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Pursuing this will only set you up to fall. You do not need a relationship. It is impossible to form a relationship that is not based on an illusion. If you want to live within an illusion, press ahead. Otherwise forget it, and surrender to the infinite beauty and bliss of the nothingness of now.

@Jack River Of course there is awareness during sleep, as Spirit and Consciousness leaves your being. I am happy you have found peace. It is just a shame you are unable to enjoy the bliss within a dream.

@EvilAngel You do not need socks. If you think you do, that is your egoic perception. Cold is just a sensation, it is not real. It's an illusion. If you choose to fight the sensation, you are only pushing your development backwards. This applies to relationships and socialising too. Your egoic mind is telling you to pursue this for comfort. It will not work. Be happy being alone, doing nothing. Truly feel the bliss of just Being, with no attachments.

@Nahm Yes. Thoughts are a curse that only serve to block you from infinite bliss.

@cetus56 I never said I live off bread and water. I said it can be done. There is no need to desire foods the egoic mind would consider to be more 'pleasant' than others. I think you have a lot of growing to do, Cetus. I don't want to hijack this thread. The Truth remains, you must submit to the bliss within the nothingness of Being. Anything else is an illusion.

You are not submitting to the bliss of nothingness. While you still have thoughts, you are not Being.

@F A B Many when I was unconscious. Now, I have zero desire for a relationship. It is an illusion. This goes for any relationship, even with what you would call 'family' - which is another concept and illusion. I detached from those unconscious illusions a long time ago and I bask in the bliss of Being. Being can only be achieved in pure solitude.

I almost couldn't summon the energy or motivation to pick up my laptop and write this post. But here goes....I had an enlightenment experience 2 months ago, which was incredible, and for 10 days I was in a state of peace. I slept better than I had in ages and it was proper deep-sleep (no dreams) and I only needed a few hours and would wake up every day feeling refreshed. The enlightenment experience came after watching Leo's "Spiritual Enlightenment - The most shocking truth..." video. I felt I had cracked it, and that I was at one and that nothing could take this bliss away from me. I was so peaceful that I decided nothing mattered anymore, so I started smoking and drinking again, both of which I had abstained from for months. Things have gradually got worse and worse. I lost the peaceful feeling and now every day is filled with intense anxiety and depression (even suicidal thoughts). It's like I made a huge step forward (the enlightenment experience) and then gradually regressed, back to my old emotional/behavioural patterns. So these days I oversleep, and feel terrible about waking up...I just want to go back to sleep again rather than face a depressed/anxiety ridden day. When I do get up I often just want to drink alcohol to numb the pain and combat the intense loneliness. Today, "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle arrived through my door. I have read it several times before, and it certainly used to help me. But sometimes the present moment is full of suffering which has nothing to do with my mind - there is simply a feeling that exists that I can't seem to change, no matter how present I am. I know what you're all going to say, "just meditate" or "self inquire" and do the work. But sometimes I meditate for 3 hours straight and get no benefit. It's like I use up more energy by meditating than I would doing other daily activities, because the meditation is so uncomfortable. Anyways, I hope you can help me, but I'm not optimistic about it.

You would agree that, when you dream, you are your true Self? You have glimpsed the truth. Your dream is not an illusion created by your brain, what happened was more real than anything you ever thought you experienced, hence the peaceful nature of it all. Now you can turn experience this bliss forever, if you so choose. It can happen NOW. It requires doing NOTHING. Just being. Forget everything you ever knew or felt. Just be and submit to it all. Just sit in stillness. Experience just Being.

@nistake You can lose your ego this instant. You can experience the bliss of Being right now, if you want it. If you don't, that is your ego intervening. Chose. Bliss or illusion? I would suggest avoiding unconscious entities. Afterall, they are illusions. I would suggest quitting your job, too. Your job is feeding your identity of 'self', which is an illusion, which is keeping you from the bliss of Being. If you are content with Being, you will experience nothing but bliss. Cut everything out of your life and just Be. You can do this NOW.

Why are focused on other people acquiring knowledge? Your egoic mind is obsessed with doing something. You don't need anything to enjoy the pure bliss of Being. Just Be. Do nothing. Just Be.

