or degree of consciousness it's very radical. When people say it's like waking up from the dream, it's true however the ego (you) will not be able to understand this. To give a mental image of what the transition is like, imagine a character inside a video game. If this character lived his entire life as the video game character he is never going to understand what he looks like from the gamer's perspective. That is exactly what is happening in your life, as you move through each day, you're on this human auto-pilot. To turn off auto-pilot is very scary idea because even your own thoughts are connected to the human auto-pilot. That is what we are talking about when we say awakening. It's that ability to see from the gamer's perspective, seeing the graphics on the screen of a television from inside the television as the video-game character. The paradox however is that when you awaken and can see from a gamer's perspective that everything is just like a video-game, it will still appear from your first person perspective. A lot of people call it seeing Nothingness, but I feel as though calling it seeing the graphics of the video-game works best for me. You are so inside the game that you take the graphicness for granted and it appears static and material. Exercise 1. Imagine how this video game character is inside the game and has no idea he's being controlled by the gamer. 2. Imagine that he becomes aware of the gamer's perspective of the screen and he is able to realize he's made out of the screen's pixels. 3. Realize now that you are in the same situation, you are just like the video game character who is trying to see how he's part of the game, not separate from other pixels from a first person perspective.

@Leo Gura It took Byron Katie one evening to turn from a suicidle depressed woman to an enlightened person who was basking in nothingness and love. That experience stayed with her 33 years as of now. Sure she did three years of integration work, but her initial experience was permanent. Could the brain rewire itself that quickly? Plus, from (1), your points are true, but it’s just so rare to find relatives enlightened at the same time. 90% of those gifted teachers do not have enlightened relatives. Doesn’t that say something about the correlation between enlightened teachers having gifted genes.

There is still a you, otherwise you wouldn't suffer and put a negative meaning on nothingness/no-self.

Bit of a quandry I find myself in lately. There's no me. No identity. Nothing I could possibly do excites me. Going through all permutations of possibilities, there's no happiness because there is no me. I can't believe I wanted this. Desired this. There's no "everything is one". I don't feel oneness. I feel the opposite. Nothingness. I AM is NOTHING. Therefore nothing can make me happy. I thought it would make me happy. There is no me to be happy. I'm lost. Don't wish this for yourself. I feel lost / lonely because there is no I but there is no "I am everything". I am stuck in the middle. I really want to end my physical life. Physical life is just suffering. Everything is suffering.

How I treat others is an reflection of how I treat myself. I don't need to develop the skills to live life authentically because I already have it all inside of me now as my authentic self. The thing that holds me back is me attacking myself (which manifests as symptoms of low self worth, nervousness, anxiety, anger, sadness, regret, and unhelpful behaviour). If I become aware of an attack thought towards an outside source, there will be a corresponding attack inward on the same trait. Become aware of the quality of the trait being attacked and consciously make peace with it. Dislike of myself manifests in an obsession with external approval from others. The approval seeking self is the symptom, the attacking of myself is the root cause. Beware of blindly accepting the needy self expression - don't accept it as self, look to the deeper cause and work with that. (There is a notable shift in energy as a write this- my experience expanded, I became more present, I feel lighter, my breathing has slowed down, there is an increase in personal power, increase in contentment, less seeking, less avoidance, less turmoil- inner stillness and less emotion). I have tried to cease thoughts before but it never worked. This method seems to stop the thoughts much better so that I can enter Samadhi experience. I have just done a quick pranayama breath and opened myself upto the present moment. Deep peace, no emotion, no thought, just panoramic presence of sitting in this park on this warm spring afternoon with the sun gently warming my back. No shame, but still inhibited. Low self worth, fear, anxiety, emotional labour is not my true identity. When I say identity I mean my true nature. Fear and contraction is not my true nature. I wonder if states of bliss and peace heal and rejuvenate the body and mind? It feels as if I need a well earned break from my mind attacking me 24/7 The sadness came back. But this time I noticed that I am already present to this. That I don't need to create a watcher, that the watcher is always present and that any knowing of the watcher can only be the thought of the watcher in my mind. As thought recognizes the ever present watcher the feeling becomes more raw, more physical, more pronounced. I thought is not the watcher. I thought appears in front of the watcher and tries to identify as the watcher. But it can never identify as the watcher. The watcher is always free of what is seen. Forever free. What is the nature of the watcher? Thought is attending to investigate the nature of the ever present watcher. Ever present Untouched Still Permanent Vast Open Unlimited Unbound Unwavering Awake The light Unshakable Untouchable Unmanifest Free Absolute Reliable Consistent Unperturbed and unpreturbable Innocent Stillness itself (non conceptual stillness) Infinate depth There is a sense of peace and freedom and a shifting of the sadness as mind talks about the ever present watcher. Heart feels open, raw, sensitive, raw pain unprocessed. Body is mega relaxed but alert, sensisitive, like a big cat eyeing up it's prey. Alert but still. The watcher is manifest in the body now, permeating the body with nothingness. 3 more pranayama breaths and I'm at the end of today's journal - what I'm witnessing is indescribable.

I mean becoming conscious of Truth/God. Yes, and this is a complex and multi-dimensional thing. There is a LOT of subtle self-obsessed crap even after your first awakening. But also, realization is not just about becoming aware that you are nothing. It's also becoming aware that you are everything, and then realizing how God works through everything. So there are a lot of gems to be mined here. Actualized.org is a full-spectrum teaching. We are not merely interested in realizing nothingness here. We are interested in all dimensions of life and how they intersect with that Nothingness. That Nothingness turns out to be identical to every domain of life. How do you structure your life and society as a whole to align with your realization of Nothingness? How do you help elevate and awaken the whole world in an effective and non-pathological manner? These are the types of issues we're interested in here. We are interested in understanding what everything is and how everything interconnects. Which is a much broader scope than most spiritual teachings.

@winterknight 1. how does it relate to the present? isn't enlightment about that ? (being NOW) why past is still important 2. how does it relate to the ego/personality and concept of no-self , from my understading there in nothingness at the core, pure emptiness, so why does past ego/personality still matter - if it needs to be dissolved

Right, so this is my last post. I'm getting off here. I don't think it's healthy and I can't bear the word salad any longer. Too many questions that can't be answered. 1. If pure higher consciousness/God consciousness, is the 'natural state', why aren't we already there? Also, why can't we stay there? 2. Why do we have to take mushrooms/LSD/DMT to achieve this state of consciousness? LSD, I believe, is a man made concoction. Hmm. 3. Meditation. Hmmm. Better than sitting around doing nothing, I suppose. Why do we have to sit still for hours on end, in an excruciating position, to achieve this selflessness? Makes zero sense. 4. A lot of people here believe in the power of psychics, contacting souls etc. Hang about. That's a duality for a start. 5. Crystals. I don't see it. I just don't. YouTube Derren Brown and dream catcher. 6. Spiritual healing. Again, Derren Brown. Netflix "Miracles". 7. Free will. Not convinced we have it. So why do we all sit about telling each other to do different things, like we have a choice. If everything is perfect, then why bother telling anyone anything? 8. A lot of people talk here about self improvement. But if there is no you, who is to improve? Isn't everything perfect already? 9. Everything isn't perfect. Great amounts of suffering the world. It's shit. 10. In a universe of infinite possibilities, why can't it be that the universe is just how we see it? Why isn't duality an option? 11. In a universe of infinite intelligence, why create an ego? 12. Why bother with the human experiment? If everything is consciousness, why? 13. If the universe loves itself, and is whole, why does it have to experience itself? 14. People are always talking about their life goals. "I want to be a musician, I need to work on marketing for my big release". Seems a bit egoic right?? Why nt just enjoy the abundance of the now? 15. Many on here have families. If your children get chopped to bits this afternoon, is that all light and love? Why did you bother having children? 16. Why bother with relationships? With, ultimately, yourself? 17. NDEs. All point to Jesus. 18. Cherry picking bits of religions you like. Making it fit. Doesn't work. 19. Who/what created consciousness. Oh nothing, because it isnt a thing etc. Okay. 20. Everything is nothing and nothing is everything. Yawn. 21. It's all about love but Mr. Gura doesn't care about people anymore. Wow. He's done a lot of drugs though, so. If he came out tomorrow, said he had a trip and claimed he met Jesus, and Jesus was the truth, you'd all believe him and change your views. Incredible. 22. Too many people on here are massaging their spiritual egos. One/two worded replies to everything. Oh I am so enlightened. Riiiiiiight. 23. As we say in Yorkshire, England, Al si thi! (I'll see you). YouTube Yorkshire speak if you like. It's great. This isn't for me. I don't know how anyone can live happily in a state of nothingness. Makes zero sense. The world is colourless. I'm outta here. I don't know what life is going to bring. I don't want to be here anymore, and if we are all being truthful, there are many others like me here. I've been signed off work for 4 weeks. I've got 4 weeks to basically do whatever the hell I want. I tried to end my life once, I'll probably try again. But I'm going to have some fun first. All I ever wanted to do was help OTHER people. NOT MYSELF. SI THI.