@VictorB02 Why are you focused on acquiring knowledge? Your egoic mind is obsessed with doing something. You don't need anything to enjoy the pure bliss of Being. Just Be. Do nothing. Just Be.

@Worldclassbullshit Why do you desire an intimate relationship with an unconscious illusion? It will only lead to suffering. Transcend this desire and realise that true bliss comes with just Being. And to Be, you require nothing. Anything else is an illusion.

Just be 'yourself'. Unfortunately, there is a problem here. There is no 'you'. You are falling for an illusion. To experience the bliss of infinity, you need to just Be. You don't need anything to Be. Anything else is an illusion and not a requirement. Everything you see and feel, it not required to Be. Lose ALL your thoughts and just Be.

Yes. Music is an illusion. It is a distraction from your true quest towards the bliss of just Being. You don't need anything to Be. Stop everything. Just Be.

Is it illusory bliss and amazement of nothingness?

@SOUL what better topic is there than bliss and amazement

I've encountered a void once or twice in meditation. While in perfect stillness of mind suddenly appeared a void in awareness like a black hole opened up that was darkness within darkness. I didn't enter into it as it snapped me right out of the meditation it was so unexpected. On another occasion while meditating I was in something like a state of Samadhi (perfect pure bliss consciousness) and when I surrendered to it I completely vanished. I didn't exist. So yes it was devoid of all experience unlike the experience above. But maybe that's because I did enter into it.