Imagine you're reading a novel which is endless. You may say as you finish reading one book, the author publishes the next chapter in the series and so on... Imagine you have got an infinite capacity to read without taking any breaks, so this allows you to read these books non-stop to the end of time. Now, you start reading this book and it is written from a self referential point of view of the main character of book. You continue reading it book after another... So much so that you crossed a point of inflection where in you now believe (100%) that you are the main character of the story you're reading. Emotionally, mentally, full on end. Almost like we often get lost in the movies we watch and they can make us feel real and deep emotions like crying, horror, laughter. So you're connected in this book and the character in that way, except this is 100% and all the way thru (you have been reading the book for years now without stopping a second) The character of the book which you take that to be... Can he (that character) ever know who you are? That character is nothing but words on pages... You bring life into the character by reading it and in this case having forgotten you're the reader and not the character being read about and known by you. This is what your life is like. You do not have a mind. You are the seer-er of a mind And in your case, you are the see-er of your character's/ego's mind. This person who thinks using the I-thoughts does not exist. It is simply energy seen and known by you. As words are read and known by the reader of a book As such, infinte unbounded energy is known/felt by God And since God is the very container of this energy and he exists as nothingness himself, then this implies the energy and the knower of it are one! And you are that knower! In infinte minds. You are empty space. And empty space exists everywhere. 99% of matter is empty space... And it is truly 99.999999% which in mathematics is equal to 100% empty. Thus, the substance of Everything is emptiness. And you are that emptiness which also is not separate from the Everything it contains.

Yes true, but what is the difference between yoga and meditation. Meditation, by definition, reshapes your brain aswell. Is yoga like an advanced technique while meditation is a kindergarten technique? If on the other hand yoga is more powerful than zazen, and at the same time its not an advanced version of meditation, then why do people still use zen? I also acknowledge that some brains get more effects from zen compared to kriya yoga because everyone is different, but as a general understanding, what is the difference between them? Except for the fact that your brain only changes while under that drug. After the drug wears off you're back to normal. Hence why yoga and meditation are still essential, more essential than psychedelics. This is a very popular paradigm in the personal development sector: neuroplasticity and the like, I don't see how that paradigm makes sense in the case of increasing consciousness though. When in awakening experiences, its hard to take the existence of a brain seriously. This doesn't make much sense to me. Like its also designed to get you in touch with different chakras so that you can utilize them effectively to understand the universe, but apart from that yes maybe it doubles your brain. How about we look at it this way: What flavour of insights do you get from self inquiry compared to kriya yoga? Do you get more understanding of NOTHINGNESS in self inquiry, but more awareness of LOVE when doing yoga? What do you feel when doing kriya compared to self inquiry? More energetic less energetic, what do your awakening experiences feel like on kriya vs self inquiry/buddhist meditation? This is valuable not just for me but for everyone here, because we all need different experiences depending on where we are in our spiritual journey. Some of us need more nothingness while others need more love. Different techniques render different facets.

When a everything revelation happens you will have no doubt what it’s pointing to. Hahaha. You can get very intellectual after but the embodied directness of that moment is such that all is oneself experientially. Not a belief. No confusion about it. Remember before your recognition of nothingness. Prior it may of seemed impossible unfathomable, or just a fantasy. Then boom void/nothing/undefinable yet happening. Same thing here boom, everything, historical laughter probably. Your point 2. Is interesting. I’d have to ponder that one some more.

You don't need to identify with nothing, you just drop all your identification little by little, and in the end nothingness is all that remains

she seems to contradict herself when she says that she's experienced the world as hyper physical and then as pure nothingness. Perhaps that experience of "hyper physical" is what Leo is referring to when he says "infinity" but on a grander scale. It could also be she just needs to try some psychedelics. I personally seem to get or am familiar with nearly everything Leo has mentioned.

@Joseph Maynor YES!! My experience is much more similar to hers than Leo's Having said that: 1. She says that everything and nothing is a stepping stone and she derives that reason from her experience as just 'nothing' and no 'everything'. My experience is the same as hers, I experience literally nothing and I have no idea what Leo means by 'everything' or I've never experienced 'everything' before. Yet I have a feeling that this is an interpretative difference rather than experiential difference, and not because Leo is less advanced than her. Leo might be trying to say everything as in form rather than formless, but I'm not sure. 2. Totally agree with her when she says awakening has nothing to do with changing facts. In my awakening experiences, facts do not change only your perspective of it. Yet at the same time, what DOES change facts(like the physical world being made up) is actually not consciousness work but philosophy work: reading philosophy, intellectual contemplation, etc.. I think Leo mixes consciousness work up with intellectual work, hence he thinks that awakening experiences cause you to loose sense of physical reality or any other relative facts. relative facts only change when you do a lot of intellectual contemplation work, or in other words, authentic western science. 3. Totally agree with her with the lower self and higher self. She said Leo thinks there is a higher self, but in her experience she has only experienced nothingness. I experience the exact same. When I experience no ego, I don't get an experience of being god. I just get an experience that I do not exist. Like whether I'm god, or a self, or a lamp or an alien is totally irrelevant. The whole trying to identify yourself as something game drops away, and hence I do not experience myself as 'God' Reality is just existing the way it is, there is no identification at all. So yeah don't get at all what Leo means by we are 'God' 4. Again agree with her with the distinctions. But again, I think that's because she doesn't do much intellectual contemplation.

Imagine trying to understand the concept of "nothingness" and not really getting it. I might have a glimpse in which it sorta felt like "nothing". I may start trying to give meaning to the experience.: Was there really "nothing"? Was there awareness? If I remember the experience, how can it nothing? I may read up on what "nothing" actually means. What was the essence of this nothingness? Was this nothing the same as emptiness? I may go and ask my teacher about it. I've found teachers can be very helpful. The key is to be in touch with my intuition. When I am trying to make sense of direct experience or a teacher is trying to help me make sense of it - what does that intuition tell me? I never trusted that intuition. There is a deep sense of knowing. Teachers were super helpful because they could often see when I got into egoic traps and started trying to figure things out in my head. Yet I became dependent on teachers and wasn't learning from my own direct experience. There comes a time when direct experience is queen. The most powerful teacher. Yet other people and teachers are still very helpful. I've found retreats and meditation groups to be helpful. Very helpful. One thing to remember is that insights and awakenings always occur here and Now. They never occur in the timeline. Always Now. Whether you are at a retreat, home, traveling, driving etc. the insights that appear, appear Now. There will always be insights. The mind creates this idea that certain insights will happen in the future, yet they can only happen Now. If you have some deep insights at the retreat, they happen Now. . . This was one of the biggest mental blocks for me. You already "got it". You just noticed a psychological dynamic within you that your mind-body desires to find techniques that will allow you to have insights. That is an insight!! You also realized that you are experiencing an psychological dynamic in which you believe you have an internal "lock" and your mind-body desires a key to that lock! That is an insight!! How amazing. . . I also had that same desire. For me, I noticed a voice that said "You aren't listening". That was an insight. I then started getting curious about where that voice came from and what I'm not listening to. Perhaps that is similar to your internal "lock". That is a big realization to become aware of that "lock" and be aware of the desire to discover the key to unlock it. You sound curious and genuine. You mention you secretly think about this key (with guilty pleasure). I sense a genuine, innocent curiosity and a bit of playfulness. Might one say there is a bit of a fantasy about what that retreat may bring? Some anticipation? What are these feelings and experiences like? How do they move around the mind and body. These are all insights and they are all within you. . . This is it, baby!! You can observe this occuring in your own direct experience right now. Nothing is needed. Just curiosity and observation. . . . Perhaps the key to that lock may arise and guess what?. . . New stuff will arise. Perhaps new locks and new keys. It never ends and everything always occurs in the Now. This is it. The journey is the destination