This life is called the mortal dream. You have to catch yourself when you take life too serious, and compare it with a dream. When you take your dream serious, and you become violently upset over something, and I try to explain to you, you're dreaming, you will never believe me, because the dream world is very powerful at that time. The doctor has diagnosed cancer, you've got two months to live. But I tell you, "You're dreaming." Do not put your energy on that. Rather turn within. See your reality. Understand that this is a dream. Well you chase me away. You do not want to accept that, because no one else believes it. Yet you wake up in the morning, and it was just a dream. Think about the problems, the wonderful experiences, everything you've been through since you were born. It appears so real, doesn't it? And even now you are a product of all your samskaras, all of your preconceived ideas, your concepts, and how you were brought up and trained. This is your life. You do not know any other life but this. Yet every person seems to come from a different upbringing. Every person has their own beliefs, their own ideas, what's right, what's wrong, what is good, what is bad. That's how wars start. That's how man's inhumanity to man begins. When you believe I'm right and you're wrong. When you begin to see things that are not right and you want to correct them. No one has ever told us, instead of doing that, dive within yourself and see perfection. See the atman. See unlimited bliss. Begin to dwell on the reality, and soon your world will become reality. When you go to a movie, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end. What is left? The screen. The movie was shown on the screen and all sorts of things transpired in the movie. People were killed, people got married, people had children, the world was bombed, yet the screen never changes. The screen remains the same. There's a story on the screen about a person who was born, he's sexually abused by his parents, he goes through all kinds of horrifying experiences, he becomes a man, becomes a serial killer. All this is going on, on the screen. Then again you see a prince. A baby is born a prince. He grows up into beautiful circumstances, has everything in life, doesn't seem to have a problem. This is too going on, on the screen. But there's an end, and all the images are gone. The screen remains, untarnished, unblemished, the same as it was yesterday, and the week before, and the year before. My friends, your true nature is like the screen. You are not the image that appears to go through different trials and tribulations, or appears to be enjoying life to the utmost. They're both impostors. You are like the screen. There never really was an image. The image appeared for a time. It appeared. It appeared due to the fact that if you try to grab the image on the screen, what would you grab? The screen. That's why it is an appearance. It is hard to believe that your life, what appears right now, is unreal, simply because you have identified with it strongly. This is what is called maya, the grand illusion. You have strongly identified with your appearance of life, and you are reacting accordingly. Every time you react you are accruing karma. Accruing karma simply means the image is continuing again and again, the ego becoming stronger and stronger. And even when you leave this body, it continues into another body. There's no end. You go through many cycles, some good, some bad. You have all kinds of experiences. But until you realize that you are not the experiencer and there's no experience, you will go through the cycles of karma again, again, again, ad infinitum, no end. It is only when you get tired of playing the game called maya, playing a part called leela, that you decide to find the answer to your existence. You have to go through the game over and over again, and finally begin to search. You become a seeker. You begin to read spiritual philosophy. You may find a teacher and you're on the path. Depending on what you do, this determines where you go from there. When you come to a meeting like this, when you attend a satsang like this, you can rest assured that you have done spiritual work in a previous life. You deserve to be here to understand the reality, to understand how to transcend the mind, the ego, the pesonal self. As you begin to practice self-inquiry, witnessing, the I am meditation, things begin to happen. You're searching for self-realization, whereas all this time, self-realization has been exactly where you are. You have always been that, yet you believe you've got to search, you've got to read books, deep philosophies, when all you had to do was to wake up. All you had to do was awaken, just as when you awaken in the morning from your dream, you awaken. It's the same thing now. You simply have to awaken. Yet what is keeping you from awakening? Your attitudes. You are attached to your emotions and you are seeing things in your life that either appear wrong or appear either appear right. As long as you have a concept of right or wrong, you can never transcend your body and become free. Some people ask, "But things are right and wrong in this world. I have to take a stand." My question to those people are always the same. "To whom is there right and wrong? Who feels right and who feels wrong?" Only the ego. In reality there's no right and there's no wrong. There are just experiences of a dream unfolding. Yet the dream doesn't exist. It never did. The world, as it appears right now, does not exist. It never did. The way you believe you are, does not exist. It never did. There is only one and you are that. There never were others. There's only the one. Yet most of you cannot feel this. You're so identified with maya that the world of appearances cause you to feel emotional. You therefore have to work on yourself. You have to do something to yourself, to help you become free. If you leave yourself alone, and you do nothing, you'll go through life, after life, after life, on various planets. You'll have various bodies, female, male, maybe other bodies. It will never end for you. Therefore you begin to question your existence. That is the first step. You question your existence. You question your existence by inquiring, "Who am I? Where did I come from? What is my real nature?" You start this early in the morning, as soon as you open your eyes. Instead of being cognizant of the world, you leave the world alone for a few minutes. You question yourself, you ask yourself, "Who is awake?" and the answer comes, "I am. I am awake." Then you realize, "I also slept, I slept well, I had a good dream," and you start to wonder about this. This same I that is now awake, is the same I that had a good dream, and the same I that slept well. "Who is this I? What is it's source?" There is a spiritual center on the right side of your chest. You may call this the God center or consciousness. It is on the right side of your chest. You begin to trace the I-thought back to that center from whence it came. Once the I goes back into the center, you become liberated. Therefore the whole idea of spiritual practice, in Advaita Vedanta, is to follow the I-thought back to the source and become free. When the I appears to leave the spiritual center it goes into the brain, and you become cognizant of I am, I am the body, I think. Then you create a world and a universe out of your mind, and the world appears to you as reality. This all happens in a split second. That's why you're not aware of it. In other words, while you were sleeping the I rested in the spiritual center. As soon as you awaken, in a split second, the I goes into the brain, you become cognizant of a body, and then a world, and then a universe, and the mortal dream begins. So, you have to vehemently make up your mind that you really want to awaken. That's the first prerequisite. How do you know if you really want to awaken? You are sick and tired of the world. You're a person who is no longer trying to change bad for good, for you realize they're both impostors. You understand that the good lasts for so long, then there is bad. The bad lasts for so long, then there is good. You get old, you leave your body, and the game continues. You have to be disgusted with this first, I kid you not. As long as you believe you're enjoying the world and enjoying your life as a human being, you cannot awaken. It's like being in a dream and you're having a wonderful dream. You just don't want to wake up. But all things in the dream must come to an end and change. If you realize that the only thing permanent in life is change, then you will treat the good things in your life the same way as the bad things in your life. You will not become emotional over them, and you will not be attached to them. That's the only time you can go further. As long as you still want to play the game of maya, and act out your part, there's no sense in practicing self-inquiry, for your attachment will keep you back from reality. But for the person who has gone through many lives and is ready to give it all up, that person can practice self-inquiry. A question arises. "When I become self-realized, do I have to go live in a cave, or in the forest, or become a hermit?" On the contrary, there are Jnanis in every field of endeavor. Yet who asked that question? The ajnani. This is one of the things you should not concern yourself over. Everything will always work itself out. Many of you call me on the telephone and tell me you're afraid of awakening. You think you'll be different, your family will leave you or you'll leave your family, you'll lose your job. This is all ignorance. None of that will happen. The only thing that will happen is you'll be awake, and you'll see the world as a superimposition on the Self. That's all. You will have exceedingly happy moments in your life when you're in delusion, but the happy moments go. When you're awake, you stay in unlimited bliss. You become unlimited bliss. There are no longer any mood swings. You're always the same. Joy, bliss, happiness, they're all rolled into one, and they are you. So the sincere student does not worry about the results, or what might happen. They're ready to go for it. When something in their heart opens and they're ready to go for it 100%, they are led to the right teacher, who can show them the way, and they follow the instructions of the teacher. That comes first in their life. Those are the beings who awaken into bliss […] Your real nature is like a universal screen. On that universal screen planets are being born, universes come and go. The earth is only a small dot on the screen. You are that screen. You are nothing else. You are Parabrahman, all-pervading. You are self-contained consciousness, absolute reality, emptiness, nirvana, sat-chit-ananda, I am that I am. That is your real nature. Therefore make up your mind. Whom shall I follow? Shall I follow my ego, my emotions and what appears to be real, or shall I begin to ignore those things and dive into my Self, becoming free? The choice is yours. -- Robert Adams, T93: Silence, The Spiritual Center