@Paul92 so the question "who created God/Nothingness?" is invalid. @Paul92 btw, how many languages do you speak?

@Paul92 Absolute NOTHINGNESS, by definition is uncreated / eternal The flaw is in the question which first creates and implies there was a creator of the absolute. Absolute just is - and it is uncreated. Another way you can see the flaw of what you're asking here. If i ask you are you a male or female. To which you reply male. Then i ask you, have you ever been pregnant? The question is invalid. A yes or a no answer to that question would not be correct given what is known about you from the previous question. Or let's say somebody tells you they are right handed. And then you ask them "why are you left handed?"

That's it, i'm enlightened God creates reality as excrement so in the other side can be all clean. Perfect nothingness

@bejapuskas I enjoyed life more as Paul. I was carefree, really. I loved the world, whatever it is. But clearly, it's probably not what it seems. I keep watching different 'gurus': Sadhguru, Tolle, Mooji, Spira... all I seem to get is word salad and contradictions. And you might say the next stage is to cease thinking to realise the truth. But come on... If, whatever I am, as an experience or whatever, I can't be Paul, then I don't think I want to be anything at all. Life was so much brighter when i was Paul, and you was you. My friends were my friends. Real people, with souls. Entities that are born and live a life. I'm not sure that is the case anymore. What I don't get is, everyone here preaches detachment and being egoless. But yet, many people are married and have children. Can they honestly say they are not attached to their children any more so than anything else? If their child died, would they not feel more heartbroken than the death of a stranger? Because we are the same thing? I don't want to live in a world of nothingness.

@Anirban657 yes and no. Yes it can be communicated and has been communicated but as far as to the point where you get it? No. God Nothingness Infinity I AM Love Emptiness Creation Being All Powerful Infinite Intelligence The Creator All synonymous as far as I’m concerned. That does nothing for you though as understanding goes. Anything other than direct experience falls short of the mark.

@Anton_Pierre "Awareness of the Dream is Nothingness" Could you explain more about this cause i am not sure i get it. How can i become more aware of the dream other than just thinking or trying to believe it?

Realise that others and self are just characters in the Dream. Awareness of the Dream is Nothingness. Falling back asleep isn't the problem. It's the lack of wisdom you carried from that no-self experience. When you are in non-dual Awareness, it's worth training your mind with positive affirmations and reminders on what you are not.

@Leo Gura Is this recognition of one's nature as nothingness what causes a dark night of a soul? Not that a dark night is necessarily inherent with this awakening, but that the ego cannot handle this realization.

I'm sure i finally got a glimpse of enlightenment and i understand without a doubt now that you can't help me become enlightened or that the very "nothingness" is beyond questions and words, you can only experience your true self so i wanted to say a really big thank you, every time i came back to talk to you i progressed even further down the path keep up the good work

@Druid420 Are you conscious of Nothingness? That is key.