If you're here, you know about enlightenment. My advice is keep studying it. Do meditation. And spend the next 10 years partying your ass off and fuck as much as you can. Seriously, be a slut. Do lots of drugs. Experiment with everything. Travel. Go to festivals. Expand your mind. Enlightenment will be there for you when your older. Enjoy your 20s. Bask in the joys of Ego. All the lust, debauchery, and hedonism. Then when you've got all that out of your system, then dedicate yourself to enlightenment, so your next 40 years can be egoless bliss.

@Highest this is not god - this is like a child who first time heard that there is something like god and thinks it must be him. god doesn’t have a hierarchy between i and you - i and you is melting like snow in the unlimited love of deep connectedness to everything and nothing - that’s the difference. if you have not seen that yet you have no idea what height you can rise to and what bliss really feels like. it is not about letting god swing like you want, it is about god inhabiting you and making you swing like god swings. you don’t have an ounce of an idea. it’s the difference of you playing a guitar and jimmy hendrix playing you as a guitar. the ego god does not know yet how that’s like.

@Serotoninluv sorry i also didn't get that either but yes i am trying to figure out the parameters of emptiness and what is / is not emptiness specifically so far i have infinite/ freedom / love/ happiness/ peace / bliss/ all one/ still / silent /

You are right, I could have said it in a better manner. I am however experiencing ego backlash after my realization a couple of months ago. Anyways, in the perspective of God there is nothing and none to show love and appreciation, there is only... I. I am You, I am everyone and everything. There is bliss and self-love in knowing that which I am, but there is none and nothing else to show anything. You are not my creation, You are I. Reality is not my creation, reality is I. Not I as I, I as consciousness knowing itself, aware of itself as the only reality and existence that there is.

Yeah the absolute truth is that the portals or states of light, sound, emptiness, energy, vibration, consciousness or awareness, being(ness), the I Am and stillness are all non-existent appearances only because there is a perceiver/ego/self/subject, however gross or subtle it might be. This is why the viable strategy is ruthless self-inquiry all the way. It is basically staying with the presence of the subject while being totally uninterested in all objects, states, understanding, insights, peace, bliss and all that heart crap...until that illusory 'I am'ness/egoness/subjectness is found to be non-existent then, now, forever. Leaving you as you are, the absolute.

Reading through your lines reminds me of the same issues and moments of despair but also about that bliss that you feel during the day when you're just happy because you are. I like the fact you've got the balls and get out by yourself and do pick up and went into the bar. This made me laugh my ass off :)) That it's a guilty pleasure and is very difficult to get off it. It's an addiction. The only reason I do not eat dark anymore because the shop across the street has stopped to provide it. Trying to get off the refined sugar 100% is difficult but not impossible. Anyway, nice writing (feeling like we're in the same boat) and keep up the good work